World War II in Color—the Greatest Generation

At the very end of the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!—about the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan—Naval Marshal General Isoroku Yamamoto said,

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve

America’s response to World War II was the most extraordinary mobilization in the history of the world.

Creating 17 million new civilian jobs, the war effort increased industrial productivity by 96 percent and doubled corporate after-tax profits.

The economic recovery that had eluded even the New Deal was finally underway.

Although the war consumed over a third of industrial output, and despite rationing, the increased productivity made consumer goods more widely available.

By 1944, workers enjoyed weekly wages 50% higher than in 1939.

The war brought full employment and a fairer distribution of income. Entirely new industries and technologies were created and new skills learned.

Returning veterans were revered, and rewarded with the GI Bill that laid the foundation for the remarkable economic expansion that we still benefit from today.

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In his 1998 book “The Greatest Generation“, Tom Brokaw wrote,

it is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.

He said these men and women fought not for fame and recognition, but because it was the “right thing to do.”

In 1942, the United States Office of War Information documented aspects of World War II mobilization in a series of color photographs.

It was a time when the whole country came together as one—to help win the war and build the American Dream.