PUTTING THE "EFFORT" IN THE "WAR EFFORT"

 On World War II's "Home Front"

An essential part of a nation's war effort is addressing the non-combat needs of the men and women in uniform. Healthy, balanced, and contented service personnel are better killers and defenders, presumably. And families back home need to maintain bonds, and to feel that they are parts of the war efforts themselves.

In America's Civil War, the father of Theodore Roosevelt never served in uniform, perhaps in deference to his Georgia-born wife's feelings, but he headed up the Allotment Bureau, devised with President Lincoln. He visited many camps to convince soldiers to apportion percentages of their pay to their families at home.

In World War II, one of the myriad campaigns to tend to servicemen was conducted by comic-strip cartoonists. It was not as flashy as USO Tours by singers and movie stars (and cartoonists did, and do, make USO tours to do chalk-talks and other entertainment), but it was an effort to encourage communications with those in uniform. In practice it was rather awkward... but give someone a medal for Good Intentions.

Postcards were designed with popular comic-strip characters "speaking" about what the soldiers, airmen, and marines liked, and missed, and wanted. The military members were urged to fill in the blanks -- their names, vital information, and wish-lists. These cards were designed then to be sent home, to relatives or more often, to strangers. In all my years of collecting, I have only seen ONE of these cards filled out... suggesting that the campaign was not successful.

The series included four cards each of popular strip characters. Here, Dick Tracy; the casts of Barney Google and Moon Mullins were others. None (with the possible exception of Barney Google) were drawn by the actual creators of the strips.