OregonWorld War IIMemorial

Honoring those who served.

3,767 Oregonians did not come home from the Second World War. Their names are cut into black granite on the grounds of the State Capitol in Salem.

Search the names Plan a visit

A column of American infantry wading a river through dense jungle, one man looking straight at the camera

The record

Twenty eight accounts were researched and written for the memorial: the six theaters Oregonians were sent to, the thirteen battles they fought in, and nine storyboards on what the war did to Oregon itself.

A soldier crouched with his rifle in heavy jungle undergrowth

Theaters of Operation

The six fronts Oregonians were sent to, each one a campaign measured in years.

6 accounts →

Infantry riding on a tank past a dug-in position in torn-up ground

Battles

Thirteen engagements, from Pearl Harbor to the last push into Germany.

13 accounts →

A river dock and terminal building with the American flag flying above it

Storyboards

What the war did to Oregon itself: the shipyards, the camps, the losses off the map.

9 accounts →

Polished black granite, the stone of the memorial wall

3,767 names,
cut into the stone.

Born in Oregon, or enlisted from it, who gave their lives between May 1941 and January 1946. At the memorial you find a name by walking the wall and reading. Here you can type it.

Search the wall

The people in the record

Servicemen crowded together reading letters at mail call — Mail call. Letters from home, read where they landed.

Sailors resting on a grassy bank while on leave — Sailors on leave, resting on a bank.

Pilots running for their fighters lined up along a airstrip — Pilots running for their aircraft.

Helmeted troops packed into a landing craft heading toward a smoking shoreline — Packed into a landing craft, heading for the beach.

The war Oregon fought at home

Portland built ships around the clock, and shift change emptied the yards by the thousand at two in the morning. Camp Adair trained a hundred thousand men at once and became the second largest city in the state. Vanport went up out of nothing to house the workers. And thousands of Oregonians of Japanese descent were removed from their homes and sent to camps.

Read the storyboards

A Liberty ship goes down the ways, June 1944. United News newsreel, US National Archives. This launch is at the Kaiser yard in Richmond, California; Kaiser ran the Portland and Vancouver yards the same way.

Was someone in your family there?

The Foundation collected accounts from Oregonians who served and from the families who waited at home. If you have a story, a recording, or a photograph, it belongs in the record.

How to submit a story