Could we do it now? Could Americans muster the kind of industrial might and intestinal fortitude demonstrated during World War II?
That is one of the lingering questions after viewing a small new exhibit at Pearson Air Museum. The museum has added a couple panels highlighting the Kaiser shipyard that transformed Vancouver during World War II, helped decide a global conflict, and then disappeared. Before the war, Vancouver had 18,000 residents; by 1944, the shipyard alone had 38,000 employees and the population of the city had tripled.
In “Images of America: Downtown Vancouver,” local historian Pat Jollota writes, “Vancouver boomed as never before, becoming a 24-hour-a-day city. New businesses opened. Wages were high, and people had money to spend. With rationing in effect, there wasn’t much to spend it on. Except war bonds. As they had done during World War I, people crowded into the banks to buy bonds. Schoolchildren bought savings stamps in class. Thousands of soldiers passed through the barracks and came into town for last flings before shipping out. Restaurants, bars and night clubs thrived.”
The Vancouver Housing Authority was formed and wartime homes were constructed at Fruit Valley, Ogden Meadows, Fourth Plain Village, Bagley Downs, Burton Homes and McLoughlin Heights, which Jollota claims was the largest wartime development west of New York.