I asked this question eight months ago here and received no answer. This seems to be a good chance to try again. My question mainly focuses on the post-WWI situation, so this may be considered a bit off-topic, but I do hope it is relevant enough to be posted here.

The question is about disabled British officers:

I have come across quite a lot of works about life of permanently injured soldiers after they returned from the WWI. However, most of them are focused heavily on the rankers, and those that touch upon officers tend to only discuss those facing economic difficulties resulting from their disability.

What I want to learn about is the situation faced by upper class officers with an independent income--those who faced no financial conundrum, but at the same time were normally expected to take part in a considerable amount of social activities. From what I read, it seems that ableism was a far more serious and pervasive issue back then. How did it affect the interaction between maimed officers and the world? For those who lost one or more limbs or eyesight during the war, were they considered heroes by the society and thus well received by their social peers? Or were they subtly shunned due to their physical disability and/or deformity (and possibly the ineligibility as a mate for women of equal social status)? I guess the reality is probably a mix of the two. I would very much like to have someone to elaborate this topic for me and point me to some related writings.

Edit: 2 words

I asked a WWI question a while back with no luck: how did Australians, Canadians and other members of the Commonwealth feel about being sent to fight a far off European war? Did they remember the wartime conscription debates differently after the war?

Throughout the United States there are huge factories, barracks, mines, airfields and shipyards built in small towns. These employed hundreds of people during WW2 in towns that only had a couple hundred people to begin with.

How did these small towns deal with the rapid growth? What happened to these towns when the industries shut down after WW2?

For everyone: I have a student who is doing a research project on this exact subject. More specifically, she is comparing the difference between America and Germany at the beginning of the war and then at the end. What are some good books that I can point her towards to help her out? She is an 8th grader.

Edit: Should've been more specific, sorry. WWII

The general view was that WWII was about the Nazis but that surely wouldn't have been as big a concern to forces outside Europe (e.g. China, Japan). What was WWII about on those fronts?

Saying that World War II is too eurocentric is probably a bit much, especially since a major part of the war occurred in Europe. Countries naturally focus more on things that directly relate to their own histories when constructing their historical narrative, especially in broad ranging history classes. For example, education in Japan certainly focuses more on the Pacific theater than Europe.

But no doubt, the war outside of Europe was certainly as important for, if no one else, the people who lived outside Europe.

World War II for Japan was ostensibly for several reasons but can reasonably summed up as colonial aspirations and imperial needs, which they saw as no different from any other imperial power.

The plot to seize Manchuria can be said to be a 'rogue' plot, in that it wasn't what most of the Japanese government desired nor planned for.

It was set in motion by military officials with the support of industrialists and some very militant imperialists (this is, in many ways, a poor title since imperialists is so vague a term but I digress).

The ideas behind seizing Manchuria were that Japan was experiencing overpopulation and needed the land to settle. The idea that Japan would be able to exploit the natural resources better because they had a more efficient economic and industrial system, to the benefit of all. That the Japanese, through development for their own uses, would also increase the infrastructure, prosperity, and lives of their colonial people. And, more ideologically, if they were going to be colonized anyway, better to be under the more closely related, more culturally & spiritually understanding, and benevolent Japanese than European imperialists (a version of Pan-Asianism, which first championed by Sun Yat Sen, hero of the modern Chinese state and 1911 revolution).

This kind of thinking was how the Japanese, by and large, military or civilian, government or private, viewed the war.

But by the time hostilities were in full swing, the government had little choice but to commit to seizing Manchuria. After that, momentum pulled much of Japan along and they were at war with China. This is not to say that there was not support for the war.

The conflicts in China was presented in many ways to the public but the citizens of Japan saw it as no worse than any other wars of colonial conquest that they heard about in the news. They certainly never heard of the atrocities being committed.

But the war took a totally new dimension when war was declared against the US. Very few people had any illusions about the relative power between Japan, a rising imperial star yes but still a fledgling, and the US, a powerhouse in the Pacific and a established global power.

People became aware that it was going to be a rough time and as the war went on, it became a war about survival. By the end, because of the severity of the air campaign and blockade, for many of Japan's citizens, the greater view of the war was not as important as their own personal war to simply survive.

How China viewed the war can be seen in how they named the war. 八年抗戰 Literally, the Eight Years of Resistance War.

China was still embroiled in political and civil strife, with rising Communist factions squaring off against the nationalist forces that inherited the country from their 1911 revolutionary forefathers. Warlords and independent military factions controlled vast swathes of land that the central government could not fight so they made deals with them instead to hold on to some semblance of control.

It was at this time that the Japanese invaded.

The Chinese knew they were in no state to completely defeat the Japanese. The Japanese offensive was swift and decisive, soon taking much of the key areas on the east coast, from huge swathes of land bordering Manchuria, all the way down to Guangzhou in the south.

Because of the disarray of Chinese forces compared to the efficient and uniform operations of the Japanese, Chinese forces were heavily pressed on all fronts. Chinese units that greatly outnumbered Japanese forces were regularly routed or totally wiped out because they were operationally isolated. That is to say, they were under supplied, often out of contact with HQ and nearby friendly elements, and were pretty much often on their own with vague orders.

They also quite early in the war lost very important coal mines, oil fields, industrial areas, key cities that held the majority of the urban populations, the capitol, dear god the ports, etc. All key things for keeping a nation fed and well lubricated in resources, industrial goods, weapons, and money.

It was quite aptly named the war of resistance.

I would like to settle a drunken argument I had with some from friends on a long drive a couple years back; actually, I was the only drunk one. They foresaw that being drunk in a car for 4 hours would be more miserable than not miserable.

The argument was as follows...

I said that in America, life went on more or less as usual during the war. Sure, there were ads for war bonds and maybe an aunt of yours worked in a factory instead of staying at home now. Some things became more expensive and stuff like aluminum and rubber, essential items, were harder to come by (or not. I don't know. That's why I'm asking you) People had their victory gardens and their war update films in the theater. But, the daily life for the average American changed very little did it not? There was no rationing like there was in England, air raids like in most of the rest of the allied nations were more than just drills. We went about our business. Is this more or less true or were my friends right in saying that it was total war and that every aspect of life had changed and that every man woman and child was essentially drafted into the war effort (for reals) in a complete and total existential fight for life?

While reading John Keegan's books on World War One and Two I've come across passages which I'll paraphrase here. They concern primarily Italy and France but any insight that can be offered from the other experts is appreciated.

[France]: In World War One the urban populations had remained in their factories while the rural populations bled and died on the fields of battle. A decision was made that this could not come to pass again, and the burden of war deaths would need to be shared equally.

[Italy]: In the First World War the men of the Po Valley and Piedmontese worked in their factories, in jobs deemed vital to the war effort. Therefore the casualties and conscription fell disproportionately on the Neapolitan and Sicilian South, who served under Piedmontese officers who expected little of them and got little in return.

Again, both quotes are heavily paraphrased by the jist of them is this - during World War One the war casualties fell heavily on the rural populations, while the urban populations simply continued to work in factories to support the war effort. In the case of France, this was seen as problematic and the implication is because of demographic reasons - the urban populations may have had more communist, less conservative leanings, and the army didn't want to see any more political power shift to the cities by fact of all of the rural voters dying in battle.

I'm just wondering to what extent this actually existed - where rural populations were disproportionately those who were sent off to war, and therefore those who died in the war. Was an effort to be more equitable in conscription during World War 2 one of the factors in why France lost the war? Any other insights on the matter are also appreciated.

Primarily directed at /u/donaldfdraper but others are free to chime in with insight on their own countries, or from Italy as I see there is no Italian expert.

1. In the U.S., what kinds of support networks were available to, or developed by, families of soldiers of color?

2. How did women's movement into the industrialized workforce affect, both long-term and on a day-to-day interaction basis, relations between women of color and white women? Especially if we follow the typical line that poor women, especially black women, had "always" been working outside their own homes, including as domestic servants for richer white women? Can we trace any longish-term implications for the way second-wave feminism developed?

How desperate was Japan's supply situation in the Second Sino-Japanese War? Additionally, is there a good estimate of how many people lived under the Japanese occupation in China?

How much of gdp of countries was spent on the war effort? compared between WW1 and WW2?

I have often heard about how America's mobilization of the women workforce was a major reason for it's huge production during WW2 and about how Japan and Germany did not integrate women into their workforces until too late in the war.

Can you provide any more background on this?

Why did WW1 not lead to female mobilization like it did during ww2?

In WWI, one of the key theaters of the war was the Atlantic, where German and British warships preyed on each others' shipping, with the Entente blockade causing widespread hunger in the German Empire. After 1915, when the Russians retreated from Poland, were there any attempts to use this land to shore up German food production, and take the edge off the blockade?

I am interested in a couple of questions regarding WW1. I'll get right to it.

-Were "victory gardens" actually a reliable source of food during the war or was it seen more as a propaganda tool? In the event it was, were they commercially viable and did any major companies or brands emerge from this era?

-Was there also a "Great Compression" at the onset of WW1? (in any country for the matter)

Thanks!

/u/TheShowIsNotTheShow and /u/TheRGL

Newfoundland is now a part of Canada, but during the First World War was obviously not. I have a series of interlinking questions for you both, if that's alright?

1. How did the disaster at the Somme impact on Newfoundlander identity?

2. What were the long-term impacts of raising such a large force from such a small area, and suffering such heavy casualties?

3. How have the military achievements of Newfoundland been integrated into, and remembered in modern-day Canada?

4. What did Newfoundland do during WW2?

So in media I often see that peoples letters home were censored for sensitive information. Who was doing the censorship? What were they like, how did they get the job?

2 Questions Not Really Related to Each Other

1. During WWII how willing were Japanese citizens to fight the Allies if they invaded mainland Japan? People say that the Japanese would have used women and children to defend the island, and that an invasion would by incredibly costly. Between the Allied bombing runs and dwindling resources how willing/capable were the citizens of Japan to fight?

2. Both Wars: I know the US used German POWs as labor within the States during WWII. Did other countries use POWs to supplement their work forces and how did citizens of these countries feel about this?

Something I learned about the end of WWII that really struck me was that it was decided not to purge every "Nazi" party member from the civil service, government posts, education and other areas of the intelligensia (doctors, etc.). I understand that some of this decision was made simply because it was known that at least a large minority of these people labeled themselves Nazi's simply to avoid being hassled by Nazi's but didn't truly agree or have any interest in the ideology. Another reason seems to have been that it was simply not feasable to purge the government of these people because there would be no functioning government left.

(quick edit: my source for this is Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt)

This seems to have been a relatively successful policy and it always seemed like a missed lesson of history when we compare this to how John Bremmer handled the dismantling of the Iraqi government and army. I know that this subject falls within the 20 year rule so I don't expect any comparison I just wanted to mention it as part of the context.

I am curious if any of the panel can shed more light on how it was decided to leave many of the lower level "Nazi's" in place and/or the debate surrounding this issue. How was the transition handled? Was there deprogramming or a fine tooth comb run over each department to rout out the true hardliners? Any other detail or information would be appreciated!

Thanks for doing this panel!

Did the internment camps of Canada during World War Two reflect a growing preoccupation with xenophobia and racism? As well, how do historians write about this topic knowing that it is very divisive for the general public?

First, thank you all for this AMA, it is a subject that really interests me and I'm glad to read the answers you already provided!

How were Japanese schools run during the second world war? I suppose that many young male teachers were drafted and sent to fight, so were there shortages of teachers?

Besides, I feel a bit ashamed to come up with such a basic question for such an interesting ama, but I never knew with which books to start ... So which books would be recommended regarding home fronts of Japan and China during WW1 and WW2? I can read Japanese (native), English and French. Ideally, what interests me the most would be the daily life of the persons that stayed in more rural areas, but I'm interested in everything actually (and I don't mind academic books).

How did Russia's German minority react to the war? Did the Soviet government fear collaboration or rebellion?

Near the end of the war, when Germany was running low on manpower, were soldiers with minor wounds ever forced to return to the front and fight?

Did any non-German Axis members (Finns, Hungarians, Japanese, Thais, or collaborationist Ukrainians) oppose the Nazi racial dogma?

How serious was the threat of German American treason during the war? Was government action ever considered to reduce the power and influence of the German American community?

Did the Chinese experiance any hardships on the homefront directly related to ww1 and not just the civil war?

I have heard much about American isolationism leading up to WWII, and what a challenge this presented to FDR's administration prior to Pearl Harbor. My question is, was there a relationship between this strong isolationism and Americans' regard for US involvement in WWI? In the lead up to WWII (say, 1936-1941) what was the perception of Americans of WWI, and those who were injured/killed? Was this involvement considered a waste of American lives at the time? Was it considered a mistake?

What was the comparative restrictions of food rationing for the various civilian populations of World War II? I don't know if anyone can do much in the way of direct comparisons, but it would certainly be great is a few could weigh in on how rationing worked, and what people were entitled to under those schemes, in their respective country of focus.

I have a question regarding WW2; were there any equivalent's of Britain's "Mass Observation" program during WW2, especially in other countries that we would consider democracies by the standards of the time like the USA?

How did the United States ramp up production when they join the war also how did the war panel decide which companies would make what products and how did that affect their normal operations?

How quickly, and how much, did English support at home for WWI change during the course of the war? I've been told that most expected the war to be over quickly, when did people start to realize this wasn't the case?

From my literature classes, I know that at the beginning of the war we get poems like Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" ("If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England") while by the end, we have Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum est." Does this shift in literature reflect a shift in the public's view of the war in general?

Additionally, quite a bit of post-war fiction deals with soldiers returning home and feeling quite isolated from their fellow citizens. How were soldiers received when they came home? What options were available to them, if any, to help them reintegrate? Was this a large problem?

How ANZAC Day was seen from WW1 to nowadays (both the battle itself and the meaning of it) in Australia and New Zealand?
Did it changed Europe's (U.K., Ireland, France, Turkey, Germany...) perception (and U.S.A. and Canada also) of the Kiwis and the Aussies?

My grandmother, who was from the USSR, waited out the war in Siberia although she was from European Russia. How were people able to go to Siberia during the German invasion? Could anyone go, or did you need to be selected? How many ended up going?