Attention! At Ease! Florida’s Military Role Preceded Disney World
State of War: A History of World War II in Florida by Anthony D. Atwood (University Press of Florida, 2025)
Reviewed by Roger Chapman
With 20 major military installations, Florida is among the top states in support of America’s national defense. Nearly 750,000 acres of the state’s long peninsula is managed by the US Department of Defense or the National Guard. Of the nation’s four Navy deep-water ports, two are situated in the Sunshine State. In 2023, Florida was the fourth-ranked state for total federal defense expenditure, amounting to $32.2 billion and representing 2 percent of the state’s Gross Domestic Product. For that same year, military-related payroll in the state totaled $8.9 billion and military contracts amounted to over $22 billion. In terms of states with the largest number of veterans, Florida today ranks number three.
To understand how Florida emerged as a military powerhouse, a good starting point would be a reading of Anthony D. Atwood’s State of War: A History of World War II in Florida. In a dense account of nine chapters, slightly under 200 pages, Florida’s role in the Second World War is explained with many facts, figures, and charts, and it is revealed how the state emerged as a bulwark of American defense readiness. In the words of Atwood, due to the legacy of the war, “Florida ceased to be a part of the ‘Old South,’ realigning itself instead as something of a fief of the federal government” (152).
The central reasons for Florida’s WWII role were geography, climate, and topography. The state’s geographical location, as earlier explained by naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan in The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890), naturally makes it strategically important for the protection of shipping lanes in the Western Hemisphere. Climate and topography made the state ideal for WWII military training. The “year-round blue skies” and the narrow width of the peninsula were perfect for gunnery practice; the “large, empty National Forests and State Forests” were perfect for bombing ranges; and the “flatness of the terrain” was perfect for airfields(6). Prior to the war, Florida had six flight schools and nine airfields. By war’s end, there were over sixty airports. The Army airfield in Boca Raton was built on confiscated land that had been part of the Yamato Colony, a pineapple farm operated by Japanese immigrants.
Florida “facilitated the birth of the Air Force” (155), as it was the training ground of tens of thousands of officers and hundreds of thousands of enlisted personnel involved with Army and Navy air operations. The pilots and crews who dropped the atomic bombs on Japan were trained in Florida, as were the Doolittle Raiders. During the war, Cape Canaveral was a naval air station; after the war, its ocean frontage with no nearby islands was perfect for rocket testing and it became the site of the Kennedy Space Flight Center as well as Patrick Air Force Base. In 2021, the latter was designated a space force base.
Florida beaches proved to be a training ground for the trend toward joint service, which would increase during the postwar years. Soldiers and sailors trained together in learning how to conduct amphibious-assault operations. During WWII no other state had an equal abundance of empty beaches, ideal for the practicing landings in amphibious vehicles such as the Higgins boats that were produced in neighboring New Orleans. Originally Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was a training center for amphibious operations, but its rough seas and bad winters proved inadequate. It is astonishing that three Army bases in Florida—Camp Blanding in north Florida, Camp Gordon Johnston in the panhandle, and Fort Pierce in south Florida—were responsible for training over a million ground troops, including riflemen, machine gunners, cannoneers, commandos, scouts, raiders, and rangers. Twelve infantry divisions were trained in the state, and they went on to fight in both theaters, some even participating in the D-Day invasion. During the war, military personnel outnumbered civilians in the state; one out of seven men and women in uniform were at some point stationed in Florida, a total of 2.1 million.
The war was an economic boon for Florida residents, who suffered greatly during the Great Depression. During the war the state was near full employment. Companies, aided by federal grants and subsidies, sprang up to build ships and boats. Women were an important part of the workforce—by the end of 1943, women represented 22 percent of the employees at the Wainwright Shipyards in Panama City. Welding became primarily regarded as female work, and “Joan of Arc-Welding” was present in Panama City, Jacksonville, Tampa, and Miami. Demand for manufacturing was so great, the agricultural sector suffered a worker shortage that was addressed by resorting to the labor of some of the 10,000 German prisoners from the 25 POW camps scattered throughout the state.
One out of eight Floridians served in the military and in the end about 5,000 were KIA or MIA. Civilians also had their taste of some action, especially after the 1942 U-boat espionage, involving a landing of four German saboteurs near Jacksonville. That incident would prompt day-and-night mounted patrols along Florida’s 1,197 miles of coastline. Watchtowers, 50 feet in height, were built on beaches. Hundreds of residents volunteered as Coastal Watchers, including author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. 150 Navy blimps, each carrying four 500-pound depth bombs, were also utilized for monitoring the waters off the Florida coast. Civilian boats were enlisted to form the “Hooligan Navy,” primarily to patrol harbors. Atwood includes a chart documenting a hundred incidents where freighters or tankers were attacked by U-boats in or near Florida waters.
In 1940, the population of Florida was nearly 1.9 million. A decade later, the figure rose to 2.7 million. The growth coincided with a significant increase in urbanization. Key West was a beneficiary of the war; thanks to Navy engineers who drilled wells on the mainland and built a 130-mile pipeline across the chain islands, the town for the first time had plenty of potable water that allowed for population growth and the development of a popular tourist destination. After the war, Naval Station Key West became President Truman’s second White House, where he spent 175 days of his time in office.
Atwood’s book was financially supported by the Michael V. Gannon Fund, honoring the late historian who was a trailblazer for Florida history. The late Gannon would applaud Atwood’s earnest effort. However, State of War generally lacks what constitutes the best of history: narrativity. Statistics more so than the stories of people are the basis of this work. Researchers will be sorely disappointed that the book lacks an index, but there are endnotes and a bibliography. Despite the shortcomings, State of War reflects considerable research and offers readers an opportunity to learn a great deal about Florida’s role in World War II.
Roger Chapman is a professor of history at Palm Beach Atlantic University.
