High school students learn what no book can teach from World War II vets

by Earlene Ward

yosemite high school district

 

World War II History Day

Ahwahnee High School and Evergreen High School, both in the Yosemite Joint Union High School District, recently hosted World War II History Day to complete a unit on World War 11 in the Pacific Theater.

As part of this project, which included study in history and life skills, the students wrote term papers on various islands involved in the war and they made a board game that included a map of the island they studied and 100 questions about World War II.

For World War II History Day, the students had to prepare questions to ask the guests who came to talk about their experiences in or during the war. Five mountain area residents spent three hours in the classroom responding to the questions and giving the students a personal view of the war.

Students from the Yosemite High School videography class filmed the entire session. As the assignment sheet noted, the students had the opportunity to “ask questions that no book could answer.

 

Jim Cummings (left) listens thoughtfully as Ed Lyons responds to a question from the students.

 

Ethel Jordan shows her military jacket. All women were issued a jacket and a skirt, but because of her job she was also issued a pair of slacks.

 

Evergreen High School teacher Mary Beth Harrison talks to her parents, Mary Lou and Darwin Bahr, who were on the panel.

 

 

Local high school students heard about World War II recently from people who lived through those years. They heard the people compare the feeling in the country then with what it has been since September 11, 2001 when terrorists attacked the United States.

“It was a great time to live,” commented Ed Lyons of North Fork, “we all stuck together like now.”

Comparing the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the airplane over Pennsylvania, Mr. Lyons said “the reaction was pretty much the same; someone had the gall to attack us.”

 

Then and now

However, he added, “we were more shockable,” adding that they had not grown up watching Rambo and other such movies.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, many people in the United States did not know where it was located. “People are much more sophisticated today than we were,” he said.

Mr. Lyons was a 13-year-old living in New York City when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He joined the Navy in 1945 when he was 16 and stayed for the next 30 years. He was a flyer during the war and later worked in anti-submarine warfare. He told the students that he was just like them, about the same age as they are now, but, suddenly, he ‘was 16 and busy with adult affairs.” Although a person could enlist in the military at 16, they were not subject to combat until they were 17. Mr. Lyons said his main job during the war was “to keep someone from killing the pilot.”

Ethel Jordan, an Oakhurst resident, was living in Salinas in 1941, working in a bank. She and one of her four sisters joined the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services) when she was 19 and then she was a Naval Reserve officer for the duration of the war.

Jim Cummings of Oakhurst, turned 8 years old just a few days after Pearl Harbor was attacked. He lived in an area in Los Angeles that was located between what is now LA International Airport and an oil refinery.

Darwin Bahr of North Fork was an 11-year-old living in a small, rural farm town in Minnesota when the war in the Pacific started. His wife, Mary Lou, was a first grade student in Seattle, Washington.

 

Going without

It didn’t seem to matter whether a person was living in New York City, Los Angeles or Seattle, the worries of the war were the same in most cities. However, in Minnesota, it was quite different.

One thing everyone shared, no matter where they lived, was rationing. The local residents spoke of how difficult it was to get things such as parts for automobiles or farm equipment. Sugar, bread, meat, gasoline, tires and anything made from rubber were rationed to civilians because they were needed for the military. Nylon stockings were not available.

While those living near the ocean were concerned about submarine attacks, sinking ships or air attacks, and had to live with blackouts and air raid drills, those living in areas such as Minnesota did not experience those things. Mr. Bahr remembers rationing and he remembers how hard it was to get the work done on the farm.

 

Growing up fast

“When the young guys left (for war) there was no help,” he recalls, adding that even though he was just 11-years old, he was put to work driving a tractor to help out. He said the biggest topic of conversation where he lived was how to make the farming equipment work when they couldn’t get parts. “We couldn’t produce enough food,” he remembers. He also noted that they fixed everything because most things could not be replaced during those years.

Car parts weren’t available either. Mr. Bahr remembers someone sewing a head gasket together with thread. He said the war years made people aware of what they used and how they used it and they became aware of the value of things.

While Mr. Bahr’s family in Minnesota worried about keeping their equipment working and producing enough food, his future wife and her family in Seattle experienced blackouts, air raid sirens, unexploded land mines and bombs on the beach and “lots of blimps hovering around.”

 

Dark nights

She remembers those years as a very scary time for a young child. “We were raised on fear,” she recalls. At night, black shades had to be pulled over every window so no light showed. People who drove their car at night had to do so without headlights.

Mrs. Bahr recalls that men walked around the neighborhoods at night to be sure there were no lights showing anywhere. “Even a cigarette could be seen from a plane or a submarine,” she said.

It was the same in New York City and in Los Angeles.

Even in war, boys will be boys, Mr. Lyons pointed out as he recalled he and his friends would save light bulbs and then toss them out the window behind the men who were out checking to be sure no lights were showing.

Mr. Cummings recalls people driving around without headlights at night and he remembers how many things were painted in camouflage so they could not be seen easily. There were many practice air raids at school and the students were told what areas would be strafed in an attack.

Mrs. Bahr spoke of the air raid drills at school, calling the sirens “a very lonely, scary sound.” The students would have to crawl under their desks in the drill. Although this was frightening to them, they still played war at recess.

At night, the sirens would sound, searchlights would be used and everyone had to go inside and pull the black shades.

Mr. Lyons said in New York City they really believed the enemy could get to them. They were frequently warned of an impending attack, but none happened. “It was the government’s way to keep us from getting complacent,” he says.

He particularly remembers one time when they were warned of an attack and told to go to their basements. Instead, the young Mr. Lyons climbed up on the roof so he could watch. To his amazement, he saw anti-aircraft guns on roofs around him. “That really impressed me that they got them up there and none of us knew it,” he said.

 

Infamy

The attack on Pearl Harbor took the country by surprise. As with any dramatic event, people remember where they were and what they were doing when they found out about it. In 1941, there were no television sets in homes, so communication was different from today.

Mr. Lyons was at the movies the afternoon of December 7 when an announcement came over the loudspeaker for all military personnel to return to their base. He did not go home immediately, but when he did, everyone was gathered around the radio listening to the news. “Everyone was excited and emotional,” he recalls.

He did not know where Pearl Harbor was located and, he says, “it took awhile to feel the impact and to understand what was happening.”

Mrs. Bahr’s father was in the harbor patrol in Seattle. He came home and said, “My God, they’ve bombed Pearl Harbor.”

Mrs. Jordan was in Tulare visiting friends. She lived in Salinas and recalls that on the way home she listened to the car radio and when she stopped in Los Banos to eat everyone was talking about it. She calls December 7, 1941 “A day I will always remember.”

Mr. Cummings had gone to a sporting event in Los Angeles with his grandfather. When they came out a lot of papers were being sold. When they learned the news, his grandfather kept repeating, “Boy, we’re in trouble, we’re in big trouble.”

 

Doing your part

Mrs. Jordan was the only one of the five speakers who was old enough to join the military early in the war. She remembers that everyone had the feeling they had to do something for the war effort. She spent her weekends helping to roll bandages and then worked in the USO. A major difference between World War II and the current situation, she said, was that “we knew who the enemy was then, today we don’t.”

One day someone came into the bank where she worked and asked her what she was doing behind a desk, “you should be in the Navy,” the person said. With a laugh, she remembers that “a handsome football star came in his uniform” to recruit women for the service and they were ready to follow him.

She is proud of her service to her country and says I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

There was great support for the military and for families whose sons and daughters were in the service. There were five girls in Mrs. Jordan’s family. “When my sister and I joined, they were very, very proud,” she says. For her first Christmas away from home, her mother sent her childhood doll dressed in a totally authentic WAVE uniform.

Parents with children in the military were given silk flags to display. The number of stars on the flag indicated the number of children they had in the service. She said her parents displayed their flag with two stars with great pride and when someone commented about them having two sons in the service, her mother proudly corrected them that it was two daughters in the service.

Mrs. Jordan told the students that life in the military was very regimented. She went to a gunnery school in Pensacola, Florida. After they learned to take the various guns apart, put them back together and use them, they trained men to use them.

Smiling, she recalls that they felt as if they were doing a very good job, but after men went to war and came back they would say “Lady, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Every day was a usual routine,” she told the students, “You did what you were told, nothing different.”

When asked if they always agreed with the orders they were given, Mr. Lyons reflected back on the way life was 60 years ago.

“We did not question our orders, but then again, I didn’t question any orders before I went into the service. I went into the service as a professional subordinate.”

He went on to explain that there was no thought that what they were doing might be wrong. “We were united and going out to protect our country,” he said. I was proud of what I was doing and felt that I was contributing to my country.”

 

Home cooking

Questions about homesickness brought memories of how the civilians supported the young men and women in uniform.

First of all, Mr. Lyons says, a young man would never show homesickness at that time, but, he says if there was a tendency to miss home, “it was alleviated by people trying to make up for our families. People would stop you on the street and invite you home and you knew that back home your family was doing the same thing.”

Those who went to church would always be invited home by someone for dinner. Mr. Cummings recalls that his grandparents usually always took a serviceman home for dinner after church. He also remembers the young kids visiting with the servicemen in the area and their mothers baking cookies for them to take to them.

“These bad times drew this nation together in many ways,” Mr. Cummings says.

Mrs. Bahr said anyone in uniform was considered a hero.

Mr. Lyons recalls that as a man in uniform, he never had to pay for public transportation, he did not pay to get into the movies and, those who were old enough to go into a bar never had to pay for a drink.

He also told the young people that military people pretty much traveled by their thumb in those days and it was completely safe to hitchhike then. “When you wanted to go somewhere, you just put up your thumb and pretty soon someone gave you a ride,” he says.

So, “homesickness — I don’t think it really occurred to me,” Mr. Lyons said.

“What about boredom?” one student asked. “The word ‘boredom’ hadn’t been coined yet,” Mr. Lyons said. The general belief at that time was that “idle hands are the work of the devil.”

The military made sure no one had idle hands. “They worked you until you dropped,” he said, “at the end of the day you were ready to sleep” because they knew that early the next day they would be up and going again. No one minded this, he said, because everyone was treated the same.

Mr. Lyons said there was no question about signing up for the military as soon as he was old enough and there was no thought of not fighting.

“In a war, I don’t believe males have a choice,” he said. “It is a duty of every male to respond,” he said, choking back a sob.

Mrs. Bahr said people felt that they should be in the service or taking the place of someone who was. Mrs. Jordan said the women who served in the military did many jobs that had been done previously by men. “We thought we were really helping the war effort by letting them go to battle,” she said.

At 16, was Mr. Lyons afraid of death?

“No one at 16 has a fear of death,” Mr. Lyons responded. “It would be someone else, not me.” He added that he was taught to be careful, to think about what he was doing and not take unnecessary risks.

 

Things change

However, when he heard the war was over in Europe, Mr. Lyons says “I thought for a minute there was a chance for me to survive. When Japan surrendered, I again felt relief of getting out before I had to pay too big a price. We didn’t worry that much about getting killed, but about coming home with missing parts.”

Mr. Lyons said he grew up in the war. “I learned to live amongst a wide mixture of people. I learned how to balance myself, how to survive as part of a giant movement where the individual was of no concern.”

The students wanted to know how the people in the United States felt about Japanese Americans during the war.

“Not good,” Mrs. Bahr responded. “They were the enemy. We thought they were evil.” She said many people thought the Japanese in the United States were spies. She recalled posters that read: “Loose lips sink ships.”

She recalled living two blocks from the store and having to walk past a house where they believed Japanese people lived “and they were going to get us. We always ran past that house.”

Mr. Lyons said people of Asian descent were foreign to people in the US. “Germans and Italians were the people next door,” therefore people had less fear of them although Germany and Italy were at war with the US in the European theater. Everyone of Asian descent was under suspicion, he said.

The panelists were also asked how Americans felt about German Americans during the war.

“At home, we were all German Americans,” Mr. Bahr said. “You didn’t see the hatred where I was, we were all of German descent. I never knew a German family to change its name. We didn’t like the German army or the German nation because of what they were doing to our nation, but on a personal level there was no hatred.”

Mr. Lyons recalls seeing German and Italian prisoners of war picking apples near his home when he was 13. “They were happy to be there,” he said, “and after the war, very few of them went home.”

The students wanted to know how POWs were treated during World War II. Mr. Lyons said he was never a POW and was not in the position to meet POWs since he was in the combat zone. However, now he knows men who were POWs in the Japanese camps and some who were on the Bataan Death March.

“Americans who were in Japan when the war started were rounded up and killed,’ Mr. Lyons said. “We put Japanese in concentration camps and now they are getting money.”

Mr. Lyons went to Japan with the Army of Occupation after the war ended. He said the Japanese people were afraid of Americans at first because they had been told they would hann them. To add to the fear, the Americans were much larger physically than the Japanese. He said after the Americans had been in Japan for a year, the people realized they were not going to hurt them.

In Europe, the American military person was welcome, Mr. Lyons said. "Europeans liked Americans," he recalls.

Things changed for everyone during the war. For the first time, women left the home and went to work, women went into the military and there were one-parent families as the men went off to war.

Because of the rationing, people saved everything and repaired anything that broke. Fun trips essentially came to an end. Mr. Cummings recalls that his family went on one "fun" trip during the war to visit relatives who lived on a farm and, therefore, would have a little extra gasoline so they could use enough to get home. Other than that, the gasoline allotment was used for his father to get to and from work. The gas stamps that were issued were for three gallons.

The only people who could get tires were those who had a real need for them, such as the mail delivery person, doctors and police officers.

There was not a car, or two, or three in every garage at that time. Mrs. Bahr recalls that her family did not have a car. Those who did have cars generally had a Model A Ford. "They don't make them now like they used to, and that's a blessing," Mr. Bahr said of automobiles.

Mrs. Bahr remembers buying shoes that would last for three years. The first year, they were too big, the second year they fit and the third year they were too small. Handme-downs were an important part of life. She remembers that some people hoarded flour and sugar, especially if they remembered World War I and the shortages then.

Mrs. Bahr has a vivid memory of her mother crying because she found ants in their sugar supply once and that was all they had. She also remembers her mother talking about standing in line for everything.

She said getting a banana was like getting candy; when you got one you wouldmake it last as long as possible.

 

Not like the movies

Young people today often rely on movies to tell them about history, so they wondered if films such as Pearl Harbor are accurate accounts of the event.

“Within reason,” Mr. Lyons said. He noted that the movie showed women being killed in the Pearl Harbor attack but that is not true, he said. “Pearl Harbor was mainly against military targets,” he said, “the goal was to destroy the fleet.”

He went on to say that it was a “terrible attack” in which 3,000 sailors were killed “but no women or civilians.” He said there were no attacks on outlying sections of the island.

“We never really got over the damage and probably never will, just like 9/11,” he said. He noted that the sunken USS Arizona still holds 1,300 bodies and is, today, a memorial.

The students were curious about the killing of Jewish people by the Nazis and wondered when people in the US realized it was happening.

Mr. Lyons said in the beginning people did not know about it. He told the students that six million Jewish people were killed, but a total of 25 million were killed, including gypsies, misfits and “people the Nazis did not want alive.”

Mr. Bahr said it became obvious when the camps were liberated about 1944.

“Were women paid the same to be in the military as men?”, the students asked. Mrs. Jordan explained that every person in the Navy was paid the same according to grade. Her first month’s salary was $32.

Mr. Lyons received $31 per month when he first went into the service. He noted that a person working in civilian life at that time made about a dollar a day.

A person in the military had few expenses. One expense Mr. Lyons explained was the cost of cigarettes. He said the first 15 packs were free, then they cost 40-cents per carton. “They encouraged people to smoke and drink then,” he said. Cigarette lighters were popular Christmas gifts.

He said he always carried a gold cigarette case so he could offer a girl a cigarette.

Students expressed amazement that cigarettes cost 40-cents a carton then and now they cost $40 a carton. They were also amazed to learn that smoking had been encouraged at that time and now is strongly discouraged.

Thinking about the present discussion over women in combat, a student asked Mrs. Jordan how she felt about it. “I am ambivalent about women in action,” she said, “but I support women in the military. There are lots of opportunities for women to serve their country and to get an education.”

She commented that she “would rather not go into combat myself, but I admire the women who do.”

The military offered educational opportunities during World War II, just as it does today. Mr. Lyons took advantage of the educational opportunities offered in the military. He did not finish high school before enlisting so he completed his studies in the service. He said they were awarded a “pseudo-diploma” and then were allowed to take college courses.

Mr. Bahr, who enlisted in the Air Force when he was old enough, said he learned his career skill in the military.

He told the students they can go to college on the GI Bill if they serve in the military. He said the military is like anything else, “you get out of it what you put into it.” He called his military years “a growing experience” and he said the experience was very beneficial.

Mr. Cummings said the military is still one way to get an education and learn a good skill.

“It is a good opportunity to expand and meet other people,” Mr. Lyons said. “It is a lot easier to withstand discipline when you are with like people. They will send you places you never dreamed of and pay you for it.” He said the military is regimented “but it’s good and it’s free.”

Just as everyone remembered where they were when Pearl Harbor was attacked, they also remembered what they were doing when they heard the war was over.

Mr. Cummings said they new VJ (Victory in Japan) Day was coming and when the message came over the radio “we ran outside yelling and hugging each other.”

Mr. Bahr says he remembers the church bells. “Every church in town rang its bells. Everyone was out in the street. It was a good time.”

Mrs. Bahr said she remembers the church bells also “and that my dad would be coming home.” He had joined the Merchant Marines after the war started.

Having lived through World War II and the wars that have happened since, what do the panelists feel about war now, the students wondered.

Mrs. Bahr commented that war is put together by elderly men who don’t have much to lose. “There should be a better way,” she believes.

Mr. Bahr noted that we gained some things through the war, such as radar, a lot of medical advances and better machinery. There were some benefits, he said. Women were allowed in the military and they went to work, but, he added, “I’m not sure the benefits were worth the price.”

“War is a robbery of your time,” Mr. Lyons told the students, “not our time. The old folks just start the war, you are the ones who have to finish it. War interrupts your life. You should be against something that is taking something away from you without your input. You just have to pay the bill. War will take your life away from you.”

Asked if he believed Americans appreciated his sacrifice in World War II, Mr. Lyons reminded the young people that World War II veterans are dying at a rate of 1,000 per day now. “You are looking at a piece of history by doing this,” he told them. “We did what we had to do to protect our way of life.”

He said he wasn’t sure if many people appreciate the sacrifices people made during World War II, but then, he said, maybe they shouldn’t. Maybe having people living in this country and enjoying our way of life is enough.

“This is the right way to go,” he said. “Down deep, despite being able to complain about our government, I think we’re pretty happy with the way things are.”