World War II Woman

A Pilot Achieves Her Dream

In February of 1943, Kay was teaching in Bucks County, Pennsylvania when the Marine Corps Women Reserves was formed. She thought she would like to be a Marine, so she joined. Her boot camp training was at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. From there she was assigned to attend a Link Trainer School at a naval facility near Atlanta, Georgia. Following that training, she received her permanent assignment to the Naval Air Station at Cherry Point, North Carolina.

As a Link Trainer, she instructed pilots in instrument flying. Much of the time was spent helping returning pilots brush up on new procedures. One of the pilots who came through for training was Tyrone Power. (For you younger readers, he was a famous movie star when many of us were growing up.)

Kay was very happy as a Link Trainer Instructor. She felt she was very lucky, being at the right place at the right time, and she can’t think of anything else she would rather have done. She was discharged at Camp Lejeune in 1946. Neither she nor the ten or so other women serving with her really wanted to disband.

When she returned to Bucks County, she returned to teaching music in elementary schools in Bucks County. She had received her higher education at Moravian College for Women in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Temple University in Philadelphia. In 1948 she married her high school math teacher. Kay continues her interest in music, playing the recorder and singing with several choral groups.

Kay always wanted to be a pilot. She recalls as a child running out to see a plane overhead. When she was at Cherry Point, she had hitch-hiked to Rocky Mount to take flying lessons. She continued her interest in flying when she returned to Bucks County and received additional lessons. Kay became the first woman pilot to fly out of the Quakertown, Pennsylvania Airport.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

A Marine Named Toby

During World War II Joel had two members of his family in World War II. His father was in the Merchant Marines and his dog was in the Marines.

His dad was an oiler on a tanker. While unloading fuel in North Africa, the ship was struck by a torpedo or mine. Without ballast, the tanker bobbled in the sea for awhile and finally returned to Marseilles for repair or scrap.

At the end of the war, Joel’s dad received a letter of appreciation thanking him for his service. Except for the Marines, the Merchant Marines had the greatest casualty rate.

Joel’s dog, Toby, was a Doberman Pincer, purchased in Parkersburg, West Virginia by his dad in 1940 for the family, then living in Punxsutawny, Pennsylvania. Toby enlisted (or was enlisted) and sent to Parris Island for training where he became a real Marine Devil Dog. Toby, a scout dog, was tattooed with the number 254 and assigned to Marine Brownlee.

Brownlee and Toby were in the battle of Pelilalu Island in the Pacific Theater. They lived in the same foxhole and ate the same food rations for weeks. Because of his alertness, Toby saved the Marine’s life on more than one occasion.

It was only natural that Brownlee wanted to keep Toby when the war concluded, however the family wanted him back also. After detraining, Toby was sent home by train. He was starved and gobbled down one sandwich after the other.

Although Toby was gentle, he remained a one-family dog and was kept fenced in. He died at the age of 16 and was buried under an oak tree on the family property.

The family still has Toby’s official discharge papers.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

A Present for Gen. Patton’s Wife

For most of the war, Wes was stationed in Naples, Italy in the Finance section of the Army. Here soldiers came to receive their pay, and on occasion, some rather famous people arrived.

One of his fondest memories was the day General Patton arrived at the window requesting $400 to buy a Christmas present for his wife. As Wes would do with any such request from a member of the military, he said, “Sir, I need your name, rank, and serial number.” And Wes still has the paper upon which was written, George S. Patton, Jr. with rank and serial number.

Wes told him to go to the next window to receive his money from the sergeant on duty. And off went General Patton with his money. When the major sitting in the back room heard that General Patton had been in the bank, he came crashing out asking why Wes and the others had not buzzed him.

Another famous visitor was the boxer Jack Dempsey, who was in Naples entertaining the troops. His request was for far less money - $60.00.

Wes tells about the transporting of a huge some of money from the United States to Italy – 25 million in lira. Wes was on the ship that brought the money to Italy as it went down the coast of the United States to South America. From there, he headed across the Atlantic with a full naval escort, zigzagging across the ocean into the Mediterranean. It took Italian workers one-half day to unload all the cartons.

At one point, Wes was in Rome with a group of other soldiers and nurses. In his second floor apartment, the Pope came out to bless them while sitting on a sort of chair carried by four men.

Later in the war, Wes was sent to the southern part of Italy where trees were being cut down into huge logs for use as ballast in the ships returning empty to the United States.

Upon his discharge, Wes returned to Philadelphia and went to work for Bell Telephone, where he continued for many years. His companion the first day, took him to the North Philadelphia garage to sign him up for the credit union and to take care of first things first – coffee.

 For more World War II stories, go to www.peggeorge.com

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

Memories from Washington, D.C.

Joan was ten years old, growing up in the city of Washington, D. C, during the war. She recalls spending wonderful summer afternoons in the city for just seventy cents. The bus to and from home was three cents, the cream cheese and olive sandwich at People’s Drugs was twenty cents, the soda was five cents, and admission to Capital Theater was forty cents. Here, she and her friends would be entertained by Frank Sinatra, Vaughan Monroe, and many other performers, who were in Washington mainly to entertain the troops, frequently in USO’s.

Her grandmother ran a rooming house, which, because of the huge influx of people into Washington, was always full. She recalls Sunday dinners at which time lively arguments about the way various generals were managing the war took place. She also remembers learning about the war from the “Weekly Reader.”

Her dad’s job was to read the mail and to inspect all packages for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Because of the numerous items arriving at the White House without sufficient storage space, her dad was given some of the hand-made gifts to take home. Joan recalls a number of dolls and also a crocheted rug with a flag design worked into it. Her dad continued in this job throughout the presidency of Harry S. Truman.

Truman’s first act after taking office was to issue a Proclamation of Peace, and Day of Prayer following the end of the war in Europe. On the following Christmas, original Proclamations were sent to everyone working in the White House. Joan still owns her father’s Proclamation.

Joan’s doctor uncle served in the Pacific. He treated U. S prisoners aboard a ship stationed off the coast of Manila. Her mother was an air raid warden in the neighborhood. Joan recalls dark curtains at the window and rationing. She tells about going to the grocery store when her mother heard that butter had become available. She took her ration book with her and placed the butter in her cart. While she was in the line to pay her bill, some woman came by and stole the butter from her basket. No butter for her family that week, but she did have steak for her birthday, after a year of no steak.

Like many other people, Joan remembers where she was December 7, 1941. She and her younger brother had been given five cents to go to the candy store. There she heard about the attack and ran swiftly home to share the news with the family.

For more stories on World War II, go to www.peggeorge.com.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

How One Family Served Our Country

John was one of ten children. He was sixteen in 1946, but many of his siblings were involved in the war. His three older brothers served in World War II.

His brother Andrew joined the Army in October of 1941, just prior to the outbreak of war. The family did not see him again for four years. He was stationed at a weather observation post in the Himalayas in India where he contracted malaria. His brother Joe was a flight engineer and in the battle of Midway. Again the family had no idea where he was for a long period of time. He came home safely but had been hit by shrapnel on several occasions. His brother Philip was married with two children, but he, too, served in the Pacific – on an aircraft carrier.

John’s three oldest sisters were married with husbands working in essential jobs – in shipbuilding, the mills, and the coal mines. His younger sisters had husbands in the service. They came home to live when their husbands went off to war, bringing their young babies with them. It was a full household. His dad was busy with his shoe repair business and his mother was busy with the family.

John recalls that he and his Italian friends were called “Dumb Dagos” and were told to get down in the gutter. In return, these name-callers received the term “Cake-eaters” because they ate soft white bread. John tells of exchanging his asparagus tips omelet sandwich made with Brick oven crusty bread for a “cake-eater’s” bologna sandwich. In spite of the name-calling, John was elected class president in his junior and senior years of high school.

When he complained to his father about the teasing and that “proper” girls weren’t allowed to date him, his father said, in his thick Italian accent, “Never mind, Johnny. Don’t let that bother you. I’m an American, your mother is an American, we are all Americans in our family.” And, indeed they were first-class patriots, all four sons serving their country. John the youngest, served in the Korean War.

John’s mother always hoped she would see one of her children attend college. And she did, but she died the summer John was accepted into dental school. He went on to post-graduate school and became an orthodontist.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

Life Along the Ohio River

While visiting with my good friends Joan and John in Chincoteague, Virginia, recently, I gathered material for several blob entries.

John’s story begins with his father who came to this country from Italy in 1912, and arrived in New York City. Even though he was a trained shoemaker, who actually made shoes, he found work in this country as a ditch digger. His petrone (patron) told him and some of his friends that he had heard that jobs had been advertised at the train station, and perhaps these young men should investigate.

The fellows went to the station, saw the advertisement, and boarded the train, expecting to be home for dinner. They ended up twelve hours later in Wellsburg, West Virginia – without any money. They found work at the Eagle Manufacturing Company, which made oilcans. It was the largest single company in the United States making cans. John’s father had a job but wouldn’t be paid until after the first week. No one would rent him and his friends rooms without their having a down payment, so they went to the cemetery, gathered the leaves together and slept there for the first week – until they received a paycheck.

John’s dad eventually became a shoe repair man, repairing heavy shoes for the steelworkers in the area steel mills. During World War II, he managed to get sacks of worn Army shoes that soldiers turned in for new shoes. He repaired them, and made them available to people in the community without their having to part with precious ration stamps.

Wellsburg is along the Ohio River, which was extremely busy during the war with LST’s, subchasers, and vessels loaded with coal and steel traveling down the Ohio to the Mississippi and out to the Gulf of Mexico on their way to various destinations. All the vessels carrying cargo were still paddle wheelers. In spite of Coast Guard surveillance, John and his friends loved to go out in their rowboats and play among the vessels. They would try to meet the boats, catch the spray, and ride the rollers coming from the ships.

More to follow on John and his family in the next blog.

For World War stories, go towww.peggeorge.com

.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »

Prisoners in China

Charlie recalls many of his friends from Boston University and their lives since they were in college together, although he wanted to share the story of one classmate, in particular - Dick Fectau.

As Charlie recalls, Dick and another fellow, Jack Downey, were shot down over China and spent twenty years in prison over there, being held in tiny individual cells, with no outside contact. Dick told Charlie that one of his survival techniques was to single out one of his BU classmates each day and just spend time thinking about them and the things they had done together.

As Charlie says, Dick’s is an amazing story. And so, I checked him out on the Internet. I learned that he and Jack Downey received the Director’s Award in 1998 from the then Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet. The reason for this award is described in the Congressional Record.

Fresh out of college, they joined the CIA during the Korean War period. After their training they were sent to Asia, where they were involved in dropping supplies to agents on the ground and in snatching agents from the ground to return these agents for debriefing. On one such occasion, in November 1952, their plane was shot down, the pilots killed, and Fectau and Downey were captured. Two years later they were sentenced to life imprisonment, held in solitary confinement, and subjected to harsh interrogation. .

Through the efforts of our government Dick Fectau was released in December of 1971, and Jack Downey was released in March of 1973.

Dick rejoined the agency from which he retired in 1973. He then went on to become the Assistant Director of Athletics at his alma mater, Boston University. He retired from that position in 1989. Jack Downey went on to Harvard Law School, entered the legal profession and became a judge.

Posted in Blog | No Comments »