Pittsburgh Remembers World War II

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by Dr. Joseph Rishel


  THE ORAL HISTORIES

  This book is not intended to be a history of World War II. Rather, it is the collected stories of seventeen Pittsburgh-area persons as they struggled through the war years and emerged from their experiences far different than before. Most of them were young, but they all experienced the war in an intensely personal way. For some, it was their coming of age, entering as a boy or a girl and maturing into a man or woman. All felt the impact of the war and the national climate of patriotism and commitment.

  The impetus for this book comes from a summer colloquium taught to graduate students from 2002 through 2008 by Dr. Joseph F. Rishel, a professor of history at Duquesne University. In that course, the topic of which was World War II, the students were taught how to conduct an oral history. They then selected persons to interview who retained vivid memories of World War II and were willing to have their narratives published. To be interviewed for this project, the person need not have actually been in the military, though most were. He or she needed only to possess memories of that war. Although some were active on the homefront, working in a defense industry, serving in civil defense or volunteering for rationing or recycling duties, others were in high school or even grade school during the war. For them, interest in the war played an important role impacting their school, family and social lives. They experienced the war through relatives and friends serving in the military, through the modern mass media of movies, radio and newspapers, through after-school work and through the shortages of consumer goods. All were caught up in very personal ways in this world cataclysm.

  Their stories are as varied as the American people themselves. Each person was interviewed several times before the story could be written in term paper form by the graduate student, who acted as interviewer. Because of this, each narrative in this book has a different author, though the term “author” is used loosely here. The true authors of the wartime biographies are the men and women who told their stories. So many decades later, their stories remain remarkably bright, surprisingly clear and always interesting. Each of the biographies is unique. All have something to add to our knowledge of the most destructive war of all time. The common denominator of the contributors to this collective memory is that all are Pittsburgh-area residents. The book intends to capture a broad range of society within a limited geographical area, demonstrating vast differences in how various individuals participated in or merely coped with changes in daily life inherent to a world at war.

  In editing these narratives, every effort was made to maintain the character of each interview and not to interfere with the style of the graduate student author or the mood evoked. The students reflected differing degrees of familiarity with their interview subjects. Some referred to them by surnames, others used their first names in the narratives. Quotations were kept as close to what was written as possible. The editing consists of clarifications, some supplemental information and some improvements to wording and flow, as well as a few factual corrections. The modern-day recollections of the respondents were expressed in the present tense. This was done to differentiate what persons thought or said during the war from their later memories. An attempt was made to select interviews that presented different but complementary views of the war, including those of combatants, military support personnel and a wide range of civilian situations from the Pittsburgh area.

  As the wartime generation passes away, they hope to leave posterity a sense of what it was like to live during those stressful yet unifying times. They also hope that the reader will realize the sacrifices everyone made for the cause of victory. It is their desire that their stories will live forever through the publication of this book.

  Part I

  Those Who Served on the Homefront

  ANYWHERE, ANYTIME—HOWEVER THEY COULD SERVE

  Jean “DeDe” Barnard Anderson,

  As told to Danae Brentzel

  Jean “DeDe” Barnard Anderson was a sixteen-year-old high school senior when the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. Until that point, the petite and lively young woman with the chestnut-brown hair had been living a fairly typical existence within the small town of Larimer, Pennsylvania, located east of McKeesport. Her day-to-day life consisted of school, chores, friends and dates, the usual activities for a young woman. For DeDe, however, as with the millions of others who came of age during the war years, the entire focus and scope of her life would be altered by the events taking place thousands of miles away from her hometown.

  Recollecting that day, DeDe says that she heard about the bombing in the same way as many of her friends. She had gone to see a movie that Sunday, and as she and her pals exited the theater, they were met with the news that would change the world as they knew it. She thinks that her pre–Pearl Harbor home was unusual for Larimer in that it was more focused on world events. Her father took an active interest in news reporting on Hitler’s armies as they crossed international borders and conquered new territories. The Japanese, on the other hand, were not even a consideration. “Before that, I don’t know that any of us really felt threatened…We were thinking about Hitler, and none of us ever thought that the Japanese would attack—it was so far away from us, I don’t think we realized until the boys started going. Then it was real.”

  Real, indeed. In fact, DeDe still remembers the first hometown boy to be killed in action, a young man named Cornelius “Cornie” Pass. Her life, too, was undergoing changes as she graduated from high school and began to consider her future. A member of a family that prized hard work, simply sitting idle was not an option for DeDe, even if she had wanted to do so. She therefore entered Grace Martin, an academy for young women owned and operated by a Mrs. Cornelius. Located off Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh, Grace Martin offered its young female students lessons in language and other “useful aspects of secretarial work.” In addition to her schoolwork, DeDe would also go with her fellow Grace Martin girls to what she termed “a certain quota of USO dances” being held throughout the city in places like the ballroom at the William Penn Hotel. The soldiers appreciated the attention of the beautiful young women, and the dances provided an opportunity to “do their part,” a desire held by all Americans, according to DeDe. Although she later had a sweetheart in the service, DeDe knew that her beau would never object to her going to the USO dances. It was simply another sign of how the post–Pearl Harbor world differed from the one that preceded it. She feels that people’s attitudes had changed, and changed for the better.

  The social landscape of Pittsburgh was not the only thing that changed. The changing economy and the ever-decreasing male workforce opened up opportunities that were not available prior to the war. Fueled by patriotism, the women of Pittsburgh were ready for them. DeDe was not alone in her desire to help. She says that “to become part of the war effort, many women worked in the factories; many, in addition to [their] regular jobs, served with the Red Cross, [helped] in hospitals where there were shortages, served on numerous committees, sold war bonds and attended USO functions.” Everyone did the task for which he or she was best suited.

  After graduation from Grace Martin, DeDe found a position working for Rosenbaum’s Department Store writing patriotic jingles to be played on the radio. After a year of that, she was ready for more responsibility, and she found it at the massive Westinghouse plant in East Pittsburgh, where she worked as an executive secretary in the Industrial Relations Department. During most of the remaining war years, DeDe remembers Westinghouse manufacturing various war goods. Her father, too, worked at Westinghouse. It was not uncommon for a number of family members to work in the plant. Westinghouse believed that good work habits traveled in families.

  War fund volunteers at the Pennsylvania College for Women, now Chatham University, update a poster showing the contributions of students and faculty, 1945. William J. Gaughan Collection, University of Pittsburgh.

  Her father did his part for the war effort and his fellow employees by sharing what he
could. Living outside the city as he did, DeDe’s father, Frank Barnard, was able to use the land surrounding his house for that World War II phenomenon, the victory garden. DeDe remembers, “Victory Gardens were in evidence everywhere. If you had property, you had one. Some areas in a community were mutually shared and tended by many. These gardens were hand-spaded, and nothing was sold. Vegetables were given to those unable to garden, and all shared freely in the bounty. For instance, my dad, who worked at Westinghouse, had co-workers from the urban areas come out and share the available harvest each week.” During the Depression years of the 1930s, Frank had also generously shared the produce from his large garden with his co-workers.

  Bustling with the production of war goods, Westinghouse was certainly an exciting place to work during the war years. Each of its workers, from executives to secretaries to those on the production line, could be sure of putting in a hard day’s work. Despite the grueling schedule, at the end of their shifts many volunteered their time and efforts elsewhere to help the war effort. DeDe took the train each day at the end of her shift from Pittsburgh to Greensburg, where she went to the hospital to put in her time as a nurse’s aide. Much as her father was her connection at Westinghouse, DeDe also had a contact at the hospital. Her mother, Nelle, worked as a head nurse there. A former World War I army nurse who had served near the front lines in France, Nelle knew both the horrors of war and the importance of a homefront for those fighting it. She had passed on this legacy to her daughter. DeDe recalled that the hospital was a bustling place; after all, wartime doesn’t stop civilian life entirely. However, there were shortages, such as bandages and some medications, which made hospital work difficult at times. Busy, busy days and busy, busy nights. Though DeDe had little unclaimed time, she didn’t mind. It was all, again, a part of doing what she could to help.

  The patriotic fervor that swept the nation during the war is evident in this flag-raising ceremony at a Pittsburgh plant. Note the workers saluting in military style rather than placing their hands over their hearts. William J. Gaughan Collection, University of Pittsburgh.

  DeDe remembers the traveling she did during the war with a wry laugh, not because of the destinations, but because of the means of travel. As many other western Pennsylvanians did during the war years, DeDe took an early train to and from East Pittsburgh for work each day. To travel a longer distance to visit a friend taking a naval V-5 course at Franklin and Marshall College, she took the train as well. None of her friends who owned cars were able to obtain enough ration coupons to buy gasoline, so the train was really their only option. It was not a comfortable means of transport by any stretch of the imagination, for most of the traditional “passenger” cars had been commandeered by the military for transport of troops and equipment.

  The July 4, 1945 issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette remonstrated wartime travelers. “While soldiers thumb rides or stand in jam-packed trains and buses, the civilian population continues to take ‘essential’ trips, despite the warning of the Office of Defense Transportation.” Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

  For civilians, she remembers, cattle cars had been fitted with benches for the traveling “comfort” (again the wry smile here!) of the passengers. However, those who managed to find a seat on the cattle car benches were the lucky ones. The other passengers did the best they could by sitting on the piles of luggage between coaches. Not the most relaxing way to travel, certainly, though one does suspect that these seating arrangements encouraged the passengers to make an extra effort to be early for the train.

  The loss of a seat on the train was of minor importance compared to another, far more pressing deficiency in DeDe’s life. Like millions of other fashion-conscious women, rationing hit her hard. In her recollection, everything was rationed—silk stockings, butter, meat, shoes, gasoline, sugar, metal appliances, etc. Not only that, to try to trade one’s ration coupons for these and many other items, each buyer had to stand in seemingly “endless” lines, sometimes only to find that the item in question had been bought out moments before. Many Americans, however, found ways around the rationing system, and the most popular of those routes was the black market.

  With gasoline rationing and the consequent rise in demand for public transportation, Pittsburgh Railways called back into service streetcars such as this one from 1924. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

  Pittsburgh, too, had those who “could get what you needed for enough money.” DeDe recalls a man on whom everyone relied for black market coupons. The man—even after all these years she declined to give his name—could provide coupons for literally everything, provided one had the cash to pay for it. Some Westinghouse employees patronized the black market for little items like sugar, butter and especially cigarettes, which had virtually disappeared from the aboveground market. Though not actually rationed, a tobacco quota was reserved for the military.

  DeDe’s most memorable experience with the black market, however, didn’t involve something as trivial as cigarettes. It involved something far more important to a fashion-conscious girl: shoes. Though she couldn’t remember what she had paid for the black market shoe coupons, DeDe does remember that it was an exorbitant amount of money. She chuckles as she recalled her excitement when she took the precious coupons home to show her family. Her father, an avid supporter of the president and of the war effort, was furious. He took DeDe’s coupons and—horror of horrors!—burned them in an ashtray right before her eyes, instructing her that she was never to bring black market items into his house ever again. Despite her heartbroken cry of “You burned my shoes!” Frank remained inflexible; DeDe never again purchased black market clothing coupons. Cigarettes, however, were another story.

  The rest of the rationing DeDe remembers almost cheerfully. Coffee was a scarce commodity, so the Barnard family drank chicory instead. What they called “butter” was actually a whitish margarine made yellow through the addition of orange coloring in a small capsule. Once the capsule in the bag of margarine was ruptured, DeDe would massage the color throughout the bag, causing the substance to turn yellow. The margarine, unlike today’s spreads, had a distinctive taste, which made it a poor substitute for butter. The shortages were not a crushing daily disappointment. The Barnard family had just weathered the Great Depression, and they all knew that these small sacrifices meant that they were once again helping with the war effort, even in this small way.

  Not all aspects of the war made for cheery reflections, however. One of the most difficult things DeDe remembers was the sheer lack of information they had about loved ones serving overseas. “News from afar was limited to fireside chats by FDR, radio, newsreels in theaters and newspapers. Communication with our loved ones took the form of V-mail letters, and much was blacked out by censorship except for ‘ifs, ands & buts.’ No hourly ‘on-spot’ coverage as today—perhaps a blessing in its way.” One of the V-mail letters DeDe received looked like a black-and-white patchwork quilt. The pens of the censors had blacked out all that might indicate where the writer was and what he was doing.

  Other memories were more cheerful, including visits to relatives in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore area. Naval Academy balls at Annapolis were among the highlights of DeDe’s wartime social memories. The excitement and tension surrounding the nation’s capital were palpable. There were also luncheons at the Iron Cross Inn and, perhaps most exciting for this avid lover of animals, visits to the compound where dogs were trained for special service. At that time, this was the best part of her visits. She recalls, “My memories of that time I spent in the ‘magical’ surroundings of Washington didn’t mean much, being very young,” but were certainly exciting nonetheless.

  Jean “DeDe” Bernard Anderson. Jean Bernard Anderson.

  Some members of DeDe’s family even played a part in one of the most controversial decisions of the war. In 1945, DeDe’s aunt, Lorraine Barnard Hobday, served in the Truman administration, working as an assistant for Robert Nathan, chief economic stabilizer and author of the
book Mobilizing for Abundance. DeDe often visited both Lorraine and her Aunt Elsie and uncle (affectionately called “Doc”) at their homes in Silver Spring, Maryland, and in Baltimore. As the story goes, in late July or early August 1945, DeDe’s mother and Aunt Chris were staying with Lorraine for a short vacation. One day, Lorraine invited Nelle and Chris to go “along for a ride” as she delivered some mail for her boss. After the atomic bomb was dropped a few days later on Hiroshima, the astonished Pittsburghers learned that the letters Lorraine had been hand-delivering were notices to the various key members of the Truman administration apprising them of the government’s intention to bomb Hiroshima. Shocked, Chris burst out, “Jesus Christ! I thought they had a whole bucket of them!” Still, as far as DeDe ever knew, they never spoke of it again, and she doubts that the importance of what they had been a part of ever occurred to these two unsophisticated ladies. DeDe was not along for that fateful ride. She had been sent home to Pittsburgh by her concerned uncle. Doc, whose job was affiliated with the yet-to-be formed CIA, felt that the naval boys in Baltimore would “tear the town apart” with the coming victory and this was an atmosphere far too racy (and potentially dangerous) for his young niece.

  Before leaving Baltimore for Pittsburgh, however, DeDe had two rather unusual experiences. The hotel where she stayed was very near Aberdeen Proving Grounds and also housed many young men. She assumed they were involved in wartime intelligence. She recalls seeing several of them one day in naval uniforms, the next dressed as army privates and then in nondescript civilian clothes. That was certainly unusual had they been civilians. However, the experience she found most odd happened one night as she lay in bed reading. The novel was Forever Amber, and as DeDe found it most uninteresting, she found herself idly looking out her window at the water below. She could see a boat with lights and clearly visible people on its deck. Suddenly, as she watched it, the boat “vanished,” much to her surprise. When she reported the incident to Doc the next morning, he dismissed it. Years later, she learned that scientists at Aberdeen Proving Grounds had been involved with plans to disguise boats so that they would seemingly vanish. Today, she believes that she may have inadvertently seen a test run of the experiment, though she can never be sure. As DeDe says, “Time does have a way of removing many salient details. So it is with all of us, trying, trying to remember things which will remain forever ambiguous shadows.”

 

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