Shorpy Home Front Photos: A Need for More Nurses

You can see the photographs by typing in hand the name of the photo.

June 14, 2016, A Shot In the Arm: 1942.  November 1942.  "Nurse training at Babies' Hospital, New York.  Student nurses like Susan Petty of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, are rendering their country a great service by making it possible for experienced nurses to join the Army or Navy Nurse Corps.

"Relieved of such civilian duties as administering injections like this smiling youngster, graduate nurses are attending American fighting men in distant parts of the world."  Fritz Henle, OWI.

Comment:  Susan Petty graduated from Linden Hall, Northwestern University and Columbian Presbyterian School of Nursing and was the war photo icon for the national recruiting campaign for nurses during World War II.  She lived to be 94.

My comment:  Why was the youngster receiving the shot smiling.  Perhaps because the nurse was so pretty and young or perhaps the photo was staged and he really wasn't getting a shot.  I know I would not be smiling under any circumstances if I was getting a shot.

I Don't Care How Pretty She Was.  No Smiles for Shots Unless Alcohol.  GreGen

Looking Back: Collecting the Aluminum for the Country's Defense

From the August 3, 2016, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois) "Looking Back."

1941, 75 years ago.

"Huge signs in black lettering on a white background were placed on the collection enclosure in the courtyard today in Sycamore, telling people that aluminum is needed for National Defense.  Meanwhile, before signs had been installed people began dumping aluminum pots and pans.

"Many were the jokes made by people who had not yet learned what the fenced enclosures were for.  Many people thought the Chamber of Commerce was about to sponsor another rooster day.  If someone were there to do some crowing might help, but roosters are not wanted.  It is aluminum that Uncle Sam needs to building planes with which to defend the nation."

--GreGen

Looking Back: Boy Scouts Aiding Aluminum Drive

From the August 3, 2016, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois) Looking Back.

1941, 75 years ago.

"The Boy Scouts of DeKalb, members of the six troops in the city, will play  a major role in DeKalb's waste aluminum drive to be made this week.

"Every community in the nation will engage in a similar drive this week."

Preparing for War.  --GreGen

Looking Back: Stop Using Those WWI Helmets As Flower Pots in 1941

From the July 27, 2016, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois) "Looking Back."

1941, 75 Years Ago.

"The Illinois Reserve Militia asked World War I veterans to stop using their old "tin hats" as flower pots and loan them to state guardsmen.  the appeal was issued through State Commander William F. Waugh of the American Legion, who said the government was too busy equipping the army to supply helmets for state guard units facing action in case of riots or disorders."

Even though the U.S. was not in the war, we sure were preparing for it.  It is of interest though there was talk of possible riots or disorders at home.  Was there that much anti-war sentiment?

--GreGen

What Happened at Hiroshima-- Part 5: I Agree That Obama Should Not Apologize

I know there are a lot of people who think the United States was horrible for dropping those bombs.  It certainly was a hard decision for President Truman to make, but like his sign said on his desk, "The Buck Stops Here."

As horrible as the damage was from the blasts as well as number of deaths, I figure it saved a lot more Japanese lives by convincing them not to continue fighting.  And, it also saved at least, by all estimates, 100,000 American casualties as I am sure the Japanese would have fought to the last man, woman and child.

A Hard Decision.  --GreGen

What Happened at Hiroshima-- Part 4: President Obama Visits But Won't Apologize

On May 27, President Obama visited, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima.  He will be accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.  Obama will lay a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

What the president will say is not known, but the White House has emphasized that he will not apologize for the United States' decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the closing days of the war.

The Chicago Tribune editorial where I got these posts  then said, "Nor should he."

What Happened at Hiroshima-- Part 3: The Aftermath

In the inferno that Hiroshima became, scorched, disfigured bodies lay everywhere.  Railroad ties caught fire.  Thousands died instantly.  By December 1945, the death toll reached 140,000, about 40 percent of the city's population.

In the years that followed, radiation took its toll: intestinal bleeding, stillbirths, cataracts, leukemia and other kinds of cancers.

Books on Hiroshima describe the hell that became the city.  A woman's charred body, frozern in a running pose. ho;ding tight her baby; bloated corpses floating down the Ota River; other bodies with the floral patterns from their kimonos burned into their skin.

All From Just One Bomb.  --GreGen

What Happened at Hiroshima-- Part 2: The Impact

Witness accounts run the gamut, but everyone remembers the blinding flash of light.  Schoolgirls saw it through their classroom windows moments before the ceiling crashed down on top of them.  Middle school student Michiko Yamaoka remembers "a very strong light, a flash," just as her face ballooned and her body flew into the air.

The Enola Gay's (the B-29 bomber that dropped the bomb) pilot, Col. Paul Tibbetts, remembers how "the bright light filled the plane ... the whole plane cracked and crinkled from the blast.  We turned back to look at Hiroshima.  The city was hidden by that awful cloud ... mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall."

--GreGen

What Happened at Hiroshima-- Part 1: Not What Expected

From the May 26, 2016, Chicago Tribune, editorial.

This editorial appeared because of President Obama's visit to Hiroshima, Japan the next day.

"On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was a city of 350,000 well-braced for U.S. bombing raids.  makeshift firelanes snaked through neighborhoods.  Locals built concrete tanks alongside houses and filled them with water-- to extinguish fires but also to leap into as a lifesaving refuge,

"That morning, two or three B-29 bombers were spotted--  but no one ran for shelters--  big bombing raids (the ones where you would take shelter) almost always meant a sky filled with attacking bombers.

Then, at 8:14 a.m., "Little Boy" fell from the  Enola Gay flying at 31,000 feet."

--GreGen

What's With "The LST Building" at Fort Knox?

From the October 2014 Naval History Magazine "A Strange Building's Important Purpose"  by Henry J. Rausch Jr, USN (retired).

He was visiting his son in the Army stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, a few years ago and saw that Fort Knox was just a few hours away, so visited.

While there he saw a sign that said "LST Building."  He was a former LSD crewman and knew that LST was a U.S. Navy ship classified as Landing Ship Tank, LST.  What would a ship be doing at a landlocked Army base?

This "LST Building" was not a real ship, but a full-scale model of a Navy LST which the Army built to train truck and tank drivers how to back into a real LST.  This way they would be facing out, the correct direction for beach landing offloading.

After All, You Don't Want to Back Into a Battle.  --GreGen

The Navy Saved Our Hides: Saving the USS Corry Survivors at D-Day

From the October 2014 Naval History Magazine "The Navy Saved Out Hides" by Thomas Chirillo.

The USS Butler (DD-636) was one of three destroyers that picked up survivors of the USS Butler (DD-463) when she quickly sank off Utah Beach on D-Day.  (Whether the ship was sunk by a mine, artillery, or both, is still not known.)

Even though the Corry was perilously close to the beach, the Butler's commander positioned his ship between the beach and the sinking ship; survivors were already in the water and being targeted by machine gunners ashore.

Action Above and Beyond in the Name of Comrades.  --GreGen

This Date in 1944: Anne Frank Captured

August 4, 1944:  Nazi police raided the secret annex of a building in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and arrested eight people, including 15-year-old Anne Frank, whose diary became a famous account of the Holocaust.

She later died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

--GreGen

Coast Guard Cutter Alexander Hamilton, First U.S. Ship Sunk in the Atlantic After Pearl Harbor

From the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society.

The Coast Guard Cutter Alexander Hamilton (WPG-34) was launched in 1937 and assigned to the U.S. Navy soon after Pearl Harbor.  Serving as an escort for a convoy heading to Iceland, it was torpedoed by the German submarine U-132 on January 29, 1942.

Twenty-six servicemen died in the attack.

The next day the ship capsized the next day, it was determined to be unsalvagable and sent to the bottom of the ocean.

It was also the U.S. Coast Guard's first ship lost in the war.

--GreGen

Anniversary of Sinking of Coast Guard Cutter Alexander Hamilton

From the January 29, 2016, ABC 4 News Charleston, S.C. "Cutter sunk in World War II being remembered in South Carolina" AP.

North Charleston, S.C.  Coast Guard personnel and historical societies gathered Friday afternoon when the Coast Guard Cutter Alexander Hamilton docked.

This was the anniversary of the day in 1942 when another cutter by the same name was torpedoed by a German submarine.

A plaque was dedicated with the names of the whole crew of that ship.  It is a replica of the plaque placed on the wreckage in the sea off Iceland three years ago.  The wreck was found in 2009.  There were 26 lives lost.

--GreGen

Tennessee in World War II-- Part 7: Refugee Jews in Tennessee

Several hundred refugees, primarily Jews, voluntarily settled in Tennessee after escape from Hitler's anti-Semitic laws, intimidation and death camps.

Strict immigration laws required refugees to obtain American sponsors to insure that they did not become burdens on society.  Many of the Jews who settled in Tennessee found work at Jacob May's hosiery mill in Nashville.

--GreGen

Tennessee in World War II-- Part 6: Axis POWs

Camps Forrest, Tyson and Campbell also served as prisoner of war camps for German, Italian and Austrian POWs through 1946.  Prisoners were also held at Tellico Plains, Crossville, Memphis, Lawrenceburg and Nashville.

At Camp Forrest, which was the headquarters for several permanent and temporary POW camps in five southeastern states, approximately 68,000 prisoners were processed.

Prisoners in the camps worked at prison hospitals and area farms, cut pulpwood and drained malarial swamps.  Several POW groups produced their own German newspapers, performed plays, wrote poetry and often became the object of curious Tennesseeans.

Again, a Whole Lot better to be a German in an American Prison Than the Other Way Around.  --GreGen

Richard Winstead Borden-- Part 8: Watch Out For That Falling AA Flack

Continued from July 27.

Things were settling down and it was time to set up "home."

"There was a wall standing where a fortified house was prior to D-Day.  Here we dug our slit trenches just at the base, about three and a half feet deep and long enough for two, for we slept in pairs.  2X4's and 2X6's leaned against the wall and made swell supports for sandbags and gave added protection.

"Understand that you don't build for protection from a direct hit, but from shrapnel and AA flack falling down, and there was plenty of this at night.

"After we settled in our 'home' things were about the same each day.  From the medical supplies picked up from the beach (we lost all of ours except our personal pouches) we set up a dispensary on the other side of the wall and worked as one, except every once in a while when someone got off a trail and hit a mine.

"Well, this is my story and I've said enough.  I am mighty proud to have worked with the bunch I did and believe I did my job well.  Take care of things at home and yourselves, for you are in my thoughts-- always.

"Your Loving Son, Dick."

Tennessee in World War II-- Part 5: The Tennessee Maneuvers

Over twenty counties in Middle Tennessee were utilized for the Tennessee Maneuvers in 1942, which were headquartered at Cumberland University in Lebanon and officially referred to as "somewhere in Tennessee."

Middle Tennessee was chosen for these war games because of its proximity to the railways and federal highways, and the similarity between its terrain and that of western Europe.

Red and Blue "armies" faced each other in training exercises.  More than 800,000 men and women participated in the Tennessee Maneuvers, which produced over $4 million in claims by individuals and municipalities for destruction of property by the opposing armies.

--Advanced Lazer Tag?  --GreGen

Montford Point Marines Honored With Memorial-- Part 2

Between 1942 and 1949, 20,000 black Marines received basic training at Montford Point in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

F.M. Hooper Junior said he remembered his father telling him about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and that's when he knew he wanted to serve his country as a Marine.

"Then, I saw the Battleship North Carolina, go up from scratch.  That's where I was raised in Brooklyn, NY.  I saw the Marines guarding the ship.  I said, OK.  I want to be a Marine."

President Truman gave the order to desegregate the military in 1948 and the Montford Marine Camp at Camp Lejeune was deactivated, ending seven years of segregated black training.

In 2012, the Montford Point Marines received the Congressional Gold Medal for their role in integrating the military and nation and their service.  This is the highest civilian award bestowed by Congress.

--GreGen

Tennessee in World War II-- Part 4: Training for War

Tennessee servicemen were inducted at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, in the early stages of the war and later at Camp Forrest in Tennessee.  Tennessee women who joined the Women's Army Corps, trained at Fort Oglethorpe throughout the war.  Women also joined the Navy WAVES, the Coast Guard SPARS, the Women Marines and the WASPS or Women's Airforce Service Pilots.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers from all across the nation trained at Camp Forrest (an induction and infantry training center), Camp Campbell (an armor training facility), and Camp Tyson (a barrage balloon center near Paris, Tn.).

Pilots trained at several small airports throughout the state.  Major bases for training pilots were at Smyrna and near Dyersburg.  An air ferry command was located at Memphis.  Millington Naval Base in Shelby County was the country's largest inland naval base.

--GreGen