From Reluctance to Revival: How Americans Perceive War, in the Context of Stephen E. Ambrose’s The Wild Blue
Winner of the 2014 Shippensburg University Outstanding History/Philosophy Student Project Prize
(Originally written as a term paper in Military History of the United States, November-December 2013)
McGovern, 1944
(Photo: WeaponsMan)
Throughout the course of history, the people of nearly all nation-states have regularly attached deep, intrinsic meanings to their home military force. Despite its relatively short history, the United States of America is, without a doubt, no exception. All eras—from Colonial to Revolutionary, Civil War to World War, proxy wars on communism to the War on Terror—Americans have cherished and protected their own view of the men, and now women, in arms.
From the moment the first minutemen picked up muskets, to the present scenario of high school graduates gearing up to go to basic training, citizens of this now-most-powerful nation on Earth have created an image of what they feel the American soldier looks like, acts like, fights like, and lives like. These were the “patriots” of the Revolution, who picked up arms at a moment’s notice, secured independence, and defended the right of man to govern himself; these were the “Yankees” who preserved the Union and freed millions of slaves from the bonds of their southern owners. Over the course of the past five decades or so, Americans have attached buzzwords such as “sacrifice,” “pride,” “honor,” and “bravery,” among others, to their own understanding of those who have served and currently do serve. Perhaps most obvious, and most important to the following study, is the name given to both the American men fighting afar, and their families fighting on the home front during World War II: “The Greatest Generation.”
Throughout his comprehensive work, The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s over Germany, 1944-45, historian Stephen E. Ambrose examined the 741st Squadron, 455th Bombardment Group, Fifteenth Air Force. His narrative was told namely through the eyes of bomber pilot George S. McGovern, who built upon his experiences as a soldier and eventually became a U.S. representative, senator, and 1972 presidential candidate.[1]
From the moment the first minutemen picked up muskets, to the present scenario of high school graduates gearing up to go to basic training, citizens of this now-most-powerful nation on Earth have created an image of what they feel the American soldier looks like, acts like, fights like, and lives like. These were the “patriots” of the Revolution, who picked up arms at a moment’s notice, secured independence, and defended the right of man to govern himself; these were the “Yankees” who preserved the Union and freed millions of slaves from the bonds of their southern owners. Over the course of the past five decades or so, Americans have attached buzzwords such as “sacrifice,” “pride,” “honor,” and “bravery,” among others, to their own understanding of those who have served and currently do serve. Perhaps most obvious, and most important to the following study, is the name given to both the American men fighting afar, and their families fighting on the home front during World War II: “The Greatest Generation.”
Throughout his comprehensive work, The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s over Germany, 1944-45, historian Stephen E. Ambrose examined the 741st Squadron, 455th Bombardment Group, Fifteenth Air Force. His narrative was told namely through the eyes of bomber pilot George S. McGovern, who built upon his experiences as a soldier and eventually became a U.S. representative, senator, and 1972 presidential candidate.[1]
In examining a publication such as Ambrose's, it may sometimes be difficult to acknowledge the broad scope of the American military experience, mostly because the focus of such a work is relatively specific: The 741st Squadron was a body of just a few dozen soldiers, a microcosm of the 16-million-man American force that was a part of the Second World War.[2] Nonetheless, this microcosm, as with all specific historical interpretations, provides a key understanding of the larger issues of the time period. The impact of the B-24 bomber plane offers an insight into the technologies of the time; the tactical explanations of the bombing missions over Europe provide perspective of what combat must have been like; the advantages and disadvantages brought on by bombing raids enhance understanding of the then-new American way of war; and the personal experience of McGovern and his comrades portrays the larger vested military interests of the American people. Collectively, these scenarios create a body of work that is transcendent through all service branches in that war. In the end, the documentation of these resources gives historians a glimpse into the full context of Americans’ experience in World War II—even though the scope of The Wild Blue is centralized on one unit.
With this collectivity comes the need to branch out and explore the specifics of these fields: technology, tactical analysis, overall strategy, and personal psyche. Throughout the course of this study, the research and works of the following four historians will be utilized: Alex Roland (technology), Dennis Showalter (battle history), Russell Weigley (overall strategy), and Richard Kohn (war’s effects on soldiers). In analyzing these historians’ specific fields, the purpose of The Wild Blue may be fully realized. And, in recognizing the importance of a unit history such as this, Americans may be more appreciative of the overall efforts of the U.S. military, throughout World War II, and all subsequent conflicts.
From a technological standpoint, Alex Roland of Duke University[3] made an emphatic statement in 1991 when he wrote, “World War II changed everything.” Roland recognized the importance of the new style of warfare attempted in that war, through the use of technological advancement. “Radar, jet propulsion, guided missiles, and the proximity fuse might have altered the outcome,” he said.[4] Ambrose’s focus throughout The Wild Blue was on new bombing technologies, one of the causes of this great change Roland spoke of. By recognizing this apparent fact, “It would be an exaggeration to say that the B-24 won the war for the Allies,” Ambrose wrote. “But don’t ask how they could have won the war without it.”[5]
To Roland, the history of the U.S. military’s use of technology is not necessarily a lengthy one, and certainly not an effective one. Prior to World War II, Roland felt innovation was “invisible…throughout most of the American military experience.”[6] The military of the pre-war era was “miniscule,” with a Navy outgunned by Japan and Britain. The Army Air Corps could claim possession of just 13 percent of the military, ranking a humbling 16th internationally, in terms of size. The total of 1,257 American combat planes was inferior to the air forces of both Japan and Germany—eventual Axis powers and American enemies during the war. Even in the private sector, air travel was unreliable, lacking, and reserved for upper-class Americans. There were very few civilian pilots, leaving 85 percent of the Fifteenth Air Force (to which McGovern’s 455th Bombardment Group belonged) with no prior flying experience.[7] But, because “World War II changed everything,” by 1945, more than 18,300 B-24s were constructed, due to a consolidation of “the Ford Motor Company, Douglas Aircraft Company, and North American Aviation—together called the Liberator Production Pool.” Those who were involved in operating these planes “outnumbered those involved with any other airplane, in any country, in any time.” To date, the B-24 “Liberator” is the most popularly built airplane in American history—during World War II, they required the assistance of tens of thousands of pilots and crew members to fly and maintain these new war machines.[8]
With this collectivity comes the need to branch out and explore the specifics of these fields: technology, tactical analysis, overall strategy, and personal psyche. Throughout the course of this study, the research and works of the following four historians will be utilized: Alex Roland (technology), Dennis Showalter (battle history), Russell Weigley (overall strategy), and Richard Kohn (war’s effects on soldiers). In analyzing these historians’ specific fields, the purpose of The Wild Blue may be fully realized. And, in recognizing the importance of a unit history such as this, Americans may be more appreciative of the overall efforts of the U.S. military, throughout World War II, and all subsequent conflicts.
From a technological standpoint, Alex Roland of Duke University[3] made an emphatic statement in 1991 when he wrote, “World War II changed everything.” Roland recognized the importance of the new style of warfare attempted in that war, through the use of technological advancement. “Radar, jet propulsion, guided missiles, and the proximity fuse might have altered the outcome,” he said.[4] Ambrose’s focus throughout The Wild Blue was on new bombing technologies, one of the causes of this great change Roland spoke of. By recognizing this apparent fact, “It would be an exaggeration to say that the B-24 won the war for the Allies,” Ambrose wrote. “But don’t ask how they could have won the war without it.”[5]
To Roland, the history of the U.S. military’s use of technology is not necessarily a lengthy one, and certainly not an effective one. Prior to World War II, Roland felt innovation was “invisible…throughout most of the American military experience.”[6] The military of the pre-war era was “miniscule,” with a Navy outgunned by Japan and Britain. The Army Air Corps could claim possession of just 13 percent of the military, ranking a humbling 16th internationally, in terms of size. The total of 1,257 American combat planes was inferior to the air forces of both Japan and Germany—eventual Axis powers and American enemies during the war. Even in the private sector, air travel was unreliable, lacking, and reserved for upper-class Americans. There were very few civilian pilots, leaving 85 percent of the Fifteenth Air Force (to which McGovern’s 455th Bombardment Group belonged) with no prior flying experience.[7] But, because “World War II changed everything,” by 1945, more than 18,300 B-24s were constructed, due to a consolidation of “the Ford Motor Company, Douglas Aircraft Company, and North American Aviation—together called the Liberator Production Pool.” Those who were involved in operating these planes “outnumbered those involved with any other airplane, in any country, in any time.” To date, the B-24 “Liberator” is the most popularly built airplane in American history—during World War II, they required the assistance of tens of thousands of pilots and crew members to fly and maintain these new war machines.[8]
Cockpit of a B-24 LIberator (Photo: U.S. Air Force)
From that point on, “technology…moved from the background to center stage.”[9] In recognizing the impact of new specifications, the military began to go to weapons firms and developers, seeking new solutions to decades-old problems. Because of new weapons of war, such as bomber planes, American military ingenuity has been able to find and conceptualize itself. Industrial production has created a new variable, one which will likely create the potential for new military results for centuries to come.[10]
Naturally, Ambrose’s focus on technological advancements and their training requirements before the Second World War would require some explanation upon actual usage. For one, the training was several months long[11] for these men, being that bomber planes were brand new weapons, never before brought to fruition in American military history.[12] Upon being placed into combat, then, the study of individual battle operations became a staple of any detailed unit history. The Wild Blue did so, though it did not rely heavily on blow-by-blow tactical analyses in its battle sequences. In other words, its features did not include a plethora of maps or officers’ post-battle reports, but firsthand accounts garnered by those men who flew the planes, dropped the bombs, and risked personal destruction at any moment—if this were a Civil War narrative, these would be the accounts of the infantrymen on the front lines; for World War I, the men in the trenches. Nonetheless, the elements of Colorado College historian[13] Dennis F. Showalter’s thesis are intact, in that Ambrose did not use a “new military history” style, throughout which tactical accounts and battle histories would have been fully ignored. To Showalter, “Armed forces exist to fight, and they justify themselves on the grounds of their military effectiveness,”[14] a play on the common Roman example of “drums and trumpets”—a ploy used “to remind the military historian of the dangers of straying too far from the discipline’s roots.”[15] Between his chapters studying the training process and deployment, respectively, Ambrose prefaced the European battle portion of the book with the following statement, fully placing the “grounds of…military effectiveness”[16] into context:
It was airpower that made [World War II] so destructive. That airpower was the result of technological improvements in aircraft. Paradoxically it was also the result of the human desire to escape the slaughter of the trenches along the Western Front in World War I. Yet by the end of World War II airpower had brought about more destruction and death than had ever before been experienced…
Aerial warfare was enormously destructive but it was absolutely decisive. Far from destroying Western civilization and its greatest triumph, democracy, the war saved it. Millions of people from countries around the world participated, using many different types of weapons, but none of them contributed more to this result than the airmen.[17]
In showing his understanding of these ramifications, Ambrose introduced his readership to the effectiveness of the Fifteenth Air Force’s military objectives.
In the chapters that followed, Ambrose used the aforementioned firsthand accounts to discuss not just the human experience of battle, but the tactical observations made by those involved. Ultimately, this reliance on such observations allows students of history, not to mention readers of his book, the opportunity to decide for themselves whether the right decisions were made, how things could have gone differently, or—at the very least—an opportunity to visualize the battle lines, destruction, and other images of warfare. Over the
course of the next 150-plus pages, Ambrose detailed McGovern-and-company’s air bombings over such places as Ploesti, Bari, Foggia, Vienna, Wiener Neustadt, Munich, Muehldorf, Kalupy, Prague, Kreglach, and Linz, among others. Throughout these battle descriptions, Ambrose relied on passages such as, “They flew as squadrons, seven planes in each, in a diamond formation. They set off for Vienna, still gaining altitude, to 25,000 feet,”[18] which truly portrays the visual imagery of battle, staying true to Showalter’s hope of “the study of armies…as military instruments…[which] involves painstaking, frustrating labor.” Though Ambrose discussed the mental impact of war (which will be discoursed here in subsequent paragraphs), he placed tactical history into the story as “more than a footnote to [a study] of ‘war and society.’”[19]
As previously mentioned, the inclusion of new technology created the truest form of a bloodbath-of-a-war on an international scale. With this technology, naturally a system of destruction followed suit, and in many ways does so even today, seven-plus decades past the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan—perhaps the most desperately alarming examples of how weapons technologies changed the scope of the American military. Russell F. Weigley, of Temple University,[20] deemed this “our only way of war”—a process through which unconditional surrender is achieved “sparing no energies or resources.”[21] On this same issue, Ambrose quoted airplane co-inventor Orville Wright, who said, “[T]he aeroplane [sic] has made war so terrible that I do not believe any country will again care to start a war.” This naïve prediction has not only proven false, but it has proven to be that the airplane, and other methods of war that derived from World War II, have become the norm in this new American way of war. As a result of bombings like those committed by the 741st Squadron, over a quarter of a million Germans were killed. For every one German killed, two more were injured. In the end, some 25 million experienced the results of bombings in some form.[22]
Naturally, Ambrose’s focus on technological advancements and their training requirements before the Second World War would require some explanation upon actual usage. For one, the training was several months long[11] for these men, being that bomber planes were brand new weapons, never before brought to fruition in American military history.[12] Upon being placed into combat, then, the study of individual battle operations became a staple of any detailed unit history. The Wild Blue did so, though it did not rely heavily on blow-by-blow tactical analyses in its battle sequences. In other words, its features did not include a plethora of maps or officers’ post-battle reports, but firsthand accounts garnered by those men who flew the planes, dropped the bombs, and risked personal destruction at any moment—if this were a Civil War narrative, these would be the accounts of the infantrymen on the front lines; for World War I, the men in the trenches. Nonetheless, the elements of Colorado College historian[13] Dennis F. Showalter’s thesis are intact, in that Ambrose did not use a “new military history” style, throughout which tactical accounts and battle histories would have been fully ignored. To Showalter, “Armed forces exist to fight, and they justify themselves on the grounds of their military effectiveness,”[14] a play on the common Roman example of “drums and trumpets”—a ploy used “to remind the military historian of the dangers of straying too far from the discipline’s roots.”[15] Between his chapters studying the training process and deployment, respectively, Ambrose prefaced the European battle portion of the book with the following statement, fully placing the “grounds of…military effectiveness”[16] into context:
It was airpower that made [World War II] so destructive. That airpower was the result of technological improvements in aircraft. Paradoxically it was also the result of the human desire to escape the slaughter of the trenches along the Western Front in World War I. Yet by the end of World War II airpower had brought about more destruction and death than had ever before been experienced…
Aerial warfare was enormously destructive but it was absolutely decisive. Far from destroying Western civilization and its greatest triumph, democracy, the war saved it. Millions of people from countries around the world participated, using many different types of weapons, but none of them contributed more to this result than the airmen.[17]
In showing his understanding of these ramifications, Ambrose introduced his readership to the effectiveness of the Fifteenth Air Force’s military objectives.
In the chapters that followed, Ambrose used the aforementioned firsthand accounts to discuss not just the human experience of battle, but the tactical observations made by those involved. Ultimately, this reliance on such observations allows students of history, not to mention readers of his book, the opportunity to decide for themselves whether the right decisions were made, how things could have gone differently, or—at the very least—an opportunity to visualize the battle lines, destruction, and other images of warfare. Over the
course of the next 150-plus pages, Ambrose detailed McGovern-and-company’s air bombings over such places as Ploesti, Bari, Foggia, Vienna, Wiener Neustadt, Munich, Muehldorf, Kalupy, Prague, Kreglach, and Linz, among others. Throughout these battle descriptions, Ambrose relied on passages such as, “They flew as squadrons, seven planes in each, in a diamond formation. They set off for Vienna, still gaining altitude, to 25,000 feet,”[18] which truly portrays the visual imagery of battle, staying true to Showalter’s hope of “the study of armies…as military instruments…[which] involves painstaking, frustrating labor.” Though Ambrose discussed the mental impact of war (which will be discoursed here in subsequent paragraphs), he placed tactical history into the story as “more than a footnote to [a study] of ‘war and society.’”[19]
As previously mentioned, the inclusion of new technology created the truest form of a bloodbath-of-a-war on an international scale. With this technology, naturally a system of destruction followed suit, and in many ways does so even today, seven-plus decades past the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan—perhaps the most desperately alarming examples of how weapons technologies changed the scope of the American military. Russell F. Weigley, of Temple University,[20] deemed this “our only way of war”—a process through which unconditional surrender is achieved “sparing no energies or resources.”[21] On this same issue, Ambrose quoted airplane co-inventor Orville Wright, who said, “[T]he aeroplane [sic] has made war so terrible that I do not believe any country will again care to start a war.” This naïve prediction has not only proven false, but it has proven to be that the airplane, and other methods of war that derived from World War II, have become the norm in this new American way of war. As a result of bombings like those committed by the 741st Squadron, over a quarter of a million Germans were killed. For every one German killed, two more were injured. In the end, some 25 million experienced the results of bombings in some form.[22]
B-24 Liberator on a bombing mission (Photo: U.S. Air Force)
In their most definitive moments, bombing expeditions targeted oil refineries, tank factories, railroad bridges, and marshaling yards—all of which were clear military-industrial targets. The Americans had set their focus toward destroying the German people from the inside-out, stopping at nothing to rid the Nazis of their war-making capabilities. Thus, “two and a half years after American entry into the war, the American strategic vision was realized, bringing about attainment of a characteristically American goal, Germany’s unconditional surrender.”[23] By employing a “strategy of assault upon the German economy and civilian morale, by means of a strategic bomber offensive,” the effects of Weigley’s thesis, in turn, promote those of Ambrose’s thesis, that “all the airmen had spent the war years not in vain but in doing good work. Along with all the peoples of the Allied nations, they saved Western civilization.”[24]
Once the millions of deaths were reconciled, and international healing began, the United States made efforts to rectify the destruction in Europe—much of which, as mentioned before, was caused by bombing missions. The Marshall Plan and other reconstruction efforts employed by the Harry S. Truman Administration followed suit, and 16 million American men returned to their homes, their families, and their new lives in a domestic America forever changed by a war on foreign soil.[25] They were all now veterans, a group of people “expressed in various forms of myth,”[26] according to former Chief of Air Force History Richard H. Kohn.[27] Four years earlier, these young men had either enlisted or were drafted—the Selective Service and Training Act was passed in September 1940. This act brought nearly 1.2 million men into the military by mid-1941, when the U.S. government anticipated war.[28] But, for those who had enlisted, there remained the question of whether they “fought out of patriotism,”[29] “in a surge of nationalistic fervor,”[30] as many soldiers had in many previous wars—or if they joined reluctantly, for financial, societal, or other reasons.
In The Wild Blue, Ambrose devoted the entire first chapter to “Where They Came From,” and provided anecdotal evidence of several of the men in the 741st Squadron. According to Ambrose, “Every American born before 1936 remembered exactly where he or she was when they heard the news that the Japanese had attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor,” the catalyst for so many sudden enlistments. George S. McGovern was among these individuals, who, as a student at Dakota Wesleyan College, first heard the Pearl Harbor newsflash while writing notes for a music class. “I have to confess I’d never heard of Pearl Harbor,” he said—but that day “he decided that he would have to be involved in the war.”[31] With thousands of other like-minded young men, McGovern joined the Army Air Force, a body “not ready for them.” They all wanted to fight then and there,[32] a clear example of Kohn’s notion of “volunteers [who] flocked to the colors” early in wars.[33] The American people were “mobilized [and] outraged…against Japan.”[34] On the other hand, in recognizing the willingness of so many who had joined the military, it must be acknowledged that many were not necessarily there by choice; rather, many draft-age men enlisted into the Army Air Force so that they would not be drafted into the infantry forces. As Kohn pointed out, “the supply of willing recruits dried up as the realities of sacrifice sank in.”[35]
Once the millions of deaths were reconciled, and international healing began, the United States made efforts to rectify the destruction in Europe—much of which, as mentioned before, was caused by bombing missions. The Marshall Plan and other reconstruction efforts employed by the Harry S. Truman Administration followed suit, and 16 million American men returned to their homes, their families, and their new lives in a domestic America forever changed by a war on foreign soil.[25] They were all now veterans, a group of people “expressed in various forms of myth,”[26] according to former Chief of Air Force History Richard H. Kohn.[27] Four years earlier, these young men had either enlisted or were drafted—the Selective Service and Training Act was passed in September 1940. This act brought nearly 1.2 million men into the military by mid-1941, when the U.S. government anticipated war.[28] But, for those who had enlisted, there remained the question of whether they “fought out of patriotism,”[29] “in a surge of nationalistic fervor,”[30] as many soldiers had in many previous wars—or if they joined reluctantly, for financial, societal, or other reasons.
In The Wild Blue, Ambrose devoted the entire first chapter to “Where They Came From,” and provided anecdotal evidence of several of the men in the 741st Squadron. According to Ambrose, “Every American born before 1936 remembered exactly where he or she was when they heard the news that the Japanese had attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor,” the catalyst for so many sudden enlistments. George S. McGovern was among these individuals, who, as a student at Dakota Wesleyan College, first heard the Pearl Harbor newsflash while writing notes for a music class. “I have to confess I’d never heard of Pearl Harbor,” he said—but that day “he decided that he would have to be involved in the war.”[31] With thousands of other like-minded young men, McGovern joined the Army Air Force, a body “not ready for them.” They all wanted to fight then and there,[32] a clear example of Kohn’s notion of “volunteers [who] flocked to the colors” early in wars.[33] The American people were “mobilized [and] outraged…against Japan.”[34] On the other hand, in recognizing the willingness of so many who had joined the military, it must be acknowledged that many were not necessarily there by choice; rather, many draft-age men enlisted into the Army Air Force so that they would not be drafted into the infantry forces. As Kohn pointed out, “the supply of willing recruits dried up as the realities of sacrifice sank in.”[35]
455th Bombardment Group, 1944 (Photo: Fold 3)
Looking at World War II creates an interesting scenario; as previously mentioned, it is the ultimate example of the United States engaging itself into total war, home front and all. So many individuals were willing to pack up and go to Europe or Japan nearly as soon as the first shots sounded at Pearl Harbor, but as Kohn said, this has not always been the case throughout American history; Americans may prefer to perceive it in this fashion, but not all soldiers have historically entered the service out of “his love of liberty, intelligence, and native individualism.”[36] For example, Historian Allan Berube, in his book Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II, wrote about the Selective Service and Training Act, and the debate over its passage. Thus, it was a debate over whether America, collectively, wished to sponsor an ally and/or fight in a global conflict:
[I]n 1940, after Germany’s continuing victories in Europe and air bombings of Britain, public opinion—still deeply divided over conscription and any possible declaration of war—slowly turned away from isolationism, allowing the still-neutral United States to start a limited mobilization. President Roosevelt called for the nation to become an ‘arsenal of democracy’ that would provide arms for Britain’s war against Germany. After much national debate, Congress…passed the nation’s first peacetime conscription act and set the maximum number of draftees called to active duty at nine hundred thousand.[37]
Despite the overwhelming popular support for American war in Japan and Europe that would ensue in December 1941, Roosevelt had his hands full in convincing the American people that they should agree to assist in efforts on behalf of the Allied powers. Nonetheless, because of this eventual widespread support, the American war machine was able to garner the assistance of many more men who would be instrumental in fighting on behalf of the U.S. war effort, which was perhaps initially spurred by the Selective Service and Training Act.
Nearly 160 years prior, in the American Revolution, “The Continental Army…drew its soldiers from the poorest third of society and contained disproportionate numbers of drifters, servants, British deserters, captured loyalists, convicts, and drafted substitutes.”[38] One such individual was “a Lieutenant, by the name of Scott” who was “wounded, & confined in the Jail at Boston.” According to a circa 1777-1781 account by British Loyalist Peter Oliver, Scott said, “[I]f I was killed in Battle, there would be an end of me, but if my Captain was killed, I would rise in Rank, & should still have a Chance to rise higher. These sir! were the only Motives of my entering into the service.”[39] This was not a man excited by the prospects of American independence, nor of the ability to defend his home; he was trying to advance his place in society. He was willing to do so by sacrificing his life, in hopes of a better one—apparently, at the expense of his officer’s life. Mark Lender wrote an essay detailing similar circumstances during the Revolution, and stated, “The motives of the army were largely selfish…These men would still fight, but increasingly they wanted the terms of service more to their liking.”[40] Charles Royster held “that men enlisted under the influence of economic need or ambition and not of revolutionary ideals,”[41] while Gregory T. Knouff pointed to “loyalties, and ethnic, racial, and greater identity…from the perspective of common people. The issue of national independence was marginal or secondary to them.”[42] Whatever their reasons for fighting, they were a far cry from the eventual enthusiasm for the American cause during World War II.
Since the Second World War, these issues of soldiers’ purposes for fighting has not waned throughout subsequent American wars. Pundit Rachel Maddow wrote about “the inevitable incentives to war” and their consequences in Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power.[43] One of Maddow’s obvious influencers in military policy was Creighton Adams, the U.S. commander in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972. Vietnam, an unpopular war, relied upon the conscription of young American men. Clearly, they did not explicitly wish to fight if they were drafted. And, said Maddow, “The agonized [President Lyndon B. Johnson] was trying to thread a new and difficult needle: taking the nation’s armed forces to war without taking the nation as a whole to war,”[44] a distinctively different view than was taken in World War II. Rather than beg for assistance on behalf of the National Guard or Army Reserve, Johnson used the conscription process to establish a fighting force. Yet, despite an obvious reluctance to fight, when the First Infantry Division returned home, Abrams told the men, “[You] represent a constancy of those essential virtues of mankind: humility, courage, devotion, and sacrifice…part of the cement and rock that holds our great country together.” Maddow did not present the soldiers’ opinion on the matter, but this still showed a new military mindset, one which she called “a big national investment in military readiness.”[45] In keeping morale up among lesser-willing troops, perhaps the goals of the military as a whole could seem that much more achievable, creating somewhat of a more modern interpretation of the enthusiasm at the beginning of World War II.
From all perspectives, the Second World War shaped the way Americans have fought and still do fight wars. Despite its distance of seven decades and counting, the technological advancements, tactical history, strategy, and psychological effects tell the tale of the American military story. Interpretation of these events varies, even today, when historical evidence may be used to establish any number of precedents or perceptions. In looking at various historians’ publications on these incidences – readers, researchers, students, and the American public may collectively achieve a better understanding of what went right, what went wrong, and why certain events happened. Themes are prominent throughout world history, pride in military tradition being anything but the least influential among them. Americans have seen some of the highest ebbs and lowest flows of opinions toward military efforts. Today, that pride in donning military garb, or saluting the efforts of the men and women in uniform, seems strong. From the nation’s earliest days, the efforts to strike up hope and calm skepticism have remained omnipresent, and will only continue to do so.
In looking at a work such as Stephen E. Ambrose’s The Wild Blue, the purposes of studying military history strike a chord with perhaps all students of history. In this book, and others like it, one can see frustration over lack of effort and hope in a solution—hatred toward loss of life and love upon a soldier’s return home—reluctance toward the cause, and revival in the spirit of a nation.
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Notes
[1] Stephen E. Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 261. Please be aware that while Ambrose has been accused of plagiarism for this book, I have not included any of the allegedly plagiarized sections in this essay.
[2] William T. Alison, Jeffrey Grey, and Janet G. Valentine. American Military History, 276.
[3] John Whiteclay Chambers II and G. Kurt Piehler, eds. Major Problems in American Military History, 2.
[4] Alex Roland. “Weapons and Technology Drive the American Military,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 18.
[5] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 4.
[6] Roland, Major Problems in American Military History, 18.
[7] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 33-34.
[8] Ibid, 22.
[9] Roland, Major Problems in American Military History, 18.
[10] Ibid, 12.
[11] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, (various perspectives from) 44-104.
[12] Ibid, 33.
[13] Chambers II and Piehler, eds. Major Problems in American Military History, 2.
[14] Showalter, Dennis F. “The Importance of Battle History” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 22.
[15] Ibid, 24.
[16] See note 14.
[17] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 105.
[18] Ibid, 229.
[19] Showalter, Major Problems in American Military History, 24.
[20] Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 2.
[21] Weigley, Russel F. “How Americans Wage War: The Evolution of National Strategy,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 6.
[22] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 106.
[23] Weigley, Major Problems in American Military History, 3.
[24] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 251.
[25] Allison, Grey, and Valentine. American Military History, 276.
[26] Kohn, Richard H., “Exploring the Social History of the Military,” Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 7.
[27] Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 2.
[28] Allison, Grey, and Valentine, American Military History, 258.
[29] Kohn, Major Problems in American Military History, 7.
[30] Ibid, 9.
[31] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 42.
[32] Ibid, 44.
[33] Kohn, Major Problems in American Military History, 9.
[34] Allison, Grey, and Valentine, American Military History, 259.
[35] See note 34.
[36] Ibid, 7.
[37] Allan Berube, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II, p. 1-2.
[38] Ibid, 8.
[39] Peter Oliver, “Loyalist Peter Oliver Tells How an American Prisoner of War Justified His Enlistment to His Captors (1775), c. 1777-1781,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 68.
[40] Mark E. Lender, “Enlistment: Economic Opportunities for the Poor and Working
Classes,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 76-77.
[41] Charles Royster, “Enlistment: Patriotic Belief in the Cause of Freedom,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History,84.
[42] Gregory T. Knouff, “Enlistment: The Complexity of Motivations,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 92-93.
[43] Rachel Maddow, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, 8.
[44] Ibid, 15.
[45] Ibid, 21.
Bibliography
Allison, William T., Jeffrey Grey, and Janet G. Valentine. American Military History: A Survey from Colonial Times to the Present (Second Edition). Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2013.
Ambrose, Stephen E. The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-45. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Berube, Allan, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II. New York: Free Press/Penguin, 1991.
Chambers II, John Whiteclay, and G. Kurt Piehler, eds. Major Problems in American Military History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Maddow, Rachel. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2012.
[I]n 1940, after Germany’s continuing victories in Europe and air bombings of Britain, public opinion—still deeply divided over conscription and any possible declaration of war—slowly turned away from isolationism, allowing the still-neutral United States to start a limited mobilization. President Roosevelt called for the nation to become an ‘arsenal of democracy’ that would provide arms for Britain’s war against Germany. After much national debate, Congress…passed the nation’s first peacetime conscription act and set the maximum number of draftees called to active duty at nine hundred thousand.[37]
Despite the overwhelming popular support for American war in Japan and Europe that would ensue in December 1941, Roosevelt had his hands full in convincing the American people that they should agree to assist in efforts on behalf of the Allied powers. Nonetheless, because of this eventual widespread support, the American war machine was able to garner the assistance of many more men who would be instrumental in fighting on behalf of the U.S. war effort, which was perhaps initially spurred by the Selective Service and Training Act.
Nearly 160 years prior, in the American Revolution, “The Continental Army…drew its soldiers from the poorest third of society and contained disproportionate numbers of drifters, servants, British deserters, captured loyalists, convicts, and drafted substitutes.”[38] One such individual was “a Lieutenant, by the name of Scott” who was “wounded, & confined in the Jail at Boston.” According to a circa 1777-1781 account by British Loyalist Peter Oliver, Scott said, “[I]f I was killed in Battle, there would be an end of me, but if my Captain was killed, I would rise in Rank, & should still have a Chance to rise higher. These sir! were the only Motives of my entering into the service.”[39] This was not a man excited by the prospects of American independence, nor of the ability to defend his home; he was trying to advance his place in society. He was willing to do so by sacrificing his life, in hopes of a better one—apparently, at the expense of his officer’s life. Mark Lender wrote an essay detailing similar circumstances during the Revolution, and stated, “The motives of the army were largely selfish…These men would still fight, but increasingly they wanted the terms of service more to their liking.”[40] Charles Royster held “that men enlisted under the influence of economic need or ambition and not of revolutionary ideals,”[41] while Gregory T. Knouff pointed to “loyalties, and ethnic, racial, and greater identity…from the perspective of common people. The issue of national independence was marginal or secondary to them.”[42] Whatever their reasons for fighting, they were a far cry from the eventual enthusiasm for the American cause during World War II.
Since the Second World War, these issues of soldiers’ purposes for fighting has not waned throughout subsequent American wars. Pundit Rachel Maddow wrote about “the inevitable incentives to war” and their consequences in Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power.[43] One of Maddow’s obvious influencers in military policy was Creighton Adams, the U.S. commander in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972. Vietnam, an unpopular war, relied upon the conscription of young American men. Clearly, they did not explicitly wish to fight if they were drafted. And, said Maddow, “The agonized [President Lyndon B. Johnson] was trying to thread a new and difficult needle: taking the nation’s armed forces to war without taking the nation as a whole to war,”[44] a distinctively different view than was taken in World War II. Rather than beg for assistance on behalf of the National Guard or Army Reserve, Johnson used the conscription process to establish a fighting force. Yet, despite an obvious reluctance to fight, when the First Infantry Division returned home, Abrams told the men, “[You] represent a constancy of those essential virtues of mankind: humility, courage, devotion, and sacrifice…part of the cement and rock that holds our great country together.” Maddow did not present the soldiers’ opinion on the matter, but this still showed a new military mindset, one which she called “a big national investment in military readiness.”[45] In keeping morale up among lesser-willing troops, perhaps the goals of the military as a whole could seem that much more achievable, creating somewhat of a more modern interpretation of the enthusiasm at the beginning of World War II.
From all perspectives, the Second World War shaped the way Americans have fought and still do fight wars. Despite its distance of seven decades and counting, the technological advancements, tactical history, strategy, and psychological effects tell the tale of the American military story. Interpretation of these events varies, even today, when historical evidence may be used to establish any number of precedents or perceptions. In looking at various historians’ publications on these incidences – readers, researchers, students, and the American public may collectively achieve a better understanding of what went right, what went wrong, and why certain events happened. Themes are prominent throughout world history, pride in military tradition being anything but the least influential among them. Americans have seen some of the highest ebbs and lowest flows of opinions toward military efforts. Today, that pride in donning military garb, or saluting the efforts of the men and women in uniform, seems strong. From the nation’s earliest days, the efforts to strike up hope and calm skepticism have remained omnipresent, and will only continue to do so.
In looking at a work such as Stephen E. Ambrose’s The Wild Blue, the purposes of studying military history strike a chord with perhaps all students of history. In this book, and others like it, one can see frustration over lack of effort and hope in a solution—hatred toward loss of life and love upon a soldier’s return home—reluctance toward the cause, and revival in the spirit of a nation.
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Notes
[1] Stephen E. Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 261. Please be aware that while Ambrose has been accused of plagiarism for this book, I have not included any of the allegedly plagiarized sections in this essay.
[2] William T. Alison, Jeffrey Grey, and Janet G. Valentine. American Military History, 276.
[3] John Whiteclay Chambers II and G. Kurt Piehler, eds. Major Problems in American Military History, 2.
[4] Alex Roland. “Weapons and Technology Drive the American Military,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 18.
[5] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 4.
[6] Roland, Major Problems in American Military History, 18.
[7] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 33-34.
[8] Ibid, 22.
[9] Roland, Major Problems in American Military History, 18.
[10] Ibid, 12.
[11] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, (various perspectives from) 44-104.
[12] Ibid, 33.
[13] Chambers II and Piehler, eds. Major Problems in American Military History, 2.
[14] Showalter, Dennis F. “The Importance of Battle History” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 22.
[15] Ibid, 24.
[16] See note 14.
[17] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 105.
[18] Ibid, 229.
[19] Showalter, Major Problems in American Military History, 24.
[20] Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 2.
[21] Weigley, Russel F. “How Americans Wage War: The Evolution of National Strategy,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 6.
[22] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 106.
[23] Weigley, Major Problems in American Military History, 3.
[24] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 251.
[25] Allison, Grey, and Valentine. American Military History, 276.
[26] Kohn, Richard H., “Exploring the Social History of the Military,” Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 7.
[27] Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 2.
[28] Allison, Grey, and Valentine, American Military History, 258.
[29] Kohn, Major Problems in American Military History, 7.
[30] Ibid, 9.
[31] Ambrose, The Wild Blue, 42.
[32] Ibid, 44.
[33] Kohn, Major Problems in American Military History, 9.
[34] Allison, Grey, and Valentine, American Military History, 259.
[35] See note 34.
[36] Ibid, 7.
[37] Allan Berube, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II, p. 1-2.
[38] Ibid, 8.
[39] Peter Oliver, “Loyalist Peter Oliver Tells How an American Prisoner of War Justified His Enlistment to His Captors (1775), c. 1777-1781,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 68.
[40] Mark E. Lender, “Enlistment: Economic Opportunities for the Poor and Working
Classes,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 76-77.
[41] Charles Royster, “Enlistment: Patriotic Belief in the Cause of Freedom,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History,84.
[42] Gregory T. Knouff, “Enlistment: The Complexity of Motivations,” in Chambers II and Piehler, eds., Major Problems in American Military History, 92-93.
[43] Rachel Maddow, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, 8.
[44] Ibid, 15.
[45] Ibid, 21.
Bibliography
Allison, William T., Jeffrey Grey, and Janet G. Valentine. American Military History: A Survey from Colonial Times to the Present (Second Edition). Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2013.
Ambrose, Stephen E. The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-45. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Berube, Allan, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II. New York: Free Press/Penguin, 1991.
Chambers II, John Whiteclay, and G. Kurt Piehler, eds. Major Problems in American Military History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Maddow, Rachel. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2012.
