Glenn Miller is perhaps the most famous of all the Second World War musicians, but there are plenty of other great singers and bandleaders such as Fats Waller and Bob Crosby & His Orchestra whose hits can be enjoyed in remastered digital quality from Past Perfect. The Eastern Front during World War II was the conflict between the Axis countries and the Soviet Union. It began in 1941 with Operation Barbarossa, and ended in 1945 when the Soviet soldiers captured Berlin. Both the Axis countries and the Soviet Union had a lot of soldiers, and the fighting was very brutal. It is also called 'The Great.
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After the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the U.S. was thrust into World War II (1939-45), and everyday life across the country was dramatically altered. Food, gas and clothing were rationed. Communities conducted scrap metal drives. To help build the armaments necessary to win the war, women found employment as electricians, welders and riveters in defense plants. Japanese Americans had their rights as citizens stripped from them. People in the U.S. grew increasingly dependent on radio reports for news of the fighting overseas. And, while popular entertainment served to demonize the nation’s enemies, it also was viewed as an escapist outlet that allowed Americans brief respites from war worries.
The Task of Winning the War
On December 7, 1941, the U.S. was thrust into World War II when Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. The following day, America and Great Britain declared war on Japan. On December 10, Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S.
Did you know? During World War II, as an alternative to rationing, Americans planted “victory gardens,” in which they grew their own food. By 1945, some 20 million such gardens were in use and accounted for about 40 percent of all vegetables consumed in the U.S.
In the earliest days of America’s participation in the war, panic gripped the country. If the Japanese military could successfully attack Hawaii and inflict damage on the naval fleet and casualties among innocent civilians, many people wondered what was to prevent a similar assault on the U.S. mainland, particularly along the Pacific coast.
This fear of attack translated into a ready acceptance by a majority of Americans of the need to sacrifice in order to achieve victory. During the spring of 1942, a rationing program was established that set limits on the amount of gas, food and clothing consumers could purchase. Families were issued ration stamps that were used to buy their allotment of everything from meat, sugar, fat, butter, vegetables and fruit to gas, tires, clothing and fuel oil. The United States Office of War Information released posters in which Americans were urged to “Do with less–so they’ll have enough” (“they” referred to U.S. troops). Meanwhile, individuals and communities conducted drives for the collection of scrap metal, aluminum cans and rubber, all of which were recycled and used to produce armaments. Individuals purchased U.S. war bonds to help pay for the high cost of armed conflict.
READ MORE: These World War II Propaganda Posters Rallied the Home Front
The Role of the American Worker
From the outset of the war, it was clear that enormous quantities of airplanes, tanks, warships, rifles and other armaments would be essential to beating America’s aggressors. U.S. workers played a vital role in the production of such war-related materials. Many of these workers were women. Indeed, with tens of thousands of American men joining the armed forces and heading into training and into battle, women began securing jobs as welders, electricians and riveters in defense plants. Until that time, such positions had been strictly for men only.
A woman who toiled in the defense industry came to be known as a “Rosie the Riveter.” The term was popularized in a song of the same name that in 1942 became a hit for bandleader Kay Kyser (1905-85). Soon afterward, Walter Pidgeon (1897-1984), a Hollywood leading man, traveled to the Willow Run aircraft plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to make a promotional film encouraging the sale of war bonds. One of the women employed at the factory, Rose Will Monroe (1920-97), was a riveter involved in the construction of B-24 and B-29 bombers. Monroe, a real-life Rosie the Riveter, was recruited to appear in Pidgeon’s film.
During the war years, the decrease in the availability of men in the work force also led to an upsurge in the number of women holding non-war-related factory jobs. By the mid-1940s, the percentage of women in the American work force had expanded from 25 percent to 36 percent.
The Plight of Japanese Americans
Not all American citizens were allowed to retain their independence during World War II. Just over two months after Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) signed into law Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the removal from their communities and the subsequent imprisonment of all Americans of Japanese descent who resided on the West Coast.
Executive Order 9066 was the offshoot of a combination of wartime panic and the belief on the part of some that anyone of Japanese ancestry, even those who were born in the U.S., was somehow capable of disloyalty and treachery. As a result of the order, nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were dispatched to makeshift “relocation” camps.Despite the internment of their family members, young Japanese-American men fought bravely in Italy, France and Germany between 1943 and 1945 as members of the U.S. Army’s 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry. By the end of the war, the 100th had become the most decorated combat unit of its size in Army history.
Baseball and the Battlefield
In January 1942, Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944), the national commissioner of baseball, wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in which he asked if professional baseball should shut down for the duration of the war. In what came to be known as the “green light” letter, Roosevelt responded that professional baseball should continue operations, as it was good for the country’s collective morale and would serve as a needed diversion.
During the war, 95 percent of all professional baseball players who donned major league uniforms during the 1941 season were directly involved in the conflict. Future Hall of Famers Bob Feller (1918-), Hank Greenberg (1911-86), Joe DiMaggio (1914-99) and Ted Williams (1918-2002) exchanged their baseball jerseys for military fatigues. Feller, in fact, enlisted in the U.S. Navy one day after Pearl Harbor. Because baseball was depleted of so many able bodies, athletes who otherwise likely never would have made the big leagues won spots on rosters. One of the more notable was Pete Gray (1915-2002), a one-armed outfielder who appeared in 77 games for the St. Louis Browns in 1945.
Not all those who served in the military were superstars. Elmer Gedeon (1917-44), an outfielder who appeared in five games for the 1939 Washington Senators, and Harry O’Neill (1917-45), a catcher who played in one game for the 1939 Philadelphia Athletics, were the two big leaguers who died in combat. Over 120 minor leaguers also were killed. Other players overcame debilitating wartime injuries. One was Bert Shepard (1920-2008), a minor league pitcher turned air force fighter pilot. In 1944, Shepard’s right leg was amputated after he was shot down over Germany. The following year, he pitched three innings for the Washington Senators in a major league game.
READ MORE: See Photos of WWII Naval Cadets Training Like Pro Athletes
The Movies Go to War
Throughout World War II, American moviegoers were treated to a steady stream of war-related programming. The movie-going experience included a newsreel, which lasted approximately 10 minutes and was loaded with images and accounts of recent battles, followed by an animated cartoon. While many of these cartoons were entertainingly escapist, some comically caricatured the enemy. Among these titles were “Japoteurs” (1942) featuring Superman, “Der Fuehrer’s Face” (1943) starring Donald Duck, “Confessions of a Nutsy Spy” (1943) with Bugs Bunny, “Daffy the Commando” (1943) with Daffy Duck and “Tokyo Jokie-o” (1943). Documentaries such as the seven-part “Why We Fight” series, released between 1943 and 1945 and produced and directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Frank Capra (1897-1991), included Axis propaganda footage and emphasized the necessity of America’s involvement in the war, as well as the importance of Allied victory.
As for the main program, movie theaters showed non-war-related dramas, comedies, mysteries and Westerns; however, a significant segment of feature films dealt directly with the war. Scores of features spotlighted the trials of men in combat while demonizing the Nazis and Japanese who perpetuated the conflict. “Wake Island” (1942), “Guadalcanal Diary” (1943), “Bataan” (1943) and “Back to Bataan” (1945) were a few of the titles that centered on specific battles. “Nazi Agent” (1942), “Saboteur” (1942) and “They Came to Blow Up America” (1943) portrayed America’s enemies as spies and terrorists. “So Proudly We Hail!” (1943) and “Cry ‘Havoc'” (1943) recorded the heroics of women nurses and volunteers at faraway battlefronts. “Tender Comrade” (1943), “The Human Comedy” (1943) and “Since You Went Away” (1944) focused, respectively, on the trials of average American women, communities and families while exploring the very real fear that a loved one who went off to war might never return. The struggles of citizens in occupied countries were portrayed in such films as “Hangmen Also Die!” (1943) and “The Seventh Cross” (1944).
Meanwhile, some of Hollywood’s top stars joined the military. Many appeared in government-produced training films and morale-boosting short subjects. Others participated directly in the fighting. Clark Gable (1901-60), the beloved, Academy Award-winning actor, served as a tail-gunner with the U.S. Army Air Corps and flew combat missions over Germany. James Stewart (1908-97), another equally adored Oscar winner, had enlisted in the corps even before Pearl Harbor. He eventually became a B-24 combat pilot and commander and also flew missions over Germany.
Patriotic Music and Radio Reports from the Frontline
As the U.S. became immersed in the war, Americans listened to more patriotic or war-related music. Even before the country entered the war, such ditties as “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” which evoked nostalgia for a peaceful pre-war Paris, and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” which charted a young soldier’s military experiences, were extremely popular. Other songs with self-explanatory titles were “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition,” “Comin’ In on a Wing and a Prayer” and “You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap.”
Radio was the primary source of news and entertainment for most American households during the war, and as the conflict progressed, people grew increasingly dependent on radio for updates on the fighting overseas. They were riveted by the frontline reports from such legendary journalists as Edward R. Murrow (1908-65). Meanwhile, big bands, most famously the orchestra headed by Glenn Miller (1904-44), and entertainers such as Bob Hope (1903-2003) performed before thousands at military bases. These programs were aired directly on the radio to listeners from Maine to California.
Dramatic radio programming increasingly featured war-related storylines. One of the most jarring was “Untitled” (1944), a production penned by writer Norman Corwin (1910-) and broadcast on the CBS radio network. “Untitled” traced the story of Hank Peters, a fictional American soldier who was killed in combat.
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World War I began in 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and lasted until 1918. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers). Thanks to new military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe—especially in the troubled Balkan region of southeast Europe—for years before World War I actually broke out.
A number of alliances involving European powers, the Ottoman Empire, Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the Balkans (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to destroy these agreements.
The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand—heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was shot to death along with his wife Sophie by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of events: Austria-Hungary, like many in countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia’s ally, France, and possibly Great Britain as well.
On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche or “blank check” assurance of Germany’s backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms as to make it almost impossible to accept.
World War I Begins
Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize, and appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed.
Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.
The Western Front
According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east.
On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege cannons—to capture the city by August 15. Leaving death and destruction in their wake, including the shooting of civilians and the execution of a Belgian priest, whom they accused of inciting civilian resistance, the Germans advanced through Belgium towards France.
First Battle of the Marne
In the First Battle of the Marne, fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading Germany army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris. The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back to north of the Aisne River.
The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both sides dug into trenches, and the Western Front was the setting for a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years.
Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.
The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works as All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and the poem In Flanders Fields by Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.
The Eastern Front
On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland, but were stopped short by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914.
Despite that victory, Russia’s assault had forced Germany to move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.
Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had hoped to win under the Schlieffen Plan.
Russian Revolution
From 1914 to 1916, Russia’s army mounted several offensives on World War I’s Eastern Front, but was unable to break through German lines.
Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the bulk of Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime of Czar Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.
Russia’s simmering instability exploded in the Russian Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, which ended czarist rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.
Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early December 1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western Front.
America Enters World War I
At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by President Woodrow Wilson while continuing to engage in commerce and shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.
Neutrality, however, was increasing difficult to maintain in the face of Germany’s unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships, including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and German U-boats sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S. ships.
Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania—traveling from New York to Liverpool, England with hundreds of American passengers onboard—in May 1915 helped turn the tide of American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war.
Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.
Gallipoli Campaign
With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.
After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915. The invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces were staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula, after suffering 250,000 casualties.
Did you know? The young Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a commission with an infantry battalion in France.
British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia, while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between the two nations.
Battle of the Isonzo
The First Battle of the Isonzo took place in the late spring of 1915, soon after Italy’s entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, also known as the Battle of Caporetto (October 1917), German reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.
After Caporetto, Italy’s allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British and French—and later, American—troops arrived in the region, and the Allies began to take back the Italian Front.
World War I at Sea
In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain’s Royal Navy was unchallenged by any other nation’s fleet, but the Imperial German Navy had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval powers. Germany’s strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal fleet of U-boat submarines.
After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German navy chose not to confront Britain’s mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its U-boats.
The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.
Second Battle of the Marne
With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to arrive.
On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne. The Allies successfully pushed back the German offensive, and launched their own counteroffensive just three days later.
After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany’s best hope of victory.
The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the months that followed.
Toward Armistice
By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts.
Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt had combined to destroy the Ottoman economy and devastate its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.
Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.
Treaty of Versailles
At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Allied leaders would state their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such devastating scale.
Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I “the War to End All Wars.” But the Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve that lofty goal.
Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations, Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having believed any peace would be a “peace without victory,” as put forward by Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points speech of January 1918.
As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II.
Legacy of World War I
World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties caused indirectly by the war numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.
The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall of four venerable imperial dynasties—Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.
World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women entered the workforce to support men who went to war, and to replace those who never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the world’s deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.
World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of the technologies we now associate with military conflict—machine guns, tanks, aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a massive scale during World War I.
The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use. The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in warfare, and remains in effect today.