Although World War II began as a war in Europe, many in the United States, foreseeing the inevitable, began to prepare for war, putting no faith in the Neutrality Act. Preparations for war, essentially ending the Great Depression, affected the entire country, with Virginia particularly playing a major role. More than one million service men and women came to Virginia. The sheer scope of the military development in Virginia of the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force, providing training bases and support facilities, underscores the national resolve to be prepared. The book includes the Civil Air Patrol, wartime industry, POW camps, U-boat attacks, the Beach Patrol and other Virginia-related topics.

Montgomery in the Good War is a richly textured account of a southern city and its people during World War II. Using newspaper accounts, interviews, letters, journals, and his own memory of the time, Wesley Newton reconstructs wartime-era Montgomery, Alabama--a sleepy southern capital that was transformed irreversibly during World War II. The war affected every segment of Montgomery society: black and white, rich and poor, male and female, those who fought in Europe and the Pacific and those who stayed on the home front. Newton follows Montgomerians chronologically through the war from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima as they experience patriotism, draft and enlistment, rationing, scarcity drives, and the deaths of loved ones. His use of small vignettes based on personal recollections adds drama and poignancy to the story. Montgomery in the Good War is an important reminder that wars are waged at home as well as abroad and that their impact reverberates well beyond those who fight on the front lines. Those who came of age during the war will recognize themselves in this moving volume. It will also be enlightening to those who have lived in times of relative peace.