It was an ordinary Sunday, and after attending church, we had gone to my grandparents’ house for Sunday dinner. My Aunt Kitty and Uncle Stan were there.
We had finished clearing up the dishes, and my brother Jimmy and I had settled down to a game of Flinch. The women were looking forward to an afternoon of needlework and the men to a few hours of good conversation.
Stan, who was somewhat of a news hound, went into the other room and turned on the radio and the news came booming out. Suddenly Stan yelled, “Kitty, Kitty, we’ve got to go home.”
Stan had four grown sons by a previous marriage, two of whom were in the U.S. Navy, and he was worried what might be in store for them. After they left, we sat around in stunned silence and listened to the radio, the announcers repeating over and over again all the disastrous details of the attack.
Although it was morning in Pearl Harbor, the day was waning and darkness was beginning to fall in Maine. When we finally went home, my parents spent the rest of the evening listening to the radio trying to make sense of what was happening half a world away. The following day at noontime, Dec. 8, President Roosevelt addressed the nation with his famous “date that will live in infamy” speech. Congress had voted for a declaration of war, which the president then signed. On that same day Britain also declared war on Japan, and on Dec. 11, Hitler declared war on the United States.
The world was at war and little did we know what was in store for us and for our country. Our lives had been forever changed in just the twinkling of an eye.
The reports kept coming in that the Japanese had launched several attacks throughout the Pacific, at places like Luzon, Corregidor, Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, the Marianas, all places we had never learned about in geography class. In fact, until then, hardly anybody had even heard of Pearl Harbor. Every evening, my parents huddled around our big old wooden radio as the newscasters trumpeted out the news. This sudden turn of events was difficult enough for the adults to figure out, but even more so for a 10-yearold. It seemed so strange that one day our lives could be so peaceful and ordinary, and the next day there was this big war going on.
Everything had changed. We now had enemies, and why did they hate us so much? It all seemed so far away to be affecting our lives in such a big way.
By the end of the month there was a full-page ad in the newspaper of what to do in the event of an air raid. This was posted on the wall in our kitchen, where we were to study it and memorize it.
Air raid wardens were commissioned to patrol neighborhoods to see that everyone had their shades pulled or their blackout curtains in place. There were no streetlights, and car lights had shaded tops so lights shone only on the ground. In case of an air raid, the firehouse would send out an alarm and we were supposed to spring into action.
At school, we were to head for the hallways or dive under our desks. At home, we were to take refuge under tables or in the cellar. Some people built underground air raid shelters for themselves and their families stocked with food and water and blankets.
As time went on, we learned more about our enemies, bits and pieces of their languages and what they looked like, based mostly on the cartoons we saw in the newspapers. We learned the names of their leaders, mainly Hitler, (der Furher), Goering, Mussolini, Tojo and Hirihito.
We referred to them as the “Japs” and the “Krauts.” Heaven knows what names they had for us, but we were already thinking of them as our fiercest enemies, and anyway, as the grown-up always said, “All’s fair in love and war,” and make no mistake about it, this was war.
Supplying the war effort
Scrap metal drives were organized, and rubber was especially needed. One car tire would serve as admission to the local movie house. We would peel the foil off the cigarette packages and candy wrappers, roll it into a ball and put it out for the collection. Fats were collected weekly at curbside.
I asked my father why they needed the fats, and he said they used it to make explosives. My mother made doughnuts, and she would put out all her used lard for the weekly collection. I liked to imagine the bombs going off, plastering the enemy with all my mother’s old doughnut fat, and the German soldiers slipping and sliding around in all the grease, yelling and screaming, “Ach der Himmel! Ach, der Himmel!”
That was my idea of warfare.
War bonds were issued early on, and for $18.75, one could buy a bond that would be worth $25 at maturity. At school we were encouraged to buy defense stamps for 10 cents each, which we would lick and stick in little books. When the books were filled, we could turn them in for a bond.
My mother would give me 20 cents a week to buy stamps, and if I could manage to make it by Lemoine’s Market, where 10 cents would buy a candy bar and some penny candy and bubble gum or maybe a bottle of soda pop, then the 20 cents would arrive safe and sound at school, and most of the time it did. However there were times when the temptation was just too great. I guess I figured that even though there was a war going on, one needed a few luxuries to survive.
Music
My family would often go to my grandparents for Sunday dinner. My grandparents had recently bought a big console radio and record player, and they had a good supply of 78 rpm records. One of Jimmy’s and my favorites was a recording by Spike Jones and the City Slickers, titled “Der Feuher’s Face.”
The lyrics were:
Ven der Fuherer says, “Ve iss der master race,”
Vee go Heil pfffft, Heil pffft, right in der Furher’s face.
Not to Luff der Fuherer iss a great disgrace.
Vee go heil pfffft, heil pfffft right in der Furher’s face.
Ven Herr Goering says, “Vee own der vorld and space,
Vee go heil pfffft, heil pfffft, right in Herr Goering’s face.
Ven Herr Goering says, “Dey’ll never bomb dis place,
Vee go heil pfffft, heil pfffft right in Herr Goering’s face.
There were other songs about our enemies, but that was our favorite, and we would play it over and over again, singing along, imitating the sound effects, goosestepping around and laughing our foolish heads off. Adding to our fun was the rumor that Hitler had actually heard that song.
My brother, Bob, was serving in the U.S. Army Air Force, so we would play the Air Force anthem, and stand at attention and salute, sometimes singing along with it:
“Off we go into the wild blue yonder, flying high into the sun,
Here they come zooming to meet our thunder, at ‘em boys, give ‘em the gun.”
When Uncle Stan and Aunt Kitty were around we would play “Anchors Aweigh,” and the Marine anthem in honor of their sons who were serving in other branches of the service. But my mother liked to hear Kate Smith sing, “There’ll be bluebirds over, the white cliffs of Dover, Tomorrow when the world is free.”
On the lookout
My mother and some of her friends trained as plane spotters. Posted on the tops of downtown buildings near Bath Iron Works, they stood in pairs watching the skies for enemy planes.
Sometimes they would get wrapped up in conversation, and suddenly realize that a plane was flying over. Scrambling for their binoculars and guidebook they would breathe a sigh of relief when they realized that it was, as always, one of our own from the nearby Brunswick Naval Air Base.
My father used to jokingly say that the city of Bath could be bombed off the face of the earth while mother and her friend, Gladys, discussed how to make an eggless, butterless cake, or how to survive the shortage of silk stockings.
We had moved to Bath from Auburn in 1941 when my father, an electrician, went to work at the Bath Iron Works. My sister, Doris, was in nursing school, and my brother, Bob, was serving in the U.S. Army Air Force.
My parents rented half of a large house located a short distance from downtown Bath. The heart of our kitchen was a big old cast iron cook stove, which not only cooked our meals, but heated the room and our hot water as well. In the living room was an oil-fired pot bellied stove. Heat rose through registers in the floors to warm the upstairs rooms.
Between the living room and the kitchen was a big cheery dining room with a bay window. The built-in china closet displayed my mother’s best dishes. The large, sturdy oak table was usually covered with my mother’s latest sewing projects, but my brother Jimmy and I managed to eke out enough space to do our homework or play our favorite board games. Our home was roomy and comfortable, and before the war was over it would be a safe haven not only for my immediate family, but for others as well.
LOIS YOUNG HART’S reflections on what it was like to grow up during World War II will continue in Thursday’s and Friday’s editions.
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