When Books Went to War Read Online Free PDF Page A

“haves,” while deeming Germany a bullied “have-not.” Yet he was not simply motivated by revenge for Germany’s defeat in World War I. He had a vision. “Two worlds are in conflict, two philosophies of life,” and “one of these worlds must crack,” he said. With an army of only 174,000 men (as of 1939), the United States was in fact vulnerable. Popular or not, conscription was necessary. As Congress worked on legislation during the summer of 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt reminded the nation time and again that conscription, no matter how despised, was essential to adequate defense.
    In September 1940, Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act. Under this legislation, approximately 16.5 million men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five were required to register for military service (later amendments extended this age group to eighteen to fifty). On October 16, 1940, brothers, husbands, sons, boyfriends, uncles, friends, and neighbors turned out in droves to registration centers that had sprouted across the United States. Although there was concern that a contingent of isolationists and pacifists might threaten the process, the day passed surprisingly smoothly. In New York City, where 991,000 men registered for military service, only two arrests were reported; one transpired when two men broke into a fight over who should register first, and the other involved a man who spent several hours preparing himself for registration in a saloon.Election Day was less than one week away, and some thought the timing of the draft would cost Roosevelt another term, but it did not. Not only did Roosevelt take the unprecedented step of conducting the first peacetime draft in American history, but within a week of doing so he won an unparalleled third term as president.
    In order to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of civilians called into service, the U.S. Army planned to construct and furnish forty-six new training facilities. However, because federal funding was not approved until the fall of 1940, the Army was in the unique position of having to conscript men and train them while also acquiring basic supplies and building the very camps needed for the conscripts and the training. The scope of the job was monumental. As one historian noted, “Land had to be cleared, hills leveled, valleys filled, trees uprooted, roads surfaced, and drainage systems installed before the construction of barracks, laundries, officers’ quarters, and rifle ranges could begin.” It was estimated that construction of the camps would require 400,000 laborers, 908,000 gallons of paint, 3,500 carloads of nails, and 10 million square feet of wallboard.
    The timing of conscription first and camp construction second was disastrous for morale. The first men assigned to the new camp areas could hardly believe the extent of the military’s unpreparedness. They were greeted by great stretches of barren land. Although workers feverishly built heated barracks, in many camps there was inadequate shelter, which was especially distressing to those who were drafted into service during the coldest time of year. Winterized squad tents were provided before there were barracks, with six or more enlistees to a tent. Each night, surrounded by strangers, the men were blanketed by numbing cold and lulled to sleep by the howl of the wind. Homesickness ran rampant.
    It was not just the new camps that were deficient. Even facilities created during World War I proved unready. One man assigned to Fort McClellan in Alabama (which had been used as an infantry training camp in 1917) described the place as a “hell hole,” and elaborated that it was “dirty, stinking, [and] muddy.” Every aspect of the camp was makeshift and unfinished. All men initially slept in sixteen-by-sixteen-foot tents with six to eight of their fellow soldiers. A single stove was used to heat each group, but sparks