During the 4 years of World War 2, which started for America with the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and ended with the Surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, the U.S. produced 22 aircraft carriers, 8 battleships, 48 cruisers, 349 destroyers, 420 destroyer escorts, 203 submarines, 34 million tons of merchant ships, 100,000 fighter aircraft, 98,000 bombers, 24,000 transport aircraft, 58,000 training aircraft, 93,000 tanks, 257,000 artillery pieces, 105,000 mortars, 3,000,000 machine guns, and 2,500,000 military trucks. Whole graduating classes of young men enlisted in the armed forces. Women took the place of men on the assembly lines. The entire nation was devoted to saving the world from dictators. At home, civilians were put on strict rationing of everything—there was no sugar and coffee, limited gasoline and no new tires. (I think that created the invention of the “recap” where old tires were molded with new treads – something nobody knows of today). Yet there were few complaints. “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” was the answer to any question.
We put 16.1 million American boys in uniform in the various armed services. We invaded Africa, invaded Sicily and Italy, won the battle for the Atlantic, planned and executed D-Day, marched across the Pacific and Europe, developed the atomic bomb and ultimately brought about unconditional surrender from Japan and Germany. And we only took enough land from the countries America saved to bury our dead soldiers.
On September 11, 2001 terrorists destroyed the Twin Trade Towers in NYC and killed 3,000 Americans. It took ten years to replace those two buildings with one building. Today Congress, even with both houses and the presidency controlled by the Republicans, can’t pass any bills, and our young people have to have a “safe place” to hide because they are so scared of Donald Trump. If some country attacked us now, as Japan did in 1941, we’d have to surrender because no young people would fight. When America was backed into a corner in 1941 we became a tiger – now we are a nation of pussy cats.
I have read them all and highly recommend them Once you start reading you won’t stop until you have finished the last sentence. I am ready for the next set of adventures John.
Jackie Rush