THE WAR
At Thanksgiving 2016 grandson-in-law, Tyson Babayco, was seriously interested in my remembrances of the war, although fully aware that I had celebrated my 11th birthday the day after Pearl Harbor and my 15th six months after V.J. (victory in Japan) day. At that age I was somewhat oblivious; yet everyone in the country was greatly affected. Perhaps others have similar interest in one kid’s view of the war.
In 1941 the setting was of much discourse – yes, apparent even to a ten-year-old – as to whether the U.S even should be involved in Europe and Asia, other than sending supplies to the British. This period was preceded by just recovering from the great depression, which was preceded by the dust bowl, which we lived in the middle of in Beloit, Kansas. We never suffered as Dad – a high school science teacher – always had a job and worked summers at YMCA Camp Wood near Elmdale, Kansas (150 miles away). But we were accustomed to thrift and frugality, as anyone with good sense knew that the line between “getting by” and much worse was fragile indeed.
But instantly, on December 7, 1941, there was great, unrestrained patriotism everywhere with everyone eager to do their part. So we were ready and willing to conserve and be deprived of everything as an already familiar life style for the war effort.
Dad was on the old side at 35 to be sought in the early draft, and then later worked in a vital industry, and was thus “deferred.” We had moved to Hutchinson when I was nine. We had a very large Victory Garden requiring planting, tilling, weed pulling, hoeing, harvesting, and canning. We raised about a dozen chickens for eating and eggs in our back yard in town. Yes, I helped kill, and pluck said chickens.
At about 12 or 13 I was playing the trumpet. A fellow trumpeter, W.F. Kempe, lived about one block away. We concocted to play taps at dusk every night from our respective front porches. It was supposed to be an echo effect. It didn’t work very well as each couldn’t hear the other while playing – but we continued this “duty” separately.
Many items critical to the war were rationed, requiring books of stamps:
Scrap drives involved recovering every old, no longer used farm implements and anything metal to be melted to meet the steel needs.
Toothpaste became tooth powder that you mixed with water in your palm and made paste. It came in a can as tubes were not available or needed.
A complete naval air base was rapidly built at Hutchinson, due to its interior location, flat terrain, sunny days, and good weather, to teach flying. Beech Bobcat twin engine planes were mostly used to teach multi-engine bomber pilots. It had wood and fabric construction and was referred to as a flying coffin or bamboo bomber. The runway is still useable, as I took sail plane lessons there in 1998. All the kids wanted sailor hats and many wore them. Many other towns in Kansas had air bases.
At about age 12 I got a 200 customer, seven day a week, rain or snow, paper route earning five cents per customer per week of the 25 cents per week price. If people moved out without paying me, I still owed and paid the 20 cents per week. Sometimes, finding some, and especially Navy, people at home was difficult and made it difficult to collect. Some forgot to pay – maybe serval weeks’ worth – when they were transferred.
I had a second job at 13 for 35 cents an hour, as a stock boy at a dry goods store and I was a sales clerk on the floor on Saturday. From my earnings I bought war stamps (10 cents each), pasting them in a book. Ten cents then was equivalent to today’s dollar. On filling to $18.75, one could get a war bond worth $25 in ten years. This was one way the war was financed. Of course, in ten years inflation made the purchasing power of the $25 less than the cost. But most bought all the bonds they could. With my earnings I purchased a half dozen.
Most kids today have athletes’ or celebrities’ giant photos on their walls. Had I been older, and Mom permitted, I might have had a pin-up – a bathing suit clad female showing off her legs, etc., like Betty Grable. But I had pinned up a large 17” photo of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress four-engine bomber. It had gun turrets in the nose, tail, sides, belly, and top. And was the main bomber used in Europe. Even then they knew how to photograph airplanes for maximum impact in the clouds and sunlight. You had to mail in to Boeing to get such a nice photo. My Uncle Elvin Imes was a Captain Flight Surgeon on such missions, flying from England to bomb Germany. A relative named Pontius was killed in the Normandy invasion. So Aunt Johnie had a blue star 6” flag in her window, and Great-Aunt Mary had a gold star flag in hers. My class at school had a brother and sister from England who spent the war with a local family. I recall all the girls seemed attracted to him; I reasoned because of his accent, as he (they) didn’t otherwise seem special, other than the special treatment such “war orphans” deserved from their hosts.
Well, that’s most of what I recall at this late date, age 86. But at that age a kid is thinking mostly about his own limited area and problems and is just living in the moment – not fully aware of the significance of everything else happening. We did, though, follow the war battles and fronts closely in the newspaper, on radio, and in the movie news shorts. And we didn’t feel particularly deprived. We gladly did all we could to help out the effort to win the war against Emperor Hirohito and the Japs, der Furhrer Hitler and the Krauts, and Il Duce Mussolini and the Italians.
While attending Kansas State University I had a close friend, SAE fraternity brother Gene Arnold, whose father was stationed in the Philippines at war’s outbreak. Gene’s research indicated that his father was among the few who survived the Bataan Death March, but died later under starvation conditions while a prisoner of the Japanese.
