When the United States entered the First World War on April 6, 1917, it was a transformative moment for the nation as well as the war.
American troops and war-making materiel were the tipping point in a conflict that had bloodied European battlefields for 2 1/2 years.
“It was our first step to becoming a global superpower,” said Bob Cromwell, manager of Pearson Air Museum.
On Saturday, Fort Vancouver National Historical Site will mark that pivotal event with a commemoration at Pearson Air Museum.
Did you know?
One structure from the World War I spruce mill has survived at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. It’s now known as the Headquarters Building, along East Fifth Street, just west of Pearson Air Museum and next to the Chkalov transpolar flight monument. It was built in 1918 as the spruce mill finance office.
If you go
• What: Commemoration of the centennial of America’s entry into World War I
• Where: Pearson Air Museum, 1115 E. Fifth St., Vancouver.
• When: 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Saturday; presentation on DH-4 Liberty plane at 2 p.m.
• Cost:Free
The setting provides an opportunity to look back on one particular phase of combat — the air war. Vancouver Barracks was the headquarters of the Spruce Production Division, a full-tilt push to turn Northwest spruce forests into warplanes.
Pearson Air Museum also will spotlight an example of WWI aircraft in its own collection, a restored DH-4 Liberty biplane. Cromwell will discuss the museum’s DH-4 Liberty in a 2 p.m. presentation. It was the only American-built, American-piloted aircraft to fly in combat during WWI.
When the war started, the American military had no combat-capable airplanes. The War Department sent a commission to Europe to evaluate our allies’ aircraft designs. The officials decided the British-made DH-4, designed by Geoffrey de Havilland, was best suited for mass production in the U.S.
We did add a typically American wrinkle, Cromwell noted, replacing the 250 horsepower Rolls-Royce engine with a 400 horsepower V-12.
Some of the wood used to build the museum’s DH-4 likely came though Vancouver in 1918. The Spruce Production Division was an Army Signal Corps division charged with logging and milling spruce lumber to build warplanes.
About 5,000 of the division’s 30,000 soldiers worked at the Vancouver spruce mill. Construction work started on Dec. 14, 1917, on the post’s polo field, which now is an open space between the museum and the replica Fort Vancouver log stockade.
The mill was turning out spruce by Feb. 7, 1918. Huge rough-cut slabs called cants were shipped here from logging camps and milled into lumber that was shipped to aircraft factories. About 70 percent of the spruce went to aircraft plants in Great Britain, France and Italy.
The mill workers, who eventually turned out a million board feet of spruce a day, are saluted in the museum’s “Straight Grained Soldiers” exhibit. The existing exhibit will be augmented for the centennial with additional artifacts. Three WWI Army uniforms on display include a tunic worn by a Spruce Production Division soldier who was based in Hoquiam.
You can find another reminder of Clark County’s participation in WWI on the Vancouver Barracks grounds. The Veterans War Memorial, at the intersection of Fort Vancouver Way and East McClellan Road, lists 83 Clark County servicemen who died in 1917 and 1918.
More names would be added to the memorial over the years, despite the sense of hope that greeted the end of the Great War.
Some people, Cromwell noted, had another name for the conflict. They called it the war to end all wars.
“That sadly has not been the case,” Cromwell said.
