I chuckle when I hear politicians draw parallels between World War II and the War on This or That. You know what I mean; the "War on Poverty", the "War on Drugs", the "War on Terrorism", etc. Don't be fooled! The second world war was a palpable struggle for our very existence as a free country, the likes of which we have thankfully never experienced again.
One may speculate that the second world war might have been avoided had the European powers accepted President Wilson's Fourteen Points instead of insisting upon revenge against Germany. The point is that they were not able to take that progressive step at that time. They still were prisoners of the Imperialist paradigm.
Could anyone have foreseen the rise to supreme power in Germany of a pathetic homeless veteran of World War I? Postwar Weimar Germany was afterall a democratic republic with a parliamentary system of government! However, the Great Depression was harder on the fragile Weimar Republic than it was on most countries. Power became concentrated in the hands of the President, Paul von Hindenburg, who had been elected to a seven-year term in 1925. By 1930, almost all laws were made by presidential decree. In 1932 the President was reelected to a second seven-year term. His closest adviser was General Kurt Schleicher (worm), who tirelessly sought the support of Hitler's Nazi Party in order to offset the influence of the Social Democrats and Communists.
Many years ago when I was in graduate school I had an opportunity to read extensively the Völkischer Beobachter, Hitler's newspaper of the 1920's and 1930's, in which much of what was to happen later was described in vivid and most frightening detail. Hitler had discovered his talent for oratory, and was making the most of that talent, orchestrating rallies the likes of which had not been seen since the Roman Empire under the Caesars. Yet, if you look at mainstream German newspapers and magazines of the 1920's and early 1930's, you find scarcely a hint of Hitler's existence. One can only conclude that the mainstream was living in a dream world.
The dream world was not restricted to Germany. The "War to end all Wars" was over. It was time to have fun. In America the Jazz Age was taking off. The prohibition experiment led to the rise of the great gangsters, who supplied whatever the flappers wanted. The automobile and the airplane were transforming life. The theater, sports, the movies, radio, everything was taking off. Such exuberant enthusiasm for the good life!
If you read one of the mainstream German magazines of late 1932, you'll find scarcely a mention of Adolf Hitler. However, in the month that he was named Reichskansler, the frontispiece of the magazine carried a portrait of der Führer. You will also notice that much of the staff of the magazine was replaced. Such was the rude awakening of the sonambulists from their dream world!
It was then too that the first German concentration camps were opened. Anyone who displayed interest in what was going on therein was invited to visit himself. It would be many years before these concentration camps would evolve into the infamous death camps of the Holocaust. This was the time for consolidation of power and for rearming the Reich.
Throughout the 1930's American conservatives pursued an isolationist foreign policy, believing that the oceans would protect us from the problems of Europe. Even after World War II began, in September 1939, they insisted upon strict neutrality. It must have been quite a sight, that Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden!
Blitzkrieg: Poland is invaded by Germany on 1 September 1939, and World War II commences, not the old-fashioned war for which other nations had prepared, but a lightning fast mobile war. Denmark falls to Germany on April 8, 1940. Germany invades Norway on April 9, 1940. Holland and Belgium are invaded on May 10, 1940. France is humiliated in June 1940. The London blitz begins on August 8, 1940. Germany turns on Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. Greece is invaded on the same day. Hitler dreams of taking Moscow. All this while America continues to think that the oceans will protect it from the fury. Afterall, our great naval armada is ready and waiting (or at least waiting) at Pearl Harbor.
Two by two, bow to stern, the battleships were lined up alongside Ford Island in the middle of the large bay. The Vestal, the West Virginia, the Oklahoma were in one row. Between them and the land lay the Arizona, upon which my father had served, the Tennessee and the Maryland. In front of the Arizona was the Nevada, the only ship destined to be able to get under way on December 7, 1941. What a nice bowling alley that was for the Japanese torpedo bombers! Many Americans, still living in their own dream world, didn't even know the Japanese posed a threat. As the Japanese planes came in, more than a few Americans waved to them.
Perhaps the combination of hubris and ignorance displayed by a relatively young nation can be excused. The Japanese had been on the Allied side during World War I. Indeed, in 1914 they took over Germany's principal colonies in China, while Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain divided up the rest.
Kamikaze: After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese wasted no time. Guam was bombed and the Japanese flag was raised there on December 9, 1941. Our bases in the Philippines were bombed and then invaded on December 10, 1941. The Japanese took Wake on December 24, 1941, and Hongkong fell on Christmas day. Singapore surrendered on February 15, 1942. In March and April, the Japanese overran the Philippines, where they showed the extent of their humanity during the infamous Bataan Death March. Finally, our "unsinkable battleship" Corregidor fell on May 6, 1942.
The first five months following the debacle at Pearl Harbor were not very encouraging. The Germans already controlled most of Europe, and the Japanese were rapidly gaining control of China and the Pacific. In the early years of our participation in World War II, we learned that the Germans had better tanks and the Japanese had better planes. In spite of the relatively small stature of the Japanese soldier, he did extraordinarily well in hand to hand combat. Our hubris faded quickly, and we began to do what we do best, building a new war machine, starting virtually from scratch. The United States had come of age as a world power. Isolationism was dead!