By Leslie A. Przybylek, Curator of History
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WE CAN DO IT! WWII By Leslie A. Przybylek, Curator of History 4 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2015 EVERY TIME I APPROACH PITTSBURGH, ESPECIALLY BY PLANE, I GET A SENSE OF TREMENDOUS POWER, A SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT. PITTSBURGH THRILLS YOU. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox Thousands of Westinghouse workers pledge to speed up production at this wartime rally, c. 1944. HHC Detre L&A, Melvin Seidenberg Oversize Photograph Collection, MSS 566. OPPOSITE: A real-life Rosie, War worker identification badges illustrate just a few of Julie Bodnar inspects 155 mm the many thousands of area residents who contributed shell casings at the Christy Parks to the war effort through companies such as Dravo, Works of National Tube Company Westinghouse, and Carnegie-Illinois Steel. in McKeesport. HHC Collections, 96.196.1, 2011.21.1. Photo by Liz Simpson. Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Archives Center, Russell Aiken U. S. Steel Collection. WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2015 5 The cover of this April 1944 issue of US Steel News reminded readers that the giant steel conglomerate played essential roles in building America’s military machine during World War II, including the production of steel plate for battleships, LSTs, and tanks. HHC Detre L&A. “We are living in a jittery world, wondering what is going to happen next. And in my judgment it looks like anarchy. Law and order is breaking down all Residents of Pittsburgh’s Polish neighborhoods took to their churches and over the world. The nations are sure of nothing.” prayed when Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, officially igniting World Letter to the Editor, The Pittsburgh Press, October 6, 1938 War II. “Oh, God, Save Our Poland,” pleaded an article in The Pittsburgh Press.7 By May 1940, Germany’s invasion of France and the Netherlands made it clear that the “European s hostilities escalated in Europe Pittsburgh Press in October 1938 warned: mess” wasn’t going away, only getting worse. in the late 1930s, Americans “Now this subject of war. Are we to be tricked President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for watched and debated. World and blindfolded into another conflict? Are we a new level of defense spending, raising his War I had ended barely 20 years going to be glorified soldiers of today and request for the U.S. Army’s 1940 federal earlier, its millions of casualties bullet riddled corpses of tomorrow?”2 appropriation from $24 million to $700 million. and apocalyptic vision of trench Many agreed that staying out of the He put American industry on notice, saying: warfare still vivid in many “European mess” was a wise decision.3 Others “I should like to see this nation geared up ... people’s minds. Fathers who had served in did not have the luxury of choice: they were to turn out at least 50,000 planes a year.”8 At Abattles such as the Meuse-Argonne and in the already involved. Members of Pittsburgh’s the time, only one-hundredth of that was being Marne now faced the prospect of sending their Jewish community sounded the alarm as early produced.9 sons overseas to a similar fate. How could the as 1933, when the first local campaign for the United States be drawn so soon into another United Jewish Appeal raised $50,000 to help global conflict? Many Pittsburgh residents German Jews and Jewish refugees fleeing Pittsburgh Blazes the Way urged caution: America was officially neutral Hitler’s new Third Reich.4 Fearing all such To many people, “American Industry” meant and needed to stay that way. Typical of “isms”—Nazism, Communism, Socialism, Pittsburgh. While other cities proved equally such sentiments, a letter to the editor of The and Fascism—one Donora resident advocated crucial to the war effort, Pittsburgh’s miles that the “steel center of the world” needed of steel mills, foundries, and other heavy a National Defense Unit as early as 1938.5 manufacturers captured public imagination, Factories and mills throughout Another, signed JUST AN AMERICAN, the blazing nighttime skies along the Ohio and Pittsburgh produced an almost urged that all “isms ... pestilences ... should be Monongahela rivers symbolizing American limitless variety of material 6 for the war effort. The Scaife annihilated entirely and completely.” industrial capacity. Those mills and factories Company in Oakmont, Pa. produced defense-related armaments, including bomb casings and mortar shells. HHC Collections, 2006.19.7. Photo by Liz Simpson. 6 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2015 Arsenal of Democracy Pittsburgh produced an amazing array of goods and equipment for the war effort, including: Ships Airplane Propeller Blades Torpedoes Electronic Radio Systems Anti-Aircraft Guns Mortar Guns Breathing Equipment Steel WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2015 7 Mine Safety Appliance pioneered the development of different types of breathing regulators used by U.S. Navy high-altitude pilots and U.S. Army tank crews during World War II. Here, an MSA employee works with the final assembly of masks. Courtesy of MSA Corporate Archives. essentially began fighting World War II by The Pittsburgh district arsenal, with its ment are on the arsenal of Pittsburgh…. 1940, ramping up for an industrial escalation great steel mills, munitions manufac- If you operate or man a war goods turing and food processing plants, coal production plant and you think you’re over the next four years. While multiple key mines and steel products concerns—in doing all right, you will be expected innovations were underway by early 1941, short, everything that goes into use in to do 100 per cent better. If you think the attack on Pearl Harbor redoubled efforts. modern warfare—is expected to blaze you’re doing fine, you will be expected By January 1942, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the way.10 to do half again as well. If you think you correspondent in Washington, D.C., stressed are getting along splendidly, you must Blazing that way would require effort 11 this in an article titled “Nation Looks to City do even better. from every Pittsburgh worker, the reporter for Industrial Needs”: reminded readers. More than people had given From 1942 to 1945, thousands answered This is no peanut war. It demands a vast before, more than they were already giving: those expectations. Western Pennsylvania men all-out effort to make the United States and women waged war by producing crucial The eyes of the United States Govern- the mightiest military force in the world. defense materials in the region’s factories, 8 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2015 The oldest known surviving Jeep, Bantam Reconnaissance Car #1007 was made by the In Butler, the nearly bankrupt American American Bantam Company in 1940 and was Bantam Car Company bravely rose to donated to the Smithsonian the challenge of an impossibly fast Institution in 1944. Nicknamed federal proposal deadline by developing “Gramps,” the vehicle appears on loan as a a working prototype for a new small featured artifact in We Can Do It! reconnaissance car in a mere 49 days. WWII. Smithsonian Institution. Photo by Liz Simpson. foundries, and shipyards, helping to earn the state its keystone position in the nation’s “Arsenal of Democracy.” Factories idled by the Great Depression now ran day and night, producing an amazing array of goods and equipment including ships, airplane propeller blades, torpedoes, electronic radio systems, huge anti-aircraft guns, mortar guns, generators and breathing equipment, glass lenses and optical equipment, and, of course, steel—95 million tons of it for tank and aircraft armor, ship plates, and artillery shells. By the end of 1942, U. S. Steel and its subsidiaries smashed 1,000 previous production records. Westinghouse’s Micarta Division produced 13 million helmet liners; millions more came from Westinghouse’s Bryant Electric Division and from Mine Safety Members of the American Bantam Car Company design and engineering team pose with Bantam Number Appliances. Shipyards at Dravo and American One, the world’s first Jeep, outside the factory in Butler, Pa. on September 21, 1940. Smithsonian Institution. Bridge launched more than 200 LSTs (Landing Ships, Tanks) for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, and Dravo produced multiple other types engineered thousands of technological car in a mere 49 days. Delivered on time to of ships, including destroyer escorts and gate breakthroughs, including new developments Camp Holabird, Maryland, the rugged little vessels (used in harbor defense). The scale of in radar, atomic energy, and the creation of prototype endured a bevy of tests to confirm this production made a lasting impact. Secretary a gyro-controlled tank gun stabilizer that that it met all of the Army’s specifications. of the Navy Frank Knox once said, “Every improved firing accuracy in moving armored Although mass-production of the design time I approach Pittsburgh, especially by plane, vehicles.13 In Butler, the nearly bankrupt eventually fell to the Willys-Overland I get a sense of tremendous power, a sense of American Bantam Car Company bravely rose Company, Bantam’s odd-looking prototype accomplishment. Pittsburgh thrills you.”12 to the challenge of an impossibly fast federal introduced a new American icon. Eventually The war also spawned new innovations. proposal deadline by developing a working dubbed the “Jeep,” it accompanied American Westinghouse’s Research Laboratories prototype for a new small reconnaissance troops across Europe and the Pacific, helping WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2015 9 to win World War II and ultimately winning mothers filled roles once held by men. Women Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS). over the American public as well.14 signed on as mill workers, munitions inspectors, For other groups, all the wartime activity Pittsburgh’s “all-out” industrial effort lift operators, welders, machine operators, and raised bigger questions.