Original Items: Only One Group of 4 Available. The 'home front' covers the activities of the civilians in a nation at war. World War II was a total war; homeland production became even more invaluable to both the Allied and Axis powers. Life on the home front during World War II was a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Governments became involved with new issues such as rationing, manpower allocation, home defense, evacuation in the face of air raids, and response to occupation by an enemy power. The morale and psychology of the people responded to leadership and propaganda. Typically women were mobilized to an unprecedented degree.

All of the powers used lessons from their experiences on the home front during World War I. Their success in mobilizing economic output was a major factor in supporting combat operations. Among morale-boosting activities that also benefited combat efforts, the home front engaged in a variety of scrap drives for materials crucial to the war effort such as metal, rubber, and rags. Such drives helped strengthen civilian morale and support for the war effort. Each country tried to suppress rumors, which typically were negative or defeatist.

Flags such as these 4 would have been displayed in various ways as a “reminder” of who and why they were fighting against the evil that was sweeping across the globe. Small flags like these were important to have around, not only for showing your support and patriotism for the countries you were allied with, but as a familiarization tool so you knew who was “friendly” and who was not.

The Flags Included In The Grouping:

- 34 ½” x 24 ½” American Flag: During the war some 16,112,566 Americans served in the United States Armed Forces, with 405,399 killed and 671,278 wounded. There were also 130,201 American prisoners of war, of whom 116,129 returned home after the war. Key civilian advisors to President Roosevelt included Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who mobilized the nation's industries and induction centers to supply the Army, commanded by General George Marshall and the Army Air Forces under General Hap Arnold. The Navy, led by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Admiral Ernest King, proved more autonomous. Overall priorities were set by Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chaired by William Leahy. The highest priority was the defeat of Germany in Europe, but first the war against Japan in the Pacific was more urgent after the sinking of the main battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor. The flag is in lovely condition with minor fading.

- 19” x 12” Chinese Flag: According to some estimates, China suffered 14 million casualties during World War II, a number included in the approximately 35 million Chinese people who were killed or wounded during over a decade of Japanese occupation.
Out of the thousands of Chinese who were captured, mostly by the Japanese army, and became prisoners of war, only 56 were found alive after the war ended.

World War II ended in the Pacific in September 1945, after the United States’ atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pushed Japan out of the war.

And while the Japanese forces were pushed out of China, the end of World War II didn’t mean immediate peace. A conflict that had been brewing in China since the 1920s, prior to Japanese occupation, erupted into full-scale civil war. Tensions between the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communist Party resulted in a war that lasted until 1949, when Mao Zedong declared a Communist victory and established the People’s Republic of China, with himself as chairman.

Foreigners were expelled from the country as the national government consolidated its control, and efforts to completely change traditional Chinese culture were launched as China began the process of putting itself back together after two brutal conflicts.

- 12” x 15 ¾” Soviet Union: In October and November 1940, German-Soviet talks about the potential of joining the Axis took place in Berlin, but nothing came from the talks since AH's Ideological goal was Lebensraum in the East. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 starting World War II, Stalin waited until September 17 before launching his own invasion of Poland. Part of the Karelia and Salla regions of Finland were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. This was followed by Soviet annexations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania (Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region). It was known at the Nuremberg trials the existence of the secret protocol of the German–Soviet pact regarding the planned divisions of these territories. The invasion of Bukovina violated the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with Germany. On 22 June 1941, AH launched an invasion of the Soviet Union. Stalin was confident that the total Allied war machine would eventually stop Germany, and with Lend Lease from the West, the Soviets stopped the Wehrmacht some 30 kilometers (or 18.6 miles) from Moscow. Over the next four years, the Soviet Union repulsed Axis offensives, such as at the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk, and pressed forward to victory in large Soviet offensives, such as the Vistula–Oder Offensive. Berlin finally fell in April 1945. Fending off the German invasion and pressing to victory in the East required a tremendous sacrifice by the Soviet Union, which suffered the highest casualties in the war, losing more than 20 million citizens, about a third of all World War II casualties. The full demographic loss to the Soviet peoples was even greater.

- 10” x 15” England: When the United Kingdom declared war on NSDAP Germany in September 1939 at the start of World War II, the UK controlled to varying degrees numerous crown colonies, protectorates and the Indian Empire. It also maintained unique political ties to four of the five independent Dominions—Australia, Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand—as co-members (with the UK) of the then "British Commonwealth". In 1939 the British Empire and the Commonwealth together comprised a global power, with direct or de facto political and economic control of 25% of the world's population, and of 30% of its land mass. The contribution of the British Empire and Commonwealth in terms of manpower and materiel was critical to the Allied war-effort. From September 1939 to mid-1942, the UK led Allied efforts in multiple global military theaters. Commonwealth, Colonial and Imperial Indian forces, totalling close to 15 million serving men and women, fought the German, Italian, Japanese and other Axis armies, air-forces and navies across Europe, Africa, Asia, and in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Commonwealth forces based in Britain operated across Northwestern Europe in the effort to slow or stop Axis advances. Commonwealth air forces fought the Luftwaffe to a standstill over Britain, and Commonwealth armies defeated Italian forces in East Africa and North Africa and occupied several overseas colonies of German-occupied European nations. Following successful engagements against Axis forces, Commonwealth troops invaded and occupied Libya, Italian Somaliland, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Madagascar.

All flags are in lovely condition with minor color fading and no extensive damage present. No WWII collection is complete without the usage of the flags of all countries involved. Comes more than ready to be displayed!