World War II was even more of a global war than World
War I. Fighting was much more widespread, economic
mobilization was more extensive, and so was the mobilization
of women. And the number of civilians killed was
far higher: almost twenty million were killed by bombing
raids, mass extermination policies, and attacks by invading
armies.
The home fronts of the major belligerents varied with
the local circumstances. World War II had an enormous
impact on the Soviet Union. Two of every five persons
killed in World War II were Soviet citizens. Leningrad experienced
nine hundred days of siege, during which its
inhabitants became so desperate for food that they ate
dogs, cats, and mice. As the German army made its rapid
advance into Soviet territory, the factories in the western
part of the Soviet Union were dismantled and shipped to
the interior—to the Urals, western Siberia, and the
Volga region.
Soviet women played a major role in the war effort.
Women and girls worked in industries, mines, and railroads.
Overall, the number of women working in industry
increased by almost 60 percent. Soviet women were also
expected to dig antitank ditches and work as air-raid wardens.
Finally, the Soviet Union was the only country to
use women as combatants in World War II. Soviet women
functioned as snipers and also as air crews in bomber
squadrons. The female pilots who helped defeat the Germans
at Stalingrad were known as the “Night Witches.”
The home front in the United States was quite different
from those of its chief wartime allies, largely because
the United States faced no threat of war on its own territory.
Although the economy and labor force were slow to
mobilize, the United States eventually became the arsenal
of the Allied Powers, producing the military equipment
they needed. At the height of war production in
1943, the nation was constructing six ships a day and
$6 billion worth of war-related goods a month. Much of
this industrial labor was done by American women, who,
despite some public opposition, willingly took jobs in factories
to replace husbands and brothers who had gone off
to war.
The mobilization of the U.S. economy caused social
problems. The construction of new factories created
boomtowns where thousands came to work but then faced
shortages of housing, health facilities, and schools. More
than one million African Americans migrated from the
rural South to the industrial cities of the North andWest,
looking for jobs in industry. The presence of African
Americans in areas where they had not been present before
led to racial tensions and sometimes even race riots.
Japanese Americans were treated especially shabbily.
On the West Coast, 110,000 Japanese Americans, 65 percent
of them born in the United States, were removed to
camps encircled by barbed wire and made to take loyalty
oaths. Although public officials claimed that this policy
was necessary for security reasons, no similar treatment of
German Americans or Italian Americans ever took place.
Eventually, President Roosevelt agreed to alleviate the
situation for Japanese Americans, and by 1943, one-third
of those interned had been released from the camps to
work in factories or enter military service.
In Japan, society had been put on a wartime footing
even before the attack on Pearl Harbor. A conscription
law was passed in 1938, and economic resources were
placed under strict government control. Two years later,
all political parties were merged into the so-called Imperial
Rule Assistance Association. Labor unions were
dissolved, and education and culture were purged of all
“corrupt” Western ideas in favor of traditional values emphasizing
the divinity of the emperor and the higher spirituality
of Japanese civilization. During the war, individual
rights were severely curtailed as the entire population
was harnessed to the needs of the war effort.
Japan was reluctant, however, to mobilize women on
behalf of the war effort. General Hideki Tojo, prime minister
from 1941 to 1944, opposed female employment, arguing
that “the weakening of the family system would be
the weakening of the nation. . . . We are able to do our duties
only because we have wives and mothers at home.” 5
Female employment increased during the war, but only in
areas, such as the textile industry and farming, where
women traditionally worked. Instead of using women to
meet labor shortages, the Japanese government brought
in Korean and Chinese laborers.
World History
