What was the size of the US Army in 1940?

Answer 1

World War II in Europe is generally agreed to have begun when Nazi tanks rolled into Poland on September 1, 1939. It would be another 27 months before the US entered the war. On September 3, 1939, the US Army got a new commanding general when George C. Marshall was sworn in as the new Chief of Staff. Marshall inherited an army that was the 21st largest in the world, right behind Bulgaria. The US Army was primed and equipped to refight WWI, and Marshall had a huge task to expand and modernize, and completely reorganize the US Army. There were less than 250,000 officers and men when Marshall began his work. In 1940, Congress passed the first peacetime draft in American history, to draft one million men into the Army to serve for one year. This draft legislation came up for renewal the next year, in August 1941, and passed Congress by the margin of a single vote. The million men drafted in 1940 were not let out after a year, as they had been promised, and were generally pretty aggravated about it. By December 1941, when the US was in the war, the US Army still numbered less than two million, a smaller force by far than that which Hitler had sent against the Russians in the summer of 1941. But, by the end of the war, under Marshall's guidance, the US Army had expanded to over eight million men and was victorious around the globe. Marshall was also in charge of the Air Force, which was still the US Army Air Force until 1947, so he commanded another three million men there.

Answer 2

Ten per cent of the US population at the time was in the military, or sixteen million out of 160 million Americans. This was thought to be as many as could be taken in a modern, industrial economy without beginning to hurt war production. Over eight million served in the US Army and more than three million more in the US Army Air Force, over three million were in the US Navy, and there were over 700,000 Marines.

Answer 3

670,000