Service and Sacrifice: World War II- A Shared Experience
With over 16 million Americans serving during World War II, every single person in the United States was touched in some way by the war. This special exhibit Service and Sacrifice offers personal glimpses of a few of the many Americans who served, including members of the Kennedy family and the untold stories of historically marginalized communities, including women and people of color.
A Divided America
When war first broke out, opinion in the United States was sharply divided. Not wanting to get involved in another European conflict after World War I, many supported isolationism. Major figures, including Kennedy family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., were alarmingly in favor of the authoritarian regimes sweeping Europe. That changed on December 7, 1941: the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor knocked down all isolationist walls. The United States would join the war.
The Kennedys and The War
For the Kennedy children who were of age, enlisting was a foregone conclusion: eldest son Joe Jr. joined the Navy as a pilot. John F. Kennedy, initially deemed unfit for military service because of his health, was able to secure a position with his father’s help leading a crew on the ill-fated PT 109. Their sister Kathleen followed suit with her peers and volunteered for the Red Cross in England to be near her future husband.
Like many families, the Kennedys were irrevocably changed by the war: Joe Jr. and his copilot Wilford J. Willy were killed in action in a secret bombing mission to France, Jack became a war hero after his PT boat was sunk by a Japanese destroyer, and four months after marrying her husband, Kathleen was widowed when he was killed in action on the battlefront.
New Opportunities, Same Barriers
For many the war opened opportunities where very few had existed before, although barriers to full equal treatment that existed on the home front persisted on the war front. For Americans of color, service in a war to “preserve democracy” was an ironic counterpoint to the racism and bigotry at home. Women who were able to work in different capacities within the Armed Forces for the first time were greeted with hostility by their male counterparts. But for all those involved, the war opened different avenues and changed perceptions. As a result, countless servicepeople went on to shape and change post-war American society.
Using artifacts, letters, documents, photographs and memorabilia —many of which have rarely been exhibited-from the John F. Kennedy Library collection and other Institutions-the special exhibition Service & Sacrifice will look at the American experience of World War II through the eyes of a few of the more than 16 million who served.
