Kevin Brooks wrote:

"ArtKramr" wrote in message

You are not far wrong. Most of those who built our planes and ammo were
woman
and old men and high school kids.

No, they were not. That may be *your* twisted perception of reality, but it
is no more correct than your recent ludicrous pronouncements about the
National Guard during WWII.

"In 1944 there were 104,450,000 people over 14. Of that total 65,140,000
were in the labor force either as workers or in the military and 38,590,000
were not in the labor force (down less than 4 million from 1940). There were
46,520,000 males in the labor force including the military, of whom
35,460,000 were in the civilian workforce and 19,170,000 women in the
civilian workforce."

www.ndu.edu/inss/McNair/mcnair50/m50c13n.html

The male civilian workforce vastly outnumbered the women workforce (about
two to one), and the fact of the matter is that the majority of those males
would have had to have fallen into the age group which would have been
eligable for military service (if not the draft).

Like my old Scoutmaster, a skilled machinist prior to the war. Born in 1916, he
was given a draft deferment because he was considered essential to war
production, as he was working for Douglas (and later North American) building
tooling jigs for DC-3s and then B-25s. In 1945 as a/c production was winding
down, his deferment was removed. He was in basic when the bomb was dropped, and
then spent his service time in the army of occupation in Germany. But even
there, the Army was smart enough to take advantage of his skills rather than
just sticking him in the infantry or some other unskilled position; they
assigned him to an ordnance company, where he maintained and repaired weapons
until he was demobilized a year or so later.

Numerous other job categories were exempt or deferred, such as most merchant
seamen -- see

http://www.usmm.org/draft.html

Here's a list of classifications I was able to find:

1A: fit for general active military service.
1B: fit for limited military service.
1C: member of the armed forces.
1D: students fit for general military service.
1E: students fit for limited military service.
IIA: deferred for critical civilian work/occupational
deferment.
IIIA: deferred due to dependents.
IVA: already served in the armed forces. another site states: age
deferred.
IVB: deferred by law, i. e. draft officials.
IVC: enemy alien, i. e.: Japanese-American citizens
IVD: ministers
IVE: conscientious objector
IVF: physically, mentally, or morally unfit for service.

Presumably my scoutmaster would have been classified IIA, then reclassified 1A
in 1945.

Guy