War Stories III (28 page)

While European nations mobilized—stimulating their economies in the process—the U.S., pacifist in its politics and isolationist in diplomacy, languished—spurning re-armament and conscription as security or economic remedies. When Hitler invaded Poland, both Britain and France mobilized completely, and by the following spring, Britain became the only western government in history to conscript women into the armed forces.

The first tentative steps toward mobilization in the United States didn't even begin until 1939. That summer the U.S. Army was authorized to increase its active-duty strength from 130,000 to 227,000—but only by taking in new volunteers or activating units of the National Guard. Congress didn't authorize conscription until the summer of 1940, after the evacuation at Dunkirk.

Industrial mobilization in the United States actually began sooner than that of the military—largely as a consequence of free enterprise. Merchant ships—desperately needed by France and Britain—were not considered war materiel under the American neutrality laws—and both countries began
placing orders for vessels in various sizes and designs in early 1939. U.S. arms manufacturers—though initially banned from selling munitions directly to the combatants—
were
allowed to sell weapons to Canada, which began placing orders for planes, tanks, trucks, artillery pieces, and other combat arms even before Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to march across the Polish frontier. The Canadians promptly shipped the American-made weapons and equipment to England—a subterfuge that persisted until Lend-Lease came into effect in March 1941.

It was Lend-Lease—and FDR's stated desire that the United States become the “Arsenal of Democracy”—that really accelerated America's astounding industrial mobilization and ended the massive unemployment that was so pervasive during the Great Depression. Within a matter of weeks after Roosevelt proposed the legislation, private sector architects and engineers were drawing up plans for new aircraft, tank, truck, and arms manufacturing plants; new steel mills; expanded electrical generation and distribution; new and bigger mines; as well as enhanced oil production and refining capacity.

Agricultural experts also began planning for dramatic increases in wheat, soybean, corn, beef, hog, poultry, and dairy production. By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, America's industrial and agricultural sectors were well ahead of the U.S. Armed Forces in preparing for war.

 

Rosie the Riveter

In May 1940—as Hitler invaded the Low Countries and France—Roosevelt issued an Executive Order, activating a National Defense Council
of business and labor leaders, headed by Frances Perkins, his Secretary of Labor. Charged with coordinating and prioritizing the massive requirements of feeding and equipping our allies and supplying the U.S. military with all that would be needed in the fight ahead, the NDC quickly realized that America's principal shortage wouldn't be raw materials—it was labor. Though nearly ten million American men were still unemployed when the war began, Perkins and her NDC colleagues knew that almost all of them who were fit for duty would be summoned for military service, leaving gaping employment holes in agriculture and industry.

London had solved this problem with a universal call-up of the entire adult population of Great Britain. Men
and
women between eighteen and forty-five who were fit for military service were put in uniforms. All others were sent to work in fields and factories as directed by the British government. Those too young or old to fight or work often found themselves drafted as air raid wardens, plane spotters, teachers, child-care givers, hospital aides, drivers, message handlers, or for neighborhood civil defense.

 

Women assembling machine parts in an airplane plant.

Such coercive measures were out of the question in the United States. But Perkins and the NDC also knew there was a vast, untapped workforce available: America's women. Convincing them to join the war on the home front became one of the primary goals of the Roosevelt administration in 1941–42.

Spurred by the NDC, President Roosevelt and the First Lady launched a nationwide propaganda campaign encouraging women to “Free a Man to Fight.” The theme of all the posters, billboards, newspaper, magazine, and radio ads was essentially the same: while American men served on the front lines, American women would have to serve on the assembly lines. The Office of War Information distributed posters and handbills promoting “Rosie the Riveter” and her “We can do it!” slogan. When necessary, reluctant union and industry leaders were none too gently prodded by the NDC into opening their factory floors and union halls to women by promoting women's war work as a “temporary” response to a national emergency.

The results were dramatic. Within a year of the U.S. entry into the war, more than a million American women had become hourly wage laborers in the defense industry. A year later it was 2.5 million. Many of these young women took jobs that had heretofore been male-only. In airplane plants they not only did meticulous work assembling fine machine parts and electric components—they were also welders and crane operators.

By 1942, American women were assembling bombs, building tanks, welding hulls, and greasing locomotives. Phyllis McKey moved from Oregon to California and joined them.

Opening so many new jobs to women had not only a profound effect on the war effort, but it also had inevitable consequences on American society and culture. Before the war, less than 20 percent of women between eighteen to forty were in the salaried labor force. By 1940 it was 25 percent and by 1945 it had swelled to 35 percent. At the end of the war, with factories and shipyards running twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, more than half of all adult American women were working outside the home. Three-quarters of the new women workers were married, most were over age thirty-five, and more than a third had children under fourteen.

The war also caused shifts in population. Americans flocked to places with military bases and defense plants; six million migrants left farms and rural areas for urban areas where defense jobs were plentiful. Often it meant taking a new job, in a new place, in a new plant, making new products—all of which required that their new employer train these new workers. Lourelei Prior was one of those who benefited from such training when she went to work for General Electric.

 

Free a Man to Fight.