Illinois

Name: Lake Michigan's Aircraft Carriers
Brand: Paul Somers
SKU: 9780738532080
Price: 17.49 USD
Availability: InStock

Illinois history exceeds the capacity of the Sears Catalog for categorization and the World’s Fair for spectacle. And no matter what the self-appointed tour guide at the local diner might say, the heritage of the land of Lincoln doesn’t end with Capone’s demise. Like the Chicago Loop, the Prairie State’s past seems to defy straightforward chronology—Cahokia offered a version of urban sprawl more than a thousand years before the first Windy City skyscraper. From Park Forest to Cave-in-Rock, scan our shelf of Illinois history books with the unflagging enthusiasm of a Wrigley Field hot dog vendor. [View all Illinois books]

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Lake Michigan's Aircraft Carriers

Paul Somers

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

World War II Chicago

Paul M. Green

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Kane County

Kevin J. Gaffney

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Illinois POW Camps in World War II

Cary O'Dell

$24.99

I Grew Up in War Housing

Phillip David Walkington

$24.99

Paul Somers

Lake Michigan's Aircraft Carriers

9780738532080

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

This is the story of the USS Wolverine and the USS Sable, two Great Lakes excursion ships converted for aircraft carrier training during WWII.

Through the duration of the war, the United States Navy qualified 17,800 pilots for aircraft carrier operation. Training the pilots on either the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean would have exposed the training ships to the danger of submarine attack, while requiring the escort of fighting ships that were needed elsewhere. It would also have involved arming and armoring the ships used for training. Commander R.F. Whitehead came up with an idea that solved all of these problems. He suggested doing the training on the protected waters of the Great Lakes.

The USS Wolverine and the USS Sable were chosen and became the only fresh water, paddle-wheeled, coal-fired aircraft carriers in the history of the world. Author Paul M. Somers shares his collection of vintage photos and a lifetime of research to detail the history of these two great vessels-from their life as cruise ships to their contributions to the war effort and then to their eventual scrapping.

Paul M. Green

World War II Chicago

9780738532097

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Chicagoans united in their World War II effort against the Axis powers. They signed up for military service, rallied to the call for increased wartime production, and aided the war effort through the rationing of food and gasoline. From fast growing victory gardens to mini-monuments to local servicemen-Chicago, the City of Neighborhoods, saw all of its geographic parts vie for recognition and honor in a ethnic mosaic of patriotism.

The war years ushered in changing times for Chicago. The city became an important military center as thousands of troops trained or passed through en route to the war fronts, while Chicago's civilian population engaged in manufacturing war materials. As defense plants sprang up all over Chicago, African-American tenant farmers, who migrated from the South, and women replaced the male labor force.

Kevin J. Gaffney

Kane County

9781467125703

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

The declaration of war in 1917 and the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, stirred the men and women of Kane County, Illinois, to action and service. In World War I, many in Kane County joined the Illinois National Guard 3rd Regiment, 65th and 66th Brigades, and 129th and 131st Infantries of the 33rd Infantry Division. Many of the men also served in the infantry regiments of the 1st Division, known also as the Big Red One. They trained for war in places like Camp Deneen in Elgin, Camp Grant in Rockford, and Camp Logan in Houston, Texas. In World War II, Kane County's men performed on the war's biggest stages, aiding in Operation Torch, Operation Husky, and the invasion of Normandy. The women of Kane County also served overseas in both world wars as Red Cross nurses and WAVES, and domestically, they worked in factories, supporting in many vital ways.

Cary O'Dell

Illinois POW Camps in World War II

9781467171854

$24.99

Revisit a critical and little-known piece of WWII history that had a profound impact on Illinois and the nation.

During WWII, the United States was home to almost half a million POW's—German, Italian, and Japanese soldiers captured overseas and then brought to the United States. The POWs were housed in various large camps set up in forty-four of the nation's then forty-eight states. One of those states was Illinois. At its peak, Illinois housed three major base camps and twenty branch camps, stretching from the Rockford-Chicago area down to Camp Pomona, near Murphysboro. When not housed in these camps, POW's were put to work, on the state's farms and in its factories, to alleviate the country's serious wartime labor shortages. By the end of the war, there was no part of Illinois that was not touched by these prisoners of war.

Author Cary O'Dell sheds light on a largely forgotten element of home front WWII history.