Selective Training and Service Act (1940)
- also known as the Burke-Wadsworth Act
- enacted September 16, 1940
- the first peacetime Conscription in the United States history.
- This Selective Service Act required that men between the ages of 21 and 35 register with local draft boards. Later, when the U.S. entered World War 2 all men aged 18 to 45 were made subject to military service, and all men aged 18 to 65 were required to register.
Effects:
- Signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, the Act established the first peace-time draft in United States history. Under the Selective Training and Service Act, all American males between twenty-one and thirty-six years of age registered for the draft. The government selected men through a lottery system. If drafted, a man served for twelve months. According to the Selective Training and Service Act's provisions, drafted soldiers had to remain in the Western Hemisphere or in United States possessions or territories located in other parts of the world. The act provided that not more than 900,000 men were to be in training at any one time, and it limited service to 12 months.
- Many of the soldiers drafted in October 1940 threatened to desert once the original twelve months of their service was up. Many of these men painted the letters "O H I O" on the walls of their barracks in protest.These letters were an acronym for "Over the hill in October," which meant that the men intended to desert upon the end of their twelve months of duty. Desertions did occur, but they were not widespread. Following the Japanese attack on pearl harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, thousands of American men and women swelled the United States' military's ranks by volunteering for service, and thousands more by conscription.
Pearl Harbor Conspiracy Stories
- That Americans officials had advance knowledge of Japans December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Ever since the Japanese attack there has been debate as to how and why the US had been caught off guard and how much and when American officials knew of Japanese plans for an attack.
- former United States Navy Real Admiral Robert A. Theobald have argued that various parties high in the U.S. and British governments knew of the attack in advance and may even have let it happen or encouraged it in order to force America into war via the "back door."
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