“Memories
of World War II”
I am
trying to think about all the things that I remember from World War II. I mean, really remember, not things that
people have told me about what happened.
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor Day, I was just about ready to turn
four years old. So, of course, I have no
recollection of it. I think that my
earliest recollection of the war was seeing men in army uniforms guarding the
railroad bridge over the Ohio River as we drove up to Sciotoville or
Wheelersburg. I guess the guards were
there to prevent possible sabotage, since the Nazis couldn’t possibly have been
interested in bombing a Portsmouth railroad bridge to damage the industrial
might of the United States. This must
have been in 1942 or 1943, when I was in the first or second grade.
I also
remember a concern at home about keeping the curtains and blinds drawn at night
to prevent enemy planes from being able to see targets from the air.
We even had a Civil Defense air raid warden who wore a helmet in our
Charles Street neighborhood to enforce “blackout” regulations.
One of
the funniest memories of the war years that I have is of the steel pennies that
came into circulation in 1943. I don’t
know for how many years they were minted, possibly only one. The copper was being used in the war effort,
of course, to make ammunition casings or something like that. Speaking of metal, I can remember all kinds
of scrap drives and flattening “tin”
cans and donating them to the war effort.
There were also used automobile tires drives and newspaper drives.
As the
war progressed and the Allies started winning more victories, I remember that The Portsmouth Times would put out
“extra” editions of the newspaper and the paper carrier would come around the
neighborhood hollering “Extra, extra; read all about it!” I think you had to pay extra for the extra
editions.
Another
funny thing that I remember is having a deck of “airplane spotter” playing cards. Using these cards would help you memorize the
silhouettes of American, German, and Japanese airplanes in case they came
flying over Portsmouth. I never spotted
any German or Japanese aircraft.
I can
remember my folks reading “V-mail” letters from my mother’s brothers who were in the army overseas. V-mail was a very small,
photographically-reproduced letter. This
system enabled thousands of letters to be delivered to the home folks from the
boys overseas using much smaller shipping space in ships and airplanes. Some of the letters had been censored with
some of the words cut out of them so that my parents didn’t know where Uncle
Dan or Uncle Phillip or Uncle Paul were writing from. “Loose lips sink ships.”
D-Day
in June of 1944 was a very big deal as I remember. It was talked about by everyone in our family
because at least two of my uncles, Uncle Phillip and Uncle Paul, were supposed
to be involved. In July of 1944 we
learned that Uncle Paul Haffner had been killed in action somewhere in France. He was a corporal in General George Patton’s
Second Armored Division. I remember a
reporter from the Times coming to our
house to interview my mother and a story and Uncle Paul’s picture being in the
paper. Uncle Paul is buried in a US Military Cemetery in
France.
My
other Uncle Paul, Uncle Paul Bierley, enlisted in the Army Air Corps when he
graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1944.
I can remember his coming home on furlough sometime in early 1945 from
his training as a B-17 radio operator at a base in Texas.
I
remember a little bit about the rationing of food, tires, and gasoline and the
shortages of things that rationing entailed.
I can remember people talking quietly about the “Black Market.” But, I didn’t know what that mystery was
about at that time.
My
most vivid memory, of course, since I was about eight years old, was the end of
the war. Grandpa Bierley came over to
our house on Charles Street in his Model A Ford and took us downtown to help
celebrate the victory. I imagined that
the entire population of Portsmouth was there. They probably weren’t. I also remember how big and black the
headlines in the newspapers were--they seemed to take up at least half of the
front page.
It’s
strange how clear some of these memories are, even after almost seventy years.
Blaine Bierley (PHS 1955)
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