Consider the role of technology during World War II. Did it fundamentally affect the outcome of the war? If so, how? If not, why not?
World War II saw the new application of many new technologies by military forces on all sides of the conflict. As you know the technological world is growing and growing and at a very fast rate. IPhones and laptops are changing our world and the way we live our everyday lives. Is this a good or a bad thing? Well I’ll leave that up to you but let’s look back on back where technology really started to change our world and how it altered the outcome of World War II.
Technology played a crucial role in determining the outcome of World War II and no war was as greatly affected by science, math, and technology than WWII. We can point to numerous new inventions and scientific principles that emerged during the war; these include advances in rocketry, radar, computers, trajectory calculating tools and so on. The entire technology of radar, which is the ability to use radio waves to detect objects at a distance, was barely invented at the start of the war but became highly developed in just a few years at sites like the “Radiation Laboratory” at MIT. By allowing people to “see” remotely, at very long distances, radar made the idea of “surprise attack” virtually obsolete and vastly enlarged the arena of modern warfare (today’s radars can see potential attackers from thousands of miles away). Radar allowed nations to track incoming air attacks, guided bombers to their targets, and directed anti-aircraft guns toward airplanes flying high above. By constructing complex pieces of electronic equipment that had to be small, rugged, and reliable, radar engineering also set the foundations for modern electronics, especially television.
Chemical labs cooked up a host of new technologies, from new types of explosives to incendiary bombs flame throwers, and smoke screens. New materials and new uses for old materials appeared as well. Companies manufacturing consumer goods converted to manufacture military goods. Automobile factories re-tooled to make tanks and airplanes. These industrial modifications required rapid and creative engineering, transportation, and communications solutions. Because of the need to put most resources into the war effort, consumers at home experienced shortages and rationing of many basic items such as rubber, gasoline, paper, and coffee. New materials emerged to fill these voids such as cardboard milk and juice containers, which replaced glass bottles, acrylic sheets were moulded into bomber noses and fighter-plane canopies and plywood emerged as a substitute for scarce metals.
The inventions of World War II can be found in so much of our daily lives, from Saran wrap to computers and large-scale production and shipping of industrial products. Even our education system, the very way we train people to use new technologies, finds some of its origins in World War II. Not only has technology fundamentally affected and altered the outcome of the biggest war but it continues to change our daily lives.
Halim Haddad
History 10A