FRAGMENTS | Alfred Eisenstadt

On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and brought an immediate end to discussions of American policy. Widespread recruitment became the order of the hour and train stations and airports were filled with women hanging on to their men, with islands of sadness and loneliness hovering around them. More than 15,000,000 men and women served in World War II, two-thirds of them conscripts. Regulations and rationing forced the home front to get used to living without new cars, typewriters, bicycles and cooking stoves, as well as less coffee, sugar, fuel, shoes, canned fruits, vegetables and meats. But the real difficulty was living with the news of the losses that kept multiplying. 300,000 American soldiers lost their lives in combat zones and another 600,000 were wounded. In the pictures, a series of photographs by Alfred Eisenstadt