Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Damn the torpedoes: the history of science and undersea warfare in World War II(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2017) Sims, Gary Lee; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Michael ReidyAfter the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy Submarine Service had the submarines to, if not repel the attack on the Philippines, at least slow the Japanese Navy's disbursement of troops and material on Luzon. They could not because of defective torpedoes. This book examines the US Navy's submarine service's torpedo controversy during World War II from December 7th 1941 through the resolution of the torpedo problems in October, 1943. By investigating War Patrol Reports, Action Reports and other official documents including personal and professional communiques between combat theater, command at Pearl Harbor and Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) in Washington, D.C., this work shows how the Mark XIV/VI torpedo was a highly-technical, high-risk invention for war. Failures occur in high-tech, high-risk systems such as this. The U.S. Navy should have been expected and prepared for these failures but they did not. To make matters worse, command in Washington went into denial that there even was a problem. This abstract explains that denial of the problem for almost two years by BuOrd and Naval Command in Washington D.C. was inevitable. Using modern theories of the construction of knowledge, their repudiation of the problem can be predicted response by response. To support my conclusions, I rely on work of historians and sociologists such as Charles Perrow, Tim Bedford and Roger Cooke about high-risk technologies as a framework to view the science and technology behind the Mark XIV/VI torpedo. Supporting my conclusions that Naval Command's denial of the problem was inevitable, I apply theories of knowledge construction originating with sociologists of science such as Thomas Kuhn, Bruno Latour and David Bloor. Former submarine commanders, naval historians and those familiar with the torpedo controversy have long asked how this could have happened at all and why it took so long to rectify the problem. This book answers those questions.Item Mobilizing the rural home front : the extension service, Montana women, and World War II(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2003) Werner, Kathleen Elizabeth; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mary MurphyThe U.S. government’s push to mobilize all sectors of its population during World War II has taken many forms. For women, most of the attention has focused on urban workers and others who may have engaged in factory work. Rural women, however, were important during the war. Agricultural production was vital to America’s success; a country needs to feed its people to win a war. Unlike the popularization of work in the factories, women’s labor in agricultural production was not feminized. The government worked to create an ideology for rural women that preserved their identity as homemakers but also encouraged agricultural labor. In the rural front, women had to be pulled into the effort; mobilizing them to the cause was essential to national unity. The purpose of this research is to examine the mobilization efforts made towards rural Montana women. What kinds of messages did the national press issue to women, and specifically, to what extent did the Montana Home Extension Service participate in assisting the government’s construction of rural women’s wartime identity? Examining the Cooperative Extension Service’s annual reports in Montana demonstrates how the government sought to mobilize rural women. By looking at Montana State College Home Economics Department’s domestic and scientific training demonstrates how rural women were helped during the war years. Lastly, by comparing those findings with national magazines idea of women’s identity in World War II shows the importance of homemakers. The study reveals that rural women were presented as patriotic homemakers, whose sole aim was to preserve democratic ideals and safeguard the family.