Wilmington has been named an American World War II Heritage City by the National Park Service.
It’s one of 11 cities or jurisdictions added to the list in 2023, which includes Yonkers, New York, Bedford County, Virginia, and Baltimore County, Maryland.
Each state or territory can only have one American World War II Heritage City.
Wilmington’s Historic Preservation Planner Debra Martin prepared the city’s application for the program.
"Honoring the homefront contributions to ending World War II. It focuses on all of the industries and volunteers and just preparedness that communities participated in as opposed to chronicling battlefields and things like that," Martin said.
Contributions include defense manufacturing, food and consumer items production for the Armed Forces, volunteer participation, and civil defense preparedness.
Martin hopes the city will use it to highlight this part of Wilmington’s past.
"I hope that we can put parts of the nominations on our website with illustrations and highlight it for people to know more," Martin said.
Highlighting the Dravo Corporation was a big part of Wilmington’s application as it was awarded Navy contracts, and received orders for destroyer escorts and landing ships.
