Copyright Notice: This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

 

World War II was fought on three continents, with North Carolinians serving in every major theater. Hostilities began in earnest on 1 Sept. 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, prompting Great Britain and France to declare war in defense of Poland. America joined the Allies (Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union) against the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) in December 1941, after the Japanese bombing of the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii.

More than 362,500 North Carolinians (including 69,000 African Americans and 7,000 women) served in the armed forces during the war. Casualties included 6,458 battle deaths and more than 3,000 deaths from other causes. World War II in Europe ended when Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945. The war in the Pacific lasted several months longer, officially concluding on 2 September, when the Japanese signed a treaty of surrender aboard the USS Missouri.

Keep Reading Part II: North Carolina Contributions in Battle and on the Home Front

References: 

Mary Best, ed., North Carolina's Shining Hour: Images and Voices from World War II (2005).

Robert D. Billinger Jr., "Behind the Wire: German Prisoners of War at Camp Sutton, 1944-46," NCHR 61 (October 1984).

Spencer Bidwell King Jr., Selective Service in North Carolina in World War II (1949).

Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America (1979).

Sarah McCulloh Lemmon, North Carolina's Role in World War II (1964).

David A. Stallman, A History of Camp Davis (1990).

J. Gordon Vaeth, Blimps and U-Boats: U.S. Navy Airships in the Battle of the Atlantic (1992).

Additional Resources:

North Carolina's WWII Experience, UNC-TV: http://wwii.unctv.org/; http://wwii.unctv.org/the-experience

Timeline of World War II, 1931-1941. ANCHOR. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/timeline-world-war-ii-1931

Timeline of World War II, 1941-1945. ANCHOR. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/timeline-world-war-ii-1942

The Great Depression and World War II, ANCHOR. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/great-depression-and-world

World War II and After, History of Medicine. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online). https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-medicine/World-War-II-and-after

Video Credit:

NC's WWII EXPERIENCE: Boomtown North Carolina: Fort Bragg, UNC-TV. Uploaded by exploreUNCTV on Nov 15, 2010. Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycE86mq-6io&feature=plcp (accessed August 29, 2012).

Citation

Bell, John L., Jr., Tom Belton, Jr. Billinger, Michael Hill, Joshua Howard, Jr. Parker, William S. Powell, Beverly Tetterton, and Jo Ann Williford. "World War II." NCpedia. Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. Accessed on December 12th, 2024. http://ncpedia-02.dcs.mcnc.org/world-war-ii.