Tag Archives: World War II

75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

Posted on by
Reply

Photo of Litchfield War Monuments - Litchfield, CT, United States

This December 7th marks the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and while Litchfield County residents tend to think that it was the Revolutionary War that had the greatest impact on our region, the World War II monument on the Litchfield green identifies 480 men from the town who served in the American armed forces. Nearly 250 men from Litchfield County died in the war. Additionally, many area factories were converted to production for the war effort, and many of our towns’s landscapes were altered as a result.

And while many of our town greens have notable World War II monuments, touching memorials also appear in out of the way places, like this one inside Washington’s Congregational Church:

wwii

or this one along Route 202 in New Milford, which is particularly noticeable at Christmas time:

As the anniversary of Pearl Harbor allows us to reflect on the war, let’s be sure to remember those sacrifices by our Litchfield County ancestors.

 

Advertisement

Bantam’s World War II

Posted on by
4

Bantam Lane, now Bantam Lake Road (Rt 209), in January 1942.

Our first house was in Bantam. Built in 1940, it was part of an expansion of that section of Litchfield resulting from the nation’s preparation for World War II. The area on Route 209 that we lived in was called Parrotville, as the houses were built on what was once the Parrot farm. These were built for the families of the managers at the Warren McArthur Corporation, which during the war produced most of the seats used in American military aircraft. In remodeling that house, we found ration books hidden behind the moulding, one more vestige of the impact that the war had on the community.

The Bantam Manufacturing Company opened its doors at what is now the intersection of routes 202 and 209 between 1900 and 1905. By 1917, the popularity of the automobile led to an increase in the demand for ball bearings, and the Bantam Ball Bearing Company took over the building in 1917. In 1938, the Warren McArthur Corporation acquired the factory to produce their sleek metal chairs, which epitomized the art deco style of the 1920s and 1930s. With the coming of the war, however, the company was asked to make seats for military aircraft.

Housing built for Warren McArthur workers on what is now Circle Drive. The government report that this photo accompanied stated that “as the automobiles and tires of workers in Bantam’s defense industries wear out, it is probably that additional housing facilities will be needed.”

A look inside the Heath family’s home, one of the units built for defense workers. Advertised as a five-minute walk from the plant, the Heaths played thirty dollars a month in rent.

Despite rationing and shortages of oil and tires, more than half the workers commuted to the plant, as evidenced by this photograph of its parking lot.

The urgency of the war effort led to the plant operating an average of sixteen hours a day, and on several occasions ran around the clock. This resulted in a need for labor, and soon workers from Torrington, Winsted, and other area towns began commuting to Bantam. But with the shortages of oil, gas, and rubber tires, housing within walking distance of the factory became a necessity. The federal government stepped in and oversaw the construction of sixty duplexes – what is now Circle Drive – a boom that increased the number of housing residences in Bantam by a third.

Jean Brunetto, described as “auburn haired” by the Office of Emergency Management, was a 1938 graduate of Litchfield High School who worked at Warren McArthur, along with her sister. Here Jean polishes the aluminum of a seat for a bomber.

The Bantam Fire Company had a bowling alley in its basement, which was rented out to a different organization each night of the week as a fundraiser.

Even following the surrenders of Germany and Japan, the Warren McArthur Corporation continued to make airplane seats. The company was acquired by PTC Aerospace, which built a new facility on Route 202 in the 1960s, but kept the old factory operating on a limited basis until 1990. Ultimately, PTC Aerospace closed its doors in Bantam in 2002 and moved operations to Northern Ireland.

Bantam had an airplane observation post in the northern part of the borough. It was manned twenty-four hours a day, usually by defense industry workers on their off hours. Here Charles Kilbourne watches the skies.

The Warren McArthur Corporation was not Bantam’s only defense industry. Here workers at the Dante Electric Company make parts for submarines. Dante Electric was located on Bantam Lane, now Route 209.

Bantam’s experience in World War II lives on in an amazing collection of photos taken by the Office of Emergency Management in January 1942. Some of them accompany this post; others are available by searching “Bantam, Connecticut” on the Library of Congress’s website, http://www.loc.gov.

 

 

 

Hidden Nearby: The Birthplace of General Benjamin Foulois

Posted on by
Reply

IMG_2699

Benjamin “Benny” Foulois, a pioneer of aviation in the American military, was born on December 9, 1879, in the white building on Route 47 in Washington Depot that once housed the Washington Pharmacy. (The building is across Route 47 from The Hickory Stick Bookshop.) His mother was a nurse and his father a pipe fitter who had emigrated from France. At eighteen he enlisted in the army to serve in the Spanish-American War, serving in Puerto Rico, and spent time with American occupation forces in Cuba and the Philippines.

Foulois and Orville Wright

Foulois and Orville Wright

While in the Philippines, Foulois was assigned to the Engineering Corps, where he was tasked with creating maps of the area. This led to an assignment at the army’s Signal School and an expertise in the use of dirigibles in reconnaissance. From this vantage point he predicted that airplanes would soon become the military’s main source of intelligence, a prediction which resulted in Foulois being appointed to the army’s aeronautical board. In this capacity, he was charged with evaluating aircraft for potential purchase by the army. He earned a spot in the record books by serving as the navigator for Orville Wright on a July 30, 1909, flight from Fort Myer, Virginia to Alexandria, which achieved unprecedented average speed (42.5 miles per hour), altitude (400 feet) and distance cross country (10 miles). The army soon after purchased the Wright Model A Military Flyer.

Foulois in the cockpit.

Foulois in the cockpit.

Between 1911 and 1916, Foulois served in Texas, assisting General John Pershing in his operations against the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. In March 1911, Foulois and a flying partner accidentally shut off an engine, and their plane crashed into the Rio Grande. They both escaped without injury. During these operations, Foulois became the first man to conduct military intelligence operations from a plane, and the first to do so over a foreign country.

Foulois (left) with General John J. Pershing, commander of American forces in World War I.

Foulois (left) with General John J. Pershing, commander of American forces in World War I.

Foulois essentially built the American air corps for World War I. With a French request for 4,500 pilots and 12,000 combat planes, Foulois oversaw the production, maintenance, organization and operations of aeronautical personnel and equipment in the United States. He ultimately oversaw a budget of $640 million and was promoted to Brigadier General. After the armistice, Foulois drafted the air clauses of the Treaty of Versailles.

Sent to Germany after the war, Foulois found himself frequently discussing the potentials of air power with Hermann Goering, future commander of the Nazi Luftwaffe. Goering invited Foulois to join top German aeronautical organizations, and Foulois took advantage of this to gather enormous amounts of intelligence, which he sent back to the American government. He eventually sounded warnings about German capabilities and intent.

Foulois in 1962

Foulois in 1962

In 1931, Foulois was promoted to Major General and named Chief of the Air Corps by Herbert Hoover, and he put into place the development of new aircraft that would eventually include the B-17 and B-24 bombers, which became the workhorses of American forces in World War II. A clash with army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur led to Foulois’s retirement in 1934. He offered to return to the skies for World War II if offered a combat command, but when none came he spent the war directing civil defense operations in New Jersey. In 1963, Foulois appeared on the popular television show I’ve Got a Secret, with the secret that he had once been the entire United States Air Force. He died in 1967, and is buried in his native Washington.