On the job for victory – Awards Given for the WWI Homefront Efforts

Published: 27 March 2024

By David L. Burrows 
via the Military Trader website

American workers finish building torpedoes in the workshops of the US Navy, circa 1917.

While the troops returning home from WWI would receive many military awards for their service by states and home towns, this is a story of the many war-time workers who, while not in the military, also received many awards for their unending around the clock work to supply the necessary equipment to lead the Allies to victory.

n the summer of 1914, war broke out between the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allied Countries of Britain, France and Russia. At the start of the war, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the United States would remain neutral. Over the next three years, that neutrality would be strongly debated as events such as submarine warfare in the Atlantic and Germany’s sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania on May 7, 1915 killed more than 120 U.S. citizens, pushing the United States closer to entering the war.

With additional Germany attacks on U.S. shipping and Germany meddling in U.S.-Mexican relations, the United States finally declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. Within a few months, thousands of U.S. men were being drafted into the military and more than a million troops were sent to Europe to encounter a war unlike any before and the swift rise of military technology. Crucial to the Allied cause was the introduction of the American industry that would ultimately provide almost two-thirds of all Allied military equipment, including 297,000 aircraft, 193,000 artillery pieces, 86,000 tanks and 2 million army trucks. This would result in the American industrial production doubling in size.

The copper stamping on this X-107 type award is about 40mm x 57mm with a horizontal pinback. The raised border is inscribed War Service with Ship Building below. Center shows a Merchant ship imposed on a shield and anchor surmounted by an Eagle at the top.

While the troops returning home would receive many military awards for their service by states and home towns, this is a story of the many war-time workers who, while not in the military, also received many awards for their unending around the clock work to supply the necessary equipment to lead the Allies to victory.

In April of 2017, 122 ocean-going ships were sunk in the first two weeks after the U.S. declared war. British losses in that period averaged about 25 percent round-trip. Shipyards outside the U.S. were simple unable make up for the losses, leading to the creation of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (E.F.C.) on April 16, 1917. The goal was to restore the nation’s Merchant Marine and supply the ships and shipyards needed to help the Allied cause. Priority was given to building 35 destroyers, hundreds of sea-going tugs, mine sweepers and submarine chasers. In April 1917, the U.S. had 61 shipyards, but only 37 could produce steel vessels. In spite of some inherent problems, the ship builders answered the challenge, and civilian awards for the workers soon followed.

Read the entire article on the Military Trader website.
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