World War II began in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and eventually overran Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, and France. For three years, the United Kingdom was the only country left to battle Germany until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The following day, then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and Japan's allies, Italy and Germany, in turn, declared war on the U.S.

The U.S. sent 16,112,566 soldiers into battle, but before they could head in to fend off the enemy, they had to go through basic training to gain the physical and mental toughness needed to complete their mission of defeating the Axis Powers and liberating Europe from the clutches of evil. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, basic military training lasted 12 to 13 weeks, but the demand for soldiers forced the Army to condense this to just an eight-week program following Japan's attack on the Hawaiian base. 

In basic training, soldiers trained every day except Sundays and put in 44 to 48 hours of intense work to prepare themselves for a grueling battle. Regardless of the conditions - boiling heat, frigid cold or soaking rain - U.S. soldiers would spend their days learning how to best take down their enemies on the battlefield and in psychological warfare.

Do you have what it would take to handle basic training in the WWII era? This test will let you know if you're cut out for the rigors of this program or if the military would have shipped you home.