How America Saved the World: The Untold Story of U.S. Preparedness Between the World Wars

by Eric Hammel

In 1932, less than fifteen years after proving itself a world power in the Great War, the United States could muster its entire active duty army in Chicago’s Soldier Field with room to spare.And yet, within months of the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States had once again emerged as the mightiest--and best armed--fighting force in the world.However remarkable it seems, this unprecedented turnaround was not the miracle many have declared it to be.In this book acclaimed military historian Eric Hammel uncovers the facts behind this powerful re-awakening to finally give a full account of how America so suddenly and “miraculously” became World War II’s “Arsenal of Democracy.” The story begins with decline of the American military after World War I.Hammel then turns his focus to a pivotal “aircraft meeting” of November 1938.Here we see how the decision to put the nation’s prodigious resources into rearming was in fact made well before Pearl Harbor. How America Saved the World documents the workings of the remarkable alliance of government, industry, and military community behind the United State’s orderly transformation into an invincible military power.The result is the first detailed picture of a vast human endeavor, conceived and overseen by the best minds in the nation--an accomplishment unparalleled in the conduct of war.

Genres: History

400 pages, Hardcover

First published April 13, 2009

About the author

Eric Hammel was born in 1946, in Salem, Massachusetts, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in January 1964 and earned a degree in Journalism from Temple University in 1972. His road to writing military history began at age twelve, when he was stuck in bed for a week with a childhood illness. Eric's father bought him the first paperback book he ever owned, Walter Lord's Day of Infamy. As he devoured the book, Eric realized that he wanted to write books exactly like it, what we now call popular narrative history. Lord had pieced together the book from official records illuminated with the recollections of people who were there. Eric began to write his first military history book when he was fifteen. The book eventually turned out to be Guadalcanal: Starvation Island. Eric completed the first draft before he graduated from high school. During his first year of college, Eric wrote the first draft of Munda Trail, and got started on 76 Hours when he was a college junior. Then Eric got married and went to work, which left him no time to pursue his writing except as a journalism student.

Eric quit school at the end of his junior year and went to work in advertising in 1970. Eric completed his journalism degree in 1972, moved to California in 1975, and finally got back to writing while he operated his own one-man ad agency and started on a family. 76 Hours was published in 1980, and Chosin followed in 1982. At the end of 1983 Eric was offered enough of an advance to write The Root: The Marines in Beirut to take up writing books full time. The rest, as they say, is history.

Eric eventually published under his own imprint, Pacifica Press, which morphed into Pacifica Military History and IPS Books. At some point in the late 1990s, Eric realized he had not written in five years, so he pretty much closed down the publishing operation and pieced together a string of pictorial combat histories for Zenith Press. Eric nominally retired in 2008 and took up writing as a full-time hobby writing two novels, 'Til The Last Bugle Call and Love and Grace. Fast forward to 2018 and Eric was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and on August 25th 2020, Eric passed from this life to the next at the age of 74.

Reviews

[Kevin Browne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was about how the US marshaled its industrial might to prepare for WW2. In fact, this is a study of the organizational and political challenges the country had to overcome after two decades of inattention and a decade of Depression. Mr Hammel is at his most effective in describing the depths of our unpreparedness for war. Anyone who has read much history of the period knows that the US Army was very small (17th largest in the world), but Hammel points out the real world impact of those staffing levels. For example, when FDR and Churchill did the "destroyers for bases" deal in 1940, there were no troops or planes available to defend most those newly leased territories! He discusses the harsh limits of US power, and the delicate "fight now vs fight later" trade-offs the services had to make. While the draft swelled the rolls of the services, actually providing them with guns, tanks and planes to train with took time. And, supplying Britain with Lend Lease planes and trucks to help them stay in the fight meant that the new divisions and air wings had to do without. The story provides very good answer to the question of why so many American divisions were not ready to fight until 1943 or beyond.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history of how the USA downsized its military forces and entered a period of isolationism following World War I. The book examines how America starting preparing to enter a war again during the Great Depression in light of events in Europe and Asia. The appendix contains a list of active Army, Navy, and National Guard units at the outbreak of World War II. A good concise military history of the period between the two World Wars.