By the time the United States entered WWII, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was over 100 years old and had contributed to every war since the War of 1812! But it was during the years of the Second World War that the Brooklyn Navy Yard grew to its greatest heights. At its peak the shipping yard employed over 70,000 people and produced or repaired thousands of vessels. The USS Arizona, which was sunk at Pearl Harbor, and brought the US into the conflict, and the USS Missouri, the ship on which the Japanese signed the surrender officially ending WWII, were both built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It can be said that the war started and ended with Brooklyn!

WWII was a Total War and required action and effort from all Americans. When the United States entered the conflict, the government began rationing food for ordinary Americans. So much of the food grown was being shipped overseas to feed the soldiers and sailors. Encouraged by their government, ordinary Americans established "Victory Gardens" in their backyards, parks, and private property. The food grown supplemented the dietary needs of civilians at home so that the regular food supply could be used to support the soldiers fighting in Europe and the Pacific. Typical of New Yorkers, they went BIG with their Victory Gardens. An estimated 400,000 Victory Gardens covering 600 acres of private land produced 200 million pounds of vegetables over the course of the war!

With another large-scale war looking likely, President Roosevelt established the U.S. Maritime Services. These Merchant Marines responsibilities included transporting and protecting supplies and personnel as they were transferred overseas to military camps and bases. They played an essential role in the dissemination, or distribution, of supplies and aid. In September of 1942, thousands of men began streaming into the Sheepshead Bay Maritime Service Training Center. As with other key military operations in New York, this maritime training center in Sheepshead Bay became the largest one in the nation. The largest supply depot in the country existed at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, so it made sense to train those men who would be transporting the supplies nearby. At its height, the Sheepshead Bay station graduated 35,000 men annually contributing immensely to the war effort. The station closed in 1954.

Floyd Bennet Field was New York's first municipal airport. In 1941, New York City sold the airport to the US Navy, where it became essential to war operations. During WWII it was the most active naval air station in the nation! Its strategic location near the Atlantic coast made it an ideal place for naval operations. Floyd Bennet served as the training ground for pilots and other service members and was where new planes were tested before being sent abroad. Additionally, it was here that Naval pilots escorted American merchant ships across the Atlantic to protect them against the German U-boats below the surface. Floyd Bennet Field also became home to the world's first helicopter training facility in 1943. The US Navy foresaw, or predicted, the value of helicopters in air to sea rescues of sailors from sunken ships. Without this airfield on the home front, the war in the Atlantic and in Europe would have looked very different.

Built for the war efforts during the First World War, the Brooklyn Army Terminal was a major supply base and depot for military goods and personnel. During the Second World War, the Brooklyn Army Terminal was the nation's largest military supply depot. The base employed more than twenty thousand military and civilian personnel in wartime, making it essential to the war effort. Thousands of pounds of supplies, weapons, ammunition, and thousands of soldiers were deployed from Brooklyn to fight in the European Theater. The Terminal's easy access to the New York Harbor and the Atlantic made it an ideal location for preparing and shipping supplies to the European front.

Brooklyn War Memorial Shortly after the Japanese surrendered (on a Brooklyn-made ship!) the leaders of the borough decided that the heroic efforts of the nearly 300,000 Brooklynites who contributed to the war effort, and the more than eleven thousand residents of the borough who died in the war needed to be memorialize. The memorial, dedicated in 1951, contains a memorial wall, with a list of those who fought and died in the conflict. Flanking the wall of both sides is a statue of a male warrior and a female carrying a child. This imagery depicts how Americans on the Homefront understood their own roles in the conflict. During the war, men went off to fight, while women transitioned into factory work and heavy industrial production. When the war ended though, Americans envisioned a more traditional society where women were seen as belonging in the Domestic Sphere. The decade following the Second World War is known as the Baby Boomer era. Women increasingly returned to the home and the average number of children each woman had increased. The Total War was over and society had new expectations for men and women.