This country is at war with Germany.

We shall go on to the end.

I remember the sheets of flame which came up and almost blinded us from our guns.

Hello and welcome to the World War II podcast. Today I'm joined by Peter Zublochie, a professor at Caldwell University, host of the History Short's podcast, an author of The Death of General

Sikorski. I was introduced to Peter after I recorded the episode

Looking at the Death of General Sikorsky with Chris Reblessky. Chatting, I discovered Peter

had researched and written about an entirely different but fascinating subject. Private Snafoo. Now, for those unfamiliar, Private Snarfoo was the star of a series of black and white animated shorts produced between 1943 and 1945. These instructional films aimed at US servicemen combined irony and humour with serious messages.

Amazingly they were produced by Frank Capra, who went on to direct It's A Wonderful Life,

written by Theodore Giselle, who would become Dr Zeus, and voiced by Mel Blank,

the legendary voice behind Bugs Bunny.

Despite their playful tone, the film served a crucial

role in military training and morale during the war. Peter, it's great to have you here,

and thanks for joining me. Let's start with what was the problem these short films were trying

to solve? So the issue here really stems from the fact that most of the people that are joining the U.S. military are uneducated. That's really what it comes down to. So initially there's 5 million people that volunteer. Then they put in the Selective Service Act. They draft under 10 million. So you have about 15 million in the first few months of the war of U.S. involvement. But out of those 50 million or so, only about 70 have a

high school degree. And actually, when you look at the statistics that were given to the U.S.

military, it said that the average mental maturity of an American soldier was anywhere between

the ages of 12 and 14. So now you're looking

at, okay, so we're, you know, teaching these guys intense concepts may be difficult. So even before

cartoons, the biggest growing medium in the United States in 1930s was actually comic books.

And comic books sort of doing the same exact thing that eventually the U.S. Army picks up,

which is like, how do we, I wouldn't want to use the word dumb down, but how do we simplify

and entertain our youth in a sense where we could still send a message?

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