I'm working through a hypothesis that is well outside the purview of this subreddit, and a massive controversy magnet besides, so I don't want to be too blunt as to my motives. I'm particularly interested in fathers that might have been suffering from untreated symptoms of PTSD or similar stress-related phenomena, as well as children left fatherless by the war. My hypothesis deals specifically with the western conception of masculinity, which is why I'm focused on fatherhood.
Are we talking significant numbers, here? Enough to significantly shape the next generation in noticeable ways? And are the numbers different enough between the USA and other Western nations that there could be an appreciable difference in impact?
Hell, has someone written about this already? I'd love to read about it.
William M. Tuttle Jr's book "Daddy's Gone to War": The Second World War in the Lives of America's Children is pretty darn close to what you're looking for. The book focuses on how children of different ages perceived the war from beginning to end, and dealt with the absence and loss of their fathers. The book also ventures into a debate about which children qualify as members of the "WWII generation," and then deals with how a number of children who grew up during the war were affected by it and perceived it as they reached middle age. One chapter in the book devotes a large percentage of its text to the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on the children and families of returning veterans.
Selective Service classification III-A had protected men with dependents from being drafted since its inception in October 1940. Fierce debates throughout the summer of 1943 eventually led to the class' elimination by the Department of Selective Service on October 1, 1943; a Public Law codifying it was passed in December 1943. Fathers who were in a stable relationship and whose children were born before December 7, 1941 began to be drafted;
| Month | Number of fathers drafted | Percent of total inductees |
|---|---|---|
| October 1943 | 13,300 | 6.8 |
| November 1943 | 25,700 | 13.4 |
| December 1943 | 51,400 | 26.5 |
| April 1944 | 114,600 | 52.8 |
| October 1943-December 1945 | 944,426 | 30.3 |
On V-J Day, one-fifth of all classified fathers aged 18 to 37 were on active duty. Of those 18 to 25, 58.2 percent were on active duty. These men left behind many family members; a total of 2,818,000 wives (along with 1,825,000 children) of men in the Army received dependency benefts. Roughly 35 percent (~1,350,000) of Navy and Marine men were married, which pushed the total number of military spouses above 4 million. It is estimated that roughly 183,000 children lost fathers during WWII.
/u/the_howling_cow offers excellent information. Mine is a minor point here - namely that by definition, American baby boomers were born beginning in 1946, fathered by men who survived the war. While some may have died of conditions afterwards, as a consequence of the war, for the most part, baby boomers were not "left fatherless by World War II" as your question asks.