Новая книга раскрывает трагедию насильственного выселения жителей трех городов Миссури ради строительства завода ВВ во время Второй мировой войны

New book chronicles forced displacement of three Missouri towns during WWII Published 10:20 am Thursday, August 13, 2026 COLUMBIA — A retired Army lieutenant colonel has published a new historical account examining the forced displacement of three rural Missouri communities to make way for a World War II munitions plant, a story he says has largely been left out of standard accounts of the home front. In “Do Our Part: The Tragic Tale of the Weldon Spring Ordnance Works,” Tim Scherrer details how the U.S. Department of War, in the fall of 1940, ordered residents of Howell, Toonerville, and Hamburg, Missouri, to leave their homes within 45 days. The government requisitioned the land to build what the book describes as the world’s largest TNT plant, ultimately operated by the Atlas Powder Company to supply munitions for the war effort. The book recounts how families were uprooted from land many had held for generations, losing not only their homes but churches, cemeteries, and livelihoods. It also chronicles the legal battle that followed, as displaced residents pursued a case that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court in a fight for fair compensation. “We often talk about the triumph of the home front during World War II, but we rarely talk about the families who were collateral damage before the first American shot was even fired,” Scherrer said. “These people didn’t just lose their houses; they lost their churches, their cemeteries, their livelihoods, and their entire way of life.” Scherrer, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army’s Military Intelligence Corps, said his military background shapes how he approaches the subject, allowing him to weigh the wartime government’s strategic reasoning alongside the toll it took on the residents affected. The site of the former ordnance works, located in what is now St. Charles County, has since become the subject of a decades-long environmental cleanup effort after later use as a uranium processing facility left the area contaminated; portions of the site are now managed as the Weldon Spring Conservation Area and a U.S. Department of Energy interpretive center. Scherrer is available for interviews and speaking engagements on the history of the Weldon Spring Ordnance Works, the broader impact of eminent domain on rural communities, and the site’s lasting effects on the region. He can be reached at [email protected] or (573) 489-4891.