News on Screen

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 7th Year

Issue

Issue No.

9

Date Released

1942

Stories in this Issue:

• 1. America at War

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: In the Autumn of 1941 the U.S.A. was the last great power still at peace, and to many of the American people the war still seemed remote. But from the fateful seventh of December, when Hitler’s partner opened the Axis total war upon the United States, millions of U.S. citizens suddenly shed their too long cherished illusion that their nation’s historic responsibilities could be avoided, and became one people welded together in one purpose - victory over civilisation’s common enemies. So it had been once before. In 1914, as country after country marched to war in Europe, to many Americans the news seemed far off and unreal. It was not until the Germans commenced their campaign of frightfulness, and packs of U-boats were sinking, without trace, ship after ship in an all out effort to starve Britain into surrender, that U.S. citizens like Theodore Roosevelt began demanding intervention to uphold America’s traditional freedom of the seas.

No single disaster in half a century stirred American emotions more profoundly than the loss of the Lusitania. From Verdun came word of six hundred thousand casualties, and a million dead or wounded on the Somme, and the minds of free men began to be haunted by the horrible spectre of a German victory.
As the war dragged on mysterious fires and explosions broke out in American industrial plants making arms and munitions for England and France. A demand for national defence grew, and by 1916 peace-loving Woodrow Wilson was marching at the head of a "Preparedness Day Parade". When he was inaugurated for his second term, the nation was tense with expectation, for the U.S. flag had been all but driven from the seas by German submarines, and America’s freedom of the seas had ceased to exist. "Armed neutrality" the order which armed all U.S. merchant ships, failed to achieve any result, and in April, 1917, Woodrow Wilson called on Congress to declare war upon Imperial Germany. Overnight the nation became united, isolationists and interventionists throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the fight. By the spring of 1918 the nation had called nearly three million men to the colours, while another three million were at work in U.S. war industries, but it was not until a year after the declaration of war that America’s first million men were equipped and ready for service. In May, 1918, began the great overseas movement of troops.

Already the U.S. navy was working with the British fleet in an effort to rid the seas of German U-boats, for which task a new weapon was being used - the depth bomb. By the summer of 1918 American yards, working at top pressure, were launching more than a ship a day. On September 29th, 1918, came word that the Allies had finally broken through the German lines, and, as the German war machine began to disintegrate, there were rumours that the once mighty Germany was at last ready for an armistice. As 1918 came to an end the American people faced the future confident that the peace which had been won would endure. But twenty-four years later the U.S. is again engulfed in a World War, and finds her people once more ready to defend their way of life against the enemies of freedom.

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.8 No.5 of the US edition.

Keywords

Foreign relations; War and conflict

Written sources

The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.