A photograph thought to be from Jamestown Steel Partitions during World War II. That was one company known to have manufactured practice bombs at that time. Submitted Photo

The accompanying photograph started a quest to find out where, if anyplace in the area, these practice bombs were manufactured. Most likely it was during the World War II era, based on the clothing worn by the woman and the fact that the Jamestown area manufactured many items for the war effort.

A little newspaper research pointed to Jamestown Steel Partitions as a likely manufacturer. One article told about Jamestown Steel Partitions making practice bombs during the war. The article went on to say that the welding machine that was used, was after the war, located at the Jamestown High School where it was used for training future welders.

More research revealed that Jamestown Steel Partitions was the eighth company in Jamestown to be awarded the Army-Navy E Award, which recognized excellence in the production of supplies for the war. This came at the end of the war with the actual banner and the pins awarded in October of 1945. In August 1945, it had been revealed that Jamestown Steel Partitions was the only Jamestown company known to have played a role in the development of the atomic bomb. Later it was revealed that the company had supplied partitions built for an airtight room in the Tennessee plant where the bomb was made.

Some of the war production from Jamestown Steel Partitions included shell containers, practice bombs, parts for portable Army barracks, medical cabinets, clothes lockers for the Navy, tool chests for the Navy, parts for tanks and tank destroyers, and gun mounts for the installation of guns on jeeps. Also mentioned during the E-Award ceremony were “parts for military radar, and thousands of gun mounts for .30 caliber machine guns, which were a surprise to the enemy when his once arrogant strafing planes ran into a hail of fire from our ‘harmless’ supply trucks in the long convoy across Africa. Practice bombs, a million and a quarter of them, were used in the training of bombardiers and also to nullify enemy mine fields in France and Germany; more than 400,000 steel containers for mortar shells, and sheet metal equipment which helped tanks to ‘literally swim’ rivers.”

As soon as the war was over Jamestown Steel Partitions, and the many other companies in the area, began to retool the production lines to produce products for civilian use.

The semi-pro baseball team from Jamestown Steel Partitions was named the Bombers. Coincidence puts some of the manufacturing of the partitions in the same location that Poirier and McLane occupied on Dow Street. That company was featured in an earlier “Looking Back with Livsey” column.

Organized in 1936 by Emil N. Johnson, Jamestown Steel Partitions continued with his sons taking leadership roles after his death in 1938.

The company became Steel Partitions at a later date. In 1961, G. Elving Lundine, who had been chief engineer for the company, founded Dow Craft Corp., which continued production of the steel partitions. Today production of the partitions is continued by the company, Inscape.

If anyone can identify the woman in the picture, please contact The Town of Ellicott and leave a message for the Historian.