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THE 1930s AND 1940s were a time of upheaval for the world, including the US.

Reeling from the start of the Great Depression in 1929, the world soon faced a greater disaster with World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. Though the US did not enter into the war officially until after Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the global war still affected the country.

The following photos, from the US Library of Congress, give us a rare glimpse of life in the US during World War II in colour. They show some of the changes that the war helped usher into the US, such as women in the workforce and the widespread adoption of aerial and mechanised warfare.

Virginia Davis, a riveter in the assembly and repairs department of the naval air base, supervises Chas. Potter, a National Youth Administration trainee from Michigan, in Corpus Christi, Texas. After eight weeks of training, he will go into the civil service.

Answering the nation’s call for woman-power, Davis made arrangements for the care of her two children during the day and joined her husband at work at the naval air base in Corpus Christi.

Jesse Rhodes Waller, AOM, third class, tries out a .30-caliber machine gun he has just installed in a US Navy plane at the base in Corpus Christi.

A sailor at the base in Corpus Christi wears the new type of protective clothing and gas mask designed for use in chemical warfare.

Sailor mechanics feed an SNC advanced-training plane an essential supply of gasoline.

Av. Cadet Thanas at the base in Corpus Christi.

Pearl Harbor widows who went into war work.

Eloise J. Ellis was appointed by the civil service to be senior supervisor in the assembly and repairs department at the naval base in Corpus Christi.

After seven years in the US Navy, JD Estes was considered an old sea salt (teller of stories) by his mates at the base in Corpus Christi.

Irma Lee McElroy, a former office worker, painting the American insignia on an airplane wing. McElroy was a civil-service employee at the base in Corpus Christi.

Aviation cadet in training at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi.

Plane at the base in Corpus Christi.

Ensign Noressey and Cadet Thenics at the naval air base in Corpus Christi on a Grumman F3F-3 biplane fighter.

Working with a sea plane at the base in Corpus Christi.

Aviation cadets at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi.

Mechanics service an A-20 bomber at Langley Field in Virginia.

M-3 tank and crew using small arms at Fort Knox in Kentucky.

M-4 tank line at Fort Knox in Kentucky.

A young soldier of the armored forces holds and sights his Garand rifle at Fort Knox.

Servicing an A-20 bomber at Langley Field.

Marines finish training at Parris Island in South Carolina.

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