McNair Paper Number 50, Chapter 10, August 1996

Great as the output was, the United States war effort did not absorb more than 40 percent of the gross national product, which grew 50 percent in constant dollars between 1939 and 1944. The United States devoted a smaller percentage of its gross national product to the war than any other major belligerent. There was also a major effort during the war to improve the lot of the population whenever possible. Automobile production was stopped and tires and gasoline were rationed, but consumers could be compensated with soft goods and services. The War Production Board thought that the American people during the war were "subjected to inconvenience, rather than sacrifice. (Note 1) By comparison to the situation facing civilians in all other nations at war, it would be hard to argue with that assertion. At the height of the war the government spent $94 billion, and of that $81.6 billion-87 percent-was war spending. The budget was 80 times greater than in 1939, 54 times 1940 and 14 times 1941. But the budget expansion was such that civilians truly did not suffer because of the war, and when one considers that unemployment had all but disappeared and what joblessness remained was usually only temporary, the home front prospered. In terms of calories, people were generally fed better than they had been before the war, and they consumed more meat, shoes, clothing and energy. (Note 2)

Population is always a country's greatest resource, and in a major mobilization like that of World War II, usually its greatest hinderance. The United Kingdom suffered a severe people crunch; its population was the smallest of the major belligerents. Germany and the Soviet Union found themselves severely limited, too, in terms of productive population. The United States was also limited in terms of manpower, although its population was larger than all the belligerents (including the Soviet Union soon after the German attack in June 1941), except for China, and its losses were much smaller than all the major adversaries who remained in the war.

The American manpower problem was exacerbated by the number of agencies involved in allocating this crucial resource. The War Manpower Commission was created by Executive Order by the president on 18 April 1942 as a policymaking agency, but the Selective Service System, which drafted more than 10,000,000 people, was completely independent of the War Manpower Commission. In January 1943, the War Manpower Commission lost control over the agricultural labor supply to the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Civil Service Commission recruited independently for the vastly increased responsibilities of the federal government. In time, railroad workers and sailors in the merchant marine were also independent of the War Manpower Commission's authority, and of course all of these agencies were independent of each other. Although the War Manpower Commission tried to establish policy on draft deferments, the 6,500 separate draft boards were independent in their actions, reporting to the Selective Service and not to the War Manpower Commission.

When the manpower situation became desperate in 1943 and 1944, with superfluous people in selected industries or on farms clinging to draft deferments, it took the power of the Office of War Mobilization to solve the dilemma. There was, for example, an urgent manpower problem on the West Coast, where much of the United States shipbuilding and airplane manufacturing were located. By June 1943, one-third of the shipbuilding yards on the West Coast were behind schedule, and there was a shortage of workers in every production center. It took about a year for the Office of War Mobilization to implement a policy restricting the freedom of workers to move where they wanted to take advantage of better wages or working conditions, and to moderate the rights of employers to hire whomever they wanted whenever they wanted. The division of responsibility for making manpower decisions harmed the war effort, and only when Byrnes was put on the top of the apparatus, could problems be solved. (Note 3)

The manpower demand was relentless. In mid-1945 U.S. Armed Forces included more than 12 million people; of these, more than 98 percent were men. However, during the war, the United States had mobilized more than 16 million for the military. More than 400,000 died or were missing in action, several times that number were wounded (and many of that total were invalided out), and a great number were discharged before the war ended for a variety of reasons. To reach the number that served, about 45 million men were registered for the draft, and 31 million of these were found physically and mentally qualified. About 10 million were drafted, with many additional millions being allowed to enlist. Voluntary enlistments, where one chose the service one wished to join, stopped in 1943 (although one could apply and be accepted to the officer accession programs). As we saw above, the Armed Forces ran out of men before the war ended, with the last tactical units in the Army going overseas in February 1945. It would be hard to argue with Jerome Peppers, who states, "We used our manpower unwisely and could have been in serious manning problems in war production and military service had the war not gone so well for us. Fortunately . . . the war ended before our unwise manpower . . . policies could return to bite us . . . we really had no effective plan for the full scale manpower mobilization which was required. (Note 4)

There were many draft deferments for individuals in both agriculture and "essential" war industries. Many others had deferments too: civil servants, hardship cases, religious officials, aliens, conscientious objectors, handicapped people, etc. Too many men had deferments when the crunch came in 1943 and 1944, but when the War Manpower Commission on 1 February 1943 issued a list of "nondeferable" occupations and called on draft boards to reclassify such people as category 1-A, the draft boards refused to obey. The Commission, demonstrating its impotence, withdrew the order in December that year. Byrnes was more effective; in December 1944 he issued what came to be known as his "Work or Fight Order" to use the Selective Service System to drive men either into essential jobs that were unpopular or into the service. Byrnes wanted to call into the services men under age 38 who left essential industries, or who changed jobs in a necessary industry without the authority of the local draft board. He got his way, but few men were affected-fewer than 50,000-probably because the threat of such a possibility kept people working where the government needed them. Some men who refused to work where needed ended up in special Army labor camps doing needed work but under punitive conditions. Such frankly threatening measures were not terribly effective. From late 1943 until the end of the war, Byrnes called for national service legislation. Roosevelt included an appeal for such laws in his state of the union addresses in 1944 and 1945, and Byrnes tried to work his magic on the Congress, but to no avail; such legislation never passed. (Note 5)

One example of the Congress frustrating the president and his "assistant president," is the fight to draft superfluous farm workers. In November 1942, Congress amended the Selective Service Act to defer essential farm workers unless satisfactory replacement workers could be found. Local draft boards interpreted this to mean a "virtual universal deferment for agricultural workers." By 1944 this practice reached "scandal" proportions. Men were needed as warriors and certain industries were crying for men, but some industrial workers "trying to avoid the draft were transferring to agricultural work for refuge, while agricultural workers could not be persuaded to turn to the higher remuneration of industrial work for fear of losing deferred status." The farm bloc in Congress opposed any change to this situation. By January 1945 the only remaining pool of men in the right age category were the 364,000 people holding agricultural deferments. Byrnes appealed to Roosevelt, who authorized reclassification of farm workers. The Congress passed a bill in both houses to amend the selective service legislation to defer all registrants engaged in agriculture. This bill was vetoed by President Truman only days before V-E Day. (Note 6)