The first goal towards mobilization was to create and train armed forces. This short film describes a little of how the United States approached this task.
Building Our Military
Building Our Military
Protective Mobilization Plan
The United States in World War I under President Woodrow Wilson recognized they did not have set in place a sound strategic plan that would allow them to mobilize for war quickly and efficiently and that the plan that they currently had did not allow for the inter workings of all the elements required to plan, create and distribute supplies and provide for the enlistment and training of a large number of troops. In order to improve on the system they had President Woodrow Wilson established the War Industries Board in July of 1917 which would coordinate the purchasing agencies of the Army and Navy with the goal of using resources and manpower in the most effective and efficient manner possible.
The key to this effort was centralization of priorities. The War Board tasked the individual branches of the military to prioritize their needs internally before submitting their request to the War Board for final determination and implementation. It would take some time for the efforts of the War Board to become successful because of a severe lack of data regarding requirements and resources but once this data was obtained the War Board did a remarkable job of allocating forces and materials.
The inter-war years (1919-1939) gave the board time to deal with the problems inherent in this system. The National Defense Act of June 1920 charged the assistant Secretary of War with planning industrial mobilization and responsibility for the War Departments procurement programs. The act represented a first step toward recognizing that modern warfare, with its demands for huge mecahnized ground forces armed with sophisticated weapons and the ability to move over large areas demanded that the entire national economy be harnessed.
In 1923 the armed forces produced a peacetime plan for the assembly for an army. The plan called for mobilizing an army with an initial strength of 400,000 to 1.3 million in a period of four months with continued increases each month after that.
Additionally to increasing initial military strength they recognized the need to organize industry in support of the war effort which would call for the need of a mobilization plan to provide procurement of supplies on a massive scale and recognized that the availability of supplies and equipment would determine the rate at which troops could be accommodated.
President Roosevelt made full use of these plans when preparing for the United States to enter the war. Many of these plans were already being acted on prior to the Japanese attack on December 7th, 1941 on Pearl Harbor, HI (for example the draft had already begun) and is one of the main reasons the United States was able to effectively enter the war so quickly.
The United States in World War I under President Woodrow Wilson recognized they did not have set in place a sound strategic plan that would allow them to mobilize for war quickly and efficiently and that the plan that they currently had did not allow for the inter workings of all the elements required to plan, create and distribute supplies and provide for the enlistment and training of a large number of troops. In order to improve on the system they had President Woodrow Wilson established the War Industries Board in July of 1917 which would coordinate the purchasing agencies of the Army and Navy with the goal of using resources and manpower in the most effective and efficient manner possible.
The key to this effort was centralization of priorities. The War Board tasked the individual branches of the military to prioritize their needs internally before submitting their request to the War Board for final determination and implementation. It would take some time for the efforts of the War Board to become successful because of a severe lack of data regarding requirements and resources but once this data was obtained the War Board did a remarkable job of allocating forces and materials.
The inter-war years (1919-1939) gave the board time to deal with the problems inherent in this system. The National Defense Act of June 1920 charged the assistant Secretary of War with planning industrial mobilization and responsibility for the War Departments procurement programs. The act represented a first step toward recognizing that modern warfare, with its demands for huge mecahnized ground forces armed with sophisticated weapons and the ability to move over large areas demanded that the entire national economy be harnessed.
In 1923 the armed forces produced a peacetime plan for the assembly for an army. The plan called for mobilizing an army with an initial strength of 400,000 to 1.3 million in a period of four months with continued increases each month after that.
Additionally to increasing initial military strength they recognized the need to organize industry in support of the war effort which would call for the need of a mobilization plan to provide procurement of supplies on a massive scale and recognized that the availability of supplies and equipment would determine the rate at which troops could be accommodated.
President Roosevelt made full use of these plans when preparing for the United States to enter the war. Many of these plans were already being acted on prior to the Japanese attack on December 7th, 1941 on Pearl Harbor, HI (for example the draft had already begun) and is one of the main reasons the United States was able to effectively enter the war so quickly.
Industries Begin to Produce War Materials
In 1939, the United States Army ranked thirty-ninth in the world, possessing a cavalry force of fifty thousand and using horses to pull the artillery.
President Roosevelt did what he could to coax a reluctant nation to focus its economic might on military preparedness. If the American military wasn’t yet equal to the Germans or the Japanese, American workers could build ships and planes faster than the enemy could sink them or shoot them down.
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, the president set staggering goals for the nation’s factories: 60,000 aircraft in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943; 120,000 tanks in the same time period and 55,000 antiaircraft guns. Industry would not only meet the goals that President Roosevelt gave them but in many cases exceed them.
American industry provided almost two-thirds of all the Allied military equipment produced during the war: 297,000 aircraft, 193,000 artillery pieces, 86,000 tanks and two million army trucks.
In four years, American industrial production, already the world's largest, doubled in size.
The automobile industry, for example was transformed completely. In 1941, more than three million cars were manufactured in the United States. Once war began only 139 more were made during the entire war. Instead the assembly lines of the auto industry began to create fuselages to be used in airplane engines, guns, trucks and tanks. To provide you with an example of how effective the industry had become in producing war machines an auto assembly line in Michigan charged with producing the B-24 Liberator which was a long-range bomber had over 1,550,000 separate parts. This plant could produce 1 bomber every 63 minutes making approximately 23 planes a day to support the war effort (the plants ran 24 hours a day seven days a week).
Every manufacturing plant in the United States during World War II specialized in creating some good or material to support the war effort and employed over 24 million people.
President Roosevelt did what he could to coax a reluctant nation to focus its economic might on military preparedness. If the American military wasn’t yet equal to the Germans or the Japanese, American workers could build ships and planes faster than the enemy could sink them or shoot them down.
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, the president set staggering goals for the nation’s factories: 60,000 aircraft in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943; 120,000 tanks in the same time period and 55,000 antiaircraft guns. Industry would not only meet the goals that President Roosevelt gave them but in many cases exceed them.
American industry provided almost two-thirds of all the Allied military equipment produced during the war: 297,000 aircraft, 193,000 artillery pieces, 86,000 tanks and two million army trucks.
In four years, American industrial production, already the world's largest, doubled in size.
The automobile industry, for example was transformed completely. In 1941, more than three million cars were manufactured in the United States. Once war began only 139 more were made during the entire war. Instead the assembly lines of the auto industry began to create fuselages to be used in airplane engines, guns, trucks and tanks. To provide you with an example of how effective the industry had become in producing war machines an auto assembly line in Michigan charged with producing the B-24 Liberator which was a long-range bomber had over 1,550,000 separate parts. This plant could produce 1 bomber every 63 minutes making approximately 23 planes a day to support the war effort (the plants ran 24 hours a day seven days a week).
Every manufacturing plant in the United States during World War II specialized in creating some good or material to support the war effort and employed over 24 million people.
Creating an Army
President Roosevelt knew after Germany invaded Poland in 1939 that eventually the United States would be drawn into World War II. With this in mind he began to make many preparations for war that did not require approval from Congress and one of those actions was to increase the strength of the United States military.
The primary tool for creating an army quickly is the concept of conscription which is the mandatory service of eligible individuals. Congress and the President accomplished this goal by passing the Selective Service Act of 1940 calling for the draft or mandatory conscription. This act was the first peacetime conscription in the United States history and required that men between the ages of 21 - 30 register with local draft boards. The age range would later be changed to 18 – 45. Though this was a national system, it was administered locally and based on consensus rather than coercion. Below is a short film with President Roosevelt discussing the Selective Service Act and expressing the nation’s gratitude and support for the men who would be drafted. This film shows the first drawing of the lottery.
This very short film shows President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Secretary of War drawing the first number in the draft lottery.
President Roosevelt knew after Germany invaded Poland in 1939 that eventually the United States would be drawn into World War II. With this in mind he began to make many preparations for war that did not require approval from Congress and one of those actions was to increase the strength of the United States military.
The primary tool for creating an army quickly is the concept of conscription which is the mandatory service of eligible individuals. Congress and the President accomplished this goal by passing the Selective Service Act of 1940 calling for the draft or mandatory conscription. This act was the first peacetime conscription in the United States history and required that men between the ages of 21 - 30 register with local draft boards. The age range would later be changed to 18 – 45. Though this was a national system, it was administered locally and based on consensus rather than coercion. Below is a short film with President Roosevelt discussing the Selective Service Act and expressing the nation’s gratitude and support for the men who would be drafted. This film shows the first drawing of the lottery.
This very short film shows President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Secretary of War drawing the first number in the draft lottery.
The United States halted conscription in 1973, however the Selective Service remains as means to register American males upon reaching the age of 18 as a contingency should the measure be reintroduced. The registration requirement was suspended in April 1975 and then reinstituted in 1980 and remains in effect today (registration for selective service not mandatory service).
The next step was to create temporary bases were the recruits that were drafted could be housed and trained. The idea was to build temporary buildings that would last perhaps five to twenty years. When the war was over the army would be disbanded except for a professional core as it had been done with other wars in the past.
The War Department built bases that included buildings for housing, mess hall, recreation and supply buildings. Facilities would be needed to accommodate over 700,000 men as of February 1941 as well as an additional 400,000 more that would be arriving between April and June 1941. Due to the haste involved there were problems with obtaining supplies, locating laborers to do the work and with effective administration. To provide some sense of the increase in numbers being trained by these facilities this comparison should illustrate how quickly training of soldiers escalated. Military construction projects rose from 5,380 in July of 1940 to 396,255 in January 1941.
War Production Boards
The goals and accomplishments of the War Production Board included:
- Manage manpower
- Set priorities and production goals of industry
- Control distribution of raw materials and supplies
- War Production Board supervised over 185 billion
tons in war materials
The War Production Board was a US civilian agency, formed in January 1942 to organize economic mobilization for the war, encourage industrial expansion, and develop policies controlling every aspect of production. One of its main tasks was to divide scarce materials between the military and civilian production sectors which it was authorized to do under the Second War Powers Act passed in March 1942. It also had the power to stop or ration the production of civilian goods and in agreement with the military, which retained responsibility for procurement contracts, to set production quotas and schedules to eliminate bottlenecks and cut down on waste. To speed the conversion of industry to war production, its first decision was to outlaw the production of all cars and light trucks after 31 January 1942; and by June, when the Smaller War Plants Corporation was formed as part of it, the production of consumer durable goods had been cut by 29%. It was, Nelson later commented, not so much industrial conversion as industrial revolution.
This film shows how the War Department attempted to deal with the Manpower issues.
The next step was to create temporary bases were the recruits that were drafted could be housed and trained. The idea was to build temporary buildings that would last perhaps five to twenty years. When the war was over the army would be disbanded except for a professional core as it had been done with other wars in the past.
The War Department built bases that included buildings for housing, mess hall, recreation and supply buildings. Facilities would be needed to accommodate over 700,000 men as of February 1941 as well as an additional 400,000 more that would be arriving between April and June 1941. Due to the haste involved there were problems with obtaining supplies, locating laborers to do the work and with effective administration. To provide some sense of the increase in numbers being trained by these facilities this comparison should illustrate how quickly training of soldiers escalated. Military construction projects rose from 5,380 in July of 1940 to 396,255 in January 1941.
War Production Boards
The goals and accomplishments of the War Production Board included:
- Manage manpower
- Set priorities and production goals of industry
- Control distribution of raw materials and supplies
- War Production Board supervised over 185 billion
tons in war materials
The War Production Board was a US civilian agency, formed in January 1942 to organize economic mobilization for the war, encourage industrial expansion, and develop policies controlling every aspect of production. One of its main tasks was to divide scarce materials between the military and civilian production sectors which it was authorized to do under the Second War Powers Act passed in March 1942. It also had the power to stop or ration the production of civilian goods and in agreement with the military, which retained responsibility for procurement contracts, to set production quotas and schedules to eliminate bottlenecks and cut down on waste. To speed the conversion of industry to war production, its first decision was to outlaw the production of all cars and light trucks after 31 January 1942; and by June, when the Smaller War Plants Corporation was formed as part of it, the production of consumer durable goods had been cut by 29%. It was, Nelson later commented, not so much industrial conversion as industrial revolution.
This film shows how the War Department attempted to deal with the Manpower issues.