Bringing the Boys Home: America’s Demobilization After WWII

14. From Tiny Army to Massive Military

As late as 1939, even as war raged in Asia and the lowering clouds of conflict gathered over Europe, America had a tiny Army of roughly 170,000 men. By 1945, America had mobilized 16 million servicemen – a figure that, if prorated to 2024’s population, would be the equivalent of putting roughly 40 million Americans in uniform. At war’s end, more than 8 million US servicemen were stationed overseas, scattered around the globe. The fighting was over, and it was time to bring our heroes back home – heroes whose eagerness to return to civilian life was matched by the eagerness of their loved ones to see, touch, and embrace them once again. To that end, Operation Magic Carpet was conducted to repatriate US troops to American soil.

13. The Little-Known War Shipping Administration

The massive logistical effort to bring the boys home was entrusted to the War Shipping Administration (WSA). Little known then and even less known today, the WSA was created during the emergency of WWII to coordinate, oversee, and operate US civilian shipping in support of the war effort. Planning for Magic Carpet began in 1943. Even as transports crossed the Atlantic, laden with the troops who would help free a continent from the Nazi yoke, the WSA and the War Department drew plans for the servicemen’s eventual return.

12. The Pecking Order of Who Got to Go Home First

Priority for deciding who would come back first was determined by the Advanced Service Rating Score. It was a pecking order based on the principle that “those who had fought longest and hardest should be returned home for discharge first“. Points were awarded for months of service, months of service overseas, combat awards, and for dependent children. The more points scored, the greater the priority for shipping home and discharge. In preparation, the WSA converted over 300 cargo ships into troop transports. Starting in June, 1945, just a month after Germany surrendered, the WSA began to ship American servicemen from the European Theater of Operations back to the US. After Japan surrendered, the agency’s mission was extended to repatriate servicemen from the Pacific Theater as well.

11. Ike’s Farewell to the Troops

At the end of World War II in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, congratulated his men on a job well done. He also offered advice for his troops’ expected return to civilian life: “The route you have traveled through hundreds of miles is marked by the graves of former comrades. Each of the fallen died as a member of the team to which you belong, bound together by a common love of liberty and a refusal to submit to enslavement. Our common problems of the immediate and distant future can be best solved in the same conceptions of cooperation and devotion to the cause of human freedom as have made this Expeditionary Force such a mighty engine of righteous destruction. Let us have no part in the profitless quarrels in which other men will inevitably engage as to what country, what service, won the European war. Every man, every woman, of every nation here represented has served according to his or her ability, and the efforts of each have contributed to this outcome. This we shall remember—and in doing so we shall be revering each honored grave and be sending comfort to the loved ones of comrades who could not live to see this day“.

10. Magic Carpet Takes Off

Magic Carpet began in earnest when the first ships set sail in June, 1945, from the European Theater and crossed the Atlantic, packed with returning veterans. The American buildup in Europe had averaged about 150,000 troops shipped across the Atlantic per month. Magic Carpet reversed the tide, returning US servicemen at an astonishing rate that averaged 435,000 men per month during a fourteen-month-stretch. A peak was reached in December, 1945, when over 700,000 personnel were repatriated from the Pacific Theater alone. To maintain the pace, the number of ships employed steadily grew from the initial 300 requisitioned by the WSA at the start of the operation. The motley fleet ranged in size from small vessels with a carrying capacity of only 300 troops, to behemoths such as the luxury liners Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, converted during the war into troop transports that could carry up to 15,000 servicemen.

9. The Variables That Determined How Long it Took To Get Back Home

Among the vessels used in the massive repatriation effort were 48 hospital ships, to transport over half a million American wounded, as well as 29 specially commissioned transports to ship the half million war brides – European women married by US servicemen – to their new homes in America. Passage times varied, depending on the servicemen’s location, as well as the luck of the draw in the ships to which they were assigned. For example, the USS Lake Champlain set an Atlantic crossing record in a mere 4 days and 8 hours. By contrast, other veterans stationed in posts farther away, such as India or Australia, could spend weeks or months at sea aboard slower vessels.

8. A Sudden Complication

Daunting and complex as it was, Magic Carpet was completed relatively quickly. By September, 1945, 1.4 million servicemen, nearly all of them from the European Theater, had been repatriated. By December 1^st, 1945, the WSA had successfully repatriated over 3.5 million personnel. By February, 1946, repatriation from the ETO had, by and large, been completed. Repatriation from the European Theater began relatively smoothly. By 1945, both the US Army and the WSA were experienced in the rapid transport of massive numbers of troops from bases on America’s East Coast to Europe. Reversing the process was relatively simple. Then the sudden capitulation of Japan in August, 1945, threw a monkey’s wrench into the works.

7. Returning Servicemen From Two Theaters of Operations

The war in the Pacific had been expected to last well into 1946. As such, nobody had anticipated the need to bring back servicemen from the Pacific Theater in 1945. When that war ended only three months after hostilities had concluded in Europe, just as the WSA was in the middle of what by then was an already massive repatriation effort from the ETO back to the US, the authorities were caught flat footed. There was not enough readily available sealift capacity to simultaneously repatriate millions of servicemen from both the European and Pacific theaters. Not nearly as quickly as the servicemen wanted to return home, nor as quickly as their loved ones and the American public demanded that they be returned.

6. The US Navy’s Contribution to Magic Carpet

The WSA’s supply of readily convertible cargo ships could not keep up with the demand of repatriating servicemen from both Europe and the Pacific. So the US Navy chipped in. In an act of improvisation, naval combat ships were designated as troop transports. Thus, by administrative fiat, the Navy diverted for use in Operation Magic Carpet battleships such as the Washington, West Virginia, and Maryland, and aircraft carriers such as the Enterprise, Saratoga, and the newly commissioned Lake Champlain. Aircraft carriers, with their massive and open hangar decks, proved well-suited for the task. Among such vessels, the Saratoga brought home a total of 29,204 troops during her Magic Carpet service – more than any other individual warship. Such naval giants were joined by numerous smaller vessels, ranging from cruisers to Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs) to destroyers.

5. Transforming Warships Into Transports

As seen above, some combat ships were hurriedly retrofitted to serve as transports, as was the case with aircraft carriers, in whose hangars were bolted or welded massive bunk beds. Other Navy vessels, particularly smaller ones such as destroyers, were frequently impressed to serve as transports just as they were. Returning servicemen were invited to shift for themselves, deploy hammocks wherever possible, and make do by squeezing into whatever nooks and crannies and free space were available aboard ship. The Pacific portion of Magic Carpet involved extra layers of complexity, and, especially at the beginning, required greater dispatch than had been necessary in Europe. There was the Pacific’s vast distances compared to the European theater. There was also the urgent need to rescue American POWs from the scattered Japanese camps in which they had languished for years, often starved, brutalized, and otherwise barbarically mistreated by their captors.

4. Prioritizing American POWs in Japanese Captivity

Once the ceasefire was declared in the Pacific on August 15^th, 1945, aerial reconnaissance missions were flown from American aircraft carriers to try and pinpoint POW camps in Japanese territory. Once located, airdrops of supplies, especially food and medicine, sometimes accompanied by courageous medics and doctors who volunteered to parachute in, were conducted to succor the ill and malnourished captives. As soon as the Japanese surrender was officially signed, and sometimes even before, American POWs were retrieved from Japanese captivity and, given a high priority, started off on their long journey home. Magic Carpet in the Pacific Theater of Operation was concluded by September, 1946. The War Shipping Administration, created as an emergency measure during the crucible of war, was finally stood down, and its functions were returned to the civilian Maritime Commission.

3. Operation Santa Claus, to Bring the Boys Back Home for Christmas

A subset of Magic Carpet, codenamed Operation Santa Claus, aimed to bring home as many eligible troops as possible in time for Christmas, 1945. December, 1945, was the peak month of the entire sealift. The number of returning personnel spiked from the monthly average of 435,000, to 700,000 from just the Pacific alone. Unfortunately, as many as 250,000 returning servicemen found themselves stranded on the East and West Coasts, unable to reach their homes home due to the mother of all rail jams – and railways were the primary mode of long distance travel then. Fortunately, thousands of civilians opened their hearts and homes, and welcomed servicemen to join them for Christmas. The repatriated military personnel might not have enjoyed the warmth of their own families, but they enjoyed the warmth of strangers who made them a part of their family that day.

2. “The Best Christmas Present a Man Can Have“

Other examples of generosity abounded. They included a trucker to who took 35 servicemen from Denver to Dallas and points between, and a Los Angeles cabbie who drove 6 repatriated veterans all the way to Chicago. Another LA cabbie did him one better, and transported 6 returning heroes to New York City. Even for those who spent Christmas stranded in barracks, the reaction of one returning private best captured the mood. He noted that simply touching American soil once again was: “the best Christmas present a man could have“. The movement of personnel during Magic Carpet was bi-directional. Not only were Americans shipped from around the world back to the US, but German, Italian, and Japanese POWs were also shipped back to their homes from captivity in the US.

1.     An Enormous and Enormously Successful Feat

In one round trip, the aircraft carrier USS Wasp transported 1200 Italian POWs from the US to Naples. The following day, it sailed back to the US, with 4000 American servicemen. US occupation forces were also ferried to Germany, Japan, Korea, and China. Simultaneously, Chinese troops were sealifted from southern to northern China to disarm the Japanese, as well as oppose Chinese communists in the region. Hundreds of thousands of disarmed Japanese were also shipped from all over eastern and southern Asia, as well as numerous Pacific islands, back to Japan. It had taken nearly four years for America to deploy over 8 million servicemen overseas. It took only 14 months to reverse the torrent, and return most of them back home. In short, Operation Magic Carpet was an enormous, and enormously successful, feat of logistics, planning, and execution.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

History Collection – D-Day’s Black Barrage Balloon Operators, and Other Lesser Known WWII Facts

National Naval Aviation Museum – Magic Carpet Ride

National WWII Museum – Home Alive by ’45: Operation Magic Carpet

US Army Center of Military History – Mobilization: The US Army in World War II

Warfare History Network – Operation Magic Carpet