Meg Jones examines ‘World War II Milwaukee’

As mayor of Milwaukee, Carl Zeidler was exempt from military service. But stirred by a sense of duty during a war that threatened America’s existence, Zeidler volunteered for the U.S. Navy. As a lieutenant, he commanded the security detail aboard an ill-fated merchant ship torpedoed by a U-boat near the coast of South Africa. His body was never recovered. Zeidler’s brother, Frank, became mayor after the war.

The loss of our city’s mayor is one of the many stories collected by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Meg Jones in World War II Milwaukee. The Cream City had been home to several other players in the drama of war, including Douglas MacArthur, who commanded U.S. forces in the Pacific theater; Billy Mitchell, who predicted the Pearl Harbor attack years earlier; and Franklin Van Valkenburgh, commander of the U.S.S. Arizona, sent to the bottom of Pearl Harbor by Japanese bombs. Our Teutonic city also produced foreign correspondents whose fluency in German helped them cover Berlin as Hitler consolidated power and Germany’s invasion of France in 1940. One of the first female combat photographers, Dickey Chapelle, graduated from Shorewood High.

Once America entered the war, Milwaukee, then known as the “Machine Shop of the World,” was an engine of Allied victory. Unlike many cities, Milwaukee “didn’t need to create sprawling defense plants on empty lots.” Local factories merely switched from civilian to military wares, employing women to replace the men who went into the service. Allen-Bradley wired the electronics for radar and walkie-talkies; Ladish made propeller shafts for fighter planes; Allis-Chalmers manufactured bulldozers and, although no one knew it, contributed to the secret Manhattan Project; A.O. Smith made the bombs that fell on Germany and Japan; and yes, with a few modifications to their existing line, Harley-Davidson provided the army with motorcycles.

Meg Jones will appear at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 29 at Boswell Book Co.