Mobilization

Images source: WPB

Mobilization means making people, weapons, and supplies available for war. This involves turning men dnd women into troops, building bases for their housing and training, converting factories, airfields and shipyards from civilian to military use and building new facilities to augment those when more capacity is required. Defense facilities are also built to protect the nation from attack. Workers are induced to change from civilian to military production, which means relocating workers and building housing for them. Scarce human and material resources required for the military machine are conserved, rationed and allocated. Plentiful resources are substituted for scarce ones where possible. If resources normally obtained from foreign countries are curtailed by war, then alternate foreign or domestic resources are substituted where possible. Meanwhile, production of non-military goods and services must be sustained at a level high enough to maintain the health, efficiency, morale, and cooperation of the population. Further, civilian and military production must be coordinated for maximum efficiency and minimal duplication and disruption in the economy. Within the military, coordination is required among the many services to avoid duplication and shortages. In a large mobilization, there will not be enough production to satisfy normal civilian needs, e.g. cars, tractors, gasoline, butter, and washing machines, so their demand inevitably exceeds their supply. At the same time the government spends large sums of money for military needs, which pumps money into the economy as wages and salaries, so people will have more money than in peacetime. Thus, supply-demand imbalances that cause higher prices, i.e., inflation, with consequent economic dislocations, requires that the government impose rationing and price controls on many consumer items.

Before and during World War II, the U. S. Army, Army Air Forces, Navy, Merchant Marine, and Coast Guard ordered weapons, munitions and supplies and allocated resources among themselves and allies based on their strategic fighting plans. Requirements were funneled from the planners to their supply bureaus located in districts around the country. The Joint Army-Navy Munitions Board (ANMB) settled differences between the two services. Purchases in the War Department Army Service Forces were $69 billions, divided by organization as follows: 49% Ordnance Department, 31% Quartermast Corps, 7% Corps of Engineers, 6% Signal Corps, 3% Transportation Corps, 3% Chemical Warfare Service, 1% Medical Department.^{Koistinen 34} The Ordnance Department also manufactured weapons at its arsenals. The Army Air Forces autonomously ordered its planes through its network of supply bureaus.

Navy procurement was divided among several organizations. The Bureau of Ships was responsible for the design, building, and maintenance of ships. The Bureau of Supplies and Accounts was responsible for food and clothing; it also processed the orders of the other bureaus, and maintained inventory control and accounts. The Bureau of Aeronautics purchased airplanes. The Bureau of Ordnance manufactured and purchased arms, munitions, bombs and torpedoes. The Bureau of Yards and Docks built and maintained them. The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery bought its supplies.

American merchant shipbuilding mobilized early and effectively, but heavy transportation demands to cross the oceans was always inadequate. The industry was overseen by the U.S. Maritime Commission (USMC), a New Deal agency established in 1936 to revive the moribund shipbuilding industry, which had been in a depression following World War I. Its revival ensured that American shipyards would be capable of meeting any future wartime demands. With the USMC supporting and funding it under all-out mobilization, expansion of shipyards around the country, including especially those in the Gulf and Pacific coasts, merchant shipbuilding accelerated. The entire industry had produced only 71 ships between 1930 and 1936, but from 1938 to 1940, commission-sponsored shipyards turned out 106 ships, and that many in 1941 alone. ^EH.net

Augmenting the military mobilization and procurement organizations were a large number of civilian agencies that integrated military with civilian construction and production with varying degrees of success, the military always remaining paramount in its programs. The oldest of these was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), an independent government agency (abolished in 1954) chartered during the administration of Herbert Hoover in 1932. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the RFC gave about $8 billion in relief aid to state and local governments, and made loans to banks, railroads, farm mortgage associations, and other businesses. It was continued by the Franklin D. Roosevelt adminstration. During the war, the RFC established 8 new corporations, and purchased an existing corporation. The eight RFC wartime subsidiaries were Metals Reserve Company, Rubber Reserve Company, Defense Plant Corporation, Defense Supplies Corporation, War Damage Corporation, U.S. Commercial Company, Rubber Development Corporation, Petroleum Reserve Corporation. These corporations were involved in funding the development of synthetic rubber, construction and operation of a tin smelter, and establishment of abaca (Manila hemp) plantations in Central America among many other projects. Both natural rubber and abaca (used to produce rope products) were produced primarily in south Asia, which came under Japanese control. These corporations encouraged the development of alternative sources of supply of these essential materials. Synthetic rubber, which was not produced in the United States prior to the war, quickly became the primary source of rubber in the war and post-war years. The RFC dispensed about $40 billion toward the war effort. ^Wiki

The most significant civilian agency in World War II was the War Production Board (WPB). It was established on January 16, 1942 by executive order of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The purpose of the board was to regulate the production and allocation of materials and fuel. Operating through 12 regional offices, it rationed gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, paper, and other commodities and allotted materials to companies through its Controlled Materials Plan. The WPB reduced non-essential civilian production, such as automobiles, home appliances, and butter. It regulated prices and wages and issued morale-boosting propaganda. (The WPB was dissolved shortly after the defeat of Japan in 1945.)

The United States provided arms, locomotives, trucks, boots and many other items to its allies throughout the war under Lend-Lease. A total of $50.1 billion was spent: $31.4 billion to Britain, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to Free France and $1.6 billion to China.^Wiki

Following Germany's conquest of western Europe by June, 1940, the Congress began serious mobilization for the defense of the country and the Western Hemisphere. The munitions (armaments) program of June 1940, represented an effort to estimate and cope with the anticipated expansion of the military. Its goals included the procurement by October 1941 of all items needed to equip and maintain an army of 1.2 million, including the Army Air Corps, and creation of production facilities to support an army of over 4 million. On September 16, 1940 Congress passed the Selective Service and Training Act. For the first time in its history the United States adopted compulsory military training of manpower in peacetime. These servicemen and women had to be housed, fed, clothed, equiped and trained. Directed by the Army and Navy Munitions Board, the munitions program set up a priorities system, apportioned industrial capacity between the services, cleared foreign contracts for munitions production in the United States, and compiled military needs for strategic raw materials. Procurement districts, arsenals, depots, and other establishments were activated and expanded. This was a major turning point in the rehabilitation of the Army. ^Mobilization After the attack on Pearl Harbor, isolationism in America was disappeared as the country prepared itself for two wars, in Europe against Germany and Italy, and in Asia against Japan. Military personnel were augmented to 9 million in 1942 and construction and production was substantially increased. Eventually, 16.6 million servicemen and women served in the armed forces and merchant marine. Following the defeat of Italy and Germany, military production declined, many servicemen and women returned to civilian life, and Americans were slowly relieved of rationing. The defeat of Japan began demobilization and the return of the U. S. people and economy to civilian production. However, substantial military production continued for the "Cold War" between the U. S. and Russia followingb WWII.

Americans on the homefront suffered little during the war because much military production was made through new construction rather than conversion of current construction. The result was economic growth. Thus, for most people, the lean years of the Great Depression were gone. During the war, Americans were unable to buy new cars, home appliances, nylon stockings and aluminum kitchen utensils. Sugar, butter, and gasoline were rationed. New housing was limited and housing conditions for relocated workers in new war plants were terrible. However, jobs were plentiful and earnings were good in most industries, especially in manufacturing and construction. Many women worked outside the home in factories for the first time and demonstrated that they could perform tasks as well as men. Production achievements were many. Synthetic rubber and aviation gasoline that were almost nonexistent before the war became new industries. Critical materials, such as aluminum, magnesium, plastics, plasticizers, chemicals and drugs grew to become giant industries during and after the war. Savings accumulated under restrictive wartime conditions would be spent readily on housing and consumer goods as soon as production was reconverted to civilian use in 1946 and beyond. ^{WPB 2-28} Happy times were ahead.

World War II mobilization resulted in construction and production to satisfy military as well as civilian needs. What follows is what mobilization meant to communities across the 50 states.