A Religious History of the American GI in World War II by G. Kurt Piehler (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Religious History of the American GI in World War II by G. Kurt Piehler Michael Snape (bio) A Religious History of the American GI in World War II. By G. Kurt Piehler. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021. xv + 393 pp. A substantial body of literature exists on religion and the American service man and woman during World War II. Besides the voluminous (and surprisingly wide-ranging) official histories of Army, Navy, and Air Force chaplaincy published in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, more recent (and independent) studies of American military chaplaincy in the 1940s have also emerged. These include Alex Grobman's Rekindling the Flame: American Jewish Chaplains and the Survivors of European Jewry, 1944–48 (1993), Donald F. Crosby's Battlefield Chaplains: Catholic Priests in World War II (1994), Lyle W. Dorsett's Serving God and Country: U.S. Military Chaplains in World War II (2012), and Ronit Y. Stahl's Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America (2017). The connections of specific religious groups, [End Page 502] and of American civil religion, with the armed forces have also been examined in books such as Anne C. Loveland's American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military 1942–1993, (1997), Deborah Dash Moore's GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation (2004), my own God and Uncle Sam: Religion and America's Armed Forces in World War II (2015), and Jonathan H. Ebel's G.I. Messiahs: Soldiering, War, and American Civil Religion (2015). Given this extensive historiography, it is surprising that a thorough literature review is missing from this book, one that enables the reader to distinguish the distinctiveness of its contribution from what is already known, and even well established. For example, on the cover it is claimed that the book "breaks new ground by recounting the armed forces' unprecedented efforts to meet the spiritual needs of the fifteen million men and women who served in World War II." However, this theme was the leitmotif of the chaplaincy histories published in the aftermath of the war and has been closely covered in subsequent studies. Similarly, the (qualified) triumph of the "tri-faith vision" of American religious life, especially when exemplified in America's armed forces, will come as no surprise to those acquainted with the existing literature. Even less will the findings of the post-war survey The American Soldier (1949), which demonstrated that prayer was an indispensable support to soldiers on the front line. However, as the founder of the Rutgers Oral History Archives and a diligent researcher among many other archives, Kurt G. Piehler has made a valuable contribution in extending and enhancing our understanding of the experience of minorities such as African Americans, Chinese Americans, Native Americans, women (especially members of the Women's Army Corps), and more marginal religious groups such as Christian Scientists. His discussion of the relationship between psychiatry and pastoral care is also expansive and enlightening, as is his treatment of the National Committee of the Non-Church People of America. There are, however, some snags with the bigger picture. One issue is that the influence of mainstream Hollywood on the conditioning of this generation is underestimated. In the build-up to war and in its early days, Americans were exposed to such compelling evocations of military piety as The Fighting 69th (1940) and, supremely, Sergeant York (1941), which was still the third most watched film in American army bases in 1943. Furthermore, Mrs Miniver (1942), another Oscar-winning hit and Hollywood's most blatantly pro-British film, dwelt heavily on the religious character of life on the British home front, a portrayal which had some substance and helped to cement the nascent "special relationship" between the US and Great Britain. With reference to the wider media, it is also doubtful whether chaplaincy emerged from the war with, as argued, [End Page 503] a "relatively low profile" (315–16). Apart from chaplains' presence on the big screen, the airwaves had been filled with Frank J. Loesser's "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" (1942), Bing Crosby's "Soldiers of God" (1944), and by more than 200 weekly...