OR&L and World War II
World War II was arguably the OR&L's most important period, but would prove to be the company's undoing. After the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the OR&L became a major player in wartime transportation. The railroad carried out its regular freight operations as well as handling massive amounts of military-related traffic. The OR&L became the chief transporter of civilian base workers, sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines, both from Honolulu to their bases, or from those bases back to Honolulu for coveted R&R. In 1944 and 1945 the OR&L carried nearly two million riders.
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Famous quotes containing the words war ii, world and/or war:
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)
“Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession.”
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973)
“The war is utter damn nonsense—a vast cancer fed by lies and self seeking [sic] malignity on the part of those who don’t do the fighting.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)