722 Chapter 27 War and Peace, 1941–1945
California. Housing was always in short supply in
these areas, and while the men went off to the familiar
surroundings of yard and factory, their wives had to
cope with cramped quarters, ration books, the absence
of friends and relatives, the problems encountered by
their children in strange schools and playgrounds, and
sometimes with outdoor toilets. With so many people
living among strangers and in unstable circumstances
it is not surprising that crime, juvenile delinquency,
and prostitution increased, as indeed they did in other
parts of the country too.
Newly married wives of soldiers and sailors (known
generally as “war brides”) often followed their hus-
bands to training camps, where life was often as diffi-
cult as it was around defense plants. Those who did not
follow their husbands faced other problems—adjusting
to being married without having had much experience
of marriage, loneliness, and worry. Whatever their own
behavior, war brides quickly learned that society
applied a double standard to infidelity, especially when
it involved a man presumably risking his life in some
far-off land. There was a general relaxation of sexual
inhibitions, part of a decades-long trend but acceler-
ated by the war. So many hasty marriages, followed by
long periods of separation, also brought a rise in
divorces, from about 170 per thousand marriages in
1941 to 310 per thousand in 1945.
Of course “ordinary” housewives also had to deal
with shortages, ration books, and other inconveniences
during the war. In addition most took on other duties
and bore other burdens, such as tending “victory gar-
dens” and preserving their harvests, using crowded
public transportation when there was no gas for the
family car, mending and patching old clothes when
new ones were unavailable, participating in
salvage drives, and doing volunteer work for
hospitals, the Red Cross, or various civil
defense and servicemen’s centers.
Rosie the Riveterat
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Allied Strategy: Europe First
Only days after Pearl Harbor, Prime Minister
Churchill and his military chiefs met in
Washington with Roosevelt and his advisers. In
every quarter of the globe, disaster threatened.
The Japanese were gobbling up East Asia.
Hitler’s armies, checked outside Leningrad and
Moscow, were preparing for a massive attack in
the direction of Stalingrad, on the Volga River.
German divisions under General Erwin
Rommel were beginning a drive across North
Africa toward the Suez Canal. U-boats were
taking a heavy toll in the North Atlantic. British
and American leaders believed that eventually
View theImagethey could muster enough force to smash their enemies,
but whether or not the troops already in action could
hold out until this force arrived was an open question.
The decision of the strategists was to concen-
trate first against the Germans. Japan’s conquests
were in remote and, from the point of view of the
Allies, relatively unimportant regions. If the Soviet
Union surrendered, Hitler’s position in Europe
might prove impregnable.
But how to strike at Hitler? American leaders
wanted to attack German positions in France, at least
by 1943. The Soviets, with their backs to the wall and
bearing the full weight of the German war machine,
heartily agreed. Churchill, however, was more con-
cerned with protecting Britain’s overseas possessions
than with easing the pressure on the Soviet Union.
He advocated instead air bombardment of German
industry combined with an attempt to drive the
Germans out of North Africa, and his argument car-
ried the day.
During the summer of 1942 Allied planes began
to bomb German cities. In a crescendo through 1943
and 1944, British and American bombers pulverized
the centers of Nazi might. While air attacks did not
destroy the German army’s capacity to fight, they
hampered war production, tangled communications,
and brought the war home to the German people in
awesome fashion. Humanitarians deplored the heavy
loss of life among the civilian population, but the
response of the realists was that Hitler had begun
indiscriminate bombing, and victory depended on
smashing the German war machine.
In November 1942 an Allied army commanded by
General Dwight D. Eisenhower struck at French NorthThe firebombing of Hamburg (painted here by Floyd Davis, who flew with the
Anglo American mission in 1943) killed 50,000 and destroyed Hamburg.