1940

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Memorial Wall at the USS Memorial at
Honolulu, Hawaii

During the World War, there were U. S. O. Clubs where young girls would go to dance with the military men to "keep their spirits up". They would dance with the "G.I." men. Sometimes they were called "Dime-A-Dance" where the ladies would be paid one dime per dance!

During WWII, my husband, was in the Phillipines fighting on the front lines as a "Flame Thrower." Then he was flown to Japan to do the same thing. It must've be very, very traumatic for him because he would tense up and never spoke of the job he had to perform while serving for our freedom. It was a complex story that he took to the grave...he never spoke of it...

After the war was over, people marched down Main Street in Ames, Iowa. It was the Summer time and people overflowed the streets singing, shouting, and dancing!! What a sight to see and hear!!
Songs we listened to on the radio at that time were, "God Bless America" by Kate Smith and "Over There" by Irving Berlin. Submitted by Rose T. of Colorado Springs, Colorado

NOT SO FAVORITE MEMORIES OF WAR
It was 1940, my brother Ronny and myself were playing in the front garden (yard) when we spotted this soldier with his pack stopped at our gate. I said, "Who's that Ronny?" The next minute my mother went tearing past us straight into the outflung arms of the soldier, it was only then that we recognized our father! Dad had always been a handsome man but the one that now cuddled us facial scars, two large bumps on his forehead plus half his hair missing. He was one of the last men off the beaches of Dunkirk, that memorable defeat that Britain turned into a victory when the British Navy, fishermen, boaties rescued over 200,000 troops off its bloodied beaches. To us kids, our dad was still the most handsomest man in the world. We had sought refuge in the air raid shelter the first night of the blitzes. Bombs were dropping on our lovely city when there was an almighty explosion and we knew it was our house. We rushed out of the shelter but it was too late, we could not save anything. My brother and me just stood iin the road hand in hand crying as we watched our house burn to the ground. Our mother just sat on the grass stunned, then she went over to dad's once beautiful rose garden, picked a scorched rose and handed it to one of the firefighters, who held her in his arms. Our mother got another home and managed to scrape enough furniture together to supply us with the bare necessities. We'd only just gotten used to living in our new home when the German Luftewaft gave Norwich a real pounding. How I remember that terrible night, the noise was so intense that we screamed in a warped sense of silence. Then I remembered the pet rabbit that dad had given to me to replace the one that had been killed in our first house. That rabbit represented the bondship between my father and I and no German was going to rob me of that. I ran across the garden to rescue my pet. I heard the roar but not the explosion, and all I felt was a warm glow and all the pretty lights. The next thing I recalled was waking up to the sound of people running around and talking and my mother trying to comfort me. Our house had received a direct hit and I was buried under the rubble. The end result was that I had been badly injured and was blind for aorund nine months. Once again our mother managed to get another house plus a few sticks of furniture. We lived very happily in that big old home but yet again, fate had not finsihed with us. It was 1944 then, and the allies were pounding Germany with constant air raids and on that fateful day an American Liberator bomber returning from an air raid, badly shot up, crash landed into our house, taking two other houses with it. Luckily we were not at home but our neighbors Mr and Mrs. Whitworth and their two daughters were. They were all killed.

The remainder of the war, we spent living on our grandfather's farm, yes and they were the happiest of my childhood. We were away from the city and to us, the war was a million miles away, yet we were soon to be brought back to reality.

Our father, after Dunkirk, had volunteered for the parachute regiment. I asked my dad once why he chose to join a regiment with a high danger risk and he said, " Son, I left a lot of good mates behind at Dunkirk. I owe them."

How I remember the sixth of June in 1944. We were just sitting down to breakfast and my grandfather was saying grace when it came over the radio that the Allied forces had landed on the beaches of Normandy. It was D-Day and we all stood and held hands for we knew where our dad was. Yes, my dad survived the war and we were all very proud of him.

The true horror of war comes in many different forms. One of it's cruelest is against the innocents, the children. How I remember those times going to school after German air raids, sitting at our desks in utter silence with the odd child sobbing. The teacher saying "Come on boys, let's all be brave like your dads." Then, you quickly glance at the empty desks of your school mates who had paid the ultimate price. No more to go fishing with, no more to play with, no more to get into mischief with. They were no more.

This is only a small and very brief part of my upbringing as a young boy in war time in England, though you did not stay a young boy for long. You grew up quick.
Submitted by Norrie Day, New Zealand. Continue to next page for more from Mr. Day.