To expand on Maha’s comments . . .

War, like politics, is the art of the possible. To the extent that Americans paid attention to international affairs, Japan was been the primary security concern of Americans from 1918 right up until the fall of France in 1940. European problems, as far as we were concerned, were supposed to solved by Europeans.

The growing threat of militarism around the world allowed Roosevelt to get past the isolationists and get a modern military under construction in the late 1930s. However the bills passed were for the design and construction of modern ships, for use mainly in the Pacific, and modern aircraft to defend our coastlines from enemy fleets–the Japanese were the only enemy with a real fleet. Most importantly, these were all machines, and all were to be delivered in the future. Roosevelt was able, at that time, to bypass the issues of manning all those ships and planes and creating a large army, which would have required a draft. The draft only came about in the fall of 1940, after Hitler had conquered all of western Europe. It was barely sustained the next year, in spite of the growing tension with Japan and the possibility of Hitler defeating the British and the Soviets.

When Europeans complain about American not intervening in the war earlier, or when conspiracy theorists claim that Roosevelt somehow invited/caused the Pearl Harbor debacle, they ignore this important point: not only did Americans not want a war, we had an obsolete navy and no army capable of fighting and winning one.

In the Pacific, our pre-war Navy proved just good enough to hold the Japanese and start a counter-attack in late 1942. Because the original re-armament plans emphasized building machines, a lot of new ships came into action in 1943 to carry the war effort against Japan (they were not needed in the Atlantic). More importantly, since the Pacific war was fought island to island, we did not need a large army to fight it!

While army generals did advocate a cross-channel invasion in 1942 in 1943, Roosevelt agreed with the British that invading western Europe would end in utter disaster until we built an army and air force big enough and experienced enough to defeat what army and air force the Germans could mass against it. From 1941 to 1944 the Germans fielded an army of 300 divisions. In 1941 we had no divisions modern enough to fight them.

In 1942, we were able to muster about 10 trained divisions and sent some of them into North Africa to knock Vichy France out of the war and remove the German threat to the Middle-east. In 1943, we had about 20 divisions to commit in Europe and used them in a limited campaign to take Italy out of the war, forcing the Germans to shift entire armies from the Russian front to cover their southern flank. By 1944, we had spent two years grinding down the German air force–with those planes first ordered back in the late 1930s–and sent an American army of 50 divisions across the English Channel along with some 30 divisions of our European allies. This army and air force proved barely enough to defeat the Germans in France and hold the line on the German border against a major counterattack (the Battle of the Bulge) late in the year.

It wasn’t until 1945, four years into the war, that the United States had an army large enough to sweep across central Europe and help the Soviets overrun the Third Reich. Not a question of willingness, just simply military math. You have to have enough bodies to cover the ground.

Of course, this is also a topic that doesn’t turn up much in documentaries. If it did, not as many Americans would have been gulled into thinking we could overrun and rebuild Iraq with an army of five or so divisions. Simple military math, expressed by many generals who were ignored by many reporters and politicians.

The only answer is that Ken Burns should be driven from the screen until he recants. In the meantime, NPR should broadcast continuous reruns of “300″ for the viewing pleasure of Professor Kaye and his friends.

marshen, My father was also a pilot during the invasion, and in France after the invasion (not shot down, thankfully). I really think that, although our fathers didn’t talk much about their experiences, there is something about their attitudes that we inherited.

Absolutely, I agree. Thanks for your comment.

RonD @ 14

There is another lack-of-context problem with “The War” as well. A year or so ago, while observing the teaching of a HS History “WW2″ chapter, I became aware of a recurring problem with the teaching of the war: WW2 ed for US HS students tends to condense down to 4 things: Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Hiroshima, & the Holocaust. All important, no doubt-but so lacking as to be almost misleading. Barbarossa. Dunkirk. The Blitz. Stalingrad. North Africa. Leningrad. Market Garden. Anzio. Dresden. Berlin. All missing. I felt the same way about “The War”-being a huge fan of Burns’ other work, I was very disappointed, in spite of the incredible footage, to see a work of such limited scope.

Hi Demi.

Hi RonD.
May I summit a (nother) personal note here?
My husband and I watched The War. We’ve both lost our fathers, his 2 years ago, mine 2 months ago) and we shared with each other what our pops told us about the war. Neither of them wanted to share the gore, the realities. It seems they both wanted to go with a editied, romantized version of the hell they endured.
I wonder if, since Burns and his co-producer, they while interviewing the vets they gained Some Of That.
And, what is going to be told of the war that we are engaged in now?

My personal note:
My father fought in the war as well. He was a tail gunner in a Flying Fortress and was shot down over France. He spent the rest of his war time with the French resistence fighters who found/captured him after he was rescued by a French farmer. They forced him to execute a Nazi soldier to prove he was on their side. It was kill or be killed. This is the full extent of what my father ever told me about his war experience. He passed away last November. After watching “War.” now I know why veterans don’t want to talk about it much. I remember being small and watching my Uncle Bil have psychotic rages (PTS syndrome) and describing war scenes and talking to his buddies that were dying on the battlefield “that day.” My Aunt would just yell at him and say, “Bill, the war is over, the war is over.” This was in the 1960’s.
I’ve sent numerous care packages to soldiers fighting in Iraq and e-mail penpal with them back and forth. I have never been able to get any of them to tell me of their war experiences. So now I just don’t ask anymore, I know why they are hesitant to speak.

FYI, U.S. troops landed in Italy in 1943.

The reason the Pacific War took off sooner is that we were already a military presence in the Pacific before the war, and we were attacked in the Pacific. (Even then, it took more than six months after Pearl Harbor before the U.S. began to push back the Japanese, at Midway.) We did not already have armies in place in Europe, however.

In 1942 U.S. troops landed in North Africa and had their asses handed to them by General Rommel; we were not ready for a land war then. There was no big conspiracy. We didn’t invade Normandy sooner because we weren’t ready.

Actually, THAT’s a little too easy. He’s Ken frickin’ Burns because he’s done good work. I appreciated that Burns simply allowed some of the veterans just to tell their stories – the veterans were so silent and stoic about their service, and their stories needed to be heard. There was certainly a lot missing from a full understanding of the war – there is so much to the war and to the the time: WWI’s affect on Germany, the Bolshevik revolution the history of European socialism, the Spanish Civil War, the RAF, the …. There are so many things. But there’s really no one documentary that can include everything unless it is just a laundry list. If I agree with any of the above comments, its the one where the commenter complained that the work was unfocused. I agree with that, but it’s a wonderful resource and with context built around the narratives of the veterans. When the definitive WWII documentary comes out, let me know what it is (and, yes, I saw the World at War, made in the ’70’s, and it is excellent, but it lacks the American veterans’ narratives, which is what the point of this documentary was.

The only heavy political theme throughout both films is the fact that governments involved in these wars never tell the truth to the public about what is actually happening over the course of a war. The regime will always tell its people things are going much better than they really are. Does this ring any bells? This was Burns real message his critics seem to miss. That and war is so horrific that it should never be raged unless there is absolutely no other solution. Just because Burns makes a film on a certain subject does’nt mean it is the last film ever on such subject. This attitude that Burns should include every last person and every last event is giving him way too much credit as a filmaker. He is not necessarily the end all of documentry filmaking.