Virgenta Lane

Professor Dice
History 1302
November 10, 2014
The Best War Ever
"The Best War Ever - America and World War II," is a book written by Michael C. C.
Adams that contrasts the image produced by media and historians to the real horrors of war by
using selective memory and glorifying aspects of the war that were misleading and even
deceptive. Adams goes at great length to penetrate the mystique of WW2, showing it as an ugly
conflict where the average soldier lived in total terror, not knowing what he fought for, that made
only half-hearted steps towards integrating American society, and helped destroy the social fabric
of rural America. America and the Allied democracies entered the war for good reasons and it
was by all judgments of history thus far, the right thing to do.
Adams argues that the historical memory of America's involvement in World War II has
been sanitized and replaced by a common set of misconceptions that borders on folklore. Adams
specifically cites Television programs and motion pictures that have popularized the war as a
morally just, popularly-supported conflict in which the Allies became the heroes and the Axis
Powers, most notably the Nazis and the Japanese, became villains. In this trope, all returning
servicemen came back well-adjusted and suffered no mental illness, racial tensions did not exist,
and all American soldiers fought with valor and honor are seen as determined and united(7).

Also, Adams attempts to debunk the myths pertaining to the misconception of glamorous
battle conditions, the best fighting weapons, and a perfect home front in order to demonstrate
that World War II falls short of being remembered as the Great War. The first myth pertaining to
the war deals with the stereotypically depicted happy soldier. The United States Army was
thought of as the most advanced in fighting ability, weapons, and supposedly held to a higher
standard of ethics on the front. Because, with the exception of Pearl Harbor, there were no battles
fought on American land, Americans were not given the opportunity to see the terrible conditions
that soldiers endured on the front. The combat soldier was forced daily to watch his fellow man
struggle to live, die, and later decay.
Hitler and the Third Reich, bent on world domination, had to be stopped. America had
stayed out of the war that had begun in Europe in 1939 until the attack by the Imperial Japanese
Navy on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Prior to that, Americans did not have the stomach to enter the war
that was raging in Europe and chose to turn their heads to the genuine and far-reaching threat that
Hitler was posing. The United States "was not both a destroyer and a victim of destruction"
during the war (73) "Unlike other belligerents, U.S. civilians didn't experience firsthand the
awful effects of modern weapons."(73) According to Adams, this ignorance is partly to blame for
Americans not being able to grasp the complete picture of what war was really like. Americans
were in their own little world. However, after the Japanese attack, there was great enthusiasm
among Americans to enter the war, especially the Pacific front of the battle to avenge the attack
on the US Navy at Pearl Harbor.
An underlying reason for entering the war was that Germany and its allies by that time
were attacking sovereign nations, a direct threat to US economy and national security. One of the
myths revealed in this book is that America and England wanted to save the people who were

suffering from Hitler's policy of ethnic cleansing. The Allies were not as concerned initially
about the issue as they later were portrayed to be since there was evidence of widespread antiSemitism in their own nations. Another myth that is exposed in author Michael C. C. Adams'
work is that the nation stayed united behind the war effort. A major point made by Adams with
this book is that he agrees that the war had to be fought, but he disagrees with those that believe
appeasement was responsible for the war because it emboldened the dictators. Instead he argues
"there are no easy answers" to the problems of the 1930s. He asserts that there were "no
practicable alternatives to appeasement in Europe because the policy in Japan was deterrence,
not appeasement and it too failed."(41). After, the initial fervor for revenge after Pearl Harbor
had faded, there was internal conflict within the US about engagement in the war. In an effort to
boost support for the war, movies and magazine articles portrayed soldiers as wholesome, happy
men who were eager to defend their country. John Wayne, who never served in a war, became
the ideal soldier, brave and dedicated. The image was further solidified by war correspondents
and censors who made sure no word of the real scourges of war such as the atrocities committed
by Allied soldiers and their discontent in being there never made their way state side.
The fallacies created to convince America that the war was the "best war ever" perhaps
succeeded in keeping calm in the country so that the government could continue to prosecute the
war relatively unrestrained, but it probably did more harm in the long-term. America was told
that prosperity always follows war and that war was not the blood bath that it really was.
America also learned that it could use advanced weaponry which kills millions and destroys
cities and terrain without really being held accountable. Americans are still struggling with the
ramifications of these inaccuracies to this day.