13 - The Spirit of St. Louis: Mobilizing American Politics and Society, 1937-1945

Summary

The war will last a hundred years - five years of fighting and ninety-five of winding up the barbed wire.

American doughboys' joke in 1918

Even for a place like the Coliseum, it was an unusual day. A heavy stench of gun smoke lingered over the arena for hours, while hundreds of troops fired their rifles and cannons, exploded mines, launched rockets, were ordered over the top, retreated, dug into foxholes, and tied the enemy down in surprise pincer movements, before at long last the Star Spangled Banner flew in victory. The calendar gave no reason for martial celebration - no anniversary or holiday - nor did the latest news. The war was dragging on. Politicians and military leaders admitted that the worst of the fighting with Germany and Japan was yet to come.

By any standard, November 1943 seemed a strange time to stage a sham battle, and the Los Angeles Coliseum no less a strange location. Nevertheless, the City Council remained determined. Since the early 1940s, billions of defense dollars had flowed into California's shipyards and its nascent high-tech industries. Manpower recruitment for the shipyards, however, was badly behind schedule. Filling the vacancies promised victory in the war and a bright economic future. These goals justified a public-relations spectacle, a multidimensional battle event, live on stage.