World War II

• World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2), also known as the

Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.
Most of the world's countries—including all the great powers—
eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the
Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100
million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw
their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the
war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military
resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history,
marked by 70 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in
the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the
Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and
disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war

• World War II began in September 1939, when German forces attacked

Poland. Britain and France, who had guaranteed Poland’s
independence, then declared war on Germany. In the United States,
an industrial production surged for a short time as manufacturers
anticipated a repeat of the early years of World War I when a neutral
America had made enormous profits by supplying a Europe at war.
Industrial production sagged during the “phony war“, however, when it
appeared that Britain, France, and Germany, although officially at war,
would avoid a major clash of arms. The phony war ended in May 1940
when Germany launched a blitzkrieg (lightning war) attack against the
Low Countries, swept around France’s Maginot Line, and conquered
France.

The Start
 • The global conflict which was labeled World War II
emerged from the Great Depression, an upheaval
which destabilized governments, economies, and
entire nations around the world. In Germany, for
instance, the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party
occurred at least partly because Hitler claimed to be
able to transform a weakened Germany into a self-
sufficient military and economic power which could
control its own destiny in European and world affairs,
even as liberal powers like the United States and Great
Britain were buffeted by the depression.

The Great Depression

 Instead, the military services enjoyed almost-
unchecked control over their enormous appetites
for equipment and personnel. With respect to the
economy, the services were largely able to curtail
production destined for civilians (e.g.,
automobiles or many non-essential foods) and
even for war-related but non-military purposes
(e.g., textiles and clothing). In parallel to but
never commensurate with the Army and Navy, a
succession of top-level civilian mobilization
agencies sought to influence Army and Navy
procurement of manufactured goods like tanks,
planes, and ships, raw materials like steel and
aluminum, and even personnel. One way of
gauging the scale of the increase in federal
spending and the concomitant increase in military
spending is through comparison with GDP, which
itself rose sharply during the war. Table 1 shows
the dramatic increases in GDP, federal spending,
and military spending.
War Bonds
• Taxes provided about $136.8 billion of the war’s total cost of $304 billion
(Kennedy, 625). To cover the other $167.2 billion, the Treasury Department also
expanded its bond program, creating the famous “war bonds” hawked by
celebrities and purchased in vast numbers and enormous values by Americans.
The first war bond was purchased by President Roosevelt on May 1, 1941
(“Introduction to Savings Bonds”). Though the bonds returned only 2.9 percent
annual interest after a 10-year maturity, they nonetheless served as a valuable
source of revenue for the federal government and an extremely important
investment for many Americans. Bonds served as a way for citizens to make an
economic contribution to the war effort, but because interest on them
accumulated slower than consumer prices rose, they could not completely
preserve income which could not be readily spent during the war. By the time
war-bond sales ended in 1946, 85 million Americans had purchased more than
$185 billion worth of the securities, often through automatic deductions from
their paychecks (“Brief History of World War Two Advertising Campaigns: War
Loans and Bonds”). Commercial institutions like banks also bought billions of
dollars of bonds and other treasury paper, holding more than $24 billion at the
war’s end (Kennedy, 626).
 Employment

The wartime economic boom spurred and benefited

from several important social trends. Foremost among
these trends was the expansion of employment,
which paralleled the expansion of industrial
production. In 1944, unemployment dipped to 1.2
percent of the civilian labor force, a record low in
American economic history and as near to “full
employment” as is likely possible (Samuelson). Table 3
shows the overall employment and unemployment
figures during the war period.
Despite the almost-continual crises of the civilian war
agencies, the American economy expanded at an
unprecedented (and unduplicated) rate between
1941 and 1945. The gross national product of the
U.S., as measured in constant dollars, grew from
$88.6 billion in 1939 — while the country was still
suffering from the depression — to $135 billion in
1944. War-related production skyrocketed from just
two percent of GNP to 40 percent in 1943 (Milward,
63).

As Table 2 shows, output in many American

manufacturing sectors increased spectacularly from
1939 to 1944, the height of war production in many
industries.
Woman during
World War 2
• With men off to fight a worldwide war across the
Atlantic and the Pacific, women were called to take
their place on the production line. The War
Manpower Commission, a Federal Agency
established to increase the manufacture of war
materials, had the task of recruiting women into
employment vital to the war effort. Men’s attitude
towards women in the work force was one challenge
to overcome but, surprisingly, women’s own ideas
about work outside the home had to change as well.
Two of the primary sources below deal with
arguments to challenge these attitudes.
• After the war, most women returned home, let go from their jobs. Their jobs,
again, belonged to men. However, there were lasting effects. Women had proven
that they could do the job and within a few decades, women in the workforce
became a common sight. An immediate effect is often overlooked. These women
had saved much of their wages since there was little to buy during the war. It was
this money that helped serve as a down payment for a new home and helped
launch the prosperity of the 1950s.
 The most obvious effect of reconversion
was the shift away from military
production and back to civilian
production. As Table 7 shows, this shift —
as measured by declines in overall federal
spending and in military spending — was
dramatic but did not cause the postwar
depression which many Americans
dreaded. Rather, American GDP
continued to grow after the war (albeit
not as rapidly as it had during the war;
compare Table 1). The high level of
defense spending, in turn, contributed to
the creation of the “military-industrial
complex,” the network of private
companies, non-governmental
organizations, universities, and federal
agencies which collectively shaped
American national defense policy and
activity during the Cold War.
 • In 1941, Hitler betrayed
Stalin, sending 3 million Axis
troops into the Soviet Union.
Germany wanted the land
for its own people and, so,
slaughtered as many civilians
as possible. It also wanted to
eliminate the communist
threat, which it blamed on
Jews. Operation Barbarossa
was the largest military
attack in history. The front
stretched from the Baltic Sea
in the north to the Black Sea
in the south.

The end of the war

 Nuclear bomb

• President Harry Truman ordered bombs to

be dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 and
Nagasaki on August 9. Around a third to two-
thirds of the 330,000 Hiroshima residents
and 80,000 of the 250,000 Nagasaki
residents died by December 1945. There
were 3,000 U.S. citizens in Hiroshima on that
day.
Works Cited
• Amadeo, Kimberly. “How World War II Changed America's Economy.” The Balance, The
Balance, 25 June 2019, www.thebalance.com/world-war-ii-economic-impact-4570917.
• Tassava, Christopher. “The American Economy during World War II”. EH.Net
Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. February 10, 2008. URL
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-american-economy-during-world-war-ii/
• Walton, Gary M.. History of the American Economy (p. 468). Cengage Textbook.
Kindle Edition.
• “Women in the Work Force during World War II.” National Archives and Records
Administration, National Archives and Records Administration,
www.archives.gov/education/lessons/wwii-women.html.
• “World War II.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 July 2019,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II.