Today marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of World War II. On September 1, 1939 the Germans invaded Poland. France and the United Kingdom declared war against Germany; Germany proceeded to invade its neighbors ultimately conquering and occupying France in 1940. The Italians had invaded Ethiopia long since in 1935; Japan had invaded China in 1937. Today is actually the anniversary of the beginning of the war in Europe.
World War II is now nearly as distant as the American Civil War when I was a kid. Now as then a few doddering, ancient veterans of that war remain but it’s in the distant past. In a very real sense it’s even more distant since so few young people today know much history. For most people nothing of any significance happened before they were born and precious little since.
Most of what we know or think we know comes from motion pictures made during the war and those promote a number of misconceptions. Chief among them is that the war began in 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor which is when it began for us. The second misconception is that, watching old war movies, you look at them with the knowledge of what would actually happen. Those living at the time did not. The Germans had gone through the armies of Europe like paper; the Japanese had done much same thing in Asia. They were formidable opponents—the greatest military organizations the world had known up to that time.
Another misconception is with the age of the soldiers. The average age of an American soldier at the end of World War II was 25. John Wayne was in his mid-30s in 1941 when the war began for the United States. Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable were both over 40. That experienced middle-aged sergeant in the war movies? He was actually in his 20s. Our generals were, in fact, old men. MacArther was over 60; George Patton nearly as old; Dwight Eisenhower was over 50. They were all veterans of World War I. I wouldn’t be surprised if World War II saw the oldest general officer corps in our history. I wonder if it’s been studied?
Yet another misconception is the role of the Russians. They think they won the “Great Patriotic War” and we just stood around holding their coats while they fought. They’re not entirely wrong.
The one thing the movies get right is that we are right to be proud of our accomplishments during the war. I wonder if the people of today can understand that?
Cant find any data on age of generals, but it seems like it is possible that the Korean War might rival WW2 since a number of the general officers from WW2 were held over.
“I wonder if the people of today can understand that?”
We work with a somewhat select group, but I can tell you that most of the kids on our speech and debate team have pretty good grasp on WW2, though it is pretty US centric. At the age of 17 I am OK with that as I dont expect them to be scholars at that age. (On the other hand, they are generally very poorly informed on the Korean War and Vietnam.)
Steve
I think you’re dealing with a rarified group. There have been any number of studies. 2/3s of Millennials don’t know what Auschwitz was and are unaware that the Germans killed 6 million Jews. They don’t know that the Soviet Union was Germany’s ally at the beginning of the war. They don’t know of the atrocities that Japan perpetrated in China and that it occupied Singapore. They don’t know that Australia was bombed by the Japanese during the war.
It’s even worse in Britain. Most British Millennials don’t know who was PM at the beginning of the war.
The time before one’s grandfather/grandmother is ancient history. Napoleon and his knights were marching across Europe long before the American Revolution, and the fall of the Rome Empire was a few hundred years earlier.
Many years ago, I was at one of the Cherokee tourist attractions around Gatlinburg, Tenn., and everything was about the time after the Europeans arrived. I must have been the first person to ask what the Cherokees used for trade before glass beads, and it was like I had dropped my trousers and taken a dump in the middle of the place.
They used shell beads. In Algonquian they were called “wampum” and have been a medium of exchange for thousands of years. Actually, even before Columbus there were some glass and faience beads going back 5,000 years. They were, as you might imagine, quite rare and valuable.