The list of Hoosier contributions was nearly endless: Allison's airplane engines, Studebaker's trucks, Lilly's blood plasma, the Calumet Region's steel, RCA's proximity fuses, Guide Lamp's cartridge cases, South Bend Toy's tent poles, Republic Aviation's P-47 Thunderbolts.
MAKING HISTORY THE SECOND WORLD WAR GRAPHICS SETTINGS FULL
By 1942 Indiana's factories turned full blast to making America "the great arsenal of democracy," as President Franklin Roosevelt had commanded. Private industry soon shifted to war production, especially after Pearl Harbor. Other major war plants included the Wabash River Ordnance Works in Vermillion County and the Kingsbury Ordnance Works near La Porte. Camp Atterbury, Crane Naval Ammunition Depot, Jefferson Proving Ground, and Indiana Ordnance Works at Charlestown brought the war to small towns and rural areas in southern Indiana and created thousands of jobs that quickly scared off the Great Depression. Other than young people leaving home in uniform and the news of letters and War Department telegrams, the most obvious signs of war on the Hoosier home front were the military installations and ordnance plants that sprang up overnight. The discrimination and segregation that wove its tentacles through the American fabric persisted even as the nation fought against the racism of Nazi Germany. Black Hoosiers also stepped into military uniforms, but usually in segregated units and usually in support roles. For many women World War II was a liberating experience long before any of them heard about women's liberation.
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Women entered military units and made significant contributions as nurses, truck drivers, clerks, and pilots. Military service had special meaning for Hoosiers with traditionally restricted opportunities. And on courthouse squares across Indiana their names were cut in stone or bronze-the long, simple roll calls of Hoosiers who made the "supreme sacrifice." Some were returned to Indiana soil others were laid to rest in a French field or a calm Pacific sea. Too many experienced the worst the war offered, expressed most vividly by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s descriptions of the Dresden firebombing and by the newspaper columns of Ernie Pyle.įar too many Indiana soldiers and sailors died, more than ten thousand. All wanted more than anything else to get the war over with and come home safe. Most did their jobs very well, if not heroically. Some, including Bloomington's Medal of Honor winner, Gerry Kisters, became heroes. Hoosiers fought in all combat theaters, from Europe to the Pacific. Far from home, young soldiers could only dimly remember when life included lazy front-porch gossip, amusement rides at the state fair, high school sweethearts. Long weeks of hard training in dusty military camps were a prelude to travels and challenges spread across the country and around the world. The lives most disrupted by war were those of the Hoosier men and women who served in the military forces. The oft-repeated question, "Don't you know there's a war on?," was really a statement. The necessities of war-the overwhelming need to defeat the Axis-set the boundaries that shaped lives.
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World War II changed everything in Indiana, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. Hoosiers at War: An Overview of Indiana during World War II By James Madison