The great radio commentator Edward R. Murrow announced soberly, “Berlin last night wasn’t a pretty sight. In about thirty-five minutes it was hit with about three times the amount of stuff that ever came down on London in a night-long blitz. This is a calculated, remorseless campaign of destruction.”305 He was reporting what he actually saw while accompanying a Lancaster four-engine bomber on a nighttime raid over the German capital.
The citizens of Berlin lived in the middle of this remorseless campaign for two years. Anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, and fighter aircraft provided a strong defense for the city, and, early on, inflicted heavy losses on the enemy formations daring to venture this deeply into Germany. Still, the bombers came, and the people of the city had to cope with the mounting destruction. After every raid, they did whatever they could to repair their homes and neighborhoods. One Berliner poignantly tried to explain what kept them going:
We repair because we must repair. Because we couldn’t live another day longer if one forbade us the repairing. If they destroy our living room, we move into the kitchen. If they knock the kitchen apart, we move over into the hallway. If only we can stay ‘at home.’ The smallest corner of ‘at home’ is better than any palace in some strange place.306
We can’t understand an “air war” or bombing campaign without considering the effects on all the human beings involved. Most of this month has been seen from the perspective of the airmen flying their hazardous missions. We must also remember that the destruction on the ground was even more horrendous. By understanding and remembering the suffering on both sides we are bound to more soberly consider how to resolve our present and future conflicts. War has always and will always exact a terrible price in human suffering.
David said to Solomon: “My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God. But this word of the Lord came to me: ‘You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight.’”
August
WAR ON THE HOME FRONT
As America witnessed the disappointing aftermath of World War I and struggled through the Great Depression of the 1930s, a strong isolationism gripped the nation. Even into 1941 public sentiment remained strong against involvement in the wars spreading over Europe and the Far East. This attitude changed completely and irrevocably when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. After President Franklin Roosevelt gave his famous speech to a joint session of Congress declaring December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” Congress voted unanimously, except for one vote, to approve a declaration of war. America entered the war with a complete unity of purpose.
The war effort soon touched every strata of the nation’s economic and social life. The military draft had the most obvious and profound effect. By the end of the war more than ten million men were inducted into the armed forces. The absence of these men affected families and businesses in many ways. Women not only had to take care of their households, but they also had to take over many essential jobs. To attract women into the industrial workforce, a campaign was launched featuring “Rosie the Riveter,” an attractive, patriotic, and efficient assembly line worker. Eventually, more than three million women worked in war production plants.307
The war consumed vast amounts of the country’s agricultural and industrial output. Production of automobiles, houses, and appliances almost came to a halt, as assembly lines were turned over to tanks, trucks, ships, and ammunition. The Ford Motor Company created the world’s largest assembly line in Willow Run, Michigan, where the production of B-24 Liberator bombers reached 428 per month.
Ship construction was revolutionized under the leadership of Henry J. Kaiser. Abandoning the traditional keel-up procedure, Kaiser introduced a modular construction method where sections of a new ship were constructed away from the final assembly site. These large sections were then brought together and welded into finished ships. By the end of the war, sixteen U.S. shipyards had delivered 2,580 Liberty ships, the largest production run of a single ship in history.308 Overall, the United States increased its shipbuilding capacity by more than 1,200 percent, producing 5,200 naval and cargo vessels during the war.
By 1944 the War Department was consuming 40 percent of the gross national product, and many commodities such as meat, sugar, butter, coffee, gasoline, tires, and clothing were being rationed to the civilian populace. Ration books were issued with colored stamps worth different point values. Items were displayed on store shelves with labels indicating their cost in cash and ration points. A customer could make a purchase if he had enough stamps and cash, if there was something on the shelf. Gasoline was probably the most critical item with most people receiving coupons for three gallons per week. To supplement food supplies, Victory Gardens sprang up everywhere, as individual families joined the effort to feed the nation.
In spite of the hardships of the war, and perhaps to some extent because of them, there was a remarkable unity across the country. The entertainment industry vigorously supported the troops and the government’s War Bond campaigns. Churches rallied behind the war effort, as nearly every American was convinced of the moral rightness of the Allied cause. More than ten thousand chaplains were provided to the armed forces and countless ministries were initiated to support the troops at home and overseas. The nation’s leaders and citizens prayed for the safety of their loved ones and for victory in the greatest struggle in history. Never before or after has America been so united.
August 1
During the darkest days of the war there was trouble in England’s coal mines. Workers were leaving the mines to enlist in the army. Many young men wanted to be fighting in the front lines, not digging coal out of the ground, and coal production was in jeopardy when the nation needed it most. Winston Churchill went to the mines to deliver a speech and to give the miners a vision of the future:
He pictured for them what would take place when the Nazis were beaten and the war was over. He said there would be a great parade honoring all who sacrificed for victory. First, there would be the Royal Navy sailors who had battled Hitler at sea. Then would come the Royal Air Force pilots who had fought the Luftwaffe in the skies. Then would come the Royal Army soldiers who had fought at Dunkirk. Last of all would come a long line of sweat-stained, soot-streaked men in miner’s caps. Someone would cry from the crowd, “Where were you during the dark days of our struggle?” And from ten thousand throats would come the answer, “We were deep in the earth, with our faces to the coal.”309
Churchill’s vision was powerful. With tear-streaked faces the miners went back to work with the firm belief that every piece of coal they brought out of the earth was vital to the survival of their nation. They knew that their work might be mundane and seem unglamorous, but that it was necessary to the larger cause. This story has been used many times to inspire others in addition to these miners. We know that, as Christians, our service to God can often take mundane forms. It was Jesus himself who washed the feet of his disciples. He did this to focus their attention, and ours, on service to other people. He might be telling us to keep “our faces to the needs of others,”
