Interview with Donald M. Smith, businessman, concerning his experiences as the head of Riverside Foundry, Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, during World War II. Foundry business during the Great Depression; thoughts about Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal; conversion from peacetime to wartime production during World War II; obtaining contracts to produce hand grenades and rifle grenades; problems in procuring pig iron and other scarce materials; employment of women; technological innovations in manufacturing process; responsibilities toward the local community.

Transcript of an interview with Evelyn Myers McCune, nurse, concerning her experiences as a civilian secretary with the State Department in Washington, D.C., before the and during World War II. McCune discusses her educational background; decision to take a position with the State Department in early 1941; adjustments in moving from a town of 2,500 people to the nation's capitol; personal observations of the activities at the Japanese embassy on December 7, 1941; wartime living conditions, rationing, and transportation adjustments; social life; comments and observations of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Japanese ambassadors Saburo Kurusu and Kichisabura Nomura, Ambassador Joseph Grew, and Eleanor Roosevelt; working with diplomatic codes; incident involving President Roosevelt's stamp collection; and her decision to join the Cadet Nurse Corps, 1944.

Interview with William Smeltzer, a Army WWII veteran and Navy contractor from Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. Smeltzer discusses quitting high school and moving to California in 1940, experiences working at Mare and Pearl Harbor Navy Yards as a civilian contractor before and after the start of the war, the raising of the sunken USS Oklahoma (BB-37), being drafted into the Army and infantry training, assignment to the 45th Infantry Division and participating in the drive into Germany, the end of the war and demobilization, and his career afterwards. In appendix are a photo of the insignia for the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard and two photos of the capsized Oklahoma.