Sumter City and County, South Carolina

Edmunds High School student home nurse trainee. 1943

Hi-Ways 1943 (Edmunds High School Yearbook)

American World War II Heritage City

Sumter County’s Shaw Field opened in August 1941, almost four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, as a U.S. Army Air Corps Basic Flying School. The purpose of the school was to train air corps cadets in the basics of flying before sending them off for advanced training. In October 1942, Shaw's training program was changed to Advanced Flight Training and by the end of the War over 8,600 U.S. and Allied pilots had graduated from Shaw Field. In addition. Shaw Field also served as a prisoner of war camp from March 1945 through early 1946, housing German POWs who worked on local farms in the area.

In addition, Shaw Field was home to multiple Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). Because of a shortage of male pilots and the need to train as many new pilots as possible, the female pilots helped train male air cadets, taught male instructor pilots, and served as test and ferry pilots for the airfield.

BT-13 Valiant trainer aircraft at Shaw Field being used to train the 6th Bomb Group prior to their deployment to Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands. 1944

Martin C Eichelman

The civilian population of Sumter City and the larger county were also active participants in the war effort. Companies in Sumter such as Carolina Industries, Inc. manufactured items for the U.S. military. Service groups like the Kiwanis sponsored paper drives and collected scrap metal. High School students trained in home nursing and joined the federal government's Victory Corps, a school club program to help students participate in the war effort and to prepare for possible military service. Citizens volunteered for the Civil Defense and the City National Bank Building, the tallest building in the city, was used as an observation tower as part of a larger air raid system.

Schools at War Program poster. 1942

US Department of Treasury. Irving Nurick (artist)

In 1943, students at Edmunds High School in Sumter City invested enough money in war bonds and stamps to purchase twenty-one Jeeps for the U.S. Army. The money was raised on behalf of the Schools at War program run by the U.S. Treasury Department. As part of the 1943 Schools at War jeep promotion, schools nationwide set goals for raising money to help the U.S. government buy jeeps. South Carolina's goal was to raise enough money to buy 63 jeeps. By the end of the jeep promotion 1/3 of the statewide goal was fulfilled by a single school - Edmunds High School.

Today Sumter City and County commemorate and preserve the memories of World War II with their monument to the Tuskegee Airmen, four of whom had ties to Sumter; Veterans Park; the Temple Sinai Jewish History Center; the Sumter Military Museum, and the markers around Memorial Lake Park on Shaw Air Force Base.