World War II

There are countless books detailing the history of World War II, but none has examined the differences among soldiers's experiences based on their service branch's culture. Based on extensive oral history interviews with the men and women who served during this war, G. Kurt Piehler has discovered that the U.S. Navy tended to be hierarchical, especially on large ships; and in contrast, the Army Air Force remained a relatively loose organization, with more frequent fraternization among officers and enlisted personnel. Although racial tensions were not absent from the Marines, the "elite" ethos of this branch mitigated the harsh racism of many white Marines toward their African American comrades. In the Army, there was no one "representative" soldier's experience in the war, given the sheer size and diversity of the Army's missions in this conflict, including sharp differences between the Asian and European war experiences.

G. Kurt Piehler is Professor of History at University of Tennessee. He is the author or editor of a number of books, includingAmericans at War, Major Problems in American Military History, and Remembering War in the American Way.