World War II Remembered

Domestic Details

259 World War II framed my years in high school. As I look back, my most vivid memories are of a few dramatic events and of how the War affected my immediate family and friends. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, when I arrived at the meeting of the teenagers’ group at our church at 6:00 p.m., I found my friends heatedly discussing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I was the only one who had not heard about it. By the time I got home, my parents had learned the shocking and devastating news. Untold numbers of men and ships had been lost. Having focused on the War in Europe, we found the attack a total surprise. None of us knew what it would mean. President Roosevelt’s serious but reassuring tones rolled out of the radio. I was immediately struck by the thought that my father might have to go into the Army. When he told me that because he was over 35 the Army would not want him, I felt enormous relief. When I was entering seventh grade in 1939, I had stood in front of my family’s art deco tabletop radio and listened to the news that England had declared war on Germany. It was the first day of school, and I Domestic Details • Jane Atwood Barlow 260 World War II Remembered had walked home for lunch. I knew the news was important. My father assured my two younger sisters and me that the War was a long ways away, and we did not have to worry that the occasional airplane overhead was going to drop a bomb. Propaganda about the United States’ effort to help England (“Bundles for Britain”) was everywhere. And of course the propaganda was all positive. It never occurred to me, then or later, that Germany might win. Once the United States entered the War, my father became an airraid warden. We sealed the windows in our basement with black cloth stuck down at the edges with some kind of dark tape, gathered flashlights and batteries, stored food and water downstairs, and piled extra blankets and pillows in a corner. When the fire siren went off to warn of an air-raid drill, my father roamed the neighborhood using a flashlight with a blue-covered lens to look for houses where lights were showing. Soon the nearby firehouse was in use for rolling bandages. I joined a group of girls and older women, who sat at long folding tables. On our heads we all wore triangles of white cloth with a red cross in the front, tied at the back of the neck to ensure that no stray hairs escaped into the bandages. The bandages themselves started with squares of cheesecloth that were then folded and refolded until they ended up as two-inch squares, probably surgical sponges. The woman in charge was extremely strict about precise folds so that all the bandages were exactly the same size. More than once I had to redo my efforts. Besides rolling bandages, my mother knitted various articles from yarn supplied by the Red Cross: scarves, balaclava helmets, and mittens , all in heavy khaki-colored or navy blue wool. Gas rationing soon came along. Every car had a square “A,” “B,” or “C” sticker affixed to the lower right corner of the windshield. At the time, we had two cars, a 1941 Dodge and a 1938 Chevrolet. Until after the War was over, all the automobile factories were converted into plants that made airplanes, tanks, jeeps, or other matériel needed for the War, and new cars simply were not available after 1941. Portraits of Rosie the Riveter, with her kerchief-tied head and ever-present smile, made an appearance. I even knew one girl who left her private high school to work in a factory. My father went to work at the Division of War Research at Columbia University in New York, which had a contractual relationship with Domestic Details: Jane Atwood Barlow 261 the Office of Scientific Research and Development headed by Vannevar Bush. A gentle soul who probably would have found himself totally unable to go into combat, my father was nevertheless enthusiastic about contributing to the war effort. There was no ambiguity either at home or elsewhere about the morality of the War: Germany and Japan had to be brought to “unconditional surrender.” Because my father’s...