How America Saved the World: The Untold Story of U.S. Preparedness Between the World Wars - Hardcover

Hammel, Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0760335117 ISBN 13: 9780760335116

Publisher: Zenith Press, 2009

Synopsis

In 1932, less than fifteen years after proving itself a world power in the Great War, the United States could muster its entire active duty army in Chicago’s Soldier Field with room to spare. And yet, within months of the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States had once again emerged as the mightiest--and best armed--fighting force in the world. However remarkable it seems, this unprecedented turnaround was not the miracle many have declared it to be. In this book acclaimed military historian Eric Hammel uncovers the facts behind this powerful re-awakening to finally give a full account of how America so suddenly and “miraculously” became World War II’s “Arsenal of Democracy.”

The story begins with decline of the American military after World War I. Hammel then turns his focus to a pivotal “aircraft meeting” of November 1938. Here we see how the decision to put the nation’s prodigious resources into rearming was in fact made well before Pearl Harbor. How America Saved the World documents the workings of the remarkable alliance of government, industry, and military community behind the United State’s orderly transformation into an invincible military power. The result is the first detailed picture of a vast human endeavor, conceived and overseen by the best minds in the nation--an accomplishment unparalleled in the conduct of war.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Because the United States military undertook its first World War II offensive operations in the Pacific within only eight months of Pearl Harbor, most historians and readers of the war’s history depict and perceive the quick transition in 1942 from defensive war to offensive war as a miracle: Poof; here’s your army, here’s your navy, here’s your air force; go thrash the enemy with them. In the narrative Americans have written for themselves, the peace-loving and ill-prepared sleeping giant, the United States, is suddenly struck, out of the blue, by enemies who use her peace-loving ways against her while a mere sprinkling of gallant, dedicated soldiers, sailors, and airmen fight overwhelming odds to barely hold the line against an unremitting backdrop of tearful defeats, especially in the Pacific. Meanwhile, U.S. industry suddenly—instantly—becomes a magical “Arsenal of Democracy” that produces uncountable tanks and ships and guns, not to mention trained soldiers, sailors, and airmen in their legions, fleets, and air armadas that will, in under four years, smash the wiliest and most powerful enemies ever before confronted. The appearance of all that materiel, and all those battle-ready young men so soon after the Pearl Harbor attack, looks exactly like a miracle.

There was no miracle.

Celebrated military historian Eric Hammel’s cool appraisal of the facts reveals that America’s stunning and overwhelming moral response to German and Japanese aggression in the mid and late 1930s, a response that eventually brought a huge portion of the globe within its embrace, was far less a miracle than an inexorable force of nature.

America was a sleeping giant. But the decision to turn the entire force and will of a hard-working, innovative nation to arming for war was not made in the wake of Pearl Harbor. By Pearl Harbor, an alliance of the American government, American industry, and the American military community was already three-fourths of the way up the road to complete preparedness, a journey that was begun in mid-November 1938, only a little late.

From the Back Cover:

Contrary to popular myth, the ascension of the United States to the preeminent role in World War II was deliberate, orderly, and integrated. Begun in November 1938, it was conceived and overseen by the best minds the nation had in place. It was a human endeavor, so mistakes were made, things didn’t always go right, plans and visions had to be scrapped or transformed along the way. But there is nothing in the conduct of war that has ever run so well, so true, so straight to the heart of victory. Nothing.

Here, for the first time, is an orderly narrative that explains how the United States military bootstrapped itself for victory and, thus, How America Saved the World.

About this edition

• Publisher: Zenith Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0760335117
• ISBN 13: 9780760335116
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400