By Lillian Bailey
In every person’s life there are memories of events where the time and
place as well as the activity you were engaged in at the time are indelibly
stamped upon one brain and cannot be erased. Such an event was the attack on
Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on the Sunday morning of Dec. 7, 1941.
The attack on Pearl Harbor began at 7:50 P.M. Honolulu time, 1:20 P.M. Washington time but it was some time later before it became public knowledge. As was my usual practice on a Sunday afternoon I was alone taking a nap in my $18.00 a month two room and bath apartment in Weimar where I was teaching at the time. I was awakened by the clamor of loud noises coming from the radio of the apartment next door. I wondered what the excitement was all about and so I opened the connecting door to find out and was literally shocked speechless at the news of the devastation which had occurred in Hawaii hoping against hope that later news would indicate it was not as bad as at first thought. Of course it was. On December 8th war was declared against Japan by President Roosevelt in a speech to the nation in which his phrase “This day will live in infamy” became famous. On December 9, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States and later that same day the United States declared war on Germany and Italy. Hitler supposedly believed that the United States was not prepared to fight a war on two fronts and wanted to share in the spoils.
I was twenty-two years old and along with all the other girls of my generation dreaded the changes we knew would occur in our life styles. Our boy friends, including my steady, who was a graduate of Texas A&M and therefore a member of the reserve having been in the Corp and our dancing partners would soon be in the services and our social life would be drastically altered.
To a great extent that is what happened. The Catholic Church to which most of us belonged changed its policy of requiring engaged couples to have the publication of the banns for three successive Sundays before they could get married. They couldn’t wait that long and there was a rush to get married not only to put off the draft for a little longer but also I suppose, to get the most out of life and to have some pleasant memories of moments shared because that might be all they would ever have. Naturally without the present day contraceptives there were a lot of babies started. They also, as dependents, might keep the new husbands out of the service for a little longer.
As far as I know most of the young men were willing to serve their country knowing full well that unless they did there might not be country to serve. Some of them enlisted immediately and others began putting their affairs in order in anticipation of the day their services would be required. I suppose there was some excitement in it all since so many had never been over fifty miles from home. None of my acquaintances to my knowledge wanted a 4F classification “Unfit for Service” but there were probably some as well as young farmers who got deferments because the food they raised was so badly needed.
The attack at Pearl Harbor unified the country and the sniping so common in Washington took a back seat to the war effort. The supplies needed were stupendous. Shipyards plane and ammunition factories sprang up. For the first time since the depression everybody could get a job and people put in very long hours of labor without complaining.
The bad news we constantly heard from both the Pacific and European fronts over the radios (we had no television) kept everybody in distress. The fall of the Philippines and the subsequent Bataan Death March sickened everyone. The population began to be terrified that the Japanese would invade California and the west coast before we were adequately prepared to defend it. Our native Japanese population began to suffer. No longer trusted not to be spies they were interred in camps. In recent years this action by our government has caused embarrassment but at that time it seemed to be a necessary precaution.
I remember making sarcastic remarks about the Germans only to be reminded by my mother that I was of German heritage and that this was wrong as most of the mainstream Germans were not Nazis but were forced to support the war efforts by their government or were otherwise mislead.
For many months the news from both fronts was not good but the United States mainland and Great Britain were not invaded and gradually some good news began to be heard. My favorite commentator was some reporter named Kaltenborn and I listened to him every day.
Our world had changed. Army camps sprang up. Camp Hulen in Palacios, Camp Swift
in Bastrop, Camp Hood in Killeen, Foster Field in Victoria and Ellington Field
in Houston were some in our area. We had Thanksgiving Dinner at Camp Swift one
year and went to USO dances in Palacios. I also had the opportunity to visit
Camp Hood, now Fort Hood, in Killeen. At that time my boy friend who had been
transferred from Field Artillery to a Tank Destroyer Unit was stationed there
and I visited him along with his parents. Camp Hood at that time was a very
primitive camp. It was a tent camp. No permanent buildings had as yet been constructed.
It was the service personnel from these camps whom we entertained on weekends
at first locally and later in Houston. There was a constant turnover in the
soldiers who attended these USO dances due to the fact that they were always
being shipped out. Girls were always being told that it was their patriotic
duty to entertain the soldiers. We only attended USO dances when we needed to
meet someone new. No date was about to take us to a dance where he would have
to share our attention with so many others. For the first time we met young
men from all over the United States. Girls received proposals after only a few
dates. The soldiers wanted so desperately to have someone back home beside his
parents to write to them and to care what happened to them. I remember one particular
young man from Oklahoma who begged me to marry him and then a week later went
home on leave before being shipped out. I received a letter from him a few days
afterward telling me he had married a girl from his hometown.
I have to admit that we did have some fun and some interesting experiences
during the war. In spite of our constant concern for family and friends it wasn’t
all doom and gloom. With all the boys gone from small towns life there became
a bore. My boy friend and I had come to the parting of the ways mostly because
of the changes in our life styles and the fact that I had to earn a living and
could not join him at the army base. I resigned from my teaching position refusing
another years contract and went to Houston where I moved into a bedroom with
kitchen privileges which I shared with my sister, Alice and two girls from Schulenburg.
Housing was short all over Houston and landlords were very reluctant to rent
an apartment to single girls. We rented the room for about $30.00 a month but
all we had to cool it with during the hot humid months in Houston was a small
fan and it was miserably hot during the summer. The house next door kept any
breeze from coming in through the windows. We slept with no pillows and with
as little clothing as was possible without baring the essentials. Food was no
problem as we could get a good meal for less than $.50. After looking for about
a year we finally got an apartment on East 26th Street. It was in a poor section
of Houston. We attended the Catholic Church there with the black population
including a black priest. At that time whites and blacks did not often belong
to the same churches. Bus service was good though.
Alice was working for Reed Roller Bit, but an eight hour shift doing the same
thing all day simply was not what I wanted to do. I began looking for an office
job which didn’t pay as well ($100.00) a month but which might lead to
a permanent career. I took a job with Gulf Distributor Corporation which turned
out to be the best decision I ever made. By that time I knew that I did not
want to teach school and Gulf Dist. Corp. gave me the opportunity to learn accounting
which was much more to my taste. I worked with a lot of lovely people and some
of them became life long friends; Especially the Lee family whom I love to this
day.
The Wacs and Waves were organized to give girls the opportunity to become a part of the armed services but for some reason it was never a popular thing to do in our area. We simply did not want to try a life style so different from what we were accustomed to and we were afraid to try it.
In Houston we had the opportunity to see many types of entertainment on weekends brought in to entertain the service men. Some of the shows we saw were the Inkspots, Andrew Sisters, Ames Brothers, Wayne King, Harry James, Clyde McCoy and his Sugar Blues among others. During the week we went to many a movie riding all over Houston on busses. Bus fares were two for a Quarter (tokens) and you could use a transfer from bus and ride all day if you so desired. Movie theaters charged from 15 cents to a quarter and popcorn was a nickel. A car was something none of us had ever owned and was not missed. Bus service was good and we rode them even on dates. Our dates seldom could afford a taxi.
Movies were our main source of entertainment. “Talkies” as they were called in contrast to silent movies were still relatively new and this was during Hollywood’s heyday. We were not aware of any danger in being out at night. We had never heard of a street gang or a marijuana cigarette much less any other drug and we were never alone. There were always several of us besides other passengers at the bus stops.
With so many raw materials going toward the war effort the “Home Front”
was bound to experience shortages. Gasoline was strictly rationed. Recommended
speed was 35 miles an hour in order to save rubber. Tires were still mostly
made of rubber. Vegetables and meat were rationed. We had no problem with that
as we all had relatives who lived on farms and they shared their unused ration
books with us since they raised their own food. Red stamps were for meat and
blue stamps were for
vegetables. Meat was hard to find even if you had stamps. We ate a lot of sausage
and a few very tough hens. We could buy enough meat to feed us four girls for
about a quarter when it was available.
Our families at home were knitting socks, folding bandages and collecting scrap iron. I feel sure some of these activities were merely a way of keeping the population at home involved. When I was still teaching school I took my students into the pastures to collect scrap iron, mostly old rusty farm equipment. We had quite a pile of it but no one had picked it up by the time the school term ended. For all I know it could be there yet.
Finally the balance of power in the war began to shift our way. The navy began to win battles in the Pacific. The long awaited D-Day “invasion of Europe” became an actuality. General MacArther made good his promise “I shall return” and we re-conquered the Philippines. Italy surrendered and we were making progress toward forcing Germany to do the same.
How well I remember the many anxious hours we spent before the fog lifted in Europe and our planes could again provide air cover for our troops during the “Battle of the Bulge”. I was at home in Moulton for the Christmas Holidays and I scarcely left the radio during that crucial time. We were all very anxious about the situation there. After the announcement came that the Allied Forces were back in command we had little doubt that we would win the war in Europe and we waited impatiently for the fail of Hitler which finally came on May 5, 1945.
Of course, there was still ‘Japan’ but we were still celebrating the bombing of several Japanese cities by General Doolittle. At last we were getting back at them. We looked forward to the invasion of Japan with dread since we had not forgotten the many causalities we had suffered during the invasion of Europe and those of our friends who had been killed there.
Then one morning my boss came into the business office to tell us about the
bombing of Hiroshima which took place on August 6, 1945. Even then we were not
proud of the horror it caused to innocent civilians but we comforted ourselves
with the thought of the many of our own serviceman who would have lost their
lives if we would have had to invade Japan. Innocent civilians would also have
been killed. Better them than us was the prevailing thought. We all felt that
we would have won the war anyway but at a very high cost in men and equipment
on both sides. The person who coined the phrase “War is Hell’ knew
of what he spoke.
We expected the war to end immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima but Japan
did not give up easily and we were forced to spend nearly thirty more anxious
days before Japan finally surrendered and World War II was finally over.
Almost immediately the armed services began discharging their personnel. Most
of those men who had held jobs before the war were given their jobs back as
it was the patriotic thing to do. Those who were too young to have held jobs
before the war enrolled in colleges under the GI Bill. Some, of course, found
jobs. Others who had already held jobs but could now afford to acquire an education
also took advantage of the GI Bill. As for me I was transferred by Gulf Dist.
Corp. to their office in Corpus Christi. I was now earning $225.00 a month which
was considered a good salary. Since I was only paying $25.00 a month for living
quarters and I could eat three meals a day for about $1.50, I could save money.
The girls who had worked at the different war plants were laid off but many
of them were married or planning to be married and were happy to stay at home
and raise a family. Life pretty well went back to normal for most of us.