Non-Military Workers
Helped Win WWII

Honoring the memories of the efforts of thousands of “defense workers” who called Akron home during WWII is a great personal pleasure.  Housewives and high school students were working nights at shops and offices.  Older workers took on second and third jobs.

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Production craftsmen were willing to do their part in helping the war effort.  They received small machine tools to produce precision parts in their garages/porches/basements at home. They submitted their finished parts in small batches back at the plant for final inspection.  Many of the machine tools require three-phase electrical power which were not available in residential neighborhoods.  Americans were eager to come up with solutions to the roadblocks they encountered when helping in the war effort.

 

Area engineers came up with a solution to the power problem the craftsmen faced.  They found using older re-wound induction-repulsion motors, hand starting them with either a flywheel or rope and pulley device to a certain speed, then applying single phase power they learned the motors would run.  As they did, the motors generated a “wild-leg” waveform which was then used to power the small three-phase motors on the machine tools.  Such setups were still to be found in Goodyear Heights and Firestone Park in the 1970s when I was a city electrical inspector.  One gentleman even showed me a vintage “Popular Science” magazine illustrating how to install/operate this system which even at that time violated several UL, NEMA and IEEE standards and the National Electrical Code, but helped win the war!