The Greek philosopher Heraclitus proclaimed, “War is the father of all things.” Compelling as his words may be, reality speaks otherwise. Historically, wars tend to constrict if not consume incubators of innovation, such as laboratories, libraries, universities, and human beings. Over the course of major conflicts, everything from architecture to literature stagnates as resources are diverted to issues of more immediate security.
Exceptions come from the science of survival, exemplified by inventions made between 1937 and 1945. Allied airmen witnessed the first pressurized cabins, autopilot systems, and rubber-coated “self-sealing” gas tanks that could take a bullet and not explode. Nutritionists synthesized vitamins and high-calorie meals. Although blood types were known since the beginning of the century, blood banks were used for the first time, as were nonperishable plasmas.1
For every novelty made to preserve a body, there seemed a dozen invented to tear it apart. During the war, a team of Harvard researchers concocted a gummy liquid called Napalm. U.S. weapons designers fashioned handheld rocket launchers nicknamed “bazookas.” Nazis created nerve gas. Several countries introduced a host of new bombs, bullets, fuses, land mines, shells, and torpedoes. For better or worse, the conflict deserved Winston Churchill’s classification as “the wizard war.”2
Following in chronological order are the first of their kind in world or American history. Some are events; others are objects of warfare. Most played significant roles in the course of the war. All exercised equal or greater effect on history after 1945.
1. FIRST FULLY MOTORIZED ARMY (SEPTEMBER 1939)
World War II often conjures images of German armor and American industry. But the first entirely mechanized armed forces belonged to Great Britain. All other combatants utilized beasts of burden, many of them extensively.
Infantry officers of numerous countries rode on horseback during the war’s early years. Almost every army possessed horse cavalry, such as the U.S. Second Cavalry Division deployed to Morocco in 1943. Draft horses hauled supply wagons, ammunition, and the wounded. Most of Italian and German artillery was horse-drawn. Because of the rugged terrain in Sicily, the U.S. Army routinely employed pack mules. Red Army draft animals numbered in the millions.3
The fully mechanized British war machine motors across Libya while the vast majority of German and Italian infantry travels on foot.
In contrast, the British army traveled by fuel oil rather than fodder, thus becoming the first modern army. Regardless of its reputation for conservatism, rigid class structure, and resistance to change, Britain’s military was often a vanguard of innovation. Colonial troops used machine guns in the Zulu Wars (1871, 1879). The Royal Navy was among the first to switch from coal to oil engines (1913). The RAF was the first independent air force ever created (1918). Much of these adoptions came from a long-standing realization that Britain attained and maintained its vast empire by virtue of superior technology.4
Horses used in the successful British invasion of Germany: 0.
Horses used in the failed German invasion of the Soviet Union: 625,000.
2. FIRST USE OF RADAR IN WARTIME (SEPTEMBER 1939)
Owing to the static nature of trench warfare, finding an enemy during World War I was hardly a challenge. Tracking one’s opponent during World War II, however, was like trying to find a fast, mobile, deadly needle in a haystack.
Enter radar, or “Radio Detection and Ranging.” Years before the outbreak of hostilities, private and governmental agencies in Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States experimented with radio signals and echoes, mostly for tracking airplanes. Results were limited. Once the war started, radar technology progressed rapidly, especially in the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany. The British perfected a network of coastal stations that helped direct the RAF’s meager fighter reserve with maximum effect in the BATTLE OF BRITAIN. Germany answered with a guidance system for bombers, using intersecting radar beams to indicate bomb targets. The British quickly learned how to jam these signals, which the Germans then overcame by using variable frequencies.5
Britain then introduced an improvement the Axis never matched. In 1940, two scientists from Birmingham University successfully tested the cavity magnetron, a transmitter that reduced radio waves from several feet to a few inches, increasing radar accuracy tenfold.
At the dawn of the information age, superior radar technology enabled the Allies to gain an unassailable edge over the Axis.
Of all the sought-after “superweapons,” the cavity magnetron–equipped radar deserved the title. By 1943 the microwave system found its way onto Commonwealth and U.S. bombers, fighters, antiaircraft batteries, ships, and early warning stations. Impressively sensitive (it could detect a submarine periscope) and difficult to detect or jam, the new device enabled the Allies to “see” faster, farther, and more precisely than their opponents ever could. Virtual command of the sea and sky followed. In January 1944 Hitler cursed this leap in radar technology as the worst blow to his plans for victory.6
After receiving cavity magnetron radars in 1943, Allied destroyers and planes sank three times more U-boats than in the previous year.
3. FIRST PEACETIME DRAFT IN U.S. HISTORY (SEPTEMBER 1940)
It took the Civil War to instigate military conscription in the United States and World War I to temporarily resurrect it. Yet Americans universally disdained the draft. Even after Japan invaded China and Germany swept through Poland, national opposition to conscription remained steadfast.
In March 1940, more than 96 percent of Americans opposed the idea of declaring war against the Axis. Yet when Hitler conquered Denmark in a single April day and proceeded to take Norway, France, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg in a matter weeks, attitudes began to shift. By June 65 percent of the American population believed that if Britain fell, the United States would be next. A sense of urgency erupted, since the United States possessed only the eighteenth-largest army in the world.7
Initial calls for a draft did not come from the White House or the military but from congressmen and grass-roots organizations. Even isolationists such as aviator Charles Lindbergh demanded a heightened state of readiness. Senator Ted Bilbo of Mississippi summed up their convictions bluntly: “We are not going to send our boys to Europe to fight another European war, but we are going to get ready for the ‘Big Boy’ Hitler and ‘Spaghetti Mussolini’ if they undertake to invade our shores.”8
In June 1940, two days before France fell, a bill was proposed in Congress that all male citizens between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-six should register for possible conscription. Draftees, chosen by lottery, would train in the military for one year and remain on active reserve for a decade. On September 16, 1940, after months of bitter public debate and national introspection, the measure became law.
While Japan carved into China, Italy invaded Egypt, and the Luftwaffe bombed London, millions of American men registered under the Selective Service Act. Just six weeks later the War Department started drawing numbers. Eventually ten million draftees served in uniform, and despite promises to the contrary from senators, congressmen, and the president, half were sent overseas.9
World War II restarted the draft. Another war helped stop it. Following the unpopular and ultimately unsuccessful police action in Vietnam, President Richard M. Nixon ceased national conscription in 1973.
4. FIRST U.S. PRESIDENT ELECTED TO MORE THAN TWO TERMS (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944)
Months before the 1940 presidential contest, Franklin Roosevelt assumed he would follow George Washington’s example and resign after two terms. Unfortunately for his Democratic Party, there appeared to be no viable replacement, and Roosevelt reluctantly chose to break precedent and run again.
To oppose him, the Republicans owned even fewer prospects. They eventually placed their hopes on a political rookie, Indiana businessman Wendell Willkie. The Grand Old Party’s nominee had much in common with the president, as he too was well educated, tall, handsome, and exceedingly charismatic. Although he was selected by the GOP, Willkie was a lifelong Democrat.
In spite of growing international unrest, domestic issues dominated the campaign. Willkie agreed with most of FDR’s foreign policy, condemning totalitarianism and pledging to keep America out of war. Willkie instead attacked the bureaucratic beast of the New Deal, labeling such big-government programs as inefficient and ineffective against a stagnant economy. Republicans also condemned Roosevelt’s pursuit of a third term, calling it an act of hubris, if not dictatorship. Roosevelt triumphed nonetheless, bolstered by huge victory margins from key voting blocks, namely farmers, organized labor, and women. He also won a majority of votes from African Americans, who had traditionally sided with Republicans since the days of Lincoln.10
In 1944, Roosevelt’s health began to fail, yet he rallied enough to convince the public that his sixty-two-year-old body could withstand another election, especially against the Republican’s nominee, brilliant but smug forty-two-year-old Thomas Dewey of New York. Two key factors aided Roosevelt. He dumped his liberal and pro-Soviet vice president, Henry Wallace, for moderate, unknown Harry Truman, and he could point to the recent invasion of Normandy as proof that the long and horrid war was finally nearing an end. Roosevelt won again, though in his four elections, the fourth was his narrowest margin of victory.11
Wary of another era of one-man domination, in 1951, Congress passed the Twenty-Second Amendment, setting a two-term limit on the presidency. Years later, ardent supporters of fortieth president Ronald Reagan unsuccessfully lobbied for its repeal.
5. FIRST CARRIER BATTLE (MAY 1942)
In the spring of 1942 a Japanese fleet of three carriers and a complement of supporting cruisers, destroyers, and transports headed southeast around New Guinea and into the Coral Sea. Their mission was to capture key ports and installations in the area, setting the groundwork for an intended attack on Australia.
After intercepting transmissions of the Japanese plan, U.S. naval forces closed in, strengthened by the carriers Lexington and Yorktown. On May 7, aircraft from the U.S. carriers struck and sank Shoho, the smallest of the three Japanese flattops. The following morning and almost simultaneously, a swarm of planes from both fleets found their targets. Bombs and torpedoes fell in scores. Japan’s carrier Zuikaku escaped unscathed, protected by the veil of a storm. The Shokaku and Yorktown each took several bombs but remained afloat. The Lexington did not survive, gutted by torpedoes on its port side and set ablaze by three direct bomb strikes. By early afternoon, the contest ceased by mutual withdrawal. Both sides claimed victory, although Japan failed to gain the ports it sought, and the great Imperial assault on Australia never came to pass.12
The flight deck of the carrier Lexington is strewn with debris from an attack. Too damaged after the battle, Lexington was scuttled—the first U.S. carrier to be lost in the war.
The battle of the Coral Sea provided a host of maiden events: the first encounter of Japanese and U.S. naval airmen, the first sinking of Japanese and U.S. carriers, and the first time in the war Japan’s navy failed to achieve an objective. But this brief clash in an otherwise placid corner of the globe was nothing short of a revelation, a harbinger of things to come.13
For the first time in three thousand years of naval warfare, a sea battle transpired completely by air. Not once did enemy ships come within sight of each other. No deck guns ever hit their opposition. From that point onward, ruling the waves required control of the skies.14
Flying back from a mission on the night of May 7, a Japanese pilot from the Zuikaku spotted a flattop and attempted to land, only to be shot out of the sky. Having lost his way in the darkness, he had accidentally tried to set down on the deck of theYorktown.
6. FIRST OPERATIONAL JET AIRCRAFT (JULY 1942)
In the fight for air supremacy, speed was critical. Designers tinkered with engine types, fuel mixtures, wing shapes, prop design, and weight reduction to squeeze more velocity from their aircraft. But physics limited propeller planes to just over 400 mph. After British aeronautical genius Frank Whittle produced the first jet engine in 1937, engineers hypothesized this new propulsion system could reach 500 mph and more. The main problem involved getting a jet engine and an airframe to work in concert.
In this pursuit, German engineers caught and passed the British, developing a working prototype in August 1939: the Heinkel 178. Yet neither the He-178 nor British prototypes could surpass the speed and performance of existing prop-engine fighters. Then, after three years of development, the sleek twin-engine Messerschmitt 262 flew on July 18, 1942, nearing 100 mph faster than anything aloft.15
Despite its initial success, the Me-262 would not see combat for another two years. The German jet suffered from the same problems afflicting American, British, and Japanese programs: poor engine reliability, shortage of engineers, and lack of precious metals.
Ingenious but unreliable, Me-262s revolutionized aeronautics but had negligible effect on the war.
Overall, four types of jet planes flew in combat, three German and one British. The RAF’s twin-engine Gloster Meteor was used primarily to shoot down V-1 buzz bombs. In seven months, sixteen operational Meteors scored just thirteen V-1 kills.16
7. FIRST FLYING BOMB (JUNE 1944)
Predecessor to the cruise missile, the V-1 represented the most effective of Germany’s secret weapons. It also exemplified the crippling lack of coordination within the Third Reich.
Resentful of the funds and attention granted to the army’s rocket program, air force marshal HERMANN GÖRING pushed development of a pilotless flying bomb. Rather than share technicians and facilities, the Luftwaffe openly competed with the army, slowing down production on both projects and further damaging a military wrought with petty quarrels and overlapping responsibilities.17
Less expensive and simpler than the army’s rocket, the Luftwaffe’s experiment reached completion first. Looking like a bird of prey with wings outstretched, it flew by the power of a pulse-jet engine (ironically a French innovation), which produced a spine-rattling metallic flutter, earning it the nickname “buzz bomb” or “doodlebug.” The German Ministry of Propaganda dubbed it “die Vergeltungswaffe” or “Vengeance weapon,” V-1 for short.18
A V-1 buzz bomb, its pulse jet shutting off, slowly turns over as it descends into a London neighborhood.
Vengeance first materialized on June 13, 1944, just days after the Allied invasion of Normandy. Four bombs fell on London. Two days later, two hundred came, then thousands in the following weeks. One landed directly on a chapel during services, killing 121 churchgoers almost instantly. Winston Churchill confessed the V-1 brought “a burden perhaps even heavier than the air-raids of 1940 and 1941. Suspense and strain were more prolonged. Dawn brought no relief, and cloud no comfort.”19
Overall, Germany launched more than twenty-two thousand V-1s, with nearly seven thousand reaching their targets in Britain, Belgium, France, and Holland, killing an average of two people per bomb.20
On June 17, 1944, one buzz bomb strayed far off course and hit a German bunker in eastern France. Though shaken, the shelter’s occupants escaped uninjured, including one Adolf Hitler.
8. FIRST LIQUID-FUELED BALLISTIC MISSILE (SEPTEMBER 1944)
In late August 1944 the Allies liberated Paris, but the euphoria was short-lived. On September 6 an altogether new weapon terrorized the city, falling from the sky faster than sound. Two days later the same deadly device hit London. Suddenly no point in Allied Europe appeared safe.
After nearly a decade of development, German engineers successfully transformed Robert Goddard’s 1926 invention for interstellar exploration into the first operational liquid-fueled ballistic missile, called the A-4, renamed “Vengeance Weapon 2.” Nearly four stories tall, capable of traveling two hundred miles in five minutes, and armed with a one-ton warhead, the rocket was unsurpassed in its ability to induce fear. One young boy in London recalled, “Of all the Nazi’s weapons, we were most afraid of the V-2 because there was no way to stop it.”
Though the V-2 ultimately played a secondary role in the war, the weapon signaled the beginning of an entirely new type of warfare and inspired the U.S. and Soviet governments to capture—and then employ—as many of its creators as possible.21
Wernher Von Braun worked as the chief guidance system engineer for the V-2. He later became deputy associate administrator of NASA.
9. FIRST ATOMIC BOMB (JULY 1945)
Six weeks after the Nazi invasion of Poland, Roosevelt received a letter from Albert Einstein. The renowned physicist suggested the possibility of constructing a bomb using fissionable material, namely uranium: “A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.”22
A series of recent findings influenced Einstein’s prediction. The neutron was discovered in 1932, as was Uranium-235 in 1935. In early 1939 French and American scientists theorized that a chain reaction of U-235 neutrons was possible and would release “vast amounts of power.”23
A radioactive plume ascends from devastated Hiroshima, the second-ever atomic detonation.
German, Japanese, Soviet, British, and American governments all sponsored investigations into the feasibility of atomic weapons. By 1943 Germany and Japan opted out due to critical setbacks in research and resources. Soviet progress lagged from two years of land war with Germany. Only British-American cooperation found success, fostered by secure U.S. manufacturing sites and massive funding.24
A budget of two billion dollars, a work force of forty thousand people, and nearly four years of continuous work resulted in the construction of three devices. The first, armed with plutonium (U-238 with an additional neutron), tested successfully on July 16, 1945, outside Alamogordo, New Mexico. Three weeks later came the first atomic weapon used in wartime. Contrary to Einstein’s assumption of its required size, the entire apparatus could be carried by a four-engine aircraft, but his estimation of its force was on target. The U-235 bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy,” detonated above the port city of HIROSHIMA, Japan, decimating four square miles and killing at least one hundred thousand people. Three days later a plutonium bomb, called “Fat Man,” exploded above Nagasaki, killing at least seventy thousand. Enough plutonium was available for a fourth bomb, but it remained unused when the Japanese Empire surrendered on August 14, 1945.25
Just before the blast at Alamogordo, some of the participating scientists feared the chain reaction would persist uncontrollably, destroying all of New Mexico if not the entire global atmosphere.
10. FIRST WAR IN WHICH MORE AMERICAN SOLDIERS DIED FROM COMBAT THAN FROM SICKNESS (DECEMBER 1941–AUGUST 1945)
In the First World War, two doughboys succumbed to ailments for every one killed in action. In the American Civil War, the ratio was closer to four to one. In the American Revolution, nine out of ten military deaths occurred away from the battlefield. And so it went for most soldiers in nearly every conflict in history.
Over the course of the Second World War, a number of momentous innovations changed this pattern, the greatest of which was penicillin. Discovered in 1929, its benefits were not fully evident until 1939, when a team of Oxford biologists noted its peculiar ability to destroy internal bacteria yet not harm human tissue. After the British perfected a stable and concentrated strain, they arranged for American companies to mass-produce it, and the age of antibiotics was born. Used sparingly in the North African theater in 1943, penicillin became widely available to Allied soldiers (mostly American and British) in 1944. The Axis never created an equivalent, save for a much weaker medicine called Prontosil made by the German consortium I. G. Farben.26
Also late in the war, the Allies achieved major victories against disease-carrying insects. To stave off malaria, troops stationed in the mosquito-infested South Pacific consumed newly synthesized quinine (a bitter yellow powder called Atabrine), while their Japanese counterparts often went without such preventive medicines. Consequently, malaria alone reduced many Imperial fighting units by a third or more.
Ground troops everywhere were subject to typhus, compliments of gnawing little fleas, lice, mites, and ticks. Allied soldiers fought these biting bugs with liberal applications of DDT, an insecticide called “the atomic bomb of the insect world” before it was discovered to be nearly as caustic against animals.27
Armed with better hygienic training, better food, cleaner water, and more extensive medical care than their opponents, American servicemen finally stood a fighting chance against life-threatening illness.28
In the American Civil War, Union infantry had one medic per five hundred men. In World War II, U.S. infantry had one medic per forty men.