Arsenal of Democracy: The United States in WWII

World War II was the most devastating war in history, fought around the world from 1939 to 1945. Victory in warfare on this scale required millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and factories for ships, planes, tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and ammunition. Factories and shipyards around the country met the challenge. In Willow Run outside Detroit, the Ford Motor Company built a factory for the B-29 bomber that was a mile long. Henry Kaiser built shipyards that produced almost 4,000 Liberty Ships to transport war material —around the world, across the North Atlantic, and across the Pacific from the West Coast to Australia. With millions of men in the services, women worked on a vast scale in the factories and shipyards across the country.

The United States was not only an arsenal for itself; it also supplied its allies—Britain, Russia and France—with the war equipment they needed. By the end of the war, the United States had the largest economy in the world.

Kurt Schlichting, Ph.D., is the E. Gerald Corrigan ’63 chair in humanities and social sciences emeritus at Fairfield University. Kurt served as the dean and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and he is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. His academic research leads the field of historic geographical information system, HGIS, which he used to study the Irish in Newport. He has lectured for the Newport Museum of Irish History and presented at academic conferences in the United States and abroad. Kurt was a visiting fellow at the Moore Research Institute, National University Ireland, Galway.