September 1945: The war was thankfully over. Instead of facing near certain death on the beaches of Japan, jubilant troops would return home to normal lives - wives, kids, homes, mortgages, and all the rest of it.
The world to which the troops returned would be far different than the world of 1941, a mere four years earlier. To younger people of today, 1941 or 1946 - so what? It's all ancient history to them. But it was during those war years, and immediately thereafter, that there was such a dizzying pace of change that the post-war world bore little resemblance to that of 1941.
The nation had passed through the decade of the Great Depression, the 30s, followed by a bloody four years of war - a war in which there was near universal participation, including sons of the sitting president, and two future presidents, privileged Ivy Leaguers, no less - quite a switch from today.
Many people believed that we would head right back into recession. It didn't happen for reasons to be elaborated upon in a future column.
The returning troops started families, purchased homes, and produced the great "Baby Boom" of 1946 to 1964. It was a period of unparalleled widely shared prosperity with a growing middle class. The G.I. Bill of rights fueled a housing boom, and offered college educations to ordinary guys to whom college was previously out of reach.
Autumn 1947: The earliest Baby Boomers were still in their cribs - hadn't reached grade school yet. Those of us born during the "birth dearth" of the 1930s, basked in innocence, were still enjoying uncrowded classrooms.
Southeast classroom, second floor of the old North School: Nell Cunningham was reflecting to her sixth-graders on the slogan that "the sun never sets on the British Empire." She was discussing India in transition - the British had given up the crown jewel of its empire, India, partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan.
Scholars had long anticipated the end of the colonial era. Spurred on by wartime events, it happened far faster than anyone had anticipated. The Japanese had chased the Dutch out of the Dutch East Indies, the British out of the Malay Peninsula, and the French out of Indo China. With the surrender of Japan, the colonized peoples were not about to go back to the old order. Indonesian nationals proclaimed independence from The Netherlands. Malaysia became independent of Great Britain in 1949. The French were reluctant to let go, enduring a bloody but futile war to retain their North African colonies, and another disastrous war in Indo China, i.e., Vietnam. The French were finally unceremoniously evicted in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. This would presage disastrous American foreign policy a decade later. America, oblivious to anti-colonial sentiment in Asia, would intervene under the aegis of anti-communism.
The end of the colonial era changed the map. British Honduras in Central America became Belize, the Belgian Congo became Zaire, Tanganyika became Tanzania, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and so on. By the mid 1960s most of the former British, Dutch, French, Belgian, and Portuguese colonies had their independence. Spain had long since lost her colonies. The colonial era was history.
If the maps we had studied in grade school were changing, so was the geopolitical situation in general. Our former bitter enemies, Japan and Germany, became our staunchest allies. General MacArthur, the arch political conservative, was instrumental in rebuilding Japan with what in America would be considered liberal, progressive reforms. The Marshall Plan, pushed through a reluctant congress by President Truman, was instrumental in rebuilding Europe.
How much of this was through learning from the punitive Treaty of Versailles following WWI, or how much was pragmatic self-interest, as we needed Germany and Japan as allies against our new adversary, the Soviet Union, is debatable. But as Germany and Japan became staunch allies, our former uneasy ally, the Soviet Union that had suffered some 20 million deaths during the war, and had absorbed and destroyed so much of the powerful German Army, became our new adversary.
In 1946 the Soviet Union was not yet a nuclear power, but soon would be. The Cold War would dominate our foreign policy throughout the remainder of the 20th Century, and be central to hot wars in Korea and Vietnam.
This would be in the future. In our innocence back in Nell Cunningham's sixth-grade classroom, we could not have imagined the changes coming at such a dizzying pace. The Communists at that time were well on their way to defeating Chiang Kai Sheik's more numerous, better armed, but ineffective Nationalists. The demise of Chiang and his retreat to Formosa (now Taiwan) would significantly affect the politics of American foreign policy for several more decades.
Apparently mundane changes reflected the broader picture.
In 1947, all traffic coming from, or going west of Monroe passed 9th through street. The old North School on the corner of 9th Street and 15th Avenue thus bordered the busiest street in town. On the south side of the building, site of the present Guerin Chiropractic Clinic, was a grassy plot of lawn. It was unfenced, and we were prohibited from playing on it because of the heavy traffic on 9th Street. It didn't matter - we were content with our self-demarked ball diamonds and sleigh-riding hill on the other side of the school.
In a few short years, the dingy basement of the old North School would be converted to classrooms, and the grassy plot on the south side of the school would be black topped for additional playground, and fenced off from busy 9th Street. The Baby Boomers had arrived in force.
This seemingly small change in the total scheme of things signified the massive post-war transition of the broader world that bore little resemblance to the world of 1941.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Monroe Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
The world to which the troops returned would be far different than the world of 1941, a mere four years earlier. To younger people of today, 1941 or 1946 - so what? It's all ancient history to them. But it was during those war years, and immediately thereafter, that there was such a dizzying pace of change that the post-war world bore little resemblance to that of 1941.
The nation had passed through the decade of the Great Depression, the 30s, followed by a bloody four years of war - a war in which there was near universal participation, including sons of the sitting president, and two future presidents, privileged Ivy Leaguers, no less - quite a switch from today.
Many people believed that we would head right back into recession. It didn't happen for reasons to be elaborated upon in a future column.
The returning troops started families, purchased homes, and produced the great "Baby Boom" of 1946 to 1964. It was a period of unparalleled widely shared prosperity with a growing middle class. The G.I. Bill of rights fueled a housing boom, and offered college educations to ordinary guys to whom college was previously out of reach.
Autumn 1947: The earliest Baby Boomers were still in their cribs - hadn't reached grade school yet. Those of us born during the "birth dearth" of the 1930s, basked in innocence, were still enjoying uncrowded classrooms.
Southeast classroom, second floor of the old North School: Nell Cunningham was reflecting to her sixth-graders on the slogan that "the sun never sets on the British Empire." She was discussing India in transition - the British had given up the crown jewel of its empire, India, partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan.
Scholars had long anticipated the end of the colonial era. Spurred on by wartime events, it happened far faster than anyone had anticipated. The Japanese had chased the Dutch out of the Dutch East Indies, the British out of the Malay Peninsula, and the French out of Indo China. With the surrender of Japan, the colonized peoples were not about to go back to the old order. Indonesian nationals proclaimed independence from The Netherlands. Malaysia became independent of Great Britain in 1949. The French were reluctant to let go, enduring a bloody but futile war to retain their North African colonies, and another disastrous war in Indo China, i.e., Vietnam. The French were finally unceremoniously evicted in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. This would presage disastrous American foreign policy a decade later. America, oblivious to anti-colonial sentiment in Asia, would intervene under the aegis of anti-communism.
The end of the colonial era changed the map. British Honduras in Central America became Belize, the Belgian Congo became Zaire, Tanganyika became Tanzania, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and so on. By the mid 1960s most of the former British, Dutch, French, Belgian, and Portuguese colonies had their independence. Spain had long since lost her colonies. The colonial era was history.
If the maps we had studied in grade school were changing, so was the geopolitical situation in general. Our former bitter enemies, Japan and Germany, became our staunchest allies. General MacArthur, the arch political conservative, was instrumental in rebuilding Japan with what in America would be considered liberal, progressive reforms. The Marshall Plan, pushed through a reluctant congress by President Truman, was instrumental in rebuilding Europe.
How much of this was through learning from the punitive Treaty of Versailles following WWI, or how much was pragmatic self-interest, as we needed Germany and Japan as allies against our new adversary, the Soviet Union, is debatable. But as Germany and Japan became staunch allies, our former uneasy ally, the Soviet Union that had suffered some 20 million deaths during the war, and had absorbed and destroyed so much of the powerful German Army, became our new adversary.
In 1946 the Soviet Union was not yet a nuclear power, but soon would be. The Cold War would dominate our foreign policy throughout the remainder of the 20th Century, and be central to hot wars in Korea and Vietnam.
This would be in the future. In our innocence back in Nell Cunningham's sixth-grade classroom, we could not have imagined the changes coming at such a dizzying pace. The Communists at that time were well on their way to defeating Chiang Kai Sheik's more numerous, better armed, but ineffective Nationalists. The demise of Chiang and his retreat to Formosa (now Taiwan) would significantly affect the politics of American foreign policy for several more decades.
Apparently mundane changes reflected the broader picture.
In 1947, all traffic coming from, or going west of Monroe passed 9th through street. The old North School on the corner of 9th Street and 15th Avenue thus bordered the busiest street in town. On the south side of the building, site of the present Guerin Chiropractic Clinic, was a grassy plot of lawn. It was unfenced, and we were prohibited from playing on it because of the heavy traffic on 9th Street. It didn't matter - we were content with our self-demarked ball diamonds and sleigh-riding hill on the other side of the school.
In a few short years, the dingy basement of the old North School would be converted to classrooms, and the grassy plot on the south side of the school would be black topped for additional playground, and fenced off from busy 9th Street. The Baby Boomers had arrived in force.
This seemingly small change in the total scheme of things signified the massive post-war transition of the broader world that bore little resemblance to the world of 1941.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Monroe Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
