Wichita on the World War II Home Front: Cadets, Bond Drives and Canteens

Wichita, Kansas, is one of the American World War II Heritage Cities. Newspaper reports from the war years show how its civilians volunteered and gave to the war effort — through service to troops, cadet enlistment and war bond campaigns.

Recruiting air cadets, December 1942

The Wichita Eagle reported on December 2, 1942, that the Army Air Forces had opened 26 routes by which men aged 18 to 44 could enlist as aviation cadets, air corps privates or ground technicians.

• At the request of Lieutenant General Henry Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forces, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) ran a nationwide program that had brought in more than 5,700 cadets and hundreds of technicians in 60 days.
• Wichita's "Over There" Post No. 112, under Commander Roy E. Jinkins, had enlisted more than 300 cadet candidates, and 600 local young men — mostly 18 and 19 — had been examined.
• Volunteer doctors, dentists, eye specialists and teachers gave the physical and mental tests candidates needed. Classes met Tuesday evenings at the post, with other times arranged for defense workers.

The post's name echoed "Over There," the popular patriotic song George M. Cohan wrote in 1917.

Victory Pledge Week, May 1942

On May 2, 1942, a mile-long parade opened Victory Pledge Week, an all-out drive for defense bonds. Thousands lined Douglas Avenue, stood at windows and climbed onto car running boards.

• An American Legion color guard led, followed by the victory queen's float, the mayor, high school bands, the Kansas State Guard, and several hundred auxiliary police in civil defense armbands.
• Floats and vehicles from businesses, aircraft plants, the Red Cross, U.S. Mail trucks, the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., Scouts, schools and parent-teacher associations urged people to buy bonds; many carried pictures of General MacArthur. The Wichita Workshop for the Blind won applause with a float of its brooms and a sign urging people to sweep away the enemy with bonds.
• A planned flyover by aircraft-plant and civilian planes was cancelled out of respect for Lieutenant Findley K. Steele, an army flier killed in a crash in Wichita that morning, who was to have taken part.
• A free taxi dance at the Forum followed, for anyone buying a 25-cent war savings stamp, with four orchestras donating their time. Organizers hoped at least 45,000 Wichitans would pledge part of their pay to bonds.

Beating the bond goal, 1943

In October 1943, the Wichita Evening Eagle reported the results of Sedgwick County's third war loan drive:

The paper cautioned that the averages hid a lot: many bought large blocks of bonds and a few families none — but most families did buy, and it expected more drives and more sacrifice before victory.

Serving the troops

• Canteens at Union Station and the bus depot, run by more than 1,500 volunteers from nearly forty women's clubs, served traveling servicemen and women. In July 1943, the paper noted that women with husbands, sons or brothers overseas would run the Union Station canteen that the Soroptimist Club had started — feeding other people's soldiers as they hoped others fed theirs.
• Red Cross volunteers filled "ditty" bags for servicemen with soap, playing cards, stationery, shoelaces, matches and a pocket book; the local chapter shipped nearly 500 in February 1943.
• In 1941, a bond-drive float with Chinese and American flags carried employees of the Pan American Café, some of whom later enlisted.

In all, the War Department reported in April 1947 that 137,000 men and 1,957 women from Kansas served in the U.S. Army during the war — and more than 215,000 Kansans served in total.

Homes for British children, 1940

Some Wichitans took in the war's youngest refugees. On September 26, 1940, the Wichita Eagle reported that Wichitans had offered homes to 40 British child refugees, of the 72 found in Kansas. Others were placed in Manhattan (10), Parsons and Chanute (6 each), Arkansas City and Winfield (4 each) and Holton (1), according to Mrs. G. R. Myers, state publicity chair of the American Association of University Women's Kansas branch. On child-refugee policy in the United States and elsewhere, see the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's "The Immigration of Refugee Children to the United States."

More: other lessons in the Wichita, Kansas, WWII Heritage City series and Teaching with Historic Places lessons on World War II.

Sources

Based on "(H)our History Lesson: Home Front Volunteerism and Contributions in Wichita, Kansas, World War II Heritage City," National Park Service, and the Wichita Eagle and Wichita Evening Eagle articles it reproduces (December 2, 1942; May 3, 1942; July 17 and October 23, 1943; September 26, 1940). The lesson was written by Sarah Nestor Lane, an educator and consultant with the Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education, under the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service; published by the National Park Service; rewritten in hubnx's own words. The lesson spells the Soroptimist Club "Soroptomist." The lesson's questions and activities are left out, and its photographs, from the Wichita Public Library and Wichita State University Libraries, are not reproduced.