WWII Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition
13th Anniversary Year Progress Report, 2000-2012
Download the WWII Heritage Guide Map
Wilmington: “America’s World War II City”
Following proclamations in 2008 by the Wilmington City Council and New Hanover County Commissioners, Wilmington proudly claims this title. To our knowledge, no other city makes this claim after 67 years since the war ended. The claim is based on our region’s vast contributions to the war effort, varied war industries, all five armed forces based here, its strategic location, and the record of its residents serving in uniform.
Equally important is our success in preserving the WWII history of Wilmington and Southeastern North Carolina.
In both 2008 and 2011, our Congressman, U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre (7th District, N. C.) inserted such a proclamation in the Congressional Record. Now we seek national recognition.
HR 2717 – Introduced by Congressman McIntyre
In 2011 Congressman McIntyre introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives (HR 2717) to establish a process within the
Department of Veterans Affairs to designate cities as “An American War II City,” with Wilmington being designated as the first to receive this honor.
The criteria are: what did your area do to support the war effort, and what have you done subsequently to preserve it?
In January 2012 the bill has 33 House co-sponsors. Congressman McIntyre’s staff is working with the staffs of North Carolina Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan to develop a companion bill in the Senate.
HR 2717 resulted after detailed attempts by the Congressman and the Coalition to identify national organizations in a position to grant Wilmington alone as “America’s WWII City.” None, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Smithsonian Institution, National USO Headquarters, and the American battle Monuments Commission, expressed having the responsibility or authority. So, federal legislation appeared to be the solution.
Coalition Mission Statement
The World War II Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition is a 501(c)(3) corporation of organizations, agencies, and individuals, staffed by volunteers, who collectively support its efforts to identify, preserve, and interpret the rich WWII history of North Carolina. The emphasis is on the hub in New Hanover County and Wilmington.
Coalition Board of Directors
Chairman/President – CAPT Wilbur D. Jones, Jr., USNR (Ret.)
Vice Chairman/Vice President – Doris G. Ayers
Treasurer – Jennifer H. Presnell, CPA
Counsel – Algernon L. Butler III
Secretary – Katherine Rudeseal
Leo Bednarczyk, Jean Lawler, John Meyer
In Memorium
Colonel Charles P. Murray, Jr., USA (Ret.), Medal of Honor, former Honorary Chairman (2011)
Hannah Block, “Mrs’ World War II Wilmington” (2009)
Honorable John J. Burney, Jr. (2010)
Amazing Accomplishments Working with the Community
Since 2000, the Coalition has accomplished or participated with others in accomplishing numerous projects to preserve North Carolina’s World War II history, working primarily with the City of Wilmington, plus New Hanover County and organizations including the Thalian Association, Community Arts Center Accord, New Hanover High School Class of 1943, Cape Fear Museum of History and Science, New Hanover County Schools, and others.
Our accomplishments include:
■ Working closely with U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre (in support of HR 2717) and staffs of North Carolina Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan in 2011-12 to obtain national recognition for Wilmington as the first designated “American World War II City.”
■ Planned and coordinated the 70th anniversary celebration (December 16, 2011) of the Hannah Block Historic USO/Community Arts Center.
■ Spearheaded Congressional and local city and county governments’ 2008 proclamations of Wilmington as “America’s World War II City.”
■ In 2008, completed the successful 11-year public-private partnership project to rededicate the city-owned, renovated and restored WWII Hannah Block Historic USO building at Second and Orange Streets, also known as the Community Arts Center.
- The lobby area is restored to its wartime appearance and hosts a museum of the Southeastern N. C. home front.
- The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
- The City Council appointed the Coalition chairman as the “history representative” on the Hannah Block Historic USO/Community Arts Center Advisory Board, and has given the Coalition de-facto responsibility for maintaining the building’s history.
■ Established and maintained in the HBHUSO museum:
- Numerous wall photomurals and descriptive labels depicting life in the Wilmington home front;
- A memorial to WWII New Hanover County aviators;
- A mess hall sign painted by German POW’s interned here;
- Exhibits of WWII Army and Marine uniforms and female hostess outfit worn at the USO; model of Liberty ship built in Wilmington.
- Numerous original USO artifacts and reproductions of items sold to the servicemen;
- Installed original and reproduction wartime USO furniture and furnishings, such as a newspaper rack with reproduction wartime Wilmington Star-News newspapers.
■ Planned, operated, and participated in the 2008 “Star Spangled Weekend” events which rededicated the renovated and restored HBHUSO.
■ Held an HBHUSO open house and tours during Wilmington’s “Be a Tourist in Your Own Home Town” weekend, and provided tours and briefings to other visitors.
■ Designed, published, and distributed throughout SENC three editions of the popular World War II Heritage Guide Map of Wilmington and Southeastern North Carolina, a self-guided map for residents and visitors distributed throughout the region and I-95 welcome centers.
■ Placed the WWII Heritage Guide Map on the internet on the websites of the CAC, Cape Fear Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, and www.wilburjones.com.
■ Established a Coalition website page: http://wilburjones.com/world-war-two-wilmington-coalition/
■ Produced two highly successful “Salute to WWII Veterans Jamborees” (2005, 09) with nearly 200 veterans and home front workers participating, and attended by more than 1,500 persons.
■ With the City, placed marker signs at both the original (Shipyard Boulevard-Carolina Beach Road) and main (10th and Ann Streets) German POW camps.
■ Requested the City Council (granted) name its new natural park on South 17th Street as the “William D. Halyburton, Jr., Memorial Park,” in honor of the 1943 New Hanover High School graduate and Medal of Honor recipient, a navy hospital corpsman killed in action on Okinawa (2003). The park was dedicated in 2004.
■ Constructed a masonry monument and garden at NHHS as formal recognition for Halyburton and our other WWII Medal of Honor recipient, Charles P. Murray, Jr. , awarded for valor in France, 1944. To our knowledge, NHHS is the only high school with multiple WWII MOH recipients.
- With NHHS class of 1943, planned and produced Wilmington Medal of Honor Day to dedicate the memorial.
- With the Society of the 3rd Infantry Division, the Coalition is currently working to place a historical marker at Col. Murray’s Congressional Medal of Honor action site at Kaysersberg, Alsace, France.
■ Requested the New Hanover County commissioners (granted) name the main thoroughfare street through Veterans Park for Halyburton.
■ Produced and directed annual commemorations of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, every December 7, at Battleship Park.
■ Produced and published HBHUSO/CAC welcome brochures.
■ Participated with the Wilmington (Downtown) Rotary Club’s international project to provide WWII history books and DVD’s, archival materials, and a computer and software for the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart convent on Tarawa, Republic of Kiribati.
■ Participated in planned and producing the HBHUSO’s 60th anniversary (2001) and USO big-band dances.
■ The Coalition chairman visited the Murray Medal of Honor site in Kaysersberg, Alsace, France in 2009-10,
- attended the Murray funeral visitation in Columbia, SC (he died on August 12, 2011), and
- visited the Halyburton gravesite in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) in Honolulu, Hawaii in 2011, along with the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma memorials which honor Wilmington boys KIA on December 7, 1941: Harvey Howard Horrell, and Herbert Franklin Melton.
■ The Coalition has received these awards for the preservation of North Carolina WWII history:
- Predecessor Wartime Wilmington Commemoration, 1999 = North Carolina Society of Historians, 2000; Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear, 2000
- Coalition = NCSH, 2005; HSLCF, 2009
- Chairman = NCSH, North Carolina Historian of the Year (East), 2005; Award of Merit, American Association for State and Local History, 2006.
Coalition Establishment
Through the highly successful Wartime Wilmington Commemoration, 1999, an idea of the Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear, Southeastern North Carolina paid tribute to our region’s heavy involvement in the war effort in the century’s defining event, and the roles of of our citizens who served in uniform and on the home front. The community warmly responded to some 125 events over 18 months. The WWC1999 received a statewide preservation award from the N. C. Society of Historians and a regional award from the HSLCF.
On September 13, 2000, two historians who were heavily involved with WWC1999, its chairman Wilbur Jones and Everard Smith, PhD., established the Coalition to sustain community interest, enthusiasm, and vision to preserve our WWII legacy while time and veterans exist. Believing its primary goals could be accomplished as a temporary volunteer organization, the Coalition began (and continues) as an ad-hoc group of supporters – not members – without participatory obligations or dues.
Today many of the original supporters remain, and others have been added. A partial listing is shown on the Coalition’s letterhead. Supporters and friends pay no dues and have no financial or membership obligations.
Wilmington and Southeastern North Carolina During World War II, 1941-1945
The Southeastern North Carolina Home Front
Southeastern North Carolina contributed mightily to the war effort in World War II. Wilmington was officially called “The
Defense Capital of the State” and became the country’s unique wartime boomtown. On July 3, 2008, when the renovated and restored WWII historic USO building was rededicated, Wilmington was proclaimed “America’s World War II City.”
The once-quiet city, geographically isolated for decades, suddenly found itself an exploding center of military life and defense production. Each branch of the armed forces stationed thousands in the area – the Army Air Forces at Bluethenthal Field, the Army at Camp Davis and Fort Fisher, the Navy at Fort Caswell, the Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune and New River Marine Corps Air Station, and the Coast Guard at Wrightsville Beach.
The North Carolina Shipbuilding Company (at the present state port) constructed 243 cargo ships for the Merchant Marine and Navy, employing some 23,000 at its 1943 peak as the state’s largest employer. The port received petroleum and other products for inland shipment, and shipped tons of “Lend-Lease” war materiel to U.S. Allies.
The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad headquartered here operated a vast and vital rail network throughout the Southeast. Numerous other defense industries produced clothing and equipment at capacity, i.e., shirt manufacturing, pulpwood, and fertilizer.
The air field originally was an anti-submarine warfare patrol base, then later a major training base for P-47 fighter pilots. British ASW vessels operated out of the area.
The area endured constant civil defense restrictions and air raid drills and blackouts. German U-boats marauding off shore spilled debris from sunken Allied ships on favorite bathing beaches. Because of Wilmington‘s strategic location, until 1944 the government warned of the threat of a German attack by sea and air. In July 1943 a U-boat fired three shells at the Ethyl Dow Chemical plant at Kure Beach and missed, perhaps the only enemy attack on the U.S.
Wilmington suffered a dire housing shortage to accommodate war workers and military personnel, and coped with serious strains on schools, transportation, medical and social services, law enforcement, food supply, security, and entertainment. Families rented rooms for the war effort, historic downtown homes were cut up into apartments for round-the-clock berthing, and seven public housing projects were constructed for war workers and military personnel with 5,495 units.
Transients and a weekend onslaught of servicemen from nearby bases flooded downtown establishments and the beaches. Long lines and waits were everyday occurrences for movies, restaurants, buses, and night clubs. Downtown churches and synagogues filled. Wilmingtonians were obliged to mix with and tolerate diverse newcomers who expanded their horizons, at least temporarily.
The 14 New Hanover County USO clubs serving the military boomed, as did businesses and financial institutions. County war bond drives raised $40 million. War meant the Great Depression had ended and entrepreneurs exploited a thriving economy to make money as never before.
Three separate camps in the county held up to 550 German prisoners of war, captured from Rommel’s Afrika Korps in Tunisia, from 1944-46. They worked on dairy and truck farms and in pulpwood and fertilizer industries.
The community struggled with frequently changing edicts from Washington and Raleigh regarding civil defense, rationing, and other lifestyle restrictions. Allocations of scarce commodities were erroneously based on the pre-war population. The government distributed ration books to every man, woman, and child.
Citizens and local governments were quickly forced to learn to meet brand-new pressures including: buy war bonds, manage huge construction projects, stop pleasure driving, postpone train trips, and reduce electricity use. People had to
Thousands of civilians volunteered for the war effort as airplane spotters, Inland Waterway boat patrollers, air raid wardens and auxiliary police and firemen, civic support groups, and draft board members. Women worked at the shipyard in numbers, drove buses, filled jobs formerly held by men in uniform, excelled in the Aircraft Warning Service, war bond and scrap drives, as USO hostesses, and as Red Cross nurses aides. The pressure continued well into 1944 when the threat of attack vanished.
Front Street, the USO clubs, and Wrightsville, Seabreeze, and Carolina beaches teemed with uniforms looking for action and girls looking for uniforms. Both legitimate romance and prostitution flourished. Everyone of an age fell in love, if only for a moment, and multitudes of local girls became engaged to or married the visitors. For many teenage girls and young women, the war was the most exciting time of their life.
The county population nearly tripled to around 100,000 with the influx of military personnel, war workers, and their families. Wilmington’s media included one radio station, WMFD, one principal newspaper company: the Wilmington Morning Star, evening Wilmington News, and Sunday Star-News, and the black Wilmington Journal.
Although racial segregation reigned, blacks contributed heavily to the war effort through service at the shipyard, their own bond drives, and in construction and other industries. Rationing of tires, gasoline, whiskey, and foodstuffs like sugar and coffee cut across racial lines.
At the war’s end, elements that boomed in the area departed drastically: servicemen, the shipyard, military presence, war industries, free-flowing dollars, and the accompanying explosive growth. Whereas other “boom towns” such as Los Angeles-Long Beach-San Pedro and Mobile continued immediate growth post-war, Wilmington retrograded.
On a bell-shaped curve, Wilmington returned to its small-town exclusiveness and pre-war coziness. Some Wilmingtonians wanted the boom to continue, others did not. The latter prevailed, and wartime changes planted the seeds for Southeastern North Carolina’s spectacular growth in the 1980’s to early 2000’s.
Wilmington rightfully earned the title of “America’s World War II City.”
New Hanover County Personnel in the Armed Forces
The area dispatched countless thousands of its fathers, sons, and daughters to fight the enemy as members of all the armed forces and the merchant marine. One hundred and ninety one New Hanover County residents did not return,
New Hanover High School produced two graduates who received the Congressional Medal of Honor, believed the only such high school with multiple MOH recipients. They were:
Captain Charles P. Murray, Jr., U.S. Army, 1938, commanding officer of Company C, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, awarded for valor in December 1944 at Kaysersberg, Alsace, France; and
Pharmacists Mate Second Class William D. Halyburton, Jr., U.S. Naval Reserve, 1943, a hospital corpsman with the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, who was killed in action in May 1945 on Okinawa while saving the life of a Marine.
New Hanover County men fought and died in every theater of the war, including North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Atlantic, Europe, from England, the Southwest Pacific, Central Pacific, China-Burma-India, the Philippines, and around Japan.
Several received the second highest decorations for valor, the Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Cross, for action at Midway, Normandy, and other battlefields. NHHS graduate Navy Lieutenant Clarence Earl Dickinson, SBD Dauntless bomber pilot off the carrier USS Enterprise, earned three Navy Crosses by June 1942. He sunk the first Japanese ship on the surface after Pearl Harbor.
Additionally, Wilmingtonians who served included:
- a Tuskegee Airman, Williston High School graduate and world-famous jazz bassist Percy Heath;
- citizens who worked on the Manhattan Project, entered Nagasaki following the atomic bomb, and at Eisenhower’s Rheims headquarters for the surrender of Germany;
- members of National Guard units activated in 1940;
- a P-51 fighter ace (12 kills) in Europe, a P-38 ace with 125 combat missions out of India;
- a Navy chaplain; and
- commanding officers of a submarine and PT-boats.
In a Nutshell – Our Mighty Contributions to the War Effort
Official Wartime Designation:“The Defense Capital of the State” aka: “The Country’s Unique Wartime Boomtown”
Strategic Location Vulnerable:
Until 1944, government told citizens to fear German sea or air attack; civilian defense drills – blackouts, air raids; rationing, food shortages; U-boats ravaged off coast; one fired on Ethyl-Dow Chemical plant at Kure Beach July 1943.
All 5 Armed Forces here or close by:
Army – Camp Davis on U.S. 17 at Holly Ridge, anti-aircraft artillery training base; Fort Fisher advanced training base
Navy – Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) patrol craft at nearby Southport and along Cape Fear River
Army Air Forces – Bluethenthal Army Air Base (now ILM), ASW base then P-47 Thunderbolt training field
Marine Corps – Camp Lejeune at Jacksonville/New River
Coast Guard – Patrol craft bases at Wrightsville Beach (Inland Waterway), Southport area, and Wilmington
Also British ASW vessels visited and operated from here
North Carolina Shipbuilding Company, 1941-46:
243 Liberty and C-2 hulls constructed for Navy and Maritime Commission; state’s largest employer: 23,000 employees at height in late 1943, 20% black
Defense Industries:
Fertilizer plants, pulpwood, Block’s Shirt Factory, numerous small manufacturing, creosote products, bromine (Ethyl-Dow), truck-farming, dairies, small ship/craft repair works, concrete floating drydock manufacturing
Total Manufacturing:
110 establishments employing 28,000 men and 6,000 women; retail trade area extended 75 miles inland reaching 275,000 population
Principal N. C. State Port:
Along Cape Fear River, principally downtown docks; “Lend-Lease” shipments to the United Kingdom/Soviet Union; petroleum imports center
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Headquarters and Terminal:
A principal RR in the Southeastern U.S.; transported war material and troops; also served by Seaboard Airline RR.
3 German Prisoner of War Camps:
From Feb. 1944 to April 1946; first one at Shipyard Blvd. and Carolina Beach Rd. (historical marker), then moved to Robert Strange Park (main camp, 8th & Nun; historical marker); detachment at Bluethenthal Field; maximum 550 German POW’s captured from Rommel’s Afrika Korps in Tunisia in 1943; caused no trouble, no breakouts, worked dairy and truck farms, fertilizer and pulpwood industries.
Public Housing:
5,495 units constructed (federal/local) in 7 hosuing projects (some still in use).
Armed Forces Service:
Thousands of area men and women served in uniform; bomber and fighter pilots and crews; a Tuskegee Airman; P-51 Mustang ace; submarine skipper; Navy frogmen and special operations; Marine and Army infantry; Army artillery; physicians and nurses; crewmen on destroyers/carriers/amphibious ships; served in, over, and undersea in Central-Western-South Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, Europe, North Africa
Deaths in Service:
191 County men died, plus 57 more with county connection = 248 did not come home; three sailors KIA at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941; men died in combat on Guadalcanal, New Britain, Peleliu, Saipan, New Guinea, the Marshalls, Okinawa; in and over Holland, Italy, Sicily, North Africa, France, Philippines, Germany, Burma, Belgium, Luxembourg.
Congressional Medals of Honor:
2 recipients, both of New Hanover High School (Charles Murray ‘38, Army France 1944, and William Halyburton ‘43, Navy Okinawa 1945 posthumously) – believed to be only high school in country with multiple WWII MoH recipients.
Other Decorations: 2 Navy pilots awarded Navy Cross for helping to sink Japanese carrier at battle of Midway; one of them awarded total of 3 Navy Crosses for valor; 1 Army Air Forces pilot awarded Distinguished Service Cross for Midway; 1 Army DSC recipient (posthumously) for Normandy; numerous Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, Distinguished Flying Crosses, and Air Medals.
14 County USO (United Service Organizations) Facilities:
Main location at 2nd & Orange, renovated and restored in 2008 to wartime appearance.
War Bonds:
$40 million raised in N. H. County in 7 drives.
Population 1940:
New Hanover County 43,000; Wilmington 34,000; county late 1943 peak ca. 100,000
Biggest Problems:
No planning: seat-of-the-pants, trial-by-error; housing (many private homes rented rooms to workers and military); few main streets/thoroughfares (army constructed Shipyard Blvd. and Military Cutoff); problems: food shortages, cramped schools, long lines for restaurants and theaters, crowded schools, total racial segregation, administering justice, transportation, horrible accidents; crime (“sin city”) – murders, rapes, fights, thefts, muggings, prostitution, black marketeering, moonshining.
Somehow, by hit-and-miss, the home front responded. We made it through.
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- The Community Boys & Girls Club of Wilmington were guests of the World War II Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition at a showing of the George Lucas movie, "Red Tails," a story of the Tuskegee Airmen in combat in Europe during WWII. January 2012.
