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On December 7, 1941, a creek called Willow Run flowed peacefully along a country lane outside Detroit. Only six months later, this quiet, pastoral scene had been totally transformed with the construction of the world's largest factory, a half-mile long and a quarter-mile wide. Raw materials went in one end; finished bombers were spit out the other — at a rate of almost 9,000 per year, or 25 every day.

American productivity and commitment to a common cause were on display as never before. "Don't you know there's a war going on?" became the battle cry in plants and factories from Maine to California.

Henry Kaiser's Liberty ships, the jeep, the first amphibious trucks, the Norden bomb sight, and the atomic bomb were products of war-mobilized American industry and ingenuity. All were as much a part of victory as the blood shed and lives lost by the nation's fighting troops.

Certainly, America's plentiful supplies of petroleum played a key role in victory as well. And no industry showed more grit and determination in the tough war years than the American oil industry. 

Certainly, America's plentiful supplies of petroleum played a key role in victory as well. And no industry showed more grit and determination in the tough war years than the American oil industry.

The Home Front

Oil was recognized as an "essential occupation" by draft boards and given a high priority in centrally controlled materials allocation. But manpower, raw materials and dollars were all in short supply.

Companies like Helmerich & Payne had to scratch to keep the oil flowing.

Carl Young, Sr., who got his first job with Helmerich & Payne in 1937, remembers."If you worked in oil, you were excused from the draft. You just had to go through boot camp and then they'd let you go back to the oil fields." But most able-bodied young men — like Walt Helmerich, III, the founder's son — volunteered for military duty.

"So we were working old men and 4-Fs — seven days a week

."All industries faced manpower shortages. In many, "Rosie the Riveter" took up the slack, as women entered the work force in record numbers.

Not so in oil. "Look. We were driving as far as 75 miles to work, one way, all packed into a single car. Once we got there, we worked longnext hours in close quarters, and it was heavy work — dirty, hazardous, repetitive, physically demanding," Young recalls. It was no place for a lady.