(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This is war by sea and air and land.

The barbaric invaders stabbed in the back with vicious weapons of destruction.

- [Dave] Pearl Harbor, America's Pacific fleet, reduced to smoldering ruins.

President Roosevelt calls for a declaration of war against Japan - [Announcer] And now the Nazis entered Paris.

Hitler was happy.

- [Dave] But not for long - [Announcer] And America accepts the challenge.

America prepares to hurl back the attack with armadas of ships, tanks and planes, armadas of steel.

This is war, and steel has enlisted for the duration.

- During the war, the U.S. steel cranked out millions of tons of steel for the war effort.

- It was literally arming America and winning the war.

- The reason we won that war is because we could out produce the Axis powers.

- In 1942, the American Bridge Company agreed to the Navy's request to build landing ship tanks here.

- Well, Rosie the Riveter really came about as a World War II poster that Westinghouse had created.

- And Bantam really was the only company that provided a full bid in the process with their plans to build this vehicle.

- General Eisenhower said without the LST, the DC-3 airplane and the Jeep we couldn't have won the war.

- [Dave] Two of the three were produced in western Pennsylvania, but more than that.

- It was the people here in western Pennsylvania that made Pittsburgh the arsenal of democracy.

(upbeat music) - It is said that western Pennsylvania provided more fighting men and women per capita during World War II than any other region in the country.

But the contributions of an army of workers here on the home front were equally important.

Vehicles, ships, armaments, but the story begins with steel.

(mood music) - [Dave] The Carrie Furnace Towers over a grassy field near the banks of the Monongahela River.

Ex-mill workers lead Saturday tours for the Rivers of Steel Heritage Foundation.

Weathered stacks and silent furnaces recall an era when the railroad delivered raw materials to create molten iron for the homestead work steel mill up the river.

Carrie Furnace closed in 1978, but it still stands as a monument to labor.

- No, that'll just drop out of the way once you cut it.

- [Dave] Rick Rowlands leads a crew of volunteers chipping away at the past.

- [Rick] Some people have other hobbies and pastimes.

We happen to like getting dirty and chipping away at rust.

- [Dave] They work to preserve an era ribbed with steel.

- [Rick] This is the stove deck where the hot blast stoves where.

This is the draft stack.

- [Dave] The president of the Carrie Furnace Association grew up amid the mills of Youngstown, Ohio.

- To the high line next, where all the iron ore and the Coke and all that would come in by rail.

This outside track would be used to bring in the coke, which is used as a fuel in the blast furnace.

The center track would be used for bringing in hopper cars of limestone and some of the iron ore would come in on that track as well.

The furthest track over the inner track was used by the self-propelled transfer car, which brought the ore from the ore bridge down to whichever bin that particular order was going into.

- [Dave] Carrie Furnace worked overtime, and then some, to keep up with the demands of the Homestead works during World War II.

- [Rick] Without the Homestead works we would be definitely at a disadvantage when it comes to producing armor plate for battleships and tanks and other equipment like that.

- [Dave] So how important were the blast furnaces and mills of western Pennsylvania during World War II?

Well, the Pittsburgh district alone produced more iron and more steel than all of the Axis countries put together.

- [Announcer] A dozen smokestacks border what is now the waterfront shopping and restaurant district in Homestead.

At the far end of the waterfront, a 12,000 ton stamping press, which stamped out armor plate for a fleet that began to recover from Pearl Harbor, is a visible reminder of a mill that worked nonstop in support of America and her allies.

- The amount of steel, iron and steel, and steel related products, armament, and ordinance that was coming out of this region changed the world, literally changed the world.

- [Dave] Ron Baraff in Homestead is packed with artifacts handed down through generations.

The director of museum collections and archives for the Rivers of Steel Heritage area says the Federal Government bought up tracks of land adjacent to the original mill to meet the demands of war.

- [Ron] It was home to roughly 60% of the population of Homestead.

So, some 8,000 people.

There were a number of stores and schools and churches, synagogue down there.

They immediately start to move people out and tear it down.

And all of this is done to produce steel and more specifically, armor plate for the U.S. Navy.

And this massive track of land that is now the waterfront was this giant war time expansion.

- [Dave] Andy Masich is president of the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center.

- During the Civil War, Pittsburgh was called arsenal of the Union.

During World War I, Pittsburgh industry supplied the men and materiel to get the job done, but it was really during World War II that our region came together and became the industrial powerhouse that it became known for all over the world.

- [Dave] The Pittsburgh district produced a staggering 95 million tons of steel during the war years.

- [Ron] The iron and steel being made at Carrie Furnaces and then the steel here in Homestead was outproducing Great Britain.

The 12,000 ton press played a huge part in World War II.

You know the Battleship Missouri came out of this plant.

Battleship Oregon came out of this plant.

They were both key players in the war.

- [Announcer] In time to meld the home front and the fighting front into one.

For this was total war and we realized victories were born in the production lines.

- Jones and Laughlin Pittsburgh producing shells, producing other things as well, but they're creating what's known as ordinance.

It's the armament to go out you know, to the soldiers in the field to be used.

- [Dave] America was providing Allies with armaments even before Pearl Harbor.

The mills and machinery of peace time made a sudden conversion.

- [Ron] What really impresses me the most is how quickly that that transition's made.

How quickly they transformed the production line from creating slabs of steel or whatever it may be, cans of baked beans, light bulbs, into something that was for the war.

It literally happens overnight.

This region and its production was so important to the war effort that Hitler had us high up on the list of places to bomb.

Well, it turns out he was right.

The Germans knew how vitally important the Pittsburgh region was.

The Pittsburgh industrial district was.

The amount of iron and steel and armament that was coming out of this district tipped the balance and if you can wipe that clean, the balance of power's in your hands, isn't it?

- [Dave] The mills relied on the mines of Westmoreland, Greene and Fayette counties.

- [Ron] Coal mining is tied to coke production, which is tied to iron production.

- [Dave] Which is tied to the building of LSTs, transport ships, which played a huge role on June 6, 1944.

The invasion of Normandy, D-Day.

- [Michael] Oh you jumped at D-Day?

- [Dave] Soldiers and Sailors Hall in Oakland, where visitors young adults honor the veterans of America's wars.

- You were wounded when you were in the prison camp?

- [Dave] Curator Michael Kraus credits those who worked on the home front as well.

- You have to look at Pennsylvania.

Western Pennsylvania particularly as being the arsenal of democracy.

We had the industry that was powering.

It was here and established, but it grew so huge during the war with contracts, especially in building these LSTs.

(paper rustling) The flag that we have in our collection is from a LST, that's a landing ship, tank was active in the Normandy invasion and the landing at Normandy and it was presented to one of the crew members.

So it only flew that one day, which makes it super historically important.

- [Dave] A pin given to the sponsor of yet another LST.

- [Michael] Those crafts were built here in Pittsburgh in Allegheny County at Dravo or at Ambridge at American Bridge.

- [Dave] Dravo Corporation would launch LSTs and other ships from the shores of Neville Island on the Ohio.

Dravo closed down in 1998, but its legacy holds fast.

(mood music) A few miles down river, the former American Bridge Company, for which Ambridge is named, just off the bank, icebreakers are among the remains of a plant which once turned out hundreds of LSTs.

- [Michael] Its a good view from up here - [Dave] A view of history.

- 'Cause the Ohio river they had dredged a launching base in there.

They'd actually set them there and then launch in parallel into the Ohio river.

- [Dave] Gary Augustine shares the story with Jim Clayton of Hussey copper, which now owns this property.

The historian is writing a book about the history of the LST.

- [Gary] They were ships at the American bridge company never built before and no one had ever built before.

- [Michael] They were designed to basically run up on shore, open their doors, drop the ramp.

And the vehicles in the men could basically disembark without getting their feet wet.

Typically can put about 17 tanks inside.

What's called the tank deck which is nothing more than a giant parking garage.

- [Gary] They were actually designing the ship as they were actually building the shipyard here we see in the background here is what's called the plate shop.

And this was where a lot of the work was done.

LSTs were basically assembled from steel that was manufactured in Mongol.

It came to this site in gondola cars.

- [Dave] At the peak of production.

This site employed 12,000 men and women - [Gary] Every LST was built facing Pittsburgh, the bow that direction.

They would then take it swinging around this direction and then haul it down to the outfitting pier.

- Oh, she's got a bottle.

It looks like she's about to Christen and LST.

I bet she's standing right in front of him.

- [Michael] They would take the champagne bottle and smash it up against the side of the ship.

And then the ship would be launched into the Ohio river.

- [Gary] Then once they were launched, they then haul them out past that water tank there where they would outfit them put the guns on board, put the everything on board.

When they ships left here, they were fully equipped to go to war with the exception of having no ammunition.

- [Dave] The ships were often launched during the noon lunch hour.

So builders could see the first leg of a journey that would take them down the Ohio and the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

(bell ringing) August, 2010, veterans of the Normandy invasion turn out as one of the few remaining LSTs made a stop in wheeling, West Virginia and route to Pittsburgh.

- They'd jump right down to the water.

- [Dave] Alfred Smith's family brought the Greensboro man to see the ship much like the one where the once 18 year old sailor and crew came face-to-face with death.

- It was dark yet and like I said, the sea was rough.

It had been a storm all that time.

- [Dave] But if all the LSTs built an Ambridge.

- [Michael] Only one of them was sunk in action off the Southern France probably one of the southern in Ambridge build LST - [Dave] But Pittsburgh contributions were not all made of steel - [Announcer] Time to convert the industries of peace into war.

- During the war, the H.J.

Heinz Company packaged all kinds of food for the troops, as well as feeding the people on the home front.

But a lot of people don't realize that the Heinz factories here in Pittsburgh were also converted for war time use.

The women who normally pack pickles started making lightweight balsa wood gliders to carry troops for the landings of D-Day.

- Westinghouse and American switch and signal.

We're making everything from pistols to signal core equipment to balloons.

It was an amazing effort where industries were switched over, overnight.

- [Ed] You know, it's taking a little bit of miracle for me to be here with you today.

You see, I passed away in a year 1914.

- [Dave] Ed Reiss plays the role of founder, George Westinghouse at area libraries and behind history center where Westinghouse contributions to World War II are on permanent exhibit.

- Westinghouse certainly played a very important role in producing the materials, all the raw materials that were needed for a victory during the Second World War, no doubt about that.

Westinghouse electric made VT fuses which was a proximity fuse.

So in the Pacific they said they were very effective against the Japanese kamikaze Westinghouse also manufactured anti-aircraft guts.

The helmet liner was made of my Carter which was an early plastic laminate.

And actually during the war, they made 23 million of those with 13 million of them being made here locally in Trafford PA at the, my Carter division of Westinghouse, you know they actually made bug bomb, so it was an arrow spray can if you would, for especially in a Pacific for mosquitoes and whatever, you know Westinghouse made an awful lot of those.

- [Dave] And portable power plants.

- So with so much destruction from all the bombing in Europe, they were able to use the portable Westinghouse power plant, which was monitored on railroad cars.

So they could move right up behind the troops as they move forward, to provide electricity which they needed for so many of the tasks they had.

One of their most successful products was the electric torpedo, which was made locally here in Western Pennsylvania at the Sharon plant.

And interestingly, they tested the electric torpedo in Pimas tuning Lake, which was probably just 20 or 30 miles North of Sharon PA.

So and during the war, they made 10,000 electric torpedoes.

- [Dave] Westinghouse was part of a national call to arms for women, employees in an era when most had been limited to housework - Over here we have what has become known as Rosie, the Riveter Rosie, the Riveter really came about as a world war two poster that Westinghouse had created by the artist Howard Miller who was a local person here from Pittsburgh.

And he created a series of posters, World War II posters that were sent around the country to the various 25 Westinghouse plants.

♪ All the day long, whether rain or shine ♪ ♪ She's a part of the assembly line ♪ ♪ She's making history, working for victory, ♪ ♪ Rosie brrrrr The Riveter!

♪ - During the war more than 30,000 women went to work some for the first time in mills and factories throughout Western Pennsylvania they became the backbone of the workforce they were Rosie the Riveter.

- You had women, crane operators, you had women laborers you know, shoveling dolomite into an open hearth furnace.

You had women running presses.

You had women running everything.

You have a very male dominated world, suddenly being open to women who they had to introduce him as best they could.

And not just introduce the women to heavy manufacturing work but introduced the men to how to deal with women.

- [Announcer] Yes, women were gonna do presenting problems Jones.

- It's tough I know, but there are thousands of others just like you all over the country facing the same problems.

- There are a number of training films that were produced, if you know how to have a train women workers.

- [Announcer] In bringing in any new worker.

And of course especially a woman, you got to explain every angle of the process down to the last detail.

- [Dave] But Rosie, the Riveter did much better than that training film character could ever have imagined - [Ron] The women did serious work and very hard work and did it as well.

In some cases, probably better than the men.

The other side of that is when the men returned, the women left - [Announcer] The V for victory becomes the double V for black Americans victory over fascism victory over racism at home.

- One of the amazing stories of World War II is the Pittsburgh courier.

It had more subscribers than most papers in the world.

Over 500,000 people received the Pittsburgh courier and they promoted a two front campaign.

The double V campaign.

They were fighting on the Warfront for democracy.

They were fighting on the home front for civil rights.

One of the reporters for the Pittsburgh courier was a fellow named Frank Bolden - I was 87 years old the day before Christmas so you have to excuse me - [Dave] But Frank Bolden's mind was sharp when we visited the former war correspondent at his home in Squirrel Hill a few years before he passed away he reported from Burma during the war but his real scars were felt at home - The discrimination and segregation were hard to swallow but we still believe Mike is stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.

- [Ron] It was an open door as far as African-Americans at that point, but it was a limited door.

You know, it's, let's just say it's a door that only opens so far for African-Americans it was a case of coming in as labor gang, the lowest rung (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Every 60 minute sweep every 12 hour tour of old relentless hand that turning out carload lots of time, for us to use ourselves or to give away to the enemy.

- [Ron] But it would take backbreaking work of every race ethnic group and gender to convey the materials of victory from the home front to the front lines.

- This marker in the strip district is the last remaining evidence of a little known, but very vital player in the war effort.

The Pittsburgh Greece company provided the military with more than 5 million pounds of what became known as Eisenhower Grease.

- [Announcer] I know kind of army mule on wheels, but needed to keep up with the motor division.

- This is a 1941 band, a military Jeep... - [Dave] Pat Collins, of the Butler County Historical Society says the Bantam car company of Butler answered the call.

- The army put out a call and Bantam really was the only company that provided a full bid in the process with their plans to build this vehicle and promised to build it in the 49 day requirement (car engine roaring) - [Announcer] There we go.

- [Dave] August 13th, 2011, more than 1400 Jeeps from all over the country parade through the city of Butler, North of Pittsburgh spectators lined the street to witness a Guinness world record in the making from rugged army vehicles to more recent and whimsical creations.

The city celebrates the 70th anniversary of the first Jeep ever built leading the parade is Bantam owner and historian Lee Bortmas.

- We know we have a 1941 body on 1940 crane.

- [Dave] The post war veteran tells Bantam story to visitors at Butler's Jeep heritage festival.

The story of a small company that accomplished the impossible.

- So they wanted to build a reconnaissance vehicle that would hold three or four men in their combat gear.

That would be their packs and their rifles cam teams and so on and have something that was a, with a folding windshield.

It's, didn't stand more than three or four feet high and maybe 10, 12 feet long four or five feet wide have non-directional tires of 40 horsepower.

Engine has a minimum requirement in here we're looking at the fact that when he mounted the transfer case shifting levers, they put them in backwards because they didn't want the vehicle going into four wheel drive - [Dave] 15 designers and builders worked around the clock to build a general purpose vehicle GP or Jeep for short factory ground served as a practice field World war II Navy veteran, Frank Franko remembered.

- I was about 15 years old when a Jeep used to practice in front of my mother's house, my house, where I was born and raised there was a Creek back there back of the houses and he would go up and down the Creek.

The Creek was about six inches to a foot deep.

- [Dave] The deadline was September 21st - In 49 days arrived at camp Holabird Maryland with the prototype - Willy's never got their prototype delivered to camp Paula Barred until November the 10th for it never got there delivered there to November 15th.

We were already delivering bantams to the quartermaster Corps in the army.

During that time - My father he flew in World War II in the Pacific.

I was in Vietnam and my son was in Iraq - [Dave] Generations of soldiers at a weekend at Bivouac brought generations of Jeeps to the sprawling Butler County fairgrounds.

It is truly a sight to behold.

- This is the best part.

(car honking) - [Dave] Rusty Dicks came from Maryland with his 1942, Ford Jeep used by military police.

- [Rusty] We got to remember what, what occurred then, and honor the guys that were a part of that those guys are passing away to the tune of about a thousand a day now.

And if we don't remember them now, we never will.

- I've worked at (indistinct) before I went to World War II.

- [Dave] The parade of Jeeps makes a stop at the VA hospital in Butler world war II veteran, Joe Snyder led a Jeep maintenance pool and the European theater as the war neared its conclusion - We used to go over to the Olympic stadium there we're Hitler had is 36 Olympics that we used to take the Jeeps and go up the steps there.

- [Dave] The troops were sniffing victory.

A victory made possible in part by a little company in Butler Pennsylvania though Bantam was the only plant to meet the Army's deadline.

The army handed the plans over to Willy's Overland and Ford - Bantam could build about 30 a shift or 90 a day.

For and Willy's could build a vehicle every two minutes - [Dave] Among World War II veterans opinions are mixed.

- I don't feel bad because we couldn't produce as many as they wanted.

- Well I thought it was kinda a rotten deal.

- [Dave] Detroit got the contract for the Jeep that Butler built.

Yet those who once worked here are proud to know that they helped win World War II.

(crowd chattering) A collector Don Grimm of Washington, Pennsylvania says Bantam was not left out in the cold, but not completely.

- The kind of consolation prize to Bantam was that they were able to build the cargo trailers that went behind the Jeeps.

This cargo trailer happens to be an original Bantam trailer.

It was manufactured on December 6th, 1943, exactly one day before the second anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

- [Dave] By that time, the war was turning and the allies favor.

Thanks largely to that first Jeep.

- This is the most important American vehicle that's ever been built.

- [Dave] Iron and steel ships of war.

The very first Jeep and Rosie the Riveter.

Western Pennsylvania was well-represented on the field of battle and the arenas of industry.

They worked in tandem.

It was a winning combination.

- It was a time when a generation pulled together for common purpose to win World War II and make the world a safe place for democracy.

- Without these warships these invasions could not have occurred.

- Without Pittsburgh, without our resources.

The war might've turned out very differently where a hugely strategic strategically important place during World War II - [Dave] A region, a country, pulled together like never before or since.

- There was a problem that existed and need that needed to be met and they met it.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Fighting the war, which would be hard, it might be long, but which they would win.

- [Dave] American soldiers and their allies won the war.

The home front made it possible.

I'm Dave Crawley.

(mood music)