Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve. Today I'm sitting down
Speaker 1: with historian Peter Fritschi and we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: about his most recent book, nineteen forty two, When World
Speaker 1: War Two and Golf the Globe. Now, this is available
Speaker 1: for purchase right now. Link is in the show notes
Speaker 1: as I always put them, And it's an amazing book,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a World War Two aficionado, you're going
Speaker 1: to absolutely love this. It covers all the various theaters
Speaker 1: of war that you can ever imagine and goes into
Speaker 1: incredibly rich detail. It's a gripping narrative that flows very
Speaker 1: very well, and I polished it off even though it's
Speaker 1: several hundred pages. In fact at the back it's five
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety two pages. I still finished it in
Speaker 1: only a few hours because it's that quick of an
Speaker 1: excellent engaging read. So I highly recommend it, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure after you listen to the interview you'll be even
Speaker 1: more engaged and want to pick up your copy right away. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, after a few quick messages, here here's
Speaker 1: my interview with Peter Fritchie and his book nineteen forty two.
Speaker 1: All right, welcome, back. Well, as I mentioned moments ago,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting down here with Peter Fritchie and we are
Speaker 1: talking about his most recent book, which is one that
Speaker 1: I'm sure is going to be of interest to a
Speaker 1: lot of people listening to this, which is nineteen forty
Speaker 1: two when War TI engulf the globe. I know we
Speaker 1: can't do a World War two episode here without everyone
Speaker 1: being intensely interested. So everyone's going to love this book.
Speaker 1: I can guarantee you of that, as I mentioned already
Speaker 1: in the introduction. Now, I want to start out, mister
Speaker 1: Fritchie by asking you a question about the introduction, because
Speaker 1: in the introduction you write, and I'm going to make
Speaker 1: a direct quotation here, quote, this is what the war did.
Speaker 1: It handed you over to war, from one war to another.
Speaker 1: I think that's a particularly apt and succinct way of
Speaker 1: talking about the impact of World War Two, and I
Speaker 1: was hoping you could start by explaining to the audience
Speaker 1: first what exactly mean by that, And second, I'll ask
Speaker 1: the question I always do, which is why you chose
Speaker 1: to write this book in the first place, because I
Speaker 1: think that's relevant.
Speaker 2: Well, the idea that you're handed over from one war
Speaker 2: to another is something that my dad used to talk
Speaker 2: about a lot. He was a World War Two veteran,
Speaker 2: drafted into the German Wehrmacht late in nineteen forty five.
Speaker 2: But from his almost adolescent perception, it was that there
Speaker 2: had been so many wars already, the war against Poland
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty nine, the German invasion of France in
Speaker 2: May nineteen forty, then the German invasion of the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union in nineteen forty one. These were all triumphant assaults.
Speaker 2: But the invasion of the Soviet Union, of course, turned
Speaker 2: very bad, very long, and so one winner turned into another.
Speaker 2: The war kept going. When soldiers returned home. There was
Speaker 2: the bombing campaign that really intensified in nineteen forty two.
Speaker 2: At war's end, there were refugees on the road. So
Speaker 2: from his microscopic position in Germany, there was just wherever
Speaker 2: he went, there was a war. Of course, after nineteen
Speaker 2: forty five in Germany. These Germans are hardly the victims,
Speaker 2: the great victims of World War Two, but again this
Speaker 2: was a difficult time for German civilians. The winner forty
Speaker 2: six forty seven, with food shortages, people living in your house,
Speaker 2: and then the division of Germany so his sense was
Speaker 2: that there were all these different kinds of wars. He
Speaker 2: himself had not been an enthusiastic confederate of the regime.
Speaker 2: He didn't like the Hitler youth when he was drafted
Speaker 2: into that. He didn't like being an anti aircraft gunner,
Speaker 2: and he didn't like the army. He deserted the army
Speaker 2: in March nineteen forty five and went underground with a
Speaker 2: farmer that was his own private war walked across Germany
Speaker 2: to find his parents. So he thought there were many
Speaker 2: different kinds of warn He always said, I was handed
Speaker 2: handed from one board to the other, and that was
Speaker 2: his impression. And he remained very opposed to war, very
Speaker 2: opposed to conscription, even civilian conscription when it was talked
Speaker 2: about in the United States. And I think it's an
Speaker 2: app way to think about nineteen forty two because we
Speaker 2: have the expansion of the war with the entry of
Speaker 2: the United States in the war against Japan and Germany.
Speaker 2: But you also have insurrectionist wars against Japanese occupation, even
Speaker 2: against German occupation, even against British occupation of India. So
Speaker 2: you have a lot of different kinds. You could call
Speaker 2: them anti colonial or anti imperialist wars that are bubbling
Speaker 2: up onto the surface during the what we think of
Speaker 2: as the conventional geopolitical campaign between the Allied and the Axes,
Speaker 2: and this made territories around the world actually second fronts.
Speaker 2: The second front is usually what the Allies were supposed
Speaker 2: to do to help Russia by invading Europe and to
Speaker 2: relieve the Soviet Union from the against the Germans by
Speaker 2: creating a second front against Germany. But there were second
Speaker 2: fronts in all the belligerent countries, as labor organized, as
Speaker 2: suppressed minorities were persecuted and then organized and mobilized, and
Speaker 2: then people mobilized against the pressors, whether it's British rule
Speaker 2: in Cologne in India, or Dutch rule in Indonesia, or
Speaker 2: Japanese rule in the Philippines or Malaysia. So war begat war,
Speaker 2: and it moved from foreign soil to domes stick scenes,
Speaker 2: and so it was one more after the other, one
Speaker 2: more begat another. It was a terribly long war. War
Speaker 2: hit civilians with the bombing campaigns, So for many people
Speaker 2: I didn't think so much about who began what. But
Speaker 2: the war was an endless, never ending struggle, and nineteen
Speaker 2: forty two, there was no end. No one knew when
Speaker 2: the end was going to come. And for much of
Speaker 2: the year nineteen forty two, it looked like Germany and
Speaker 2: Japan were winning, which in fact mobilized even more campaigns
Speaker 2: against Allied misrule or British rule in India and even White
Speaker 2: rule in the Southern states of the United States. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one of the interesting things when I talk
Speaker 1: about World War Two with students or anyone else, and
Speaker 1: you really you bring this up really well, is to
Speaker 1: talk about, well, who's whose World War two are we
Speaker 1: talking about here? Because it's one of those conflicts that
Speaker 1: people have very different perspectives on, depending upon where you were,
Speaker 1: what your position was. But the war affected everyone. I mean,
Speaker 1: listeners of the show will know that. Very recently. Of course,
Speaker 1: we just had celebrations for victory in Europe day, you know,
Speaker 1: previously make a couple of weeks ago, but Russia held
Speaker 1: their own separate you know, and the war, you know,
Speaker 1: is treated differently depending upon whose perspective you are. And
Speaker 1: then if you want to talk about, well, and you know,
Speaker 1: is it the same if you you know, do you
Speaker 1: celebrate similarly in Ukraine and so on? And so forth,
Speaker 1: and everyone has a different perspective on it. But one
Speaker 1: of the questions I wanted to ask you next is
Speaker 1: really about the idea of this global war, and I
Speaker 1: think it's it is. I was really trying to find
Speaker 1: a comparison in my mind and I couldn't, And maybe
Speaker 1: you can tell me that there is one. But it
Speaker 1: really seems like World War two is the global war
Speaker 1: that we've had, and that we really haven't had anything
Speaker 1: like it before or since. And so if you could
Speaker 1: explain it, what ways, was World War two truly global
Speaker 1: by nineteen forty two and is there a different historical
Speaker 1: comparison or is it quite frankly just unique.
Speaker 2: Well, it was global in nineteen forty two because the
Speaker 2: United States was forced to enter the war after the
Speaker 2: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and four days later the
Speaker 2: German declaration of war against the United States. Britain then
Speaker 2: also found itself at war against Japan, and you had
Speaker 2: a pretty neat division of the major powers, the major
Speaker 2: industrial powers, either on the Axis side or the Allied side.
Speaker 2: And the only exception to that is that the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union in Japan until the very very very end in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty five were not belligerents against each other, but
Speaker 2: otherwise geopolitically it was very The entire globe had divided
Speaker 2: except for South America nineteen forty two. But the global
Speaker 2: war was also deeper. People thought about the ideological stakes
Speaker 2: of the war between the new boys on the block,
Speaker 2: the fascists who wanted to rearrange the balance of world power,
Speaker 2: and the Allies, who stood for the status quo in
Speaker 2: some ways, for freedom and sovereignty. And so there was
Speaker 2: the idea of liberty and freedom, and no particular side
Speaker 2: had a monopoly on it, and the Allied Supreme Command
Speaker 2: couldn't determine its meeting. So even within the Allied here
Speaker 2: you have all sorts of people. And the best example
Speaker 2: are the Indians and India who mobilize against British colonial rule.
Speaker 2: They see themselves as part of the Allies for the
Speaker 2: most part, but are also fighting the British, and so
Speaker 2: they're all sorts of wars, often in the name of
Speaker 2: the declared Allied war aims, which is sovereignty and liberty
Speaker 2: and the freedom to choose your government and your rulers
Speaker 2: that divide each of the geopolitical sides. Of course, the
Speaker 2: Germans and the Japanese also had to contend with underground
Speaker 2: movements against the military occupations that they had imposed. So
Speaker 2: World War two sinks very deep ideologically, and just one
Speaker 2: way to think about it is to think about the
Speaker 2: billions of bottles of coke that were drunk by people
Speaker 2: around the world as the American soul just came in.
Speaker 2: The constant music, the swing music that was heard everywhere.
Speaker 2: Tip that really characterizes how popular and how deep the
Speaker 2: war was. But people didn't agree. There was no single
Speaker 2: viewpoint on the war, and somebody in Nigeria or South Africa,
Speaker 2: or in occupied Poland saw the war differently than people
Speaker 2: in the United States, and African Americans saw it different
Speaker 2: than differently than White Americans. So everyone had their own vision,
Speaker 2: their own interpretation of freedom and liberty. In fact, white
Speaker 2: Southerners thought they were fighting for states rights and thought
Speaker 2: that the war for Jim Crow was pretty much the
Speaker 2: same one as the war to liberate Poland from the Germans.
Speaker 2: So people had vastly different interpretations and that deepened the
Speaker 2: war in that sense. It global the war, which probably
Speaker 2: involved half the population of the globe, so about one
Speaker 2: billion people, more than ten percent of whom were in uniform.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I want to ask a follow a
Speaker 1: question on that now, because I've never heard that before.
Speaker 1: I've never heard this idea that white Southerners believed that
Speaker 1: World War II was fought in some way, shape or
Speaker 1: form to protect states' rights. That seems so counterintuitive to me.
Speaker 1: Can can you explain what you mean by that?
Speaker 2: The idea was that people should have their own culture,
Speaker 2: their own government, and that Germans shouldn't impose their racial
Speaker 2: ideas and their geopolitical ideas on Poland. They have no
Speaker 2: right to Poland. And white Southerners felt that the federal
Speaker 2: government should not impose its laws and mores on us
Speaker 2: white Southern folk ways, and that the way we do
Speaker 2: things here, the way that the states had defined and
Speaker 2: organized their liberty, that was exactly the sort of thing
Speaker 2: that polls were also fighting for, or that any other
Speaker 2: oppressed people were under military occupation were fighting for. And
Speaker 2: more or less, this was the view of the white South,
Speaker 2: which the solid South is a term that comes from
Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties and forties and the maintenance of racial segregation.
Speaker 2: And Jim Crow was very high on the political agenda,
Speaker 2: which means the agenda of the Democratic Party and Democratic
Speaker 2: primaries turned on that race issue, and so there was
Speaker 2: you can call it cognitive dissonance. But for many white Southerners,
Speaker 2: the war against Hitler was also a war four states rights.
Speaker 1: Which is so interesting, of course, because when you when
Speaker 1: you normally think of, you know, the Nazi regime, you
Speaker 1: think of these concepts of racial purity and all of
Speaker 1: these ideas, and of course Jesse Owens and the Olympics
Speaker 1: and all of that, and it seems so counterintuitive to me.
Speaker 1: But as you explain it, it makes perfect sense. You know,
Speaker 1: be from people fighting over dominant forces. We're trying to
Speaker 1: enforce a way of life on that group of people
Speaker 1: that they don't necessarily agree with, and that's what makes
Speaker 1: it so similar. But I want to go back to
Speaker 1: this question then again of historical parallels, and let's just
Speaker 1: go back to World War One, because that's obviously the
Speaker 1: closest parallel that we had. You know, I think World
Speaker 1: War One is argued as a global conflict. You know,
Speaker 1: Japan takes part, Germany has some colonial possessions. The United
Speaker 1: States brings the Americas in in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: I mean, can we argue in the context of World
Speaker 1: War Two that World War One is global or do
Speaker 1: they does the comparison just not fit?
Speaker 2: It fits in terms of World War One was was
Speaker 2: certainly global in similar ways to the Seven Years War
Speaker 2: in the eighteenth century or the Napoleonic Wars, but the
Speaker 2: main action in World War One by far as the
Speaker 2: Western Front and to some extent, the Ottoman the Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 2: World War Two totally expands that, so that you have
Speaker 2: major operations in North Africa, in Western Europe, in the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, throughout the Southeast Pacific than the Philippines. In
Speaker 2: that sense, World War two, just geopolitically militarily is more
Speaker 2: is more global and less centered on Europe. But it's
Speaker 2: also more global because it involved people in a much
Speaker 2: more direct way in which they saw themselves not simply
Speaker 2: as victims of war, but as protagonists of a new
Speaker 2: kind of world, a new kind of order, a new
Speaker 2: kind of liberty. The example might be better the French
Speaker 2: Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century, which had I mean, there was major conflict
Speaker 2: and struggle in North America, on South America, especially in
Speaker 2: the Caribbean Haitian independence stands for a great deal there
Speaker 2: as well as in India, and the ideas of the
Speaker 2: French Revolution circled the globe and were contested were interpreted
Speaker 2: on their own. But World War Two is broader, deadlier,
Speaker 2: and is deeper in terms of touching more people and
Speaker 2: involving them ideologically in all sorts of contested and varied ways.
Speaker 2: But people did think in terms of the goals of
Speaker 2: the Allies and the Axis, interpreting the ideas of liberty
Speaker 2: and freedom in their in their own ways. The idea
Speaker 2: of self rule gets at self rule for the majority,
Speaker 2: or is it self rule in the sense that all
Speaker 2: men and women are equal and minority rights are respected.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of there's a lot of contests
Speaker 2: on exactly what self rule means. But the idea of
Speaker 2: self rule impassion people in a tremendous way. That makes
Speaker 2: World War Two different than than World War One. But
Speaker 2: I would I would say sure, it's it's These are
Speaker 2: of course very similar, and in ideological age where ideas
Speaker 2: matter and ideas are deadly, they're there are parallels between,
Speaker 2: of course, between World War two and World War One,
Speaker 2: and between World War two and the Napoleonic and Revolutionary wars.
Speaker 2: The big difference, maybe to get at World War One
Speaker 2: versus World War two, is the vast majority of people
Speaker 2: who are killed in World War One are male uniformed
Speaker 2: soldiers about eighty to eighty five percent, and the vast
Speaker 2: majority of people killed in World War Two are civilians
Speaker 2: seventy percent.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I can hear somebody listening to this and
Speaker 1: thinking to themselves, oh, gosh, you know, really the only
Speaker 1: difference between World War One, say, or maybe the Napoleonic
Speaker 1: Wars or anything that came before it, and World War
Speaker 1: two is technology. You know, that's really the only difference.
Speaker 1: That's why it touches everyone is because the expansion of technology,
Speaker 1: of bombing and of air campaigns and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth. Well, what do you think about that argument?
Speaker 1: If there's somebody listening and thinking that, do you think
Speaker 1: they're right or do you think that that's true? But
Speaker 1: maybe it needs a little nuance.
Speaker 2: Well, technology certainly makes a difference. The step from the
Speaker 2: step up from Napoleon to World War One versus World
Speaker 2: War one, were world War two, what's the bigger step.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure world War one was was quite deadly
Speaker 2: for uniformed soldiers. I think the big difference, though, is
Speaker 2: the nature of the ideas, not just the ideas of freedom,
Speaker 2: equality government that the Allies talked about, but the frankly
Speaker 2: imperialist and racial ideas that dominated the Japanese and especially
Speaker 2: the Germans. The Germans had a vision of a complete
Speaker 2: new racial order in which they would undo the land
Speaker 2: escape and the peoples on it in order to impose
Speaker 2: their own totally artificial racial hierarchy. They had plans that
Speaker 2: saw the elimination of almost all people in Eastern Europe
Speaker 2: and in Western Russia, and grand ideas that German colonists
Speaker 2: would replace them to the tune of tens of millions,
Speaker 2: even one hundred million German colonists between the Black Sea
Speaker 2: and the and the Baltic Sea. These are extraordinary and
Speaker 2: audacious ideological visions that made the Germans extremely deadly and
Speaker 2: are completely different from what we see in World War
Speaker 2: One and the Napoleonic era. And this is what drove
Speaker 2: German arms. Was not fear of It wasn't a defensive
Speaker 2: war and anyway wasn't even to right the wrongs of Versailles.
Speaker 2: It was a much much more ambitious, radical reordering not
Speaker 2: only the political geopolitical landscape, but of what would happen
Speaker 2: to people under German rule and what was their role,
Speaker 2: And the role was usually to be slaves or to
Speaker 2: be killed, very radical difference. And it was the Japanese
Speaker 2: and the Germans who killed the vast majority of those
Speaker 2: seventy civilians. The seventy percent of the dead of World
Speaker 2: War Two who are civilians, those are German and Japanese casualties.
Speaker 2: Those are the killed by Germans and Japanese on the whole.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean you need to only look at
Speaker 1: some of the Soviet death numbers to understand the picture really.
Speaker 2: China and the Soviet Union exactly.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, of course, and what we always
Speaker 1: forget is that World War Two, I mean, it depends
Speaker 1: on when you want to say it starts. If you
Speaker 1: want to say that it starts with the Japanese invasions
Speaker 1: of Manchuria, then it starts a lot earlier than nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty nine, which is not traditionally how it's taught in
Speaker 1: American schools, but maybe it should be to that extent.
Speaker 1: But let's talk a little bit about the United States then,
Speaker 1: because I want to get a sense of what American
Speaker 1: perspectives were like about the war prior to the bombing
Speaker 1: of Pearl Harbor and how they changed. And specifically, what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about is this isolationist sentiment. You know, it's
Speaker 1: often boiled down in simplistic terms that the United States
Speaker 1: is effectively isolationist going into World War Two and the
Speaker 1: only thing that coaxes it out is the attack on
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor. And I don't know, I always struggle with
Speaker 1: that and trying to decide to what level that assertion
Speaker 1: is accurate. I wanted to get your take on it.
Speaker 1: Is that a true statement speaking of the United States
Speaker 1: as purely isolationist? And really it's only Pearl Harbor and
Speaker 1: only it would have been an attack on the United
Speaker 1: States that ever really could have pulled the United States.
Speaker 1: And I know we're talking a little bit in hypothetical
Speaker 1: terms here, but I want to get a sense of
Speaker 1: what the mood was in this country going into nineteen
Speaker 1: forty two.
Speaker 2: Well, I think in a one or two cents summation,
Speaker 2: one could definitely say that the for those people who
Speaker 2: felt that the United States had a global responsibility by
Speaker 2: entering the war on the Allied side, a sentiment not
Speaker 2: necessarily shared by the majority of the American people. Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 2: a Japanese attack sneak attack as it was called, on
Speaker 2: the United States, as well as the German declaration of
Speaker 2: war that followed, made it very easy for Roosevelt, and
Speaker 2: it made also the terms of unconditional surrender much easier.
Speaker 2: That the Japanese were not to be negotiated with. But
Speaker 2: I think if you look a little bit deeper, America
Speaker 2: is deeply divided, and the divisions exist within people, within
Speaker 2: within an individual or within a community. People hated the Nazis.
Speaker 2: They didn't have sympathy for the Nazis. That's a very
Speaker 2: small minority in the United States. But they didn't want
Speaker 2: to get involved in another war like World War One,
Speaker 2: and they didn't want to get involved in other people's trouble.
Speaker 2: And they had just gotten out of the depression. So
Speaker 2: nineteen forty is a very good year, not least of
Speaker 2: course because of the because of the war industries. But
Speaker 2: there's prosperity finally and no war, and that is that's
Speaker 2: what Americans wanted. On the other hand, so Americans hated Hitler,
Speaker 2: but they also didn't want to start a war or
Speaker 2: enter a war in order to get rid of Hitler.
Speaker 2: And so both of these somewhat contradictory thoughts existed side
Speaker 2: by side. Both of them commanded majorities, and in a
Speaker 2: way this not was cut by Pearl Harbor and the
Speaker 2: German declaration of war. The opposition to the war was
Speaker 2: also more or less people agreed that there should be
Speaker 2: a draft, there should be selective service. That all kicked
Speaker 2: in in the fall of nineteen forty and the idea
Speaker 2: was to train a generation of young men for a
Speaker 2: year and have them be prepared for whatever global crises happened.
Speaker 2: But what happened in the summer of nineteen forty one
Speaker 2: is that the one year term for those soldiers already
Speaker 2: drafted was extended. It was extended for what was thought
Speaker 2: to be another six months, but nobody really knew, and
Speaker 2: so this really sparked a lot of isolationist campaigning in
Speaker 2: the spring and summer of nineteen forty one, simply that
Speaker 2: the draft had now been extended theoretically without extension, without
Speaker 2: a deadline, and that this cohort of American men were
Speaker 2: there sort of for the duration, and that the next
Speaker 2: ones would also be drafted for much longer periods of time.
Speaker 2: So spring and summer nineteen forty one season expansion of
Speaker 2: the anti war movement, and it's then joined by celebrities
Speaker 2: like Lindbergh, So they have quite a bit of airtime
Speaker 2: and they get quite a bit of media presence. They
Speaker 2: fill stadiums throughout the summer and fall of nineteen forty one.
Speaker 2: So there is this impatience and struggle against what seems
Speaker 2: to be America's imminent entry into the war without the
Speaker 2: drama of a huge incident that was then provided by
Speaker 2: the Japanese with Pearl Harbor. So the country is very divided.
Speaker 2: But once Pearl Harbor happens on the seventh of Sunday,
Speaker 2: the seventh of December, and the German declaration of war
Speaker 2: four days later, there's a near universal shift in opinion
Speaker 2: that this war has to be fought and those enemies
Speaker 2: have to be defeated.
Speaker 1: I wonder you talk about this vision within the American public.
Speaker 1: But I wonder was the Roosevelt administration divided in the
Speaker 1: same way, or was the administration leaning more heavily towards
Speaker 1: engagement than maybe the public. I guess I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: things like Roosevelt's pursuit of lend lease or the Arsenal
Speaker 1: democracy claims and so on and so forth. Can we
Speaker 1: talk about that administration as something where there's a legitimate
Speaker 1: debate taking place or were they more focused on trying
Speaker 1: to be engaged, you know, maybe almost growing upstream against
Speaker 1: part of the American public.
Speaker 2: Well, Rooseuelt was very well aware that he could only
Speaker 2: do certain things and that ultimately he could not declare
Speaker 2: war and wage war, which would be a major, major
Speaker 2: effort without the backing of the American people, as expressed
Speaker 2: through Congress said though, he did row upstream on many issues,
Speaker 2: and so he was able to provide aid to Great
Speaker 2: Britain through lend Lease, and that was then later expanded
Speaker 2: to other to the Soviet Union and elsewhere. Uh, And
Speaker 2: he was able to put America on more of an
Speaker 2: emergency war footing, was able to get the draft expanded,
Speaker 2: and was able to declare that the American zone of
Speaker 2: interest was much greater geographically than it had been. But
Speaker 2: he couldn't have done it without the backing of the
Speaker 2: American people, which finally then then came to him. So
Speaker 2: there's a debate between Congress and the executive. The way
Speaker 2: Roosevelt and the Roosevelt administration saw, which is a you know,
Speaker 2: there were many Republicans in the administration, was that America
Speaker 2: was not in itself threatened and we weren't going to
Speaker 2: have a German or Japanese occupation of American soil, but
Speaker 2: the rest of the globe would become hostile to America.
Speaker 2: America would become an island, an island, as they put it,
Speaker 2: a free trade principles and free government principles, but that
Speaker 2: the rest of the planet would be dominated by militaristic regimes,
Speaker 2: and that was not a planet that America wanted to
Speaker 2: live in, and that the security of its friends and allies,
Speaker 2: Great Britain to begin with, would have been eliminated. That
Speaker 2: was not the that was not in the American interest
Speaker 2: as far as and that was the long range view
Speaker 2: of the Roosevelt administration, and that's what their argument was
Speaker 2: for engaging in the in international affairs and accepting global responsibilities.
Speaker 2: But that's theoretical and abstract. And actually committing hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands of troops to training and to oversee services quite
Speaker 2: another and just twenty three twenty four years after World
Speaker 2: War One, which in its height for Americans was almost
Speaker 2: as deadly as the Civil War. The summer of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighteen was something that the American public had trouble with.
Speaker 1: Well, I wonder about the immediate aftermath then of Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 1: you know, prior and even prior to the German declaration
Speaker 1: of war. You know, obviously the United States has then
Speaker 1: been attacked by Japan. So there's this rationale as to
Speaker 1: why we have to go to war with Japan right away.
Speaker 1: But if memory serves, you know, a lot of our
Speaker 1: attention is going to be focused on Germany initially. So
Speaker 1: how does Roosevelt work to sort of tie those two
Speaker 1: together in a way to coax some of those isolationists
Speaker 1: into supporting a war effort against Germany? Or does the
Speaker 1: German declaration of war just simply take care of it
Speaker 1: and then he doesn't have to worry about it from
Speaker 1: that point.
Speaker 2: Forward, The German declaration of war takes care of it.
Speaker 2: The Japanese and the Germans are allies, and they end
Speaker 2: up not working very effectively with each other. But it's
Speaker 2: completely plausible to think of Japan and Germany as part
Speaker 2: of They called themselves part of the axis along with Italy,
Speaker 2: and so that was the reality on Monday, December eighth,
Speaker 2: whether we were at war with Germany or not, it
Speaker 2: was a global contest for resources, security of sea lanes
Speaker 2: and the like. But then by the end of the
Speaker 2: week the German declaration of war takes care of it.
Speaker 2: There is very little remnant of isolationist opinion after Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 2: What you do see is less of a willingness to
Speaker 2: go all out against Germany, and the idea was to defeat.
Speaker 2: And as far as ordinary citizens were concerned, they wanted
Speaker 2: to slam one on the Japanese and they wanted to
Speaker 2: hit Japan back hard, and that meant going logically, going
Speaker 2: at Japan first. According to the plans of the White House,
Speaker 2: it was Germany first, Japan second. Germany represented a global threat,
Speaker 2: Japan represented a regional threat, and so it was more
Speaker 2: important to get Germany taken care of in their view
Speaker 2: than Japan. So it was going to be one more
Speaker 2: followed by another. In fact, though we expended enormous resources
Speaker 2: in a co consecutive war against both powers, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't Germany first Japan second. Japan was the concentrated less
Speaker 2: resources but ever increasing resources, especially naval ones from the
Speaker 2: get go, from spring summer nineteen forty two, and the
Speaker 2: Americans were fully behind unconditional surrender for Japan. There was
Speaker 2: a less unanimity on that issue with regard to Germany.
Speaker 2: And in that sense you could say there is a
Speaker 2: hangover of the isolationist sentiment that that Japan was the
Speaker 2: true threat as far as the American public was concerned,
Speaker 2: and Germany a lesser one.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about, then, after Pearl Harbor and after
Speaker 1: the German declaration of war, how does the war start
Speaker 1: to change once the United States becomes involved from a
Speaker 1: macro level. Obviously, Churchill's government had been in communications with
Speaker 1: the American government, had been working together, so had Stalin's
Speaker 1: government to an extent since nineteen forty and so, but
Speaker 1: with the entrance of the Americans, things obviously have to change.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the big things that sort
Speaker 1: of immediately change from an outlook if you just sort
Speaker 1: of back up and you look at it from a
Speaker 1: big perspective.
Speaker 2: There's no doubt the United States has been the world's great,
Speaker 2: biggest economy for over fifty years. And the Japanese know this.
Speaker 2: And so while they might say you know spirit over
Speaker 2: over materiel will win, and the Japanese have that spirit. Basically,
Speaker 2: they think they have six to nine months and if
Speaker 2: they don't win the war and the Pacific and six
Speaker 2: to nine months, American industrial power will overwhelm them. So
Speaker 2: the first six months in America is establishing that war
Speaker 2: footing and that industrial base and reconverting civilian industrial manufacturer
Speaker 2: into military manufacturer. Nineteen forty is the biggest day, is
Speaker 2: the biggest year of selling cars in America since nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty nine, and all of that domestic production is transformed
Speaker 2: into military production tanks, jeeps, bombers, and the last civilian
Speaker 2: car rolls off the assembly line in February nineteen forty two.
Speaker 2: And that's the change. That's the change that Americans see,
Speaker 2: the switching of gears from civilian to war economy in
Speaker 2: almost all sectors of industrial manufacture, which then prompts rather broad,
Speaker 2: slow moving migration to the war industries. About huge percentage
Speaker 2: of Americans moved twenty percent move across state lines, many
Speaker 2: of them in nineteen forty two. So it's the creation
Speaker 2: of an industrial footing that would be the first thing
Speaker 2: that Americans saw as the start of the war on
Speaker 2: the West Coast. They also saw the internment of Japanese
Speaker 2: American citizens and Japanese neighbors, so hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 2: Japanese lost, lost their homes and were put into camps.
Speaker 2: By late spring nineteen forty two. The first action naval
Speaker 2: engagement is in late spring nineteen forty two, and the
Speaker 2: Americans do well, especially at Midway, which is kind of
Speaker 2: a miracle, and the Japanese, the Japanese aircraft carriers that
Speaker 2: had led the attack on Pearl Harbor are destroyed. And
Speaker 2: then there's a long drawn out battle on the Solomon Islands,
Speaker 2: on the tiny island of Guadalcanal, beginning in August nineteen
Speaker 2: forty two. That's the first real land combat, followed up
Speaker 2: very quickly by the Anglo American invasion of North Africa
Speaker 2: November nineteen forty two. So by the end of the
Speaker 2: year you have all sorts of new fronts that the
Speaker 2: Allies have opened up, but for the first six months
Speaker 2: not at all. And you saw the expansion in fact
Speaker 2: of the Japanese Empire, and you saw a very concerted
Speaker 2: German offensive in the spring of nineteen forty two, threatening
Speaker 2: the very existence of the Soviet Union, and the great
Speaker 2: fear in mid nineteen forty two in that summer was
Speaker 2: that the Japanese would link up with the Germans in
Speaker 2: the Middle East. Japanese coming in over the Indian Ocean
Speaker 2: side and the jet and the Germans by land across Libya,
Speaker 2: Egypt and from from Iraq and the North and the
Speaker 2: Middle East. That was the big worry in the summer
Speaker 2: of nineteen forty two. Did not necessarily it all looked
Speaker 2: like the Allies we're gonna We're going to pull this
Speaker 2: one out. So the first thing that American saw was preparation,
Speaker 2: was mobilization, was vigilance, and then the first battlefronts really
Speaker 2: begin to open up in the summer of nineteen forty two.
Speaker 1: I'm always been curious about this, and maybe we maybe
Speaker 1: we don't know still, but did the American military command
Speaker 1: at that point of the structure, or maybe the British,
Speaker 1: did they have had they made any contingency plans, Had
Speaker 1: they thought about, Okay, well, if we do get involved,
Speaker 1: let's start to think about what it is we're going
Speaker 1: to do. Or did all that planning happen after Pearl
Speaker 1: Harbor was attacked to the extent that we know the
Speaker 1: answer to that question.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not a military storing per se, but from
Speaker 2: what I understand, the Americans were committed to opening up
Speaker 2: a second front by invading Europe from the west with
Speaker 2: the British, and that was the thinking, and then that
Speaker 2: would be opened up in forty two, maybe nineteen forty three,
Speaker 2: And very quickly reality set in the Americans sobered up.
Speaker 2: The British convinced them that it was not going to
Speaker 2: be a forward attack on France in forty two or
Speaker 2: even nineteen forty three, and that more was to be
Speaker 2: gained through an invasion of North Africa, followed up by
Speaker 2: a controversial choice among the Allied commanders to go into
Speaker 2: Sicily and Italy, which was a long campaign. So a
Speaker 2: lot was done improvised in nineteen forty two, as capabilities
Speaker 2: were tested and found wanting, as the industrial footstep had
Speaker 2: to be prepared in a far bigger way than anyone anticipated.
Speaker 2: Through November nineteen October November nineteen forty two, you still
Speaker 2: have huge losses of Allied shipping, and only a few
Speaker 2: months after that does American shipbuilding really produce more than
Speaker 2: is lost, and then produce much more than is lost
Speaker 2: so that's late forty two forty three, So all these
Speaker 2: plans have to be slowed down, they have to become
Speaker 2: more modest. Plus there's the there is the commitment to
Speaker 2: fight Japan throughout the beginning of the conflict forty two
Speaker 2: forty three, So the plans become more modest, they become
Speaker 2: more long term, and that's also then reflected in changes
Speaker 2: in promotion and leadership at the top. So it takes
Speaker 2: a while for the Americans to get there, to get
Speaker 2: their game going, but by the end of nineteen forty
Speaker 2: two they've done so well.
Speaker 1: We're basically at time for the end of the interview.
Speaker 1: But I always ask the same question when I finish everyone.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we have talked about a tiny, tiny,
Speaker 1: tiny fraction of what's covered in this book, and it's
Speaker 1: an excellent book, and I hope everyone picks it up,
Speaker 1: and I think going to do obviously very very well.
Speaker 1: But I always want to ask the final question, which
Speaker 1: is is there anything else that you really really want
Speaker 1: people to know about the book or about the content
Speaker 1: of the book before we sign off.
Speaker 2: The contemporaries of World War two were worried about an
Speaker 2: endless war. They couldn't imagine. They saw that it was
Speaker 2: not ending. Hence, coming back to my father's image that
Speaker 2: war just begot war. One war led to another, You
Speaker 2: were handed from one war to the next, and that
Speaker 2: as you were successful successfully fighting on one front, you
Speaker 2: opened up another. You opened up inequalities of in terms
Speaker 2: of rights, whether it's of labor or minorities. You had
Speaker 2: to deal with the huge numbers of refugees, and so
Speaker 2: war seemed like an endless nightmare from which people felt
Speaker 2: that they would not emerge, And that to me seems
Speaker 2: much more relevant to the present day when we think
Speaker 2: what's going to happen in the next ten, twenty, thirty
Speaker 2: forty years around the globe, as human communities figure themselves
Speaker 2: out politically in terms of populism and nationalism, also in
Speaker 2: terms of climate change, in terms of migration patterns and movements.
Speaker 2: My fear is not World War World War III in
Speaker 2: terms of a nuclear bomb, although that atomic warfare, of
Speaker 2: course remains a threat. But what we also have to
Speaker 2: remember is the huge chaos and the dissonance behind the
Speaker 2: good war, behind the Allied struggle, and the sense of endlessness.
Speaker 2: One war after another, more and more refugees more and
Speaker 2: more civilians killed, more and more families broken apart. That's
Speaker 2: the world that people saw in nineteen forty two. They
Speaker 2: did not see nineteen forty five. And the soldiers kiss
Speaker 2: on times where and the end they saw endlessness would
Speaker 2: never end. They didn't think about the end of the world.
Speaker 2: They thought about the endlessness, endlessness of the war. And
Speaker 2: in that sense, nineteen forty two I think speaks to
Speaker 2: twenty forty two. What might be coming on the planet
Speaker 2: in this day.
Speaker 1: Well, and I do think there's a lot of parallels
Speaker 1: to think about right now. And of course we should
Speaker 1: remember at the end of World War Two, there were
Speaker 1: people who are agitating to, you know, keep those tanks
Speaker 1: going all the way from you know, the German Front.
Speaker 1: We'll just go all the way to Moscow, you know. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's always there, always going to
Speaker 1: be that element in American society. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: worth bearing that in mind as we face the challenges
Speaker 1: of today, to remember the horrors that we've gone through
Speaker 1: in the past. But as I mentioned, an excellent book,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's going to do very very well. And
Speaker 1: I really hope that everybody who's listening to this goes
Speaker 1: out right now and picks up a copy. As I'm
Speaker 1: going to remind you, you can click the link in
Speaker 1: the show notes and get one today if you would
Speaker 1: like to have it. Thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on the show, and I really hope that everything goes great.
Speaker 1: We can't wait for the next book. Mister Fritchie, it's
Speaker 1: been a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me and thank you for listening.
Speaker 2: Bye bye,