Ponca City and Kay County, Oklahoma, in World War II

For Ponca City and Kay County in northern Oklahoma, the home front began with the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941.

Training British pilots

After the act passed, six private flying schools opened in the United States to train cadets of Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF). One of them, British Flight Training School No. 6 — the Darr School of Aeronautics — opened at the Ponca City airport in early August 1941. RAF officers ran it, but American civilian instructors taught the courses. The school trained pilots for the U.S. Army Air Force too, and in all more than 1,110 pilots trained there during the war.

Camp Tonkawa

Due west of Ponca City, near the city of Tonkawa, the U.S. Army built Camp Tonkawa, a prisoner of war camp that officially opened in early 1943. The 160-acre camp had approximately 180 structures and a staff of 500 Army guards, service personnel and civilian employees, and it eventually held 3,000 German prisoners. They could work outside the camp on local farms and ranches and at an alfalfa drying plant in Tonkawa, and inside it as waiters in the officers' club and as mechanics. The camp ran at or near capacity until it closed in September 1945, when the prisoners were sent back to Europe.

Chilocco Indian Agricultural School

North of Ponca City, near the Kansas border, the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School had been founded in 1883 to give academic and vocational education to Native American students from across the country. Several of its graduates served as U.S. military Code Talkers in World War II, and three were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroism. C Company of the 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, was based on the campus.

Industry

Several large manufacturers operated in Kay County during the war. The Continental Oil Company, headquartered in Ponca City, ran a separate refinery making high-octane aviation gasoline for the government — the largest in the country — and its lubricating oil and wax plant was the only one of its kind. Both were major employers, and they made Ponca City one of the ten likeliest targets in the United States for attack or sabotage.

Remembering

Ponca City and Kay County still mark their wartime history. The Ponca City Veterans Day Parade is one of the largest in the state, and Memorial Day is celebrated too. The McCarter Museum in Tonkawa holds many artifacts from Camp Tonkawa. War Memorial Park and the Veterans Plaza in Ponca City, the Ponca Indian Cemetery, the Blackwell Zinc Company WWII Memorial, the Camp Tonkawa Monument, and Hangar No. 3 — the last surviving hangar of the Darr School, listed in the National Register of Historic Places — all recall what the people of the county gave during the war.

Sources

Based on "Ponca City and Kay County, Oklahoma," published by the National Park Service; rewritten in hubnx's own words.

• The article spells the hangar "Hanger"; corrected here.
• The article's wartime photograph, credited to ConocoPhillips, is not reproduced.