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World War I, World War II, and the Cold War accelerated the integration of Virginia back into the national mainstream. They transformed the state from a rural to a primarily urban one, from a poor to a relatively affluent one, and from a state with few non-natives to one with many.

World War I

A Virginia-born president, Woodrow Wilson, led the nation to war against the German, Austrian, and Ottoman empires in 1917 and 1918. Virginians welcomed the jobs created by the huge guncotton (explosive) plant at Hopewell and the growth of the nation's largest naval base at Norfolk. They also mourned the loss of 1,200 Virginians who gave their lives in the nation's service. At just nineteen months, however, American participation in the war was too short to alter Virginia's economic, social, or political systems permanently. But it did hasten industrialization, urbanization, and the exodus of African Americans to the North.

The treaties that ended World War I were regarded as unsatisfactory in many quarters and gave rise to the birth of Nazism and the emergence of Adolf Hitler in Germany. Assuming power in 1933, Hitler aimed to establish a thorough totalitarian state. Soon it became equally apparent that he had territorial ambitions on other states. But Americans took little interest in these matters, even after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. Only the sudden, totally unexpected collapse of France after a mere six-week campaign galvanized American opinion. The result was an American defense buildup that had enormous consequences in Virginia.

Preparing for Global Conflict

The world's largest building--the Pentagon--was built at Arlington. The General Purpose Truck (GP or Jeep) was demonstrated at Fort Myer. The Norfolk Naval Base was expanded. Camp Peary was established to train construction battalions called Seabees (CB). Camp Pendleton was created near Virginia Beach. Camp Pickett in central Virginia could house 85,000 men. Navy V-12 programs to crash-train officers and technicians were begun at many Virginia colleges. An Ordnance Works opened at Radford that came to employ 22,000 people. The Virginia National Guard left to train at Fort Meade, Maryland, and was replaced by the Virginia Protective Force.

The buildup continued through 1940 and 1941. Then, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Within days Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation was reactivated. Nearby Camp Patrick Henry was enlarged to accommodate 35,000 personnel awaiting shipment overseas. Fort Eustis was an Anti-Aircraft Replacement Training Center in 1942 and a prisoner of war camp in 1943. Quantico Marine Base built a 51,000-acre "Guadalcanal area" to simulate Pacific fighting conditions. Richmond Quartermaster Depot at Bellwood, Chesterfield County, had 9,000,000 square feet of storage and employed 5,000 civilians. Arlington Hall Junior College became headquarters of the Army Signal Corps intelligence branch. The College of William and Mary housed the Navy Chaplain School. Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Institute operated a school to train entertainers to give shows for the troops. The University of Virginia operated a School of Military Government for occupied areas. Its Alderman Library secretly housed the Library of Congress's treasures, and the Handley High School in Winchester stored artwork from Washington's Corcoran Museum.

The defense buildup and the ensuing war effort ended the Great Depression and raised Virginia to unprecedented levels of prosperity and employment. One factor was shipbuilding at the superb Hampton Roads ports. Newport News Shipbuilding went from 13,000 workers in 1939 to 70,000 in 1943. The numerous posts and bases throughout Virginia that provided thousands of civilian jobs constituted another factor. A third element was munitions making within the protective wall of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A fourth consideration was the explosion of administrative activity that spilled over from Washington into northern Virginia. Businesses throughout the commonwealth produced goods needed for the military machine. Among southern states, Virginia ranked second behind Texas in the value of war contracts.

Although only 10 percent of women workers were in war industry jobs in 1944, the war opened up new fields to women. An example was twenty-year-old Florence Cabaniss, who came to have enormous responsibilities at Bellwood Depot keeping track of the diverse goods delivered by trains from across the nation. All these had to be sorted so that units overseas got the right proportions of each product -- not far more parachute cords than parachutes, or too much toothpaste and not enough ammunition. African Americans, too, benefitted, especially after the federal government proclaimed equal pay regardless of race for all war workers doing the same job. The lure of war work accelerated the transformation of black Virginians from a rural to an urban people even as other blacks left Virginia entirely.

Total War Changes Virginia

World War II was a "total war" in which sacrifices were required on the home front. The motto was "Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without." Automobiles and washing machines were no longer made. There were no suits with vests or trousers with cuffs. Doctors and nurses were scarce. Schools conducted drives to collect scrap metal, rubber, waste paper, cooking fats, and tin cans. Rationing limited consumption of shoes, rubber, nylon, sugar, butter, shortening, liquor, gasoline, vegetables, and meat. Limits on smoking, drinking , and travel provoked the greatest outcries. Cigarettes, though never rationed, were often scarce. The demand for cigarettes by service men and women and war-anxious civilians caused tobacco to be declared an essential crop.

Only a small fraction of the war could be paid for by income taxes, despite the introduction of a withholding tax that persists to this day. Instead, the government financed the war by loans from the American people. Parades, shows, exhortation of interscholastic or town rivalries, and appearances by celebrities or war heroes were used to boost sales of war bonds. Screen star Greer Garson and local hero Archer Vandegrift visited Charlottesville, for example, where Lane High School sold enough bonds to buy forty-seven jeeps and a $172,000 bomber.

After America joined the war, Virginians asked "What can I do?" Many found the answer in volunteerism. Some assumed paramilitary functions as air raid wardens or airplane spotters. Only later did it become clear that Virginia was in no danger of air attack. Enemy bombers could not cross the oceans, Germany had no aircraft carriers, and Japan did not operate in the Atlantic Ocean. German submarines, however, did roam the Atlantic, and naval warfare raged off the coast of Virginia in 1942. German submarine "wolf packs" sank eight ships off the Virginia-North Carolina coast in January 1942, eight more in February, and one a day in March. Shipboard blackouts, sailing in convoys, and anti-submarine warfare coordinated from Langley Field in Hampton, helped win the Battle of the Atlantic.

Although World War II was not waged on Virginia soil, it reached into every community and touched every Virginian. Foremost were the 7,000 Virginians killed and their families. Next were the 300,000 Virginians who served in uniform. For some, it was the high point of their lives; for others, the low point. However, almost all not only believed that the United States was physically endangered by its enemies, but also that the moral foundations of civilization itself were threatened by Nazism and Japanese militarism. They felt justifiable pride in defeating this unprecedented danger.

Virginia Heroes

Many of the war's most famous commanders were native Virginians or had strong ties to the commonwealth. Among them were George C. Marshall, Alexander Archer Vandegrift, Lemuel C. Shepherd, Lewis Burwell Puller, Douglas MacArthur, and George S. Patton.

George Catlett Marshall was Army Chief of Staff throughout World War II. He took the seventeenth largest army in the world in 1939 and brought it to its 8,000,000- man strength in 1945. Although born in Pennsylvania, he was descended from a leading colonial family of Virginia's Northern Neck, was a graduate of Virginia Military Institute , lived at Fort Myer during the war, and chose Leesburg for his retirement. Featured six times on the cover of TIME --twice as Man of the Year--Marshall was called the organizer of victory by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Alexander Archer Vandegrift of Charlottesville and Lynchburg commanded the first American offensive in the Pacific at Guadalcanal in 1942. In 1943, he led the landing at Bougainville in the Northern Solomon Islands. He became Marine Commandant in 1944.

Lemuel C. Shepherd of Norfolk commanded Marines in the taking of Guadalcanal, Guam, New Britain, and Okinawa. After the war he was Marine Commandant.

Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller of West Point, Virginia, attended Virginia Military Institute and led the First Marine Division at Peleliu in the Pacific. He retired as the most decorated Marine in history.

Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander in the Southwest Pacific, led the counter offensive that culminated in the liberation of the Philippines. Though not a Virginian, he chose to be buried in a memorial built by the city of Norfolk, hometown of his mother, Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur.

George S. Patton, a native Californian, was descended from Virginians on both sides of his family. He began his military career at Virginia Military Institute before transferring to West Point. During World War I he claimed to have been exhorted by his Virginia ancestors to take a German machine gun nest. In World War II his armored advances across France and Germany contributed significantly to the Allied victory.

War Transforms Virginia, Again

To wage and win a global war required the efforts of these and other commanders, more than 300,000 Virginians in uniforms, millions of Virginia war workers and civilians, and their counterparts in other American states and in allied nations across the globe. Apart from its larger consequences, the effort made Virginia more urban, prosperous, and cosmopolitan. The federal government became Virginia's largest employer. Mechanization of agriculture spurred by the wartime labor shortage permanently freed huge numbers of workers for the postwar boom in the retail and service sectors of the economy. Vast tracts of prefabricated single-dwelling houses, built for war workers, were prototypes for postwar suburbs. Moreover, the broadened experiences of blacks and women gave impetus to the civil rights and women's movements.

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