Waterloo honors WWII homefront at park
Posted
on Monday, August 25, 2025
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Women employees of the Iowa Transmission Co., a subsidiary of the John Deere Waterloo Tractor Works, operate forklifts moving parts at the plant during World War II, when the factory made M4 Sherman tank transmissions supporting the war effort (John Deere Archives/Natioanl Park Service)
WATERLOO — No city in Iowa tells the World War II story better than Waterloo. Many as well, but none better.
So says the National Park Service, which in late 2023 designated Waterloo as Iowa’s official American World War II Heritage City. Only one city per state may receive the designation.
Waterloo’s World War II story includes:
—The loss of Waterloo’s five Sullivan brothers in naval combat in the Pacific.
—The Waterloo-headquartered “Ironman” Army National Guard battalion which served a record 600-plus consecutive days in combat in Italy and was identified in an early 1942 Life magazine article as the first American unit to set foot in Europe, at Belfast in northern Ireland.
—The John Deere Waterloo Tractor Works manufacturing M4 Sherman tank transmissions and a host of other businesses manufacturing munitions, uniforms and equipment.
—The comedy team of Abbott & Costello doing a war bond benefit performance on a makeshift stage on the street outside The Rath Packing Co., where meat was being processed to feed troops and where the Sullivan brothers were employed before enlisting in the Navy.
For all those items and many other contributions large and small by businesses and average citzens, the city is emblematic of the total commitment to the war effort statewide and nationally at home and abroad —underscoring the “We Stick Together” motto of the Sullivans.
And, quite frankly, no town partied heartier when the war was over either. Sixty thousand people from the city and surrounding area turned out for what the Waterloo Courier described as a “riotous” victory celebration, including citizens greeting returning troops passing through town by train at the old Illinois Central depot with sandwiches, hot coffee, pie, hugs and kisses.
In recognition of that spirit and the city’s Park Service designation, an ad hoc volunteer committee, the Grout Museum District’s Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum and Veterans Memorial Hall are teaming up to hold an 80th anniversary commemoration of the end of the war from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept 6. This article’s author is a committee member.
Programs will be held at 11 a.m. at the Sullivan museum following a 10:45 a.m. presentation of colors, and at 1:30 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Hall, including a reading of the names of the 359 Black Hawk County residents who died in the war — about 4 percent of the nearly 8,400 who died statewide.
President Harry Truman announced the Japanese surrender on Aug. 14, 1945, following the Nazi surrender three months earlier. It tripped off a wild celebration in Waterloo and around the country. However the formal Japanese surrender papers were signed on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945, which Truman formally declared as Victory over Japan Day, or “V-J Day,” just as May 8, 1945 had been declared Victory in Europe Day, or “V-E Day.” The ad hoc committee selected Saturday, Sept. 6 for the 80th anniversary commemoration.
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The comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello delivered a benefit performance on Sycamore Street outside The Rath Packing Co. plant in Waterloo during World War II to promote sales of war bonds to finance America’s portion of the conflict (Grout Museum District photo)
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A national war bond sales promotion poster was circulated during World War II featured Waterloo’s five Sullivan brothers, from left to right, Joseph, Francis, Albert, Madison and George. All five worked at The Rath Packing Co. in Waterloo prior to enlistment. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration/National Park Service)
Historic displays will be at both the Grout/Sullivan museums and Memorial Hall throughout the day.
At the program at Veterans Memorial Hall, more details will be announced for plans for a permanent World War II homefront commemoration at Hermann Miller Park, along the Cedar River downtown, just downriver and across West Fifth Street from Veterans Memorial Hall. The Waterloo Leisure Services Commission, which governs use of city park space, approved the proposal at a meeting Tuesday, Aug. 12.
Getting the American WWII Heritage City designation and some permanent commemoration of it has been a cause over the past several years of former Waterloo Mayor Tim Hurley, who chairs the city’s American WWII Heritage City Committee in consultation and cooperation with current Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart.
"Waterloo has a long and distinguished history of honoring our battlefront veterans with memorials, parks, events, parades, etc. This is particularly true for those who served in World War II,” Hurley saud. “For our men and women in service to be successful, there had to be an equally effective homefront output to feed, clothe, equip and arm them . . . in two theaters of operation.
“In boxing or wrestling terms, Waterloo - a city of 52,000 when war broke out - ‘fought above its weight’ in their homefront battle,” Hurley said.
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Former Waterloo Mayor Tim Hurley makes a presentation on the American World War II Heritage City designation for Waterloo at a Veterans Day program in Waterloo in 2024 (Pat Kinney photo)
"We did what we're known for: We made things,” Hurley said. “Tank transmissions by the tens of thousands; frozen packaged meat by the tons; fragmentation bombs by the trainload; aircraft parts; uniforms; all-weather flight boots; millions of yards of canvas and cloth turned into ammunition belts, tents, ruck sacks, jungle packs and more; packaging materials; gray iron castings.
“For these accomplishments and more, in December 2023 Waterloo was named by the National Park Service, through the Department of the Interior, by an act of Congress, as Iowa's only American World War II Heritage City,” Hurley said. “This recognition deserves to be memorialized in honor of all the men and women who sacrificed right here at home to help our soldiers, sailors and Marines successful be successful on the field of battle.”
Getting a park designated as a location for a permanent homefront commemoration was just the first step, Hurley indicated. Funds will have to be raised. Conceptual plans include space for information panels, potentially public art or some kind of signature edifice, and acknowedgement of businesses engaged in the war effort and adding to existing walkways to make the site even more accessible. He told the Leisure Services Commission it may take a dollar amoung in “six figures,” potentally $500,000, with work done in phases.
“It may take time, but the day will come when we can fully celebrate and appreciate these homefront warriors for what they did,” Hurley said. “The envisioned Heritage City Memorial at Hermann Miller Park will do just that."
This is a privately funded conceptual rendition for Heritage City Plaza at Hermann Miller Park in downtown Waterloo. The Cedar River is at the top of the illustration. (Ridand-Kuper Landscape Arhitects)
Frank McCaw, a member of the Waterloo Memorial Hall Commission who chairs its artifacts, education and history committee, and has been working on the Sept. 6 observance, said, “World War II is arguably the most significant event in human history and it is only right that we should remember the part played by the servicemen and women and citizens of Black Hawk County in bringing that conflict to a conclusion.
At left, members of the U.S. Army's "John Deere Battalion" repair a tank in 1943; at right, a Rath Packing Co. worker labors alongside a male counterpart processing bacon in 1941. (John Deere Archives/Iowa Federation of Labor Collection, State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City/National Park Service)
"Seventy million souls were lost during the conflict, worldwide, and that included 359 who called Black Hawk County home,” McCaw said. “We choose to remember them because we do not want to let their sacrifice be forgotten and we do not want to allow the lessons of history to be lost.
“We remember and learn because we do not want to witness another such devastating event again,” McCaw said. It is in keeping with the mission of Veterans Memorial Hall, he added, which is “to remember our veterans and the role they have played in the continuation of our rights and liberties and our democratic nation.”
“We hope it will be a day of remembrance, reverence and learning, McCaw said.
At left, in this 2006 photo, longtime Waterloo educator J. Russell Lowe, who passed away in 2007, is shown with the Purple Heart he received for combat wounds when he was hit by a Nazi buzz bomb and a supply truck driver in the "Red Ball Express" supporting Gen. George S. Patton Jr.'s forces' at right, Naaman "Jock" Hickey Jr. displays a pistol he retrieved from a downed German pilot after Hickey's bakery company was among the American units overrrun by Nazi forces during the Battle fo the Bulge. He passed away in 2014 (Rick Chase/Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier photos)
Grout Museum District Executive Director Margaret Moye said, “We are proud to be partnering with the Veterans Memorial Hall artifacts committee and the American WWII Heritage City volunteer committee to honor and remember the service and sacrifice of all those involved in WWII.
“The heritage of wartime extends beyond the battlefields on land, sea, and sky to the support and contributions from the folks back home,” Moye said. “Businesses who shifted their production and families who shifted their daily rhythms with rationing and other measures to ensure troops had necessary supplies all played their part and ‘did their bit’ for the war effort.
“The event on Sept. 6 allows all of these contributions to be honored and remembered, and we are proud to be part of the program,” she said.
This is the front page of the “Extra” edition of the Waterloo Courier on Aug. 14, 1945. This front page is on display at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Mo. along with other of the day’s front pages from papers around the country.
This is Page 3 of the Aug. 15, 1945 Waterloo Courier, with a photo montage of the celebration of the end of World War II. Most of the photos are of Waterloo residents greeting returning troops passing through town at the Illinos Central train depot. It also shows a traffic jam of revelers in the middle of town at center left. and, at lower left, streams of toilet paer being tossed from the top of the YMCA building onto the traffic below. At bottom center, a group of women greet a liberated prisoner of war who had been held by the Germans. At center right, the Sullivan family and a wounded friend of the five brothers gather for a celebration they promised would happen at war’s end. At center, two World War I veterans working at the Illinois Central shop depot blow the shop whistle in celeebration of World War II’s end.