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Bringing the Boys Home: America’s Demobilization After WWII

Khalid Elhassan December 18, 2024 13 min

Magic-Carpet - Cover of a souvenir booklet prepared for US Army personnel in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations — Cover of a souvenir booklet prepared for US Army personnel in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. Yank, the Army Weekly

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

USS Saratoga (CV-3) returning home with more than 3500 soon-to-be-discharged servicemen. National Archives

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.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.