The Best War Ever

In this work, historian Michael Adams suggests that the public memory of World War II is distorted and that the war has left America with a misleading - even dangerous - legacy. Challenging many popular assumptions about the period, Adams argues that the American experience of World War II was positive but also disturbing, creating problems that continue to affect the US today. Combat was so brutal and demanding that 98 per cent of the men who were in action for more than 30 days suffered breakdowns; some American tanks and submarines were inferior to Axis models; despite heroic fighting by black units, officially sanctioned racism kept Army facilities rigorously segregated. At one point in the Italian campaign, VD cases outweighed battlefield wounds. Censorship was strict - if journalists didn't censor themselves, the government did it for them. In short, suggests Adams, World War II was everything that war is; violent, uncertain, costly and an arena for the best - and worst - of human behaviour.