We Are a College at War: Women Working for Victory in World War II

6. Romances of War

154 6. Romances of War When Catey Glossbrenner Rasmussen began her studies as a freshman at Rockford College in the fall of 1943, she was very close to Robert Gilmour Smith, a friend from her hometown outside Indianapolis, whom she started dating in 1941 when he was a student at Butler and Indiana universities. Once Smith joined the Naval Reserves in April 1942, Glossbrenner wrote the first of many poems articulating her growing feelings for the young man with whom she was falling in love: Someday my loneliness will be sunshine rimmed with flowers. Someday it will no longer be years, not even hours. Someday my loneliness will be all love and laughter. Someday when happiness is not prefaced by “after . . .”1 In the spring of 1943, Lieutenant Smith was designated a naval aviator, sent to naval air stations in Miami, Florida, and Glenview, Illinois, for further training, and finally shipped out in September 1943 to join Bomber Squadron Nineteen in the Pacific based on the aircraft carrier USS Lexington. After Smith, or Smitty as he was known, joined the service, Glossbrenner shared only three brief home leaves with him, but they wrote each other regularly, sending pictures and often poetry, including “birthday poems” she wrote for him. Through this correspondence, their relationship grew and turned to talk of a future together—illustrated by the sketch and floor plans he sent for “Hill House” to be built upon his return and her list of suggestions for “Smitty’s House,” which included, “Please have sliding down banister . . . for the 6 children & nieces and nephews, and you better have more bedrooms.”2 Only three, including the master bedroom, were included in the plans. There is little doubt they both envisioned their lives together after the war. :%%)&KLQGG 30 Lieutenant Robert G. Smith. (Courtesy of Catherine G. Rasmussen.) “For Smitty,” from Catey Glossbrenner. (Courtesy of Catherine G. Rasmussen.) :%%)&KLQGG 30 CHAPTER 6 156 On November 16, 1944, a national radio broadcast by Gordon Graham out of Washington, D.C., credited Lieutenant Robert Smith with participation in a major bombing raid against a Japanese submarine tender and credited his squad with bringing down over one hundred Japanese planes in a sixteen-day period. The story appeared in local newspapers, trumpeting the success of Smitty’s dive-bomber group. Less than a week later on November 22, Lieutenant Smith’s parents received a telegram telling them their son was missing in action. Glossbrenner’s poem “For a Navy Pilot,” dated November 23, expressed her initial feelings: I can never wake again at night In quiet peacefulness from dreamless sleep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Without the thought of you and oceans deep.3 Smitty had been on the conning (pilot) tower of the Lexington with a group of fliers reporting in after their missions when a Japanese kamikaze pilot crashed into the tower on November 5, 1944, killing fifty men. As Catey Glossbrenner Rasmussen wrote in a memorial scrapbook finished in 1996, “The mailroom at Rockford Women’s College was the stage for many tears and sobs as students read of brothers and sweethearts missing or killed in action. Everyone knew when Smitty was ‘missing’ in November 1944.”4 Glossbrenner ’s memoir is filled with her poetry from those days, especially following the news of Smitty’s fate. For months afterward, her feelings of loss, sadness, anger, and frustration were all evident in her poems. Like Glossbrenner, thousands of young women across the United States endured being left behind and accepting what fate sent their way, and the seeming senselessness of it all was often a burden beyond all others. Smitty’s last letter to her, dated November 2, 1944, ended with these lines of poetry: “I loved you ’ere I knew you; know you now, / and having known you, love you better still.”5 Courtships and marriages took on greater meaning and importance with a world war surrounding young women and men. Catey and Smitty’s relationship was one among countless thousands of romances that evolved during World War II. Many women like Glossbrenner suffered the heartbreak of loss as they received word that a loved one was missing or killed in action. Others sent “Dear John” letters or received a “Dear Jane” letter from far away. While wartime stresses broke some relationships, others survived and flourished. Many women across the country became war brides, and the stories told through reminiscences and correspondence show how...