Few things escaped the shadow cast by World War II, and the aviation industry was no exception. For 60 wearisome months, United put aside its quest for growth and profitability and took on a new responsibility: serving the U.S. military. United modified warplanes for the armed forces, trained ground crews and flew thousands of missions to Alaska and across the Pacific to transport soldiers and supplies.

A Nation at War...
"We have a long and most difficult fight ahead of us", United's President William A. Patterson told employees in a company memo issued December 9, 1941.

Two days earlier, Japanese warplanes had attacked Pearl Harbor. By the next day, the U.S. Congress had declared war.

Soon, United employees who could be spared from their jobs were signing up for military duty. More than 1,500 of them - - from a variety of jobs throughout the company - - joined the armed forces.

Those who remained at their jobs became key players in a mammoth operation that gave full support to the U.S. war effort. It was a challenge United's people confronted with great courage and determination.

During the next 60 months, United trained more than 7,000 ground crew members for the U.S. Army and Navy air forces, and modified 5,736 bombers at its Cheyenne maintenance facility. The company also flew the equivalent of 7,000 flights across more than 50 million miles during its Alaska and Pacific airlifts. In all, United transported more than 156,000 military personnel, 8,600 tons of freight and 9,200 tons of mail during that period.

"It was," United's employee magazine reported, "the biggest, longest job tackled by United...and despite many difficulties, it was carried out in a manner which reflected nothing but highest credit to the company."