Editor’s Letter

In the Spring 2024 edition of Pennsylvania Heritage, we looked at the World War II experience of Steelton’s Thomas Mosley, one of the first Black men to serve in the U.S. Marines since the Revolutionary War. In this issue we continue our focus on World War II as we approach the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge and highlight the role of Pennsylvanians in that decisive conflict.

In the forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg, Nazi Germany staged what would become its last major offensive in the war — an attempt to split the Allied armies on the Western Front and then surround and crush them. In the ensuing campaign, known as the Battle of the Bulge, the federalized 28th Infantry Division, rooted in the Pennsylvania National Guard, would find itself outnumbered while holding the line against seven German divisions, allowing reinforcements to converge and subdue the offensive. For her article “Three Days in Hell,” Pennsylvania Military Museum curator Jennifer Eaton has combed through soldiers’ diaries and letters in the museum’s collection to flesh out the story of the battle, highlighting the heroic accomplishments of the 28th and the experiences and sacrifices of the many Pennsylvanians who fought in the battle.

Earlier in the war, a complex of camps to detain Axis prisoners emerged across the United States. In Pennsylvania, 12 base camps and 18 branches were established that would, at the system’s height, hold up to 18,000 POWs. In “Captured: Axis Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania,” author Richard E. Holl examines life in several POW camps, including Camp Reynolds in Mercer County and Camp Sharpe in Adams County, where mostly German prisoners were held and friction erupted between Nazis and anti-Nazis; Letterkenny Ordnance Depot in Franklin County, which held the highest concentration of Italian prisoners in the nation; Bedford Springs Resort & Spa in Bedford County, where Japanese diplomats were confined; and Pine Grove Furnace, where a flow of POWs, ultimately amounting to approximately 25,000, were held temporarily and interrogated before moving to camps throughout the course of the war.

The third feature in this issue looks at the impact of the 20th-century transportation revolution on residential development that began before World War II, halted briefly during the conflict, and then resumed full force afterward. In “Roads and Rails in Pittsburgh’s North Hills,” regular contributor Dan Cupper examines an area north of Pittsburgh as a microcosm for how this phenomenon often unfolded, starting with an interurban electric railroad that had a real estate subsidiary to sell plots of land along its path to families, resulting in the development of the Bradford Woods community, to the postwar construction of an expressway, McKnight Road, that prompted widespread suburban development and the proliferation of shopping malls along its route.

Starting with the Fall 2021 issue, in which we published “Run-Up to the Revolution: Philadelphia’s Response to the Taxation Crisis,” we have been featuring occasional stories of Pennsylvania history from the era of the American Revolution as a lead-in to the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, including “Shall Liberty Dwell? James Forten and the Struggle for Black Rights in Early Pennsylvania” by Todd M. Mealy (Winter 2024) and “Two Faces of Molly Pitcher” (Spring 2022), “Elizabeth Drinker and the Quaker Exile” (Spring 2023), and “Hastening the Deliverance of Her Country: Esther DeBerdt Reed and the Ladies Association of Philadelphia” (Spring 2024), all by Jennifer Eaton. Look for this focus to increase with our next issue as we draw closer to the U.S. Semiquincentennial commemoration.

Kyle R. Weaver
Editor