The United States Enters World War II

On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. In many ways the wartime economy pulled the United States out of the Great Depression. But how would the United States mobilize wartime workers? And how would the federal government convince women to work in defense industry jobs?

From statehood to World War II, political life in Oklahoma had been dominated by small towns and rural areas. By World War II, a population shift took place from rural to urban areas, with young people moving to Tulsa and Oklahoma City for jobs at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City or the bomber plant in Tulsa. People in Oklahoma found a range of ways to support the war effort. For example, Bill Mauldin enlisted in the US Army and drew award-winning newspaper cartoons illustrating the daily lives of soldiers. Many Oklahomans served in the military during World War II. Almost 200,000 Oklahomans volunteered for military service during the war. Another 300,000 Oklahomans were drafted. During the war, some 6,500 were killed and 11,000 wounded.

At the same time, Oklahoma experienced a decline in population due to outmigration during the Great Depression and World War II. In 1940 the state population was 2.3 million, a drop of 2.5 percent or almost 60,000 since 1930. By 1950 the state population was roughly 2.2 million, which meant it had gone down by more than 100,000, or 4.4 percent, since 1940. Significantly, World War II transformed Oklahoma’s segregated communities. One important factor was the departure of more than 23,000 African Americans, who left Oklahoma for wartime jobs in other parts of the American West, especially cities on the West Coast. The general population drain would not recover until the early 1960s.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese sentiment prevailed throughout the United States. For reasons having to do with national security, Japanese Americans were placed in federal internment camps along the West Coast rather than in interior states like Oklahoma. Many Oklahomans of Japanese descent served in the military during World War II, including two brothers, Oliver and Eddie Nakayama. Four brothers from the Nishimuta family in Cushing also served in the US Army, in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated Japanese American unit.

Military Installations

Several US military installations were built in Oklahoma as defense measures to prepare for World War II. Among these were airbases in Oklahoma City, Enid, Clinton, Altus, and Norman.

The US military originally established Fort Sill as a frontier outpost in 1869. In 1911, a school for field artillery was added to the site, and by 1930 Fort Sill was designated as the permanent location for the US Army field artillery. With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, Fort Sill underwent rapid expansion, and when the nation entered the war in 1941, the field artillery school was enlarged. During the war, more than 30,000 artillery officers graduated from the school. In 1942, an airfield was also established on the site for aviation training.

Douglas Aircraft Company built a bomber assembly plant in Tulsa, which was in operation by 1943. The plant produced the B-24 and the B-26 bombers, which were heavily used during the war in both Europe and the Pacific. At its peak, some 24,000 people worked around the clock at the Tulsa plant. After World War II, American Airlines took over the Douglas site and selected Tulsa as the location of its primary maintenance base.

The city of Enid, in northwest Oklahoma, leased land to the federal government for a pilot training field. During World War II, 8,169 students graduated from basic training and 826 from advanced training. Enid Army Flying School closed after the war but was reactivated a year later as Enid Air Force Base. On July 9, 1949, the base was renamed Vance Air Force Base in honor of local World War II hero and Medal of Honor recipient Lt. Col. Leon Robert Vance, Jr.

Tinker Air Force Base

In April 1941, the US War Department announced that the air repair depot would be located just east of Oklahoma City. By February 1942, the 1,820-acre site was officially designated the Oklahoma City Air Depot. A Douglas Aircraft plant was also established near the air depot. The Douglas plant produced the US Army Air Corps’ C-47 transport, while air depot employees performed service and modifications on B-17, B-24, and B-29 bombers. Over 23,000 civilian employees worked for the Douglas aircraft plant, and well over 13,000 were employed at the Oklahoma City Air Depot.

Tinker Air Force Base, named for Major General Clarence L. Tinker, a citizen of the Osage Nation, opened in Midwest City east of Oklahoma City in 1942 and served as the largest air materiel depot in the world. Bombers were repaired at Tinker.

The base began as one of three regional air depots authorized by Congress in 1941. Oklahoma senators Elmer Thomas and Josh Lee, and Oklahoma City’s congressman Mike Monroney lobbied Congress and the US Army Air Corps to locate the midwestern depot near Oklahoma City. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, military officials called for an expansion of the project and a quicker timeline for its construction, and the Douglas Aircraft Company built a major plant next to the airbase.

FIG. 10.4

Major General Clarence L. Tinker

Major General Clarence L. Tinker, a citizen of the Osage Nation, served as Commander of the US Air Forces in Hawaii following Pearl Harbor.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Where would all the wartime workers live? Accelerated housing construction was needed to meet the demand for housing. A response to this challenge was the building of Midwest City, a planned community designed by William P. (“Bill”) Atkinson. His design concept provided space for businesses, homes, schools, and churches. The idea was for Midwest City to serve as a place to live and raise families safely.

FIG. 10.5

Midwest City

Midwest City was a planned community built in the 1940s and 1950s in response to the need for housing near Tinker Air Force Base. It became known as “America’s Model City,” with stores located close to residential neighborhoods.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Atkinson received a national award in 1952 for his plans for Midwest City, as the Model City of America, in competition with one hundred other cities. When World War II ended in 1945, the Douglas plant became part of Tinker. Both Tinker and Midwest City prospered and transformed the state’s economy in positive ways during the postwar years and beyond.

FIG. 10.6

Test Flight over Oklahoma City

Three airplanes constructed by Douglas and Tinker workers participate in a test flight over downtown Oklahoma City in 1943.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Aviation and Aerospace Industry

The aviation and aerospace industry has long been an important component of the Oklahoma economy. In the early years of aviation, an Oklahoman inventor by the name of W. D. Lindsley would construct his “Oklahoma Bi-Monoplane,” which though unsuccessful was one of the first aircraft to use an aluminum airframe. Although aircraft construction and innovation within Oklahoma were typically unsuccessful in the early years of flight, World War I would bring aircraft manufacturing to the state. Joe Bartle of Bartlesville would form the Dewey Aeroplane Company in Dewey, Oklahoma, and would secure a contract from the government to manufacture Curtiss JN-4D “Jennies” for the war effort. Bartle’s company would be the first to produce any quantity of aircraft in Oklahoma.

In 1928, a plant was constructed in Okay, Oklahoma, to produce the “Okay Monoplane.” The airplane was designed by John “Lee” Atwood (later president of the North American Aviation company and codesigner of the P-51 Mustang). An airplane with only one set of wings, the Okay Monoplane was the predecessor of the AT-6 “Texan,” which was used as a training aircraft for thousands of pilots in World War II. The hardships brought on by the Great Depression would shut down most of the aircraft manufacturing in Oklahoma, but the industry would rebound and peak during the war. With the US entry into World War II in December 1941, the national economy shifted its focus to wartime production. As a result of this transition, Douglas Aircraft built plants in Tulsa and on what is now Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City to manufacture military aircraft. The Tulsa plant would produce over 3,000 bombers of various models, while the Midwest City plant would produce almost 5,500 C-47 cargo planes during the war.

After World War II, a significant boom in the aviation industry took place, and Oklahoma once again became involved in aerospace manufacturing. One of the most successful of these ventures was the Aero Design and Engineering Company of Bethany, Oklahoma. In 1950, the company began building the Aero Commander, which in 1954 was personally selected by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as his official intermediate-range mode of presidential transportation. During the Cold War, the Douglas Plant in Tulsa would resume manufacturing to produce the B-47 strategic bomber and the B-66 medium bomber.

Since World War II, the most significant economic contribution of the aerospace industry to Oklahoma, however, has come not through the manufacturing of complete aircraft, but through the manufacturing and modification of systems and subassemblies for aircraft and spacecraft. The Tulsa Douglas Plant, under McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell International, has played a key role in these areas, manufacturing and modifying subassemblies for the F-4 and F-15 fighters, the B-1 bomber, as well as for missiles and civilian aircraft. In addition, the plant has conducted research into “stealth” technology for current military aircraft, and it played a role in developing components for the Saturn C-5 rocket booster and the cargo bay doors for the Space Shuttle. Similarly, Tinker Air Force Base is responsible for the rebuilding, maintenance, and modification of Air Force equipment. Tinker’s employees have worked on hundreds of thousands of aircraft, missiles, subassemblies, avionics packages, and other components since World War II.

Today, the aviation and aerospace industry in Oklahoma is one of the state’s top three industries, providing a total of 143,000 jobs whether directly or indirectly, with manufacturing accounting for almost $1.7 billion. The industry also contributes $9.1 million in state revenue and $7.2 million in state sales tax revenue. Because of the considerable revenue and jobs created by the aviation and aerospace industry, it will no doubt continue to play a key role in Oklahoma and its economy for years to come.

Rosie the Riveter

The War Manpower Commission and the Office of War Information launched a major campaign to encourage women to demonstrate patriotism and participate in the war effort by working in wartime industries. The campaign became known as Rosie the Riveter. Rosie the Riveter posters appeared everywhere, including newspapers and magazines. In 1940, 12 million women were employed in the United States. By 1945, 18.6 million women were employed, an increase of over 50 percent, and the majority were married women.

FIG. 10.7

Rosie the Riveter

Rosie the Riveter, as depicted on J. Howard Miller’s “We Can Do It!” poster, was likely inspired by aircraft worker Naomi Parker Fraley of Tulsa. The poster was an icon of the national campaign to encourage women to enter the defense industries workforce due to a labor shortage. The image of Rosie the Riveter as a strong and competent woman dressed in overalls with a bandanna was the picture of patriotic womanhood.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

With the large number of men on active duty, close to half the workers at Tinker and Douglas were women. Married women outnumbered single women in the workforce for the first time. Helen Cabanis, for example, worked the graveyard shift as a riveter at Douglas, going to work at midnight and getting off at 8:00 a.m., seven days a week. She remembered women commuting from El Reno, Shawnee, and Chandler to work there.

At Tinker, women held production jobs such as aircraft and engine mechanics, welders, electricians, sheet metal workers, instrument repair technicians, and quality control inspectors. Women workers performed maintenance on aircraft such as the B-17, B-24 and B-29 as well as aircraft engines. During the war, women made up over half the workforce at the Douglas plant.

FIG. 10.8

Toka Hughes, Woman Welder

Toka Hughes, a citizen of Muscogee Nation, served as a woman welder at Tinker Air Force Base during World War II.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

At the conclusion of World War II, the government used the Rosie the Riveter campaign to encourage women to give up their paid positions to men returning from war. Layoffs were abrupt. Daycare centers closed. The media encouraged young women to get married and have children. And yet many women wanted to keep their jobs after the war.

Civilian Pilot Training Program

Beginning in the late 1930s, the government developed a program to train military pilots using civilian contract instructors. The goal of the program was to increase the number of qualified airmen as the United States worked to rebuild its arms supply. One of the first Oklahoma locations for flight training was the Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa.

As many as 20,000 US Army pilots, along with Canadian and British airmen, received their flight training at Chickasha, El Reno, Lawton, Miami, Muskogee, Mustang, Okmulgee, Ponca City and other locations across the state. Robert S. Johnson participated in the Civilian Pilot Training Program in Lawton before joining the US Army Air Force. This program benefited thousands of Oklahomans and proved to be a major asset in the war effort.

FIG. 10.9

War Bond Rally in Tulsa

A war bond rally in Tulsa during World War II. During the final campaign for the bonds, Oklahomans subscribed to approximately $33 million in bonds to help finance the war. Between 1942 and 1945, Americans invested a total of around $150 billion in bonds.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

The US Navy established a flight training school at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. The navy also expressed interest in starting another facility for training aircraft mechanics. With the approval of the OU Board of Regents, the university leased Max Westheimer Field to the navy for the creation of the Naval Flight Training Center. The navy purchased additional land for the hangars, administrative buildings, quarters, and support buildings. The Naval Air Technical Training Center was established just south of campus. The university also secured contracts from the military to provide training programs and to construct housing for nine hundred military students. In fact the University of Oklahoma continues to operate its School of Aviation at Westheimer Airport. While some wartime installations proved only temporary, the lasting impact of World War II aviation programs in Oklahoma is substantial.

Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES)

During World War II, over 100,000 women served in the US Navy program called “Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service,” or WAVES, a branch of the Naval Reserve for women. In order to quickly establish facilities to train women to fill positions previously held by men, the navy leased space on college campuses across the country and set up training facilities, classrooms, drill fields, and dormitories for women enrolled in the WAVES. The program was designed to train women to fill jobs that men would otherwise have performed, so that the men would be available to fight on the front lines.

Beginning in October 1942 Oklahoma A&M College (today’s Oklahoma State University) was a training facility for WAVES. Jean Wilhelm grew up in Bartlesville, graduated from Bartlesville High School, and then enlisted in the WAVES. She trained at Hunter College in New York and Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater, and then served at the naval base in San Diego.

Dorothy Fletcher attended Oklahoma A&M for one semester before the war broke out. She then attended radio school in Tonkawa and learned Morse code. During her six months of training, she received a modest wage and room and board. Then she received a government job in San Antonio in an aircraft radio shop followed by a job in a radar shop. When RCA (or the Radio Corporation of America) transitioned from making TVs and radios to making aircraft radio and radar during World War II, Fletcher went to Philadelphia to work for the company.

Medal of Honor

Twenty-four soldiers who were born in Oklahoma received the US Medal of Honor for their heroism in World War II, and more than half of them did so posthumously (after death). Lt. Col. Leon Robert Vance, Jr. was among the most famous Oklahomans to receive the Medal of Honor. Vance Air Force Base, in his hometown of Enid, is named after him. In June 1944, he suffered injuries while flying a mission near France. In an effort to save the lives of men aboard his plane, he ordered them to evacuate while he attempted a nearly impossible landing. He survived and was hospitalized with injuries. Later he was on a hospital transport plane headed for the United States when the plane and all those on board disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean. His wife and daughter accepted the medal in October 1946 at a ceremony in Enid. His daughter, Sharon, was only a year old when her father died.

Three Native Americans from Oklahoma, Ernest Childers, Jack Montgomery, and Ernest Evans, received Medals of Honor during World War II. Two of them served in the 45th Infantry Division, first organized as a militia by the Oklahoma territorial legislature in 1890.

Childers, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, was born in Broken Arrow. He attended Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, a federal off-reservation boarding school in north-central Oklahoma, and joined a National Guard unit at the school. His unit was called to active duty with the 45th Infantry Division. He served in Italy fighting the Germans. He remained in the US Army until he retired in 1965 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Montgomery, from Sequoyah County and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, was a first lieutenant with the 45th Infantry Division. He too served in Italy fighting the Germans. US Navy commander Ernest Evans, Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek), grew up in Pawnee and Muskogee, and graduated from the US Naval Academy. He was commanding officer of the destroyer USS Johnston and received the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions while fighting Japanese troops in the Philippines. During World War II the 45th fought for 551 days, in Italy and North Africa. Significantly, the 45th freed prisoners held at the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau.

FIG. 10.10

Ernest Childers

Ernest Childers (right), a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, joined the National Guard unit at Chilocco. During World War II, he served with the 45th Infantry Division in the European Theater. His division was one of the most highly decorated divisions within the army. In April 1944, Childers received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Code Talkers

Native American soldiers served as code talkers in World War I and World War II. During World War I, as we learned in chapter 7, US forces utilized Choctaw, Cherokee, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Osage code talkers. At least nineteen Choctaw soldiers, including Joseph Oklahombi, were recruited to transmit radio and telephone messages from one unit to another in the Choctaw language. The code talkers contributed to the success of American forces in the battles of St. Etienne and Forest Ferme in France. During World War II, the army recruited seventeen Comanche soldiers as code talkers in December 1940. They trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, in Morse code, and radio communication. They developed a Comanche language code, and the code was never broken. They sent secure messages using field telephone and radio transmission. The code talkers served in France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany.

Charles Chibitty was a Comanche code talker in World War II. He was born in the Comanche Nation near Medicine Park, Oklahoma, in the Wichita Mountains north of Lawton. Formal recognition from the US government and military did not come quickly, but it did finally come fifty years after the end of World War II. In 1999, the Department of Defense recognized Chibitty. He was honored in the Hall of Heroes inside the Pentagon for his extraordinary bravery and achievements. At the ceremony he preferred to talk about the achievements of all Comanche code talkers. Then, in 2001, Chibitty received the Knowlton Award from the Defense Department for his significant contributions to military intelligence. Chibitty was the last surviving member of the Comanche code talkers.

FIG. 10.11

Private First Class Manuel Pérez, Jr.

Private First Class Manuel Pérez, Jr. registered for the draft at age nineteen. He served as a paratrooper in the US Army airborne division. In late 1945, he posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor in battle in the Philippines.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Private First Class Manuel Pérez, Jr. registered for the draft at age nineteen. He served as a paratrooper in the US Army airborne division. In late 1945, he posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor in battle in the Philippines.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Private First Class Manuel Pérez, Jr.

Manuel Pérez, Jr. was born in Oklahoma City in 1923. He moved with family members to Chicago as a young child. At the age of nineteen he registered for the draft during World War II. Just a few months later, he was accepted into the US Army. As a new recruit, he volunteered for extra training in order to become a paratrooper in the airborne division.

Pérez was assigned to Company A of the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment and sent to Fort Toccoa, Georgia. After completing his training, Private First Class Pérez and his unit moved to several locations around the United States, such as Fort Mackall in North Carolina, Fort Polk in Louisiana, and Camp Stoneman in California, to continue training and certifications. Although this process was both mentally and physically demanding, it was necessary training that readied Pérez and other soldiers of the 511th for their deployment to the Pacific Theater.

On November 18, 1944, Pérez and his company were deployed to the Japanese-occupied Philippines in the South Pacific. Pérez parachuted into Tagaytay Ridge, and began fighting with his unit in the capital city of Manila. This was a long and brutal ordeal for the US military and Filipino soldiers, and it was the scene of some of the bloodiest urban combat of the Pacific Theater. On December 27, 1945, Perez posthumously (after death) received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military honor a person can achieve.

Pérez’s Medal of Honor citation details this astonishing incident, which would be the defining moment of his career: “He was lead scout for Company A, which had destroyed 11 of 12 pillboxes in a strongly fortified sector defending the approach to enemy-held Fort William McKinley on Luzon, Philippine Islands. . . . Through his courageous determination and heroic disregard of grave danger, Pfc. Pérez made possible the successful advance of his unit toward a valuable objective and provided a lasting inspiration for his comrades.”

Pérez was excited about the prospects of this medal, and on February 28, 1945, he wrote to his uncle, Private Jesse Pérez, who was also serving in the South Pacific: “Dear Uncle . . . they are putting me in for a medal and it’s not the purple heart, you will be surprised how big it’s going to be. . . . Your Nephew, Manuel Pérez, Jr.” On March 3, 1945, Pérez turned 22 years old, but 11 days later he was shot and killed by a sniper. Pérez’s body was returned to Chicago for formal memorial services and then escorted to Oklahoma City for final burial at Fairlawn Cemetery.

In 1946, the Congressional Medal of Honor was presented to Pérez’s father in a ceremony on the International Bridge between Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Pérez’s bravery and sacrifice have ever since been a source of inspiration and pride for the Mexican American community and other Mexican American veterans. In his book Among the Valiant, Raul Morin described Pérez as “a whirlwind paratrooper who never let up regardless of how tough the enemy or how large the odds.” Pérez’s life and courageous actions have been commemorated and memorialized in multiple ways in both Chicago and Oklahoma City.

In Oklahoma City, the Manuel Pérez Jr. Army Reserve Center was dedicated at 3021 West Reno in 1961. In 1979, the Riverside community where Pérez was born, raised funds to create a park and monument honoring him at SW14th and Harvey. At the dedication, Reverend Scagnelli of Little Flower Catholic Church said, “Manuel was born here, and he typifies the spirit of the Riverside neighborhood.” The American GI Forum used the park to hold memorial services for veterans. In 2021, Oklahoma City commissioned art murals to memorialize Pérez and his courageous service.

n

Prisoner of War Camps

Some 20,000 German prisoners of war (POWs) were held in Oklahoma during World War II. There were six major camps for the German POWs: Alva, Camp Gruber, Fort Reno, Fort Sill, Madill, and McAlester, as well as other branch camps, including Sallisaw, Tonkawa, and Waynoka. The POWs worked digging drainage ditches, clearing fields, and picking cotton. The camps operated for 2–3 years. By 1946 all of the POWs left Oklahoma and repatriated to Europe.

MAP 10.1

World War II Military Installations and Prisoner of War Camps

World War II military installations and prisoner of war (POW) camps. Military activity in Oklahoma increased during World War II and the Cold War. Military installations and base camps supported the war effort and military readiness. In addition, Oklahoma joined other states in the interior of the country in serving as a site for camps for thousands of German and Italian POWs.

Courtesy of Brad Watkins, PhD.