This guy here with another episode of the History Unplugged podcast, in 1938, nobody

would have thought that the United States was capable of fighting in a world war, let alone

being a major reason for its victory.

That year, it was so politically isolated and pacifist that its defense forces were

smaller than portragals, and Charles Limberg was so forceful in his public praise of Nazi

air power that the Third Reich decorated him with the German eagle.

This was all going on, Franklin Roosevelt ordered the federal government to spark a dramatic

expansion in domestic airplane production, and this minor effort, three years before Pearl Harbor,

led to the full throttle unleashing of American Enterprise that was a secret weapon for victory

in World War II, and the final tally of things built that made up the arsenal of democracy included

2.5 million trucks, 500,000 jeeps, 286,000 aircraft, 86,000 tanks, and 2.6 million machine guns.

Now building at such a fast pace came with its own risks.

In fact, there were 8 times as many casualties on the home front and factories as there were

on the battlefield for Americans, but because of this massive buildup, Detroit essentially

became the Silicon Valley of its time, and this post-war industry created such things as

jet engines, computers, radar, the military industrial complex, and nuclear weapons.

Today's guest is Craig Nelson, author of V is for Victory, Franklin Roosevelt's American

Revolution in the Triumph of World War II. We look at how incredibly fast the buildup was for

wartime production, how practically a generation of change happened in a few years,

and why Roosevelt thought that the true arsenal of democracy weren't these weapons that were built,

but the American people themselves. Hope you enjoyed this discussion with Craig Nelson.

And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for work from our sponsors.

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