The Music of World War II Beginning just around twenty years after the last global conflict, World War II was the most widespread and destructive conflict in the history of the world. From its spark with the invasion of Poland by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany in 1939, to its end with the surrender of Japan after the United States dropped Atomic Bombs on two of Japans cities, the war encompassed around thirty countries and resulted in fifty million military and casualty deaths (History). When the United States finally entered the war in 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S government began making preparation to send troops into both the Pacific and Europe. “…everyday life across the country was dramatically altered. Food, gas and clothing were rationed. Communities conducted scrap metal drives” (“The U.S Homefront during WWII”). Of all of these things switched to support the war effort, music in America was probably the greatest agent of the war effort. While the war had started in different parts of the…show more content… Seventeen times they were bombed or strafed by Japanese planes. "I remember an engagement on the USS Saratoga, this huge carrier," said Shaw. "And we were put on the flight deck and we came down into this cavernous place where they, three thousand men in dress uniforms ... and a roar went up. I tell ya you know it really threw me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing or hearing, I felt something extraordinary. I was by that time inured to success and applause and all that you'd take that for granted after a while. You could put your finger out and say, 'Now they're gonna clap.' But this was a whole different thing. These men were starved for something to remind them of home and whatever is mom and apple pie. And the music had that effect I suppose” (Kens, Burns,