Ohio War Stories: Share Your Memories

With the onset of war, industries by necessity had to reinvent themselves - sometimes multiple times to keep up with the war machine.

The nature of the workforce was altered forever, and companies began producing products needed for the war effort, rather than those they were accustomed to creating.

According to an entry found on www.ohiohistorycentral.org, a web site created by the Ohio Historical Society, the nation was facing a rubber shortage at the worst possible time:

During World War II, the United States experienced a rubber shortage. While the United States had access to naturally occurring rubber in Africa and Central and South America, most rubber imported to the United States came from Asia. Japan, one of America’s enemies in World War II, controlled much of Asia and prohibited rubber exports to the United States. The United States military needed rubber for numerous reasons during the war, especially for truck, airplane, and jeep tires.

During World War I, Germany had manufactured synthetic rubber. Synthetic rubber required no natural occurring rubber, and it proved to be more durable than its natural equivalent. Manufacturers created synthetic rubber by mixing oil, acetylene, coal, natural gas, and other items together. Germany manufactured synthetic rubber during the war because the country’s enemies succeeded in cutting off German access to natural rubber. Upon World War I’s conclusion, synthetic rubber remained too costly to justify its continued production.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, scientists made tremendous advances in synthetic rubber’s production. By the start of World War II, synthetic rubber’s manufacturing cost had declined dramatically, but it still proved to be more expensive than natural rubber. Fortunately, in 1940, B.F. Goodrich Company scientist Waldo Semon developed a new and cheaper version of synthetic rubber known as Ameripol. Ameripol made synthetic rubber production much more cost effective, helping Akron, Ohio, rubber companies, including B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, to meet the country’s needs during World War II (1941-1945). Semon’s invention helped end the United States’ dependence on foreign rubber. Upon World War II’s conclusion, these same companies began to produce synthetic rubber items for peacetime use as well.

The Ohio-based Master Tire (which later became Cooper Tire) was one such company that needed to switch gears quickly. This video comes by way of WBGU:

By Scott Trostel…

As a jubilant Ohio celebrated with unrestrained relief, the end of WW II, all was not quite good on the Ohio home front. While August 15th and 16th were declared national holidays, and for many this was the first day off since war was declared, it was bittersweet.

Federal officials were busy canceling war contracts. In the Cleveland ordnance district, contracts for more than $350 million were immediately canceled at an estimated 300 war plants. The firm of Jahco laid off 6,500 temporarily with about 2,500 to be rehired to help wind things down. At Cleveland’s Fisher Body 7,000 employees prepared for the loss of employment Two other major arsenals, Plum Brook at Sandusky and Ravenna planned to have all defense employees laid off by the late fall.

At Columbus the massive Curtiss-Wright dive-bomber plant was closed and 20,000 employees were laid off. At the Lockland plant (Evendale near Cincinnati) of Wright Aeronautical Corporation, the larger part of 27,000 employees awaited pink slips. They had made the radial engines for the B-29 Superfortress.

At Vandalia, Aeroproducts laid off 1,500 with the end of propeller production. The total number laid-off from the massive Frigidaire plant was not disclosed, although it was estimated nearly 10,000 would go home while the plant was changed over to peacetimes production.

At Toledo, Willys-Overland, who made the popular Jeep, laid off thousands as it weighed its options of retooling for peacetime motor vehicle production.

At Troy 750 were laid off from the Waco Aircraft Company’s glider plant. Three textile plants in the western Ohio area, who had been making woolen blankets, swiftly laid off almost all nonessential employees as they prepared to convert looms over to peacetime production. Keep reading…