By:  Cody Givens, Ryan Bigelow, Kati Stuchlik,  and Kevin Alverson

Few wars in U.S. history have been as glorified as WWII. The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese and the clear cut moral imperative of fighting fascist powers, have been central in establishing an aura of “goodness” around the ugliness of warfare.  Unlike World War I, the goals and reasons for involvement in World War II were cut and dry; the United States was brutally attacked by the Japanese on our own soil without provocation. 

We are all familiar with the images of World War II-- brutal images of the Holocaust, the mushroom cloud that lingered over Hiroshima after Truman called for the dropping of the world’s first atomic bomb, that famous picture of Macarthur leading troops ashore on the beaches of Normandy, or unnerving footage of Hitler rousting his Nazis with a powerful speech, his fist clenched and his little mustache quivering.  These commonly understood facts and images accompany a general knowledge of the war.  What are removed from this are the smaller stories, personal triumphs and struggles of race, gender and religion, both at home and abroad.  These stories help both shape the idea of the “good war” and allow us to question the notion of humanitarianism as it relates to a war so accepted.

It is said that for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction, this holds true for war, no matter the reasons for the fight.  As a class we attempted to compile a list of everything we knew about war in the United States and their corresponding peace movements.  What was created was a lopsided list that was more than a little heavy on the war side and lacking in the peace column.  Whether our substantial knowledge about war and our meager understanding of peace is a product of our society or just our educational system can be debated somewhere else, but it was evident that we needed to expand our knowledge of war in its entirety rather that just knowing who won and how. 

A brief overview of the period surrounding the Second World War yields a multitude of patriotic sentiments in the form of propaganda, organizations and literature among other things.  Though it seemed that the whole of the United States was behind the war effort there were those who abstained from involvement; it is these men and women who are particularly intriguing.  Why would individuals object to U.S. involvement in a war that was for their homeland’s defense and the ending of genocide?  Our initial research sought to answer this question.  As we perused countless books, articles and websites devoted to chronicling the various components of the “good” war, we were bombarded by names, organizations and movements associated with World War II that we had never heard of.  We chose specific topics that we personally had no knowledge of and decided to educate ourselves.  As our research expanded, we formulated other questions that we wanted to answer.  Was the dropping of the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki racially motivated?  Who were the men and women who chose pacifism and objected to the war.  In what ways did the prolific propaganda campaign mirror the social and racial attitudes of the 1940s?  What motivated men to choose conscientious objection over involvement in war and what role did religion play in their decision? 

We hope that the essays provided within this website broaden your understanding of World War II as the research we have done has broaden our own of knowledge regarding the "good" war.