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Richard Desjardins
Professor David Speicher
History of WWII
30 November 2015
World War Two Altered Modernist Views on Death
How New Creations of World War Two Caused Wide Spread Terrors
World War Two (1939-1945) was in the middle of the Modernism Era (1890-1960).
Modernists were alienated from oneself and others. Almost everyone during this time period
didnt care about anything because they knew that they were going to die sooner or later. This
caused people to start thinking differently and more abstractly. World War Two affected and
terrorized a wide range of people from across the world leading up to the start of the war and
long after the war. Terror can be defined as a great fear, a panic when encountering a fear, or a
dread. World War Two introduced new elements into the world that were never seen before this
time period. These pieces consisted of new strategies, inventions, machines used, and ruthless
leaders. All of those factors that arose before, during, and after the war terrorized men, women,
and children of all ages in and out of the war zones of the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters. From the
Jewish people being tortured in Germany during the holocaust, to the Japanese people suffering
during and after the dropping of the atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Even the citizens
of London scrambling to their air raid shelters when the alarms were going off and the men on
the front lines fighting armored vehicles. All of these elements introduced during the Second
World War terrorized people even more than just accepting death, but caused them to dread it
and agonized the soldiers inflicting it.
This constant fear of death arose in World War One where warfare changed dramatically

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from cavalry and sword fights. The fighting in the war was brutal with the creation of mustard
gas attacks and new weapons such as the tank and machine gun. Both of these inventions
petrified opposing forces because they introduced a way that another person from a distance
could kill someone. There was no more living by Colonel William Prescotts motto of don't fire
until you see the whites of their eyes because a soldier could now open a canister of mustard gas
from a mile away with a strong wind and blind the enemy army without them even knowing.
Germany was one of the countries involved in World War Two that introduced some
serious weapons and tactics that made the Nazis feared throughout Europe. German air weapons
and tactics were some of the scariest achievements of warfare during the time. Strategic bombing
was used during the London Blitz, where bombs were dropped in mass quantities over a target.
Adolf Hitler was angry that the Royal Air Force bombed Berlin so he ordered the German
Luftwaffe to bomb London at night constantly. In response to these horrifying attacks,
Londoners built air raid shelters so they could go and hide in them during the night when the city
alarms went off. The constant attacks horrified citizens and made them wonder when they were
next. A teenager a the time, Len Jones, recalled the Blitz and said,
everything was blown to pieces, you could see it all by the red glow reflecting
from the fires that were still raging Then I saw two bodies, two heads sticking
up. I recognized one in particular: it was a Chinese neighbor, Mr Say. He had one
eye closed and I realized he was dead. I just convulsed, I was shaking all over. I
thought, well, I must be dead because they were, so I struck a match and tried to
burn my finger. I kept doing it to see if I was still alive. I could see, but I thought,
I cannot be alive. This is the end of the world (Gardiner 6).

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Air raids were a new tactic used in World War Two that stunned the worlds population. The fear
that a bomb being dropped from the air could end your life really instilled fear into people. In
some cases people panic when they hear the sound of planes because of the traumatizing effect
of air raids.
One of the most notorious weapons was the V-2 Rocket, which stood for revenge
weapon. This rocket was the first of its kind. It was a long range guided ballistic missile that
could be launched from a stationary launch pad or on the back of a truck. This weapon could be
launched from a distance and could not be stopped at the time. Victims would not know what hit
them because the rocket would fly out of the sky and obliterate its target. This weapon caused
immense amounts of fear in London because in a second a missile could land in front of
someone, especially since the military and government didnt know how to warn the citizens of
an attack because they could not see rockets on radar. According to TIME Magazine the
battlefront disappeared, and with it the illusion that there had ever been a battlefront. For this no
war of occupation, but a war of quick penetration and obliteration Blitzkrieg, lightning war
(Writer). There were no more trench battles that lasted years and only moved a mile or two.
Every battle and plan from this point forward was executed with speed, catching people off
guard and causing people to wonder where and when is the next attack, creating paranoia.
The Nazis weapons were not just feared in the air, as their ground weapons were just as
dangerous. Germany was not the first country to produce a tank however, but they mastered it
and produced hundreds of tanks over the course of the war. The introduction of tanks created this
new mentality of fighting. Soldiers were no longer fighting other soldiers. They were now
fighting this machine instead of seeing whom they are fighting. The idea of fighting something
that is not human drills fear into people because they can be blown away with one shot where as

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it takes strategy to destroy a tank. The infamous Panzer tanks of Germany came in many
variations. However, they were all equipped with 76mm cannons, thick armor, and could reach
speeds above 30 miles per hour. These tanks were the hardest tanks to defeat on the battlefield
and easily outclassed any tank thrown at them. The strength of these tanks was a metaphor for
the strength of Nazi Germany, which made soldiers and civilians freeze when one encountered a
panzer tank. They knew what they were facing.
All of the German weapon and tactic enhancements caused widespread fear. Since the
Nazi state was so powerful and terrorizing even symbols would make people gasp for breath. If a
soldier was wearing a Nazi uniform it made everyone squeamish and terrified of what might
happen to them even though they did nothing wrong. The Germans were also known for stealing
tanks and placing their markings on them. For example, if a German tank crew stole a M4
Sherman and stripped it of all of its markings and put the German cross on it, people were
scared. Even though the tank was the same as the Americans, soldiers would be fearful of it due
to the German markings.
The Germans were not the only country that caused people to become paranoid about
death. The United States did their fair share of terrorizing mass quantities of people. Like the
Germans, the Americans attacked fast, catching the enemy on their heels. One of General George
S. Pattons, the leading expert in tank warfare at the time and one the United States finest
generals, mottos was, Attack rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, without rest, however tired and
hungry you may be, the enemy will be more tired, more hungry. Keep punching (CMG
Worldwide). His philosophy was to keep the enemy on their heels and dont give them the
chance to fight back. This would cause enemy soldiers to feel tired and weak. They would see
their friends dying faster then they couldve ever imagined along with continuously being pushed

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farther and farther into Germany wondering when their time was up.
Tactics using speed were used mostly on the ground where as in the air the tactics were
more elongated attacks. Along with the Germans, the United States and Great Britain also
utilized precision bombing. However, their strategy was different. Their strategy was to have
bombing squadrons fly over a target in mass quantities and continuously drop bombs along that
target for extended periods of time. An example of these tactics was when the Royal Air Force
bombed Darmstadt, Germany on September 11th, 1941. These tactics were used to decimate Nazi
moral. The British first sent a small group of bombers to the city and when the bombing was
over the citizens came out and assessed the damages. When the citizens of Darmstadt left the
safety of their air raid shelters is when the Royal Air Force sent in the second bombing run using
hundreds of bombers and hundreds of thousands of bombs resulting in the deaths of over 10,000
people. After the attack the Nazis condemn this raid as an example of Allied terror bombing
(Timeline of the War). This attack terrorized the citizens of Germany by making them think that
they can be the targets too and the Allied forces were ruthless when it came to air raids. This
attack was a turning point in the Allied strategies of bombing. They later started using upwards
of 800 bombers per target causing mass destruction and casualties. This caused people to start
imagining what else could happen. For example, what if the allies had 1000 bombers bomb
Berlin, envisioning the destruction and death that would have caused haunted people.
Air raids were one terrorizing feature of air warfare. However, when the United States
introduced the Atomic Bomb on August 6th, 1945 by dropping it on Hiroshima in Japan the
world saw the most terrorizing weapon in the world. The atom bomb caused widespread damage
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki both when the bombs were initially dropped and afterwards because
of the radiation from the explosions. The use of these bombs scared the Japanese straight into

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surrendering because they were so fearful that the United States would use the weapon again.
Even today the repercussions of those two atomic bombs terrorize the worlds population,
especially with the creation of nuclear weapons. Since the world already experienced what
radiation can do, like mass casualties, mutations, and cancer, most people want to stray away
from the use of nuclear weapons. The factor of mutual assured destruction, where two or more
opposing sides used high-yield nuclear missiles or bombs to cause complete devastation of the
opponent, kept the use of these awful weapons at bay. The fear of mutual assured destruction
became apparent during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Russia and the United States threated each
other to launch multiple missiles into the country and if one fired first the other would fire more
in return. Since both countries realized what was on the line, a deal was made so that there would
be no launching of any nuclear weapons.
The new tactics even caused the soldiers executing them to feel like they had no human
meaning because of all of the destruction they caused and the mental damage inflicted on them.
The creation of the flamethrower reeked havoc among soldiers. The weapon was effective, but
the idea of burning alive weighed heavy on the operators conscience. It is one of the most
gruesome ways to die and the flamethrower made it a reality in war. Even the men using the
flamethrower were at risk because if a bullet hit the tank on the soldiers back it created a massive
fiery explosion, something these soldiers had to deal with. A Canadian bomber by the name of J.
Douglas Harvey said in the 1960s, I could not visualize the horrible deaths my bombs . . . had
caused here. I had no feeling of guilt. I had no feeling of accomplishment (Fussell 143). Harvey
knew what he was ordered to do and he has no guilt, but he still mourns over the destruction he
caused. Modernist soldiers thoughts on the war were to fight without hope is the fight with
grace (Fussell 131). Most soldiers at the time were fighting because they had to in order to

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avenge Pearl Harbor, or to just go back home. When the war dragged on, the United States could
no longer just rely on people enlisting but they had to use the draft. This caused soldiers to be
thrown into battle without having the proper amount of training. They would be thrown into
action and would be killed before anyone in their squadron or battalion knew their name. This
would just give the soldiers this sense of when is my life going to be up, which caused low
moral throughout the regiments. Soldiers were fearful of death and sometimes they were so
scared in the midst of battle that they would say things that happened in their past to get it off of
their chest.
The fear of death terrorized people in and out of battle because of all of the new
advancements in strategy and weapons. Death is bound to happen, but fearing death causes the
population to go into a hysteria. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, The only thing we
have to fear is fear itself.

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Works Cited
CMG Worldwide. "General George Patton Quotations." The Official Website of General George
Patton. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Fagelson, William Friedman. Fighting Films: The Everyday Tactics of World War II Soldiers.
Cinema Journal 40.3 (2001): 94112. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.
Fussell, Paul. Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. New York:
Oxford UP, 1989. Print.
Gardiner, Juliet. "Anniversary of the Blitz: 'I Thought, I Cannot Be Alive'" The Telegraph.
Telegraph Media Group, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2015.
"Timeline of the Air War (1939-1945)." WGBH. PBS, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2015.
Writer, Staff. "They Said It - and They Meant What They Said." WW2 Quotes. N.p., n.d. Web.
02 Dec. 2015.