Power Of Images

World War II saw newspapers and radio reign supreme in war coverage, and not coincidentally, it was also one of the most popular wars in American history. Even when the homefront was battle weary, there was a general consensus in the country that people were fighting for a common goal -- to aid American allies in Europe and defend their interests in the Pacific arena.

The government, acknowledging strong isolationist feelings in the country, tried to emphasize the importance of the war's aims. "In 1941, the United States went to war under the banner of 'the people's war.' The Roosevelt government's rhetoric and imagery invoked a democratic inclusiveness in contrast to the Axis' exclusivity and domination. The byword for the war effort became 'unity'." World War II was a war of consensus building. One factor aiding this effort was certainly the end of the Great Depression, which the county was suffering under when it entered the war -- only its involvement ended the economic nightmare once and for all. Another was a constant stream of war propaganda designed to keep public opinion high and morale good.

In the midst of administrative efforts to create unity, the press was no exception. The main pipelines of information for the American public were newspapers and radio. Radio in particular came into its own during the war. "Television with its great potential as a news medium was about to spring half-grown from the forehead of its sire, and World War II was to be radio's hour of greatness in the light of history." Edward R. Murrow, broadcasting from London, told an American public the story of the war and tried to paint the picture with words.

Newspaper reports, which had to pass censors, were typically dispatched from the front like this one, "This is it! D-Day and What Followed" by New York Herald Tribune correspondent Joseph Driscoll. He emphasized the bravery of the troops. "Francis marveled at the courage of his fellow Americans. 'I saw boys wounded and lying around for hours without even a moan out of them'" Even when newspaper reports tried to tell of the carnage and human loss in the war, thanks to censorship by the Office of War Information, they lacked the pictures to do so.

Both radio and newspapers were mediums which did not have the same power television images did in creating dissention among the public. Radio did have some similarities to television. It was a medium that made a more personal connection with its audience because it literally spoke to them and it was a means of relatively instant communication. Yet the disembodied radio voice speaking to the audience had to emphasize the story aspect of the news and did not have television's power to hit the public with the visual reality of war's human tolls.

Television was not a player in the second world war. In the middle of the war, 1942, there were only 8,000 television receivers in the nation. But people recognized the power of images to turn public opinion. Part of the reason for the war's continuing strength on the homefront was the OWI's ability to suppress pictures of the American dead for the first two years of the war. "In these [popular collections of photographs], no matter how severely wounded, Allied troops are never shown suffering what was termed, in the Vietnam War, traumatic amputation. Everyone has all his limbs, his hands and feet and digits, not to mention expressions of courage and cheer." When they finally released more explicit pictures it was a calculated effort to bolster support for the war because the public was war weary. They needed to maintain a desire to fight.

Print and radio reports in World War II, while of course not all positive, were denied the impact that images would have given them. Without uncensored, visceral images, they centered around a more detached narrative. When the Vietnam War erupted, however, the difference in how the public perceived the two events considering the media's use of images, was readily apparent.

When the War Department needed Hollywood, Hollywood said “Action!” While motion pictures dramatized the war effort, the war was changing Hollywood. Some major stars headed for the front lines while others lent their fame to Home Front efforts. Scriptwriters were tasked to help establish “war-mindedness” at home.

Future entertainers were born as real-life heroics brought everyday people to public attention. As stars deployed, more actors were in demand and previously lesser known entertainers ultimately honed their skills for stardom. In the war’s aftermath, the GI Bill sent many veterans to acting and film school, providing a fresh crop of post-war stars and producers.

Since the first scenes of warfare appeared in a brief 1898 silent movie filmed during the Spanish American War, many American films have sought to capture the horror and unbridled heroism, carnage and undaunted courage, the senseless and meaning of warfare. These films explore the realities of combat, the relationships that soldiers form within their units; and the interior mind of soldiers as Wartime Hollywood.

Beginning in September 1941, a Senate subcommittee launched an investigation into whether Hollywood was campaigning to bring the United States into World War II by inserting pro-British and pro-interventionist messages in its films. Isolationist Senator Gerald Nye charged Hollywood with producing "at least twenty pictures in the last year designed to drug the reason of the American people, set aflame their emotions, turn their hatred into a blaze, fill them with fear that Hitler will come over here and capture them." After reading a list of the names of studio executives - many of whom were Jewish - he condemned Hollywood as "a raging volcano of war fever."

While Hollywood did in fact release a few anti-Nazi films, such as Confessions of a Nazi Spy, what is remarkable in retrospect is how slowly Hollywood awoke to the fascist threat. Heavily dependent on the European market for revenue, Hollywood feared offending foreign audiences. Indeed, at the Nazis' request, Hollywood actually fired "non-Aryan" employees in its German business offices. Although the industry produced such preparedness films as Sergeant York, anti-fascist movies as The Great Dictator, and pro-British films films as A Yank in the R.A.F. between 1939 and 1941, before Pearl Harbor it did not release a single film advocating immediate American intervention in the war on the allies' behalf.

After Pearl Harbor, however, Hollywood quickly enlisted in the war cause. The studios quickly copyrighted topical movie titles like "Sunday in Hawaii," "Yellow Peril," and "V for Victory." Warner Brothers ordered a hasty rewrite of "Across the Pacific" which involved a Japanese plot to blow up Pearl Harbor, changing the setting to the Panama Canal. The use of searchlights at Hollywood premiers was prohibited, and Jack Warner painted a 20-foot arrow atop his studio, reading: "Lockheed - Thataway."

Hollywood's greatest contribution to the war effort was morale. Many of the movies produced during the war were patriotic rallying cries that affirmed a sense of national purpose. Combat films of the war years emphasized patriotism, group effort, and the value of individual sacrifices for a larger cause. They portrayed World War II as a peoples' war, typically featuring a group of men from diverse ethnic backgrounds who are thrown together, tested on the battlefield, and molded into a dedicated fighting unit. Many wartime films featured women characters playing an active role in the war by serving as combat nurses, riveters, welders, and long-suffering mothers who kept the home fires burning. Even cartoons, like Bugs Bunny "Nips the Nips," contributed to morale.

Off the screen, leading actors and actresses led recruitment and bond drives and entertained the troops. Leading directors like Frank Capra, John Ford, and John Huston enlisted and made documentaries to explain, "why we fight" and to offer civilians an idea of what actual combat looked like. In less than a year, 12 percent of all film industry employees entered the armed forces, including Clark Gable, Henry Fonda, and Jimmy Stewart. By the war's end, one-quarter of Hollywood's male employees were in uniform.

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