Tarheel QMD News Issue 1943, WWII 91

Tarheel QMD News Issue 1943, Folder 1, WWII 91, WWII Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.

The collection is composed of one original issue of the World War II home front military newsletter entitled the Tarheel QMD News, the monthly newsletter for the U.S. Army Quartermaster Depot in Charlotte, N.C. The issue is Volume 3, No. 1, from September 1943. The newsletter featured Depot employee and department news, cartoons and jokes, social columns, patriotic articles and columns, Depot sports team information, and personnel happenings for the employees. As the Depot employed a large percentage of women, the newsletter featured Depot departmental female reporters, who produced the news from their sections-with their names and work departments listed. The Depot female employees had a company baseball team, with photographs of the team playing featured in the newsletter. Many photographs of female employees are included in the publication. The newsletter also included a small separate column for African-American employees entitled "News from Our Colored Employees." The newsletter is an important look at the lives of civilian employees in a North Carolina non-combat military installation during WWII.

The Charlotte Quartermaster Depot was activated on May 16, 1941, when three U.S. Army officers and 32 civilians-under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Clare W. Woodward-set up an office in the south wing of the old Ford Motor Company assembly plant on Statesville Avenue, just outside of what was then the city limits of Charlotte, N.C. Lt. Colonel Woodward had received orders to quickly move from Atlanta to Charlotte, and he picked several of his staff and some enlisted men to move with him.

During June 1943, the new head of the Depot-Second Lieutenant Ernest T. Cassel-reorganized and stepped up the salvage program. More than just running the usual salvage items, such as paper, wood, wool and aluminum scrap, the Depot was trying to reuse government property that was in the depot or at U.S. Army installations in the area. Used lumber was cut into pallets to store outside materials off the ground. Used nails, steel scrap, waste paper, cloth and tabulating cards were sorted by type. Baling machines were used to bundle the salvage into units, which often weighed between 150 and 275 pounds. Other miscellaneous objects salvaged included telephone poles, a sewing machine, sewer pipes, milk cans, wheel barrows, scales and blasting machines. Much of this type of salvage was from the final clearance of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps in the area from the Great Depression.

What started as a one-office operation in Charlotte grew to occupy 1,190,000 square feet in six warehouses on 72 acres. The original mission of the Charlotte Quartermaster Depot was to supply certain Army posts in the Carolinas and Virginia; later, the Depot supplied all items to 37 facilities in the Carolinas, Virginia, and West Virginia. At the peak of wartime activity, the Quartermaster Depot employed 2,500 civilians under a staff of 80 Army officers, and the monthly payroll was around $300,000.

The Depot also became the U.S. Army's Zone Inspection Headquarters, which supervised other Quartermaster units in the Southeast U.S. during the war. The Charlotte Quartermaster Depot studied and made recommendations about better methods of operation to the other units in its region. The Depot also administered the Greenville, S.C., price adjustment office, and handled negotiations for contracts. Even though the primary purpose of its existence was to handle distribution of supplies and salvaged materials, the Depot was also called upon to fill emergency overseas requirements. In January 1944, the Charlotte Quartermaster Depot sent 745 tons of materials through various ports of embarkation overseas. By November 1944, the total had risen to 5,941 tons exported overseas to U.S. military units and camps.

The Depot staff handled everything from toothpicks and food to battle uniforms for the Army. They set a national record in 1944 for their purchase of war bonds. During this time, they purchased a higher percentage of bonds than any other establishment in the U.S.-civilian or military-employing more than 1,000 persons. Such records were advertised through the Depot's employee-produced newsletter the Tarheel QMD News. As the Depot employed a large percentage of women, the newsletter featured Depot departmental female reporters, who produced the news from their sections. The newsletter also included a small separate column for African-American employees entitled "News from Our Colored Employees." The Depot female employees had a company baseball team, with photographs of the team playing featured in the newsletter. Many photographs of female employees are included in the publication.

After the war ended, the Charlotte Quartermaster Depot functioned to repatriate the war dead back to their families or burial locations throughout the Southeast U.S., until the Depot was deactivated in January 1949. The American Graves Registration Division-assigned to the Charlotte Quartermaster Depot in August 1946-delivered the bodies of 5,170 deceased service personnel to their next of kin in the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. The Depot's military escort attachment which performed these services consisted of 144 Army, 22 Air Force, 10 Navy and 30 Marine Corps personnel.

[The majority of this historical note was reproduced from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library's article "Places-Quartermaster Depot," featured on the library's Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room's WWII "Home Front" page, at http://www.cmstory.org/content/quartermaster-depot].

The item was donated to the Military Collection of the State Archives of North Carolina from a private donor in November 2016.