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Code Yellow – Nazis Invade Holland

Posted in Adolf Hitler, Corrie Ten Boom, Diet Eman, Dutch Royal Family, PEOPLE, Queen Wilhelmina, TOPICS, World War II, tagged Adolf Hitler, biographies of brave women, code yellow, Corrie Ten Boom, Diet Eman, Dutch Resistance WW2, German Invasion of the Netherlands, Haarlem, Holland, Nazis, Queen Wilhelmina, Radio Orange, The Hague, World War II on March 20, 2014| 6 Comments »

Corrie’s father turned on the old table radio to warm it up. Corrie felt that the small, portable one would have worked just fine, but her father insisted on using this old one. It was to be a major broadcast, he said, and the old radio had an elaborate speaker. The prime minister of the Netherlands was to address the Dutch nation.

It was 9:15 on a Thursday night, an hour when Corrie, Father, and Corrie’s sister Betsie normally would be heading upstairs to bed. As was their custom, they had already said their prayers and read a passage from the Bible. But, this evening, they would stay up a little later.

Corrie, Betsie, and Nollie Ten Boom

The Ten Boom family lived above their watch shop in Haarlem in the Netherlands (Holland).

Casper Ten Boom in watch shop

It was May 9, 1940. World War II was raging in Europe. The aggressive German army had invaded and occupied Poland, Norway, and Denmark. As a result, England and France had declared war on Germany. The Netherlands, however, did not and would not enter the conflict. They had declared their neutrality, the same as they had done in the first world war. Germany had respected their neutrality then and would do so again, they expected.

But every day fresh rumors reached their ears of an impending German invasion. Would Holland be drawn into the war? To calm these fears, the German Nazis repeatedly pledged goodwill to the people of the Netherlands. Many times Corrie had heard Hitler himself on the radio, promising the Dutch people that he would not invade their country.

Finally, it was 9:30, and time for the prime minister’s speech. The Ten Booms pulled their wooden, high-backed chairs closer to the radio, leaning in to listen, tense.

The parlor of the Ten Boom house in Haarlem, the Netherlands

The prime minister’s voice filtered over the air waves. Tonight, it was pleasant and soothing. He told the Dutch people that there was no reason to worry. There would be no war. He knew it for a fact. He had spoken to people in high places.

In spite of the prime minister’s encouraging words, The Ten Booms were not comforted. The broadcast ended. They went upstairs to bed.

Five hours later and 37 miles south down the coast, 19 year old Diet (Deet) Eman woke up to noise outside her bedroom window. It was about 3 in the morning. It sounded as if someone was beating a rug. It was a steady, staccato sound – “pop-pop-pop” – only much faster. Deet lived in The Hague, Netherlands, where Queen Wilhelmina and her government were established.

Diet Eman was 19 years old when the Germans invaded the Netherlands

“This is crazy!” She thought. “Some idiot is beating rugs right now, and it’s pitch dark outside.” It’s true it was Friday morning and Friday was the day of the week that Dutch women typically beat rugs. But who would beat rugs at three in the morning?

What Diet heard was the first sound of the war. The Germans had invaded the Netherlands. The skies were filled with German parachutists falling. German Stukas dive-bombed the airfield, wiping out the Dutch biplanes. Diet’s sister’s fiancé, part of the weak Dutch army, was killed that day in the German bombing.

German parachutists attack the Netherlands May 10-14, 1940

The Dutch people had been caught off guard. So many times they had readied for invasion only to discover it was a false alarm. Over time, they had grown complacent, caught in the net of Nazi lies and deception.

Some of the invading German soldiers crossed the border and parachuted from planes in disguise. They wore Dutch, French, and Belgian military uniforms and carried machine guns. Their disguises allowed them to roam freely behind the Dutch lines. It was Hitler’s idea to deceive and infiltrate the enemy; the Dutch army would be confused and not know who to shoot, the French and the Belgians being their allies. Dutch Nazis met them upon arrival and aided their sabotage activities. Other German soldiers dressed up as nuns, bicyclists, priests, peasants, and schoolboys in order to move undetected among the Dutch population. They seized key strongholds like water controls and bridges to pave the way for the German infantry.

Peace talks were underway when the Germans went ahead and ruthlessly bombed Rotterdam, the Netherlands. This was the message: If the Netherlands doesn’t surrender, we will do what we did to Rotterdam to every one of the Dutch cities until you surrender.

The German blitzkrieg crushed the Dutch defenses in five days, allowing the Germans to turn their attention then to invading France. On May 14, 1940, the Netherlands surrendered and the German occupation began in earnest. Germans moved swiftly to prepare Dutch airbases to send missiles to destroy England.

With the May 1940 occupation of Holland, Germany is poised to attack England.

However, Queen Wilhelmina had foiled the Nazi plot to kidnap her and escaped, by boat, to England, where she set up a government in exile. Thanks to the BBC radio network, she was able to speak to her people for the next five years over the radio, urging them to resist the Germans.

It was revealed that the Nazis who had been trained to capture her – but had failed – had taken lessons in how to correctly address royalty. After capturing her, the plan went, a German general would come calling, a bouquet of flowers in hand, and attempt to persuade her to call off all resistance activity.

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Audrey Hepburn: Growing Up Among the Nazis

Posted in Audrey Hepburn, Margot Fonteyn, Ninette de Valois, PEOPLE, Sadler's Wells Ballet, World War II, tagged Arnhem, Audrey Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn's childhood artwork, Audrey Ruston, biographies of actresses, biographies of brave women, biographies of women, black performances, Blackshirts, Breakfast at Tiffany's, British Union of Fascists, Castle Zypendaal, Dutch Resistance, Dutch Underground, Edda van Heemstra, Ella van Heemstra, fascism, German occupation of the Netherlands, Hitler, Holland, Joseph Ruston, Joseph Ruston-Hepburn, Margot Fonteyn, Nazis, Oswald Mosley, pictures of Audrey Hepburn as a teenager, pictures of Audrey Hepburn dancing, pictures of Audrey Hepburn young, Queen Wilhelmina, Rotterdam, Sadler's Wells Ballet, the Dutch Resistance, The Hunger Winter, the Netherlands, World War II on January 11, 2014| 27 Comments »

Audrey Hepburn (ca. 1935-37, perhaps in Brussels, age 6-8)

It was May 9, 1940, and Audrey Kathleen Hepburn (Ruston) had just turned eleven years old. She was living in Holland with her mother, her two older brothers, and other relatives. Her father lived in London. Her parents were divorced.

To celebrate Audrey’s birthday, her mother, Dutch Baroness Ella van Heemstra Ruston, had bought tickets for her and Audrey to see a performance by the great English dance troupe, The Sadler’s Wells Ballet. The company was touring Holland, France, and Belgium. Audrey’s town of Arnhem was to be one of their stops.

Audrey (1929-1993) had been living in Holland for only nine months. Previously, she had been in boarding school in England. But, in September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. All at once, England was no longer a safe place for a little girl, as it had declared war on Germany. At her mother’s request, Audrey’s father scooped up Audrey from her school and put her on a big orange plane to Holland (also known as the Netherlands), where her mother’s family lived. Holland intended to stay neutral in the war with Germany and was considered a safe place for riding out the conflict.

Audrey Hepburn and her mother Ella, Baroness van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston, ca. 1936.

Audrey had not seen her dad since that day at the airport. She missed him so! Her parents’ divorce had left an aching hole in her heart. But on this particular May day, Audrey was not sad. She was looking forward to the ballet! Her mother had given her more than one reason to smile:

“My mother had our little dressmaker make me a long taffeta dress. It went all the way to the ground, and it rustled. There was a little round collar, a little bow here, and a little button in front. The reason she got me this, at great expense, was that I was to present a bouquet of flowers at the end of the performance to…the director of the company.”

The evening finally arrived. Audrey wore her beautiful new long dress and got to see the famous Margot Fonteyn dance in “Horoscope” and “Façade” by choreographer Frederick Ashton. It was marvelous.

Margot Fonteyn in the Polka from Ashton's Facade, 1940. Fonteyn was the principal dancer of the Royal Ballet Company for 20 years.

Margot Fonteyn as the Polka from Ashton’s Facade, 1940. Fonteyn was the principal dancer of the Royal Ballet Company (originally the Sadler’s Wells) for 20 years.

Afterwards, Audrey’s mother took the stage and gave a formal thanks to the troupe first in Dutch, then in English. Next was Audrey’s big moment. To her surprise, her bouquet of tulips and roses was hurriedly accepted. A quick supper followed, as the dancers hustled about afterward, gathering up their props and costumes, to get on their bus to leave Arnhem that very evening. According to the British consul, there was suspicious German military activity nearby. The dancers didn’t want to get stuck in Holland if the Germans did attack and closed off the borders.

As Audrey’s head lay on the pillow that night, the Germans invaded Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The Dutch were totally shocked. They never dreamed Hitler would attack them, his “Dutch cousins”! Just the night before, matter of fact, Hitler had made a radio broadcast, promising to all who listened that he had no plans whatsoever of attacking Holland. For five days, the Germans came down on the Dutch with the force of Hell. They never bothered issuing a formal declaration of war either.

German parachutists invading the Netherlands, May 10-15, 1940

This is the city center of Rotterdam, Holland, following the German Blitz of May 14, 1940. A ceasefire was already in progress but the Nazis bombed anyway.

They blasted the city of Rotterdam with an air attack that killed 1,000 Dutch civilians and left 85,000 homeless (accounts vary as to the exact number).

Incendiary bombs were dropped on the Hague. Nazi troops tore through Audrey’s town of Arnhem, looting and despoiling as they pleased. The Germans threatened to bomb every Dutch city until they were demolished until Holland surrendered. The Dutch military, though terribly outnumbered, fought back anyway, but they were no match for the conquering horde, and were forced to surrender. After five days, Holland capitulated. It would be occupied by the Nazis for five very long years. The Germans wanted to take over the world and destroy the Jewish population.

At first, Audrey’s family was allowed to remain at their regal ancestral home, Castle Zypendaal (or Zijpendaal). Audrey Hepburn’s mother’s family was of Dutch nobility.

Audrey Hepburn’s mother’s family was of Dutch nobility. This is one of their homes, the Castle Zypendaal in Arnhem.

Over the next ten months, the van Heemstra bank accounts, securities, and jewelry would be confiscated by the Nazis. Rations were imposed on food and fuel which were soon in short supply for the suffering Dutch people. Food became completely nonexistent during the Hunger Winter of 1944 as the Germans cut off all imports of foods to punish the Dutch Resistance (secret group that fought back against the Nazis from inside Holland). During that time, Audrey confessed to eating bread made from flour from tulip bulbs and grass to keep from starving to death like 20,000 other Dutch citizens did that winter.

The Hunger Winter, 1944-45. Wood is taken from the tram rail in Holland to burn as fuel.

The German occupiers spread anti-English sentiment, banning the import of British jams and biscuits and outlawing the Girl and Boy Scouts. The Germans hoped they could whip the Dutch into a hatred for the English and recruit them in the battle against Britain.

Audrey Hepburn-Ruston was an English name and Audrey spoke English. She carried a British passport. With the Nazis cracking down on the English, the Baroness was worried. Quickly, Audrey’s mother gave Audrey a new identity as a little Dutch girl. For the war years, the Baroness changed her daughter’s name to Edda van Heemstra. Audrey – now Edda – took Dutch language lessons so she could pass as Dutch and not be arrested for being English. Audrey did not risk speaking English for the rest of the war.

Audrey Hepburn at a dance recital, 1944, Arnhem Conservatory, Holland (age 15)

Audrey was keen to be a famous ballet dancer and her mother was the quintessential stage mom. In 1941, Ella sent Audrey to the Arnhem Conservatory to study dance. It was then that Audrey decided that she wanted to grow up to become a ballerina. Her dream was to

“wear a tutu and dance at Covent Garden.”

Her mother made her ballet slippers from scraps of felt, as materials became scarcer and scarcer, since the Nazis took the best for themselves, always.

As a child of war, Audrey learned to cope with hunger, fear, and deprivation through art, music, and dance. Soon, though, she and some other dancers began staging private, secret dance shows to raise money for the Dutch Resistance.

“I designed the dances myself. I had a friend that played the piano, and my mother made the costumes. They were very amateurish attempt – but…it amused people.”

The recitals were given in houses with windows and doors closed, and no one outside knew what was going on. Afterward, money was collected and turned over to the Dutch Resistance. To keep from being discovered, the audiences did not clap.

“The best audience I ever had made not a single sound at the end of my performance.”

Audrey Hepburn during a dance recital in Arnhem, Holland, 1944

Sometimes at these “black performances,” resistance workers attended. They gave the young performers money and folded messages to be stuffed into the children’s shoes and transported the next day to resistance workers. The children risked death to save the lives of resistance workers and Audrey was one of these children.

One winter day, Audrey was walking along a city street when three truckloads full of German soldiers toting rifles stopped suddenly. The soldiers ordered all the girls in their sight to line up and get in the trucks. Audrey did as she was told. As the trucks drove off, Audrey kept saying the Lord’s Prayer to herself in Dutch. Then the convoy stopped unexpectedly. Some soldiers jumped out and began abusing some Jews. Audrey said:

“I remember hearing the dull sound of a rifle butt hitting a man’s face. And I jumped down, dropped to my knees, and rolled under the truck. I then skittered out, hoping the driver would not notice me – and he didn’t.”

Audrey with father, preNazi Occupation, ca. 1934-35, age 5-6

And where was Audrey’s father all this time? He was arrested in England and accused of peddling Nazi propaganda for the notorious leader of the British Union of Fascists, Sir Oswald Mosley. He remained under house arrest for the duration of the war on the Isle of Man with other suspected Nazi sympathizers.

Below are some beautiful drawings Audrey made during the war.

Audrey Hepburn’s childhood artwork

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Abe Lincoln: The Freedmen’s Monument

Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, John Wilkes Booth, PEOPLE, The American Civil War, tagged Abraham Lincoln, American Civil War, American history, assassination of Abraham Lincoln, biographies of presidents, black history month, Emancipation Proclamation, Frederick Douglass, Freedmen's Monument, John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln Assassination, Lincoln Memorial, Lincoln's birthday, Slavery, the, Washington D.C. on February 12, 2010| 1 Comment »

Freedmen’s Monument, Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C.; sculptor, Thomas Ball. The sculpture was funded solely from freed slaves, primarily from African-American Union veterans, to pay homage to the American president who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, thus liberating them from bondage in the Confederate States. The statue was dedicated on April 14, 1876, 11 years after Abraham Lincoln's assassination by the Confederate rebel John Wilkes Booth. Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass delivered the dedication speech.

Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln

Frederick Douglass delivered a speech at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln at Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1876. This is the conclusion of what Douglass said to the crowd:

“Fellow-citizens, the fourteenth day of April, 1865, of which this is the eleventh anniversary, is now and will ever remain a memorable day in the annals of this Republic. It was on the evening of this day, while a fierce and sanguinary rebellion was in the last stages of its desolating power; while its armies were broken and scattered before the invincible armies of Grant and Sherman; while a great nation, torn and rent by war, was already beginning to raise to the skies loud anthems of joy at the dawn of peace, it was startled, amazed, and overwhelmed by the crowning crime of slavery–the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It was a new crime, a pure act of malice. No purpose of the rebellion was to be served by it. It was the simple gratification of a hell-black spirit of revenge. But it has done good after all. It has filled the country with a deeper abhorrence of slavery and a deeper love for the great liberator.

Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually–we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief, and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate–for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him–but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever.”

Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass, daguerrotype, 1855. Douglass recruited black men to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Readers, I’ve posted many articles on Abe Lincoln. Scroll down the right sidebar to Categories/People/Abraham Lincoln for more! Enjoy.

Also on this blog: “Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.”

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The Murder of President Lincoln. Appeal to the Colored People!

Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, PEOPLE, The American Civil War, tagged Assassination of President Lincoln, Booth manhunt, Edwin Stanton, John Wilkes Booth, Major W.S. Hancock on June 22, 2009| 2 Comments »

Booth reward poster It was April 24, 1865 – ten days since President Lincoln was assassinated – and his killer still remained at large. On the night of April 14, John Wilkes Booth had shot the president in the head, jumped on a horse, and slipped across the Potomac River undetected. He had disappeared into Maryland, a state that had stayed in the Union in the Civil War (which had ended just days earlier), but was sprinkled with Confederate spies. Speculation was that Booth would cross Maryland into Virginia with the help of fellow Confederate sympathizers.

The 16th New York Cavalry was on Booth’s trail but no leads had resulted in his capture, despite a whopping $100,000 reward promised by the War Department. So on April 24, Major W.S. Hancock issued a new proclamation appealing to the black population of Washington, Maryland, and Virginia, for their help in the manhunt. Hancock calculated that Booth could not escape without encountering blacks. The following proclamation was printed on letter size handbills and distributed:

THE MURDER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

APPEAL TO THE COLORED PEOPLE!

HEADQUARTERS MIDDLE MILITARY DIVISION

Washington, D.C., April 24, 1865

To the colored people of the District of Columbia and of Maryland, of Alexandria and the border counties of Virginia;

Your President had been murdered! He has fallen by the assassin and without a moment’s warning, simply and solely because he was your friend and the friend of our country. Had he been unfaithful to you and to the great cause of human freedom he might have lived. The pistol from which he met his death, though held by Booth, was fired by the hands of treason and slavery. Think of this and remember how long and how anxiously this good man labored to break your chains and to make you happy. I now appeal to you, by every consideration which can move loyal and grateful hearts, to aid in discovering and arresting his murderer. Concealed by traitors, he is believed to be lurking somewhere within the limits of the District of Columbia, of the State of Maryland, or Virginia. Go forth, then, and watch, and listen, and inquire, and search, and pray, by day and night, until you shall have succeeded in dragging this monstrous and bloody criminal from his hiding place….

Large rewards have been offered…and they will be paid for the apprehension of this murderer….But I feel that you need no such stimulus as this. You will hunt down this cowardly assassin of your best friend, as you would the murderer of your own father….

All information which may lead to the arrest of Booth, or Surratt, or Harold, should be communicated to these headquarters….

W.S. Hancock

Major General U.S. Volunteers

Commanding Middle Military Division

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The Civil War: The High Price of Peace

Posted in The American Civil War, tagged Abraham Lincoln, Civil War statistics, the Civil War, the Confederacy map on March 24, 2009| 4 Comments »

The Confederacy 1861-1865 (orange)

THE PRICE OF THE CIVIL WAR

UNION

Soldiers 2,500,000-2,750,000

Soldiers wounded who survived 275,175

Soldiers who lost their lives 360,222

Civilians who lost their lives None

CONFEDERATE

Soldiers 750,000-1,250,000

Soldiers wounded who survived 102,703

Soldiers who lost their lives 258,000

Civilians who lost their lives 50,000

The total cost of the war was $20 billion (approximately $250 billion in today’s money), or five times the total expenditure of the federal government from its creation in 1788 to 1865. (2)

(1) Map

(2)Fleming, Candace. The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary. (New York: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2008)

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Abe & Elvis Whistling “Dixie”

Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Elvis, PEOPLE, The American Civil War, tagged Abraham Lincoln, Appomattox Court House, Civil War, Confederacy, Confederate flag, Confederate rebels, Confederate surrender, Daniel Emmett, Dixie, Elvis Presley, General Ulysses S. Grant, Gideon Welles, Lee's surrender, Mary Lincoln, Mathew Brady photographs, Richmond, Robert E. Lee, Tad Lincoln, the Union, Virginia, War Between the States on March 23, 2009| 2 Comments »

Confederate General Robert E. Lee, seated, with 2 of his officers, photographed by Mathew Brady in April, 1865, following Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House in Richmond, Virginia.

At daylight on April 10, 1865, the firing of 500 cannons spread the news throughout Washington, D.C., that the War Between the States was over and the Union preserved. The cannons were so loud that they broke windows on Lafayette Square, the neighborhood around the White House. (1) “Guns are firing, bells ringing, flags flying, bands playing, men laughing, children cheering – all, all jubilant,” wrote Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells. (2)

Expecting the president to make a speech, several thousand people gathered outside the White House. President Lincoln was not sure what to say as he was planning on giving a formal address the following evening.Just then, his twelve-year-old son Tad appeared at a second-floor window, waving a captured Confederate flag. It gave the president an idea. He asked the Marine Band to play a favorite tune of his, “Dixie,” the unofficial Confederate anthem.

“I have always thought ‘Dixie” one of the best tunes I ever heard,” he told the surprised crowd. “It is good to show the rebels that with us they will be free to hear it again.”

True to the promise he made in his second inaugural address, Lincoln was already trying to bind up the nation’s wounds.

Now let’s hear Elvis Presley sing “Dixie.”

(1) White, Ronald C. A. Lincoln. (New York: Random House, 2009)

(2) Fleming, Candace. The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary. (New York: Schwartz & Wade, 2008)

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Mama and Daddy Remember World War II

Posted in World War II, tagged Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid on February 15, 2009| 6 Comments »

Carolyn King Waller (b.1934)

My mother underwent a hip replacement last week. While waiting for Mom to be wheeled off to surgery, I had an opportunity to talk with both Mama (Carolyn) and Daddy (John) about their growing-up years in the thirties and forties.
Carolyn:You want to remember that in the 30s and later, the iceman brought ice to your doorstep. The garbage trucks would come by and the men would be standing in the truck beds knee-deep in garbage. It wasn’t very hygienic! Mother used to make me sugar and butter sandwiches. People ate a lot of cheap foods like butter beans, rice pudding, bread pudding. Think how cheap rice pudding would be. (My grandmother) Nona used to make cooked onions.
You would open a box of soap powder and you would find a little trinket in the flakes. There might be a dishcloth in it or a Shirley Temple spoon, or maybe a piece of depression glass. It cost 12 cents for a child to go to the movies and 30 cents for an adult. Think how cheap that was – to be transported into another world for two hours for only pennies! Hollywood stars would be dressed up (in the movies) in oh so fancy clothes. We didn’t have much money for clothes but we didn’t begrudge them (the stars) for that. don-winslow

The forties were a time of serial movies on Saturday afternoon. When you went to the movies on Saturday, you would get a serial thrown in. They were probably continuing week-to-week narratives, little short ones, about twenty minutes each. There was “Don Winslow in the Navy,” “The Green Hornet,” “The Green Lantern,” cowboy serials, “Zorro.” They were always full of action. The serials came on at intermission. The serials had someone fighting against the enemy overseas or some other bad guys. The bad guys usually wore black hats; the good guys usually wore white hats. Our family wasn’t shallow but movies were our thing.

John A. Waller, Jr. (b.1930)

Lisa: Changing the subject, Dad, did you have a car when you went to UT in the early fifties?
John: My first car was the big white Oldsmobile that my parents had had before my wedding. They gave it to us before we got married. They’d bought it in 1947.
Carolyn: It had an automatic shift in the days when a lot of cars didn’t.
John: In 1937, my father had bought another car in Yoakum (Texas) that had an automatic shift. It was also an Oldsmobile. He didn’t buy another one for ten years, until he bought that big white one in 1947, the one he gave us. You couldn’t buy cars during the war years. All the metal, rubber and everything that had been used in car production went to the war vehicles.
Carolyn: In those days, everyone was on foot. Cars were useful, very important, if you had one. Drive-ins were a big deal. When you had a car, you went to a drive-in movie or a drive-up hamburger shop.
Lisa: Was gas rationed in the 40s?
Carolyn: Yes. There were different levels. Some people had As, some had Bs, and maybe Cs. When your grandparents passed away, Lisa, we found their ration books. They had saved them. The amount of gasoline rations you were issued depended upon your level of importance to the government. We had meatless Tuesdays. We cut down on our food consumption to save more “for the boys” (fighting the war). We had victory gardens to grow food for ourselves. In Hollywood, there had to be less fabric in the dresses so costumes were less sumptious. My mother’s cookbook at the time had recipes that were tailored to “the fighting forties.” They didn’t call for so much sugar and butter, or eggs, for that matter. They were more stringent recipes. We had sugar and meat coupons. Except for these cutbacks, we were really sheltered from the war.
John: It was all a newsreel war.
Carolyn: A gold star mother was someone in the community who had lost her son. Mrs. Pyle was one, maybe Mrs. Roscoe. Daddy and I didn’t pay any price.
John: I lived in Yoakum and they didn’t connect to anything.
Carolyn: I lived in Corpus Christi (Texas) where they had the largest naval station in the country. There may have been submarines in the Gulf of Mexico. We had black-out curtains. There was a rumor about a guy named Poenisch who was signaling Germans out on the water.
Lisa: Dad, back to your comment a while ago about World War II being “all newsreel war.”
John: That’s where we saw pictures of the war – at the movies. We saw newsreels that came on between the features. They were about 10 to 15 minutes long. Most of them were of the war, the battles. We saw pictures and heard the audio by Edward R. Murrow or Eric Severeid.
Carolyn: Oh, my gosh, he (Eric Sevareid) reported from the tops of burning buildings! Hollywood had been asked by the government to make happy propaganda. FDR asked the movie industry to do that. So we got movies like “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” “So Proudly We Hail,” “Edge of Darkness,” “Bataan.”
John: After the war, there was “The Best Years of Our Lives.” That movie showed what it was really like for those soldiers coming home. They got the GI bill and went to college. That’s who I went to school with.
Carolyn: All through the war, we weren’t touched by the war personally, but we were affected by it because so many of the movies were about it. Oh, we can’t forget to mention “Casablanca.”