Alabama and its people played a conspicuous role in World War II. Not only were thousands of servicemen trained at military facilities in the state but Axis prisoners of war were interned in camps on Alabama soil, most notably at Aliceville and Opelika. More than 45,000 Alabama citizens were killed in combat or died as POWs, some came home injured, and many labored in war factories at home.

Montgomery in the Good War is a richly textured account of a southern city and its people during World War II. Using newspaper accounts, interviews, letters, journals, and his own memory of the time, Wesley Newton reconstructs wartime-era Montgomery, Alabama--a sleepy southern capital that was transformed irreversibly during World War II. The war affected every segment of Montgomery society: black and white, rich and poor, male and female, those who fought in Europe and the Pacific and those who stayed on the home front. Newton follows Montgomerians chronologically through the war from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima as they experience patriotism, draft and enlistment, rationing, scarcity drives, and the deaths of loved ones. His use of small vignettes based on personal recollections adds drama and poignancy to the story. Montgomery in the Good War is an important reminder that wars are waged at home as well as abroad and that their impact reverberates well beyond those who fight on the front lines. Those who came of age during the war will recognize themselves in this moving volume. It will also be enlightening to those who have lived in times of relative peace.