World War II raged in both theaters as President Franklin Roosevelt set out on a seventeen-city tour. The Omaha World-Herald reported on April 30, 1943, that the president visited “11 army posts, a WAAC school, a naval air training center and four war plants.”
Among the stops was Omaha on April 26, where he visited the Glenn L. Martin Bomber Plant in nearby Bellevue. Flanked by Secret Service agents, in this photo he inspects B-26 Marauders, planes that saw action in both Europe and the Pacific. Roosevelt was accompanied by Nebraska Governor Dwight Griswold (back seat, left), Glenn Martin (middle), and plant manager G. T. Wiley.
At the end of his tour President Roosevelt reported that he was “impressed with America’s military and industrial proficiency” and that the aviation plants had a workforce that was 30 to 50 percent female. Rosie the Riveter had arrived in the aviation industry.