A difficult question indeed. After this week’s reading of PBS’s “Communication: News and Censorship”, I have gained a lot more knowledge as to how the news portrayed WW2 to the American people. During World War two, the average American citizen’s knowledge about the war came from three sources: newspapers, broadcasts, and the radio. Though, the information they were receiving, wasn’t always true. In order to keep up morale, any news being reported about the war had to go through the Office of War Information (OWI). The OWI would censor any part of the news they believed would frighten or lower the morale of the American people. Furthermore, many of the reporters describing the war were heavily patriotic, making an effort to accentuate the positive as much as they could. Additionally, the government would release short films of the war only featuring uplifting stories and inspiring generals explaining the latest developments.
I’ll be honest, the first time I read this, my opinion was instantly solidified. The US government was wrong for supplying the American people with sugar-coated news. The American people back home had a right to know what was really going on overseas, and it was completely unethical of the government to attempt to keep that information from them. However, after contemplating and reading over the article a little more, my opinion has slightly changed.
In 1943, the government finally released a film titled “With the Marines at Tarawa”, revealing the accurate, brutal footage of what was really going on in the war. Though a decline in morale was feared, President Roosevelt felt it was time the Americans saw what was truly going on overseas. The reactions were not positive. The article writes “When we saw those first pictures of Tarawa we were overcome, just overcome,” Katherine Philips said. “It was just devastating to us. Those American boys’ bodies floating in the surf. We just sat around and cried and I know that’s why they had kept it from the American public for so long.” The article continues, explaining that “enlistment went down and bond sales went up”.
This really made me reconsider my original opinion. Showing the American people the truth did lower morale, and the war effort suffered. So, was it worth it?
With everything that was on the line (beating the nazis, Japan, ending the war), keeping morale up was very important. So was lowering it worth it if it meant showing the American people the truth? Was showing the truth to the American people worth the decline in enlistment? I don’t know. What I do know is, we won the war either way. I’m not sure if things would have been different if the government never showed the American people the truth, but it’s a question to keep in mind as we study history and learn from it.
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