Life in Michigan in 1942

Mrs. William McKeever cracks a bottle of champagne on a faux ship that was the Navy's USS McKeever Recruiting Station in Detroit in April 1942.

African-American USO workers prepare to leave Detroit for a visit to Sault Ste. Marie to entertain the African-American soldiers stationed there in October 1942.

Soldiers march in Detroit in a parade welcoming "visiting heroes" in June 1942. Soldiers were billeted at old Fort Wayne, the State Fairgrounds, Belle Isle, Selfridge Field, Willow Run and in quonset huts all around town. More than 200,000 Detroiters served in uniform during the war.

Alvan Macauley tries out a water-cooled, .50 caliber machine gun at a national defense meeting in Detroit. Some 100,000 Detroiters volunteered to serve as air wardens and auxiliary firefighters during World War II.

A Nazi flag, radios, guns and other items were seized from German aliens and displayed to the media in a Detroit office.

A band from the American Legion Auxiliary leads young men to the Army induction center in Detroit on May 4, 1942.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Marine Corps enlistments increased tenfold virtually overnight. Above, Marine recruits are sworn in at the Michigan Theater in Detroit in September 1942.

Women from the Red Cross sell corsages to raise money for the war effort. The sign says 1,000 corsages = 1 Jeep.

The Davison Highway opens in Detroit on Nov. 11, 1942.

Cass Tech students in Detroit trained for "war fitness" in December 1942.

Santa Claus makes his appearance at the 1942 Hudson's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the last one for the duration of the war.

Iceboats race on Lake St. Clair in February 1942.

The Greater Buffalo steamship, built in 1924, continued to ferry passengers between Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo and the Straits of Mackinac until 1945. Along with its sister ship, the Greater Detroit, it was the largest side-wheeled passenger steamer ever to sail on the Great Lakes.

The war was on, but that didn't mean recreational travel was completely shut down. The Georgian Bay Line ferry was still pulling into Mackinac Island on Oct. 3, 1942.

Military vehicle production is in full swing at the Hamtramck Assembly Plant on March 3, 1942. No cars, commercial trucks or auto parts were made in the U.S. from February 1942 to October 1945.

Chrysler Corp. leased the shuttered DeSoto plant on Warren Avenue in Detroit to build B-26 airplane fuselages and nose sections. Above, Helen Kovalkowsky and Josephine Bereza work on electrical components.

The Detroit Tank Arsenal in Warren, operated by Chrysler, U.S. Tank Command and General Dynamics, opened in 1941. In July 1942 it became the first recipient of the Army-Navy "E" Award for excellence in production. A defense plant that won the coveted award would receive a flag that would be flown under the American flag for six months, and each employee would receive an "E" award pin.

Pioneers of autos and aviation Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh meet in Dearborn in April 1942, when Lindbergh worked as a consultant to the Ford Motor Company as it was gearing up to produce military aircraft. Lindbergh, like Ford, was dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism.

Tires were among the first items to be rationed during World War II. The back of this photo said "Robberies; Detroit; Tire Rationing," so perhaps these men were confiscating stolen tires.

Beginning Jan. 1, 1942, all sales of cars were frozen by the government's Office of Production Management. Automobiles were collected on car lots like this one in Detroit for rationed sales by auto dealers to purchasers deemed “essential drivers.”

Children work to collect metal to be salvaged for tanks, ships, planes and weapons.

Citizens line up to register for their sugar rationing cards in Detroit in May 1942.

Troops from Selfridge Army Air Field set up machine guns at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit.

Pieces of paper float to the ground in downtown Detroit in March 1942. On the back of this photo, a librarian noted, "Detroit; Propaganda; Leaflet bombing." Was it a training exercise for U.S. bomber pilots in the area? We'd love to know.

American Red Cross motor corps from Brooklyn, Baltimore and other locations converged in Detroit in November 1942 for a fundraising effort.

Tobogganers get ready for a run at Detroit's River Rouge Park.

Olympia Stadium in Detroit was the scene of many roller derby pileups.

For the 1942 season, the Detroit Lions went winless, 0-8, including this Oct. 4 game vs. the Brooklyn Dodgers at Briggs Stadium, a 28-7 loss.

This isn't batting practice, it's a game. The stands at Briggs Stadium look virtually empty as the Tigers hosted the St. Louis Browns on May 27, 1942. The paid attendance was 896, a record low for the club.

In 1942, the Tigers' outstanding second baseman, Charlie Gehringer, played his 19th and final season, mostly as a pinch-hitter. When the season ended, he enlisted in the Navy and served for three years.

Tigers pitcher Virgil Trucks, warming up on the sideline in 1942, would wait until 1944 to enter the Navy. He returned to the Tigers after the war, and led the league in strikeouts and shutouts in 1949.

Legendary Detroit Tiger Ty Cobb retired to his Georgia farm in 1928 but he visited Detroit often, here with his golf clubs in 1942.

William "Billy" Rogell, the Detroit Tigers' star shortstop from 1925-40, conducted a baseball school on Belle Isle in 1942.

Billy Rogell also began serving on Detroit's City Council in 1942, a post he would fill until 1980. He is seen here with his family at his induction into the City Council.

Navy Aviation Machinist's Mate 3rd Class Charles Toole strolls with his wife on a Detroit street on Nov. 7, 1942. Toole was fortunate to make it home. His ship, the aircraft carrier USS Wasp, was sunk en route to Guadalcanal by a Japanese submarine on Sept. 15. Of the ship's 2,247 men, 193 were killed and 366 wounded.

Getting mail from a serviceman overseas put a smile on many young women's faces in 1942.

German-born Max Stephan, a Detroit restaurant owner, was convicted of treason for assisting an escaped Nazi prisoner of war who visited Detroit in April 1942 while trying to flee from Canada to Germany. Stephan was sentenced to death by hanging, but President Franklin Roosevelt commuted his sentence to life in prison.

Sanford L. Rosenberg, a 38-year-old factory worker, surrendered at Detroit Police headquarters on April 9, 1942, confessing that he killed his pregnant wife and 4-year-old son.

At Ford Motor Co.'s River Rouge complex tire plant, Jeep tires and tubes are manufactured on March 5, 1942.

Walter Reuther, left, president of the UAW Local 174, confers with Charles E. Wilson, president of General Motors, on March 24, 1942. They worked together on managing war production and serving on national boards.

Designer and engineer Ray Russell of Grosse Pointe Park tinkered with lightweight materials to replace steel in cars during World War II. First he built a plastic car, then this one, built of plywood attached to a steel tube frame, with a hydraulic powertrain.

Detroit industrial designer George W. Walker, who would later become Ford's vice president of styling, also dabbled in designs for military. His proposal for a three-wheeled armored motorcycle used a gun sight to aim his machine gun at enemy troops. A shell of clear plastic protecting the driver was said to be "practically unbreakable."

In a tiny machine shop in Bay City, J.L. "Jake" Sparling, 60, right, and his lone employee, Percy Fogelsonger, 79, were working 15 hours a day, seven days a week, producing 18,000 steel flanges for use in the war effort. They won a commendation from the War Production Board for the example they were setting.

Charles Winnamaki of Mohawk, Michigan, makes snowshoes by hand.

More than 100 recruits take the oath of service at the temporary Navy Recruiting Station in Detroit on June 12, 1942 — complete with a mock ship.

The U.S.S. Wolverine aircraft carrier launched in 1942 in Lake Michigan for training of naval aviators and landing signal officers in carrier take-offs and landings. The ship was built in 1912 as a side-wheel steamboat, serving luxury passenger service in the Great Lakes.

Frank M. McLaury, Detroit's deputy city controller, tests blackout material for windows on April 29, 1942.

War hero Capt. Arthur W. Wermuth Jr., dubbed the "One-Man Army of Bataan," joined the army in Sault Ste. Marie in 1941. On Jan. 5, 1942, after the invasion of the Philippines, Wermuth organized a group of 185 Filipinos into a group to counter enemy infiltration behind American lines. In three weeks he and his force killed 500 of the enemy while losing 45 of their own. Wermuth received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star and three Purple Heart decorations.

Vegetables were planted in a public Victory Garden on the grounds of the Detroit Zoo.

With a bucket, a shovel and a truck, the guys at the Detroit Public Works Dept. are ready to get the job done.

Street repairs are underway at 329 Macomb in downtown Detroit on Dec. 1, 1942.

People watch a ski jumper takes off at the top of the Pine Mountain ski jump in Iron Mountain on Feb. 13, 1942.

Children exit a Portage Twp. school bus and enter what appears to be a homemade horse-drawn wagon with runners for the rest of the trip home on Jan. 30, 1942.

A very pleased Michigan beet farmer holds up a sample of his crop. Michigan ranked third in sugar beet production, behind California and Colorado, in 1942.

Women take the oath before Lt. Col. Herbert Pusch and Lt. Edna Plambeck as they become U.S. Army nurses.

A mass meeting of labor unions drew a large crowd to Detroit on Aug. 13, 1942. Gov. Van Wagoner and Mayor Edward Jeffries were among the speakers.