Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

there was almost no residential housing at all. The workforce was bused in from Detroit or crowded into squalid trailer camps along the roads. Shantytowns of tar paper shacks sprung up in the Michigan mud. In existing dwellings, owners made a killing by renting out their spare rooms. Old Victorian homes became overcrowded bunkhouses, with beds rented out by the hour. Two or three people alternated in the same bed—“hotbunking”—with their sleeping schedules synchronized to their work schedules at the plant. With thousands of workers leaving the factories at midnight, retail and entertainment businesses found it profitable to stay open all night. Bars were open around the clock and crowded even in the small hours of the morning. Long lines stretched down the sidewalks outside nightclubs, where “swing shift” shows featured C-list entertainers between midnight and dawn. One could go bowling at three o’clock in the morning. Movie theaters screened films back to back, twenty-four hours per day, and were always full. Homeless workers bought a ticket for a midnight showing and tried to sleep in their seats. Parents dropped their children off at a movie theater, worked a shift at the plant, and then returned to pick them up.