The Senate and the Second World War | Senate Goes to War

Missouri senator Harry S. Truman chairs a Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. The Truman Committee saved taxpayers millions of dollars by reducing waste and corruption among military contractors. [Truman Library, National Archives]

Senate Restaurant chefs prepare a lunch of dehydrated foods to show senators what the troops overseas were eating, December 1942. [Library of Congress]

Photo of senators talking to old woman outside her house.

Members of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, on a tour of the Eastern Theater of Operations, talk to a French woman living near Utah Beach, May 24, 1945. (L-R) Senator Chan Gurney (SD), interpreter, Senator John McClellan (AR), Senator James Eastland (MS), French woman, Senator Harry Byrd (VA), and Senator Chapman Revercomb (WV). [National Archives]

Photo of four senators riding in open-topped car.

Senators ride in Hitler's car in Dachau, Germany, May 25, 1945. (L-R): Senators Burton K. Wheeler (MT), Homer Capehart (IN), Albert Hawkes (NJ), and Ernest McFarland (AZ). The senators were conducting a tour of U.S. occupied Germany. [National Archives]