Region's mills, mines and factories fueled critical production during World War II

They were the buck privates of the home front.

Thousands of men and women made weapons and armaments in southwestern Pennsylvania during World War II, leading the military to refer to the region as "Victory Valley" because of the prodigious industrial output from its mills, mines and factories.

Weapons and equipment poured out of the region and onto battlefields in Europe and the South Pacific. Local factories made airplane parts, guns, munitions, shells, boats, chemicals and engine parts that were used around the world. The region also produced huge quantities of steel, coal, aluminum and rubber.

Bill Messinger, 76, of North Huntingdon, was a 16-year-old high school junior when he went to work at National Tube Co. in McKeesport. He stayed there for 40 years.

"They were certainly glad to have us," recalled Messinger. "I thought it was a privilege to be there, especially as young as I was. They needed people. It was the first real income I had. I didn't like it at the time, but my mother said, 'Half of what you bring home is mine.'"

Because the draft depleted the male work force, creating a manpower shortage in vital industries, companies filled vacancies with women. They worked alongside males who were exempted from military service -- men considered too old for the draft, high school students and men with critical technical skills.

By 1943, 30,000 women worked in war plants in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The United States Steel Corp., as it was known then, had 22,000 women working in mills at the beginning of 1943. Later that year, the number of women in mills swelled to 37,000, while another 27,000 worked in plant offices. Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co. reported a quarter of its 11,000 workers were women in September 1943; by 1944, 7,560 of the company's 28,000 workers were women.

Eleanor Layton, 86, of Hempfield Township, worked at the American St. Gobain plant in Jeannette, where she made glass for Jeeps and optics for tanks and wrote poetry on her breaks. She earned $1,158.16 in 1943; two years later, her annual pay climbed to $1,824.05.

"It was hard work slinging around big pieces of glass. It was interesting. We were a close group. I enjoyed it. It gave me the money to buy the ground we live on now. It was a good part of my life," she added.

Still, there were not enough workers to meet wartime production needs.

The labor shortage became so acute that the U.S. Employment Service went door to door looking for 30,000 workers and the work week was increased to 48 hours. By the war's end in 1945, the employment service had to shift 18,000 workers from "non-essential" jobs to work in war production and the government also sent soldiers to work in plants.

Richard Wissolik, a history professor at St. Vincent College, captured the stories of women who worked on the home front in "Out of the Kitchen," a book published by the college's Center for Northern Appalachian Studies. The book is a collection of oral histories of women who worked in local plants and factories.

"These people are a great resource," Wissolik said. "They're the last ties we have to the history of that era in this area."

PRODUCTION LEADER

Pennsylvania has armed the nation since the War of 1812 when shipyards along the Allegheny, Ohio and Monongahela rivers built warships for the American Navy. This region produced bullets and munitions during the Civil War and World War I. It also produced coal, steel, explosives and propellers for airplanes and warships during World War I.

But even in the late 1930s, the nation was not yet the world power it would become.

In 1940, the U.S. military was ranked 16th in the world. The Army only had 2,665 aircraft compared to 25,000 for the German Luftwaffe. The Army, with a limited number of medium and light tanks, had no heavy tanks to compete with the German Panzers, according to the Historic American Engineering Record of the Pittsburgh Industrial District, a survey of industrial production from 1941 to 1945.

The Pittsburgh Industrial District of the War Production Board, which included Allegheny, Westmoreland, Beaver, Fayette and Washington counties, was in charge of overseeing the industrial conversions and monitoring factory output. Companies that met or exceeded their goals were award an "E" award for excellence, according to Jim Steeley, director of the Westmoreland County Historical Society.

"It quickly became a badge of honor to receive one of these from the Army and Navy," he said.

Nathaniel Kulyk, of Erie, wrote his senior history thesis at St. Vincent College on the 10 Westmoreland County plants that earned the awards. Kulyk said out of 4,283 plants in the United States during the war, only 5 percent won the awards for meeting or exceeding production quotas.

"That was something the government looked for," Kulyk said. "Steady production and innovation."

The Scaife Co., based in Oakmont, began producing armaments during the War of 1812. During World War II, the company quickly switched from making machine parts to manufacturing parts for bombs. The company earned an "E" award pennant for its efforts.

The region's industrial output was enormous.

In 1943, the United States produced 89.1 million tons of steel -- more than Japan and Germany produced together. About 27 percent of that total came from southwestern Pennsylvania, according to the 1945 book "Men and Women of Wartime Pittsburgh and Its Environs."

One-fifth of all the soft coal produced in the nation came from southwestern Pennsylvania, according to the book. The amount of cargo carried by trains in the district in 1941 was 163.5 million tons while barges ferried another 38 million tons.

U.S. Steel, Allegheny Ludlum, Carnegie-Illinois, Jones and Laughlin, Jessup Steel and Union Steel Casting all produced steel for the war effort.

The Aluminum Company of America, which became Alcoa, converted from making cooking utensils to producing aluminum for military equipment during the war, when the demand for aluminum doubled. The company's New Kensington plant produced high-strength aluminum along with powder containers and depth charges.

The H.J. Heinz Co. in Pittsburgh shifted part of its operation from food production to building gliders that airborne assault troops used in the Normandy invasion. During the war, it also produced canned soup and ham and eggs for soldiers and developed juices and dry spaghetti and macaroni.

Debbie Foster, vice president of corporate communications for Heinz in Pittsburgh, said the company transformed the building used to make baby cereal into a production area for glider wings.

"Jack Heinz was a great supporter of American and Allied forces in World War II," Foster said.

Heinz hired 60 women and had them trained at then-South Vocational High School in Pittsburgh before putting them to work making glider parts. Foster said the company also developed a smokeless, self-heating can for condensed soup that could be warmed with a lit cigarette.

"The company's motto was 'Beans to Bombers, Pickles to Pursuit Planes,'" Foster added.

In Monessen, the Pittsburgh Steel Co. produced railway axles and steel tubing.The Railway and Industrial Engineering Co. in Greensburg, which is now Brown Boveri, made 60 mm shells, while the Walworth Valve Co. produced steam fittings in South Greensburg. The Elliott Co. in Jeannette manufactured superchargers for four-cycle diesel engines, while the former Stupakoff Ceramic and Manufacturing Co. in Latrobe made ceramic insulators.

Kennametal, then based in Latrobe, made cutting bits for machining, while Dillinger Industries in Ruffsdale made industrial alcohol. Richmond Radiator Co. in Uniontown produced bombs and torpedoes, Robertshaw Thermostat Co. in Youngwood produced munitions and the Irwin Tool Co. made links for .50-caliber machine gun ammunition.

VALUABLE WORK

Verabelle Opatkiewicz, 80, of Rostraver Township, worked at American Wire and Wire in Donora while her husband served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

"Some of it was hard work," Opatkiewicz said. "I just wanted to do my part."

Ann Moyher, of Derry, worked at Paragon Industries in Derry making hand grenades even though she was allergic to gunpowder.

"It was rough," recalled Moyher, now 84. "They took my husband overseas and my little one was born the week after he left."

Moyher inserted pins into the grenades but her allergy forced her to quit.

"I liked the work. It wasn't a bad place to work," she said.

All told, the Pittsburgh region produced $19.3 billion worth of munitions for the war effort -- including more than 52 million shells, 1.7 million bombs, 2.3 million pounds of chemicals for explosives and 245,000 small parachutes for flares and bombs.

Kulyk said one plant that filled the production gap was the now defunct American Cynamid plant in Latrobe.

Known to residents as the "boom-boom works" because of accidental explosions, the plant made blasting caps for the coal industry. When war was declared, company employees secretly began to manufacture detonators for the British because the owner was an ardent pacifist who wouldn't allow the production of war material. After an explosion killed one of the workers, the owner cancelled the government contract.

The plant manager and another Latrobe businessman formed the Acme Die Co.

"Acme Die was an example of two guys coming together for the good of the country and doing their part for the war effort," Kulyk said.

Eleanor Myers, 81, of Ligonier, went to work right out of high school at Acme, where she poured gunpowder into shells from 1941 to 1943. She said she had to be careful where she walked because the slightest amount of friction could create a spark and turn the plant into an inferno. At the end of each shift, she had to wash the caked-on powder from her face and scrub beneath her fingernails.

"It was scary," she said. "You had to take care but I met an awful lot of nice people. I have a lot of good memories."

The war also created new industries.

The Blaw-Knox Corp. in Pittsburgh developed plans for building plants to produce synthetic rubber. Demand for landing and assault craft lead to a boom in shipbuilding at yards along the Allegheny and Ohio rivers.

Rose Shuschereba, of North Huntingdon, quit school in the 11th grade and went to work making fuses for bombs at Westinghouse Air Brake in Wilmerding during World War II.

"I quit school, which I regret, but the war was on and that was more important to me," Shuschereba said.

Clara Seidl, 81, of New Alexandria, made landing ship tanks, or LSTs, at the Dravo Corp. shipyard on Neville Island. Seidl said she remembers standing along the riverbank as each ship was commissioned and launched.

"Women were standing on the riverbank waving their babushkas. It was fantastic. The sailors were waving their white caps," she recalled. "I loved working on those ships. I was doing something for the war effort. My husband was in the Navy. "

Gertrude Ketterer, of Hollidaysburg, lived in Rostraver Township during the war. She worked as a welder for American Bridge Co. in Ambridge for $1.05 an hour building LSTs for the Navy. Even though she then weighed only 85 pounds, Ketterer said she was able to heft 50-foot long extensions for her welding equipment.

Ketterer, who met her husband on an LST, said her brother was assigned to one of the boats she helped build. He eventually rode the boat onto Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.

"I wasn't Rosie the Riveter," she said. "I was Winnie the Welder. It was hard work. You did a lot of climbing. I was a blue-collar worker. I could read blueprints. I really enjoyed it."

Tillie Stanick went from making bedding to belts for machine guns.

Stanick, 79, of California, first worked at the Fort Pitt Bedding Co. in Pittsburgh after she graduated from high school in 1942. When the war started, the company switched from making mattresses to making links for machine guns and she was paid $40 a week.

"That was pretty good in those days," she said.

She later was hired by Allied Chemical at its Newell plant, closer to her home. She also worked as a welder.

"That was a great time in my life. We had a good time. We went to dances when we weren't working. We had a lovely time."

Augusta Toth Fabriza, of West Newton, worked at the National Tube Co. in McKeesport -- first as a welder and then as a stamper making bombs from 1943 until the war's end in 1945.

"I'd still like to go back to the mill and I'm 80 years old," Fabriza said. "Those years have gone by. I sure do miss those days."