National Museum of the U.S. Navy

The Home Front

Located within the Atlantic Theater portion, the Home Front focuses on the massive effort to increase public and corporate contributions to the war effort between the period 1941-45.  Examples of how the advertising media and the entertainment industry participated in the effort by extolling the virtues of buying bonds, giving blood, and rationing food are avaliable in this section.   Visitors may sit in a simulated movie theater and watch propoganda films, newsreels, and fictional sagas that focus on World War II.  Also on display are posters that encouraged women to leave the home and work in defense industry factories, and to fill in the employment gaps left by conscripted males.  Service by U.S. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, is also detailed in this exhibit.  

Interesting parts of the Home Front exhibit include:

• Recognition area with collection of aircraft models which were used by military schools for pilots and enlisted servicemembers to recognize types of aircraft merely by their silhouettes.
• Hellcat Unit 602 Insignia.
• Flash Card Deck used for international code flags, phonetic alphabet, and morse code. 
• Movie theater symbolizing the entertainment industry's role in promoting the war effort.   The monitor shows selected clips from period war films.
• Storefront displaying perishable, and rationed food items and food stamps used during the period.
• Re-creation of an "idealized" family living room during this period; note picture of service member displayed on the table, along with a V-mail, black-out curtain over the window, and bag of rationed food items.
• Indoor Blackout Lamp.
  
• Board displaying American Civil Defense procedures and associated visual-aids.
• Board displaying the role of the WAVES during World War II, including uniforms.
• Photograph of the Golden Thirteen, the first African-American commissioned officers.