Forties Flashback chronicles Greensboro's pivotal role in WWII

On Saturday, Greensboro History Museum is celebrating the city’s crucial role during World War II when it served as the largest urban military base in the country. 

Forties Flashback replicates the war years when Greensboro was known as the Overseas Replacement Depot. The city was awarded the base in 1942 for its strategic location, ability to quickly develop large tracts of land, and its century-old proximity to rail which led to the Gate City moniker decades earlier.

From 1943 to 1946 more than 330,000 soldiers passed through its gates. They were processed in and out of service or sent elsewhere.

Museum Director Carol Ghiorsi Hart says in researching Forties Flashback, she and her colleagues turned to newspaper accounts, letters, journals, and oral histories. 

"There are so many really heartrending and wonderful different stories of how so many people in the community stepped up and would go to the base and take home different people for dinner for service people that were on their way to the war, and they would have dinner with them and try to keep their mind off where they were going,” says Hart.

The museum will host mini-lectures on a wide range of 1940s topics. Costumed interpreters will share tales of Tuskegee Airman Andrew Johnson, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and others. Period movies and newsreels will be shown and children can take part in hands-on arts and crafts activities. The celebration continues into the evening hours with swing dance lessons in LeBauer Park, live music and more.