USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bristol > Our Yankee heritage: the making of Bristol > Part 18
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THE NEW CITY
preferred stock. The rest of the pre- ferred stock - $500,000 - was taken by the Federal Reconstruction Fi- nance Corporation. The civic- minded directors rose to the occa- sion, and at considerable personal sacrifice and risk, kept it afloat, thus avoiding loss to the depositors and continuing its necessary services at a time of great crisis for the city.
The Sessions Clock Company, though it had had a prosperous career since coming under Ses- sions management at the start of the century, also had to be helped out with an RFC loan.
The Sessions Foundry, badly hit almost immediately had to close down 'indefinitely' in August 1932, but special emergency orders from its biggest customer, the Stanley Works of New Britain, enabled it to reopen ten days later.
Bristol Brass payroll dropped 33.1 per cent, and from 1930 to 1932 it operated with a loss, but it staged a quick comeback. The following year it made good profits and pro- vided good employment, and by 1937 paid the highest rate of divi- dends in the history of the company up to that time.
Also, in contrast to this gloom, the Southern New England Tele- phone Company opened its fine new building at 85 Main Street on October 1, 1932, and inaugurated dial service.
The following year DeWitt Page
gave the city eighty acres of beauti- ful woods and glades on the north- eastern slope of Federal Hill which became Page Park.
One definite sign of recovery was the granting of a Federal Charter on August 6, 1935, to the Bristol Building and Loan Association which then became the Bristol Fed- eral Savings and Loan Association.
In spite of hard times, New De- parture expanded its coaster brake and ball bearing operations. It was the biggest industry in the city, us- ing about half the city's electric power, half its water supply and, by 1933, it had over two million square feet of floor space and was produc- ing three-fourths of all bearings used in the United States, half the output of the entire world.
Nine thousand coaster brakes and 225,000 ball bearings were being turned out daily. Each single row ball bearing assembly required 106 major operations and the double- row assemblies, 149. Ball bearing tolerance, formerly a crude tenth of an inch, had been refined to 1/100,000 of an inch. An important new outlet for bearings was the ma- chine tool industry, speeded up fan- tastically with the discovery of tungsten as a cutting tool.
Much of this fine technical and business achievement at New De- parture was due to an exceptionally talented group of engineers, includ-
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THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
ing Frederick G. Hughes, a gradu- ate of Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School, who had come to the company as chief engineer in 1911. He had served as assistant manager from 1916 to 1933, when he became general manager. Later he was made a vice-president of General Motors.
Rockwell had been an inventor and bold promoter. Page provided financial stability, consolidation and aggressive salesmanship. Under Hughes, the firm's engineers had provided the basic metallurgical and designing talent, at a time
when high speeds called for finer workmanship, more complicated engineering, and the manufacture of 'quality in quantity.' This scien- tific approach was carried over into sound employee and public rela- tions.
By 1938, when Chamberlain held his umbrella over Hitler while the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, New Departure was making 20,000,000 ball bearings a year. By then Bris- tol was definitely on the upgrade again. Production was back to nor- mal. From then on the pace was to quicken.
BRISTOL BANK & TRUST COMPANY
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ยป18
THE challenge OF aggression
THE menace of Hitler and Mus- solini, who had trampled down the League of Nations, already weak- ened by United States' failure to participate, brought uneasiness to the whole world. As war clouds rolled closer, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered militia units into training. On February 24, 1941, the two Bristol units - the First Bat- talion Headquarters Company and Company C, housed in the State Armory on Center Street - were or- dered, as part of the 43d Division, to Camp Blanding, Florida, for a year's intensive training.
Pearl Harbor swept them across the Pacific to stop the Japanese southward thrust. But Bristol re- cruits, volunteers or draftees, fought in every theater. Outstanding were the exploits of Colonel Edward Wo- zenski in the North African and Si- cilian invasions. A reserve officer from R.O.T.C. at the University of Connecticut, he was a member of
the famous First Division through- out the war.
During the fight into Sicily, Wo- zenski, then a captain, took charge when his battalion commander was wounded, and with six officers and forty-five soldiers, equipped with only one anti-tank gun, tried to hold on to Hill 41 on the crumpled right flank near Nicosia. This hill had been captured after several days of sanguinary battle. German tanks overran the hill repeatedly until de- fenders finally had to give ground. Wozenski jumped into a mobile tank destroyer and charged back to the top of the hill by himself. Sin- gle-handed he routed the German tanks. Today that hill bears his name. "Upon him, for a tense while," reported Time magazine, "the fate of the U. S. invasion rested." He saved the whole right flank, and the American forces soon moved into Nicosia.
Later Wozenski fought on through
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THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
Germany into Czechoslovakia and was the first American officer to contact the Russians, then our Al- lies. He recalls his experience with them as far from pleasant.
The Bristol companies which headed for the Pacific sailed from San Francisco October 1, 1942, and some three weeks later landed at Auckland, New Zealand. After more training, they were sent to the nickel-producing island of French Caledonia.
Island hopping began. Eleven Japanese torpedo bombers swooped down on the four transports on which the Bristol units were head- ing for fever-infested Guadalcanal. Seven were shot down.
The Bristol companies set out to capture the Russell Islands. They won a foothold on small Pavuvu where they were bombed and strafed daily for four months. From their next stop, Rendova Island, still under relentless strafing, they swept on to Zanana Beach in New Georgia. For a bitter month they fought through swamps and jungle against repeated banzai attacks and hand- to-hand knife-fighting, to take Munda Airfield. After that, Tokyo Rose over the radio labeled them "the butchers of Munda."
They fought their way bloodily from island to island - Baanga, Arundel, Vella Lavella, Kolumban- gara - three and a half months of continuous grueling combat.
After rehabilitation in New Zea- land, they were hurled into New Guinea to stop forty thousand Japa- nese trying to break through from Wewak. The enemy was thrown back, and the Forty-third routed out the remnants in the worst jungle fighting of the war.
On Lingayen Gulf in the Philip- pines, the Bristol units went ashore in the first wave against heavy forti- fications - that famous January 9, 1945 when the Yanks 'came back.' The Bristol soldiers then got the toughest assignment of the entire Philippine invasion - to clear the Japanese out of the north mountains so that mechanized units could roll across the plain to Manila.
Major General Leonard F. Wing praised their work:
"I want you to know that I realize you have marched more miles over very rugged terrain, met and killed more Japs and suffered more casual- ties than any other unit. . . . I, to- gether with every member of this Division, am proud of serving with you, and commend you for heroic action.'
They fought on steadily without rest until the end of June. Inten- sive preparations were then made to attack the Japanese home islands, the toughest prospect of all. In- stead, the atom bombs fell, Japan sued for an armistice, and Septem- ber 13 the Bristol units were de- barked unopposed in Japan. They
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THE CHALLENGE OF AGGRESSION
marched through the bombed wastes of Yokohama and Tokyo, to occupy part of the industrial Kanto plain and take over the arsenals.
The war was over. Before the month was out, the weary Bristol units were replaced by fresh troops from Europe, and they were on their way home - those still alive.
There were 139 Bristol Gold Star names. The list is headed by Har- old Nicholas Aube of Maple Street, a Veeder-Root employee. A radio- man, he went down December 18, 1944, when the U.S.S. Spence cap- sized in a typhoon in the Caroline Islands.
The last name on the list is Bron- islaw William Zurowski of North Main Street, a New Departure em- ployee. A photographer's mate, he took part in every Squadron VC5 action in the Pacific and was killed March 11, 1946 in a plane crash near Atami, Japan.
Most of the traditional Bristol family names appear among those of the 4,742 who went to war, though only three appear on the Gold Star list - Blakeslee, Hart and Ingraham.
Theodore Pratt Blakeslee of Park Street, an employee of Muzzy Brothers, took part in the battles of Tarawa and Saipan, and is buried on Saipan Island.
Wilber Howard Blakeslee of North Main Street, an employee of
Trudon and Platt, was a marine aviation pilot and was lost in action in the Southwest Pacific.
Alfred G. Hart of Earl Street Ex- tension, a New Departure em- ployee, participated in the D-Day invasion of France and was killed in battle in front line action in Ger- many.
Dudley Seymour Ingraham Jun- ior of Summer Street, a student with extraordinary musical talent, was a ball turret gunner of the 8th Air Force. He was killed in action over Berlin when his plane was shot down at 27,000 feet.
The newer names on the Gold Star list indicate the waves of new citizens that have come in with the industrialization and growth of Bristol.
The war could not have been won without the backing of the home front, schools, government, church and industry. Purchases of war bonds in response to the appeals of the Victory Fund Committee under co-chairman Ralph H. Linsley and Charles T. Treadway Junior, were over $10,000,000, well above as- signed quotas. Corporation pur- chases were over $27,000,000. Bris- tol Press newsboys sold nearly $150,000 worth of bonds and stamps by the Fall of 1942.
Mayor Daniel Davis set up the Bristol War Council of sixteen lead- ing citizens in August, 1940. After
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THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
nominal activities, it was formally organized May 20, 1941, with Post- master Harry C. Polhill as Chair- man, to carry on defense bond and salvage drives and to solve the hous- ing shortage.
Sub-organizations were set up to handle every type of emergency: air raids and shelters, dim-outs, vic- tory gardens, sickness, casualties. A central report center, with wire service, radio and other necessary facilities, was established in the basement of the post office, and an emergency reserve center was read- ied in the basement of the Bristol Bank and Trust Company. Branches of this central station were set up throughout the city for special emergencies.
The Bristol Industrial Defense Council, organized April 2, 1942, under Raymond W. Cook of Wal- lace Barnes Company, registered women volunteer workers for spe- cial defense work. In all, a thou- sand Bristol behind-the-lines volun- teers served faithfully, making great personal sacrifices for nearly four years.
The Selective Service Board, the Price and Rationing Board, the Red Cross and other agencies also worked around the clock to keep the community running smoothly, to prepare for emergencies and to aid the war effort with food, sup- plies and encouragement.
doctors, nurses, orderlies, cooks and service people, lab technicians, clerical help - seriously curtailed by enlistments - had heavily in- creased duties due to wartime population growth and overcrowd- ing. They toiled incredible hours keeping the hospital operating effi- ciently and preparing for black- outs, evacuation, fire control, and so on. In addition to all this and their outside emergency work, they organized mobile-surgical teams, completely equipped to be set up instantly near any disaster. Emer- gency hospital space was made available at St. Joseph's, the Congre- gational Parish House, Girls' Club, Boys' Club, New Departure's Endee Inn, Wallace Barnes Company, Ses- sions Clock Company, Chippins Hill School and Lake Compounce ballroom.
Special courses for temporary and permanent nurses trained more than 300 women and more than 75 male orderlies. Volunteers helped in non-medical tasks, as reception- ists, switchboard operators, kitchen workers, ambulance personnel. The Girl Scouts served as messengers, stored linen, delivered flowers and mail.
Besides the regular war drives, special drives were made for cloth- ing, medicine, surgical equipment and food for this country and over- seas. Bundles for Britain, for Amer-
The Bristol Hospital personnel - ica, for Finland, Greece, Holland
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MAIN BUILDING - BRISTOL HOSPITAL (top) (Vault, Bristol Public Library)
BARNES MEDICAL BUILDING - BRISTOL HOSPITAL (bottom) (Basil Studio, Bristol, Conn.)
THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
and Russia were sent. A special donation of $425.50 went to Bristol, England, which was so badly bombed out by the Nazis.
As new workers and their families moved in to man the vital indus- tries of the city, housing became critical. New construction was rushed through. On December 1, 1942, the Bristol Housing Authority took over the completion of Cam- bridge Park with 200 permanent units. The community building there was formally dedicated June 1, 1943.
The Victory Heights project, 100 units on Peck Lane, was completed by June 30 of that same year. Vic- tory Heights Extension, a hundred more units, was largely completed by November 1. Here, too, a com- munity center was opened. Laurel Hall on Church Street, a 49 unit dormitory for working girls, was opened December 15, 1943.
In the Victory Heights commu- nity building, the housing authority established a Child Day Care Cen- ter for children of workers, and at Cambridge Park, a baby clinic. There, too, extensive programs, en- tertainment, dances, movies, library service were developed.
The veterans' organizations and service clubs - the Lions, Quota, Rotary, Bristol Exchange, Knights of Columbus, Italian-American, Polish-American, all did valiant
work. Exchangite John J. Gienty, who had two sons in the war, set up a Pictorial Honor Roll in his store in Forestville with all the photos of Forestville servicemen, and person- ally maintained correspondence with scores of fighting men all over the world.
The Chamber of Commerce gave all draftees a farewell banquet and presented each with a watch, the gift of the E. Ingraham Company. The Chamber helped promote hous- ing, maintained a room-registration service for new war workers, col- lected kits for Bristol soldiers, worked on replacement of drafted soldiers and kept the pipe lines open between government and in- dustry for the full utilization of Bris- tol's industrial resources. It assisted in air raid and salvage duties, pro- moted transportation to save gaso- line.
Many of the employees of vari- ous companies, in spite of heavy overtime work, found energy for important outside activities. The New Departure Girls' Club helped farmers harvest their crops, enter- tained GI's and aviators, and put on a musical comedy. The Glee Club sang for the shop force, for Bristol, for the sick in hospitals, for training camps. The New Departure Rec- reation Council promoted football, basketball, bowling, baseball to keep up employee and community morale.
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THE CHALLENGE OF AGGRESSION
Superintendent of Schools Karl A. Reiche, Principal Cottle, the other principals, teachers and stu- dents, aided in nearly every under- taking. The teachers handled the various registrations of citizens, helped with rationing and air raid drills and gave special courses. Pu- pils assisted on bond sales and sal- vage drives, book collections and as air watchers. The boys of Techni- cal High made 140 stretchers. In- dustrial Arts classes made metal splints. Because of the scarcity of Balsa wood, elementary pupils gath- ered milkweed-pod floss for Mae West vests for fliers shot down over water.
Two teachers gave their lives. High School science teacher Cap- tain Edmund P. Zbikowski of Hull Street died at Corregidor early in the war. A bronze memorial plaque at the Freshman High School reads:
He loved young people. He lived to serve them. He gave his all for them.
Social Science Technical High teacher Lieutenant Anthony P. Petrosky died in Okinawa. His me- morial plaque, also dedicated by the Bristol Teachers' Association, reads:
He believed in human rights. He was always friendly and kindly. He was always ready to serve.
The churches gave their facilities for meetings and collections, helped encourage boys in the Service with gifts, books, bulletins, magazine subscriptions, soldier's kits, and special- letters. St. Anthony's Church shipped 50,000 cans of food and gave $1,600 for medical sup- plies for the needy in Italy. The Salvation Army housed workers seeking employment.
The list of those churches, which have come to Bristol since the days when the First Congrega- tional Church stood alone on Fed- eral Hill, is also a record of the new faiths and ideas that have enriched the city: Advent Christian, Asbury Methodist, Bethesda Lutheran, Bethlehem Lutheran, Beth Israel Synagogue, Bristol Baptist, First Church of Christ Scientist, Grace Baptist, Immanuel Evangelical Lu- theran, Lebanon Lutheran, Mt. Hope Chapel, Prospect Methodist, Queen Street Congregational, St. John's Episcopal, Trinity Episcopal, Zion Evangelical Lutheran, and five Roman Catholic churches - St. Jo- seph's, St. Matthew's, St. Anthony, St. Ann's and St. Stanislaus.
The fifty families making up the Synagogue had twenty-eight men and women in the service. On the plaque in the Lebanon Lutheran Church are twenty-six names, and the service flag of Bethesda Lu- theran carried thirty-nine stars. On the Honor Roll in the vestibule of
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BRISTOL CHURCHES
Reading down: St. Matthew's R.C., Forestville; Asbury Methodist, Forestville; Bristol Baptist; Bethesda Lutheran, Forestville; Lebanon Lu- theran; Bethlehem Lutheran; First Congrega- tional; First Church of Christ Scientist; Grace Baptist; Mt. Hope Chapel; Beth Israel Synagogue; Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran; St. Joseph's R.C .; St. Anthony R.C .; St. Ann's R.C. (Whitney Studio, Bristol, Conn.); (First Church of Christ Scientist, courtesy Ernest W. Bolduc; Mt. Hope Chapel, courtesy Mrs. Andrew J. Wilson; others, Whitney Studio, Bristol, Conn.)
F
Reading down: Queen Street Congregational; St. John's Episcopal, Forestville; Prospect Methodist; Advent Christian; Zion Evangelical Lutheran; Trinity Episcopal; St. Stanislaus R.C. (Whitney Studio, Bristol, Conn.)
********* +++ ******-
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THE CHALLENGE OF AGGRESSION
St. Joseph's are 770 names, and of these thirty-three never came back. From St. Ann's Roman Catholic Church 450 went to war, and the names of nine Gold Star men are included in the special memorial altar erected in the church. The story of sacrifice is similar for every other church.
The Bristol Public Library be- came one of the main centers for the sale of war bonds, blood donations and Red Cross first aid. More than 10,000 books were collected, classi- fied and sent to New York for over- seas. War-industry photographs were purchased, scrapbooks made of local service people, and a col- lection of wartime records was made: ration books, air-raid war- dens' hats, gas masks, medals, etc. A library of 1,000 volumes was set up in the New Cambridge Housing project on Jerome Avenue. In 1944 a special summer reading project for the children's room was stimu- lated by awards of war stamps.
Special wartime reading lists on victory gardens, peace, racial prob- lems, and countries where Bristol men were fighting, were prepared.
"What've you got on India? My boy is over there," was a typical question at the circulation and ref- erence desks. China, Africa, Italy, England, France, Germany, Soviet Russia and, of course, Japan and the South Pacific area assumed
new interest for Bristol readers.
But during the darker days, as Celia Critchley noted, "People asked for 'anything just so it wasn't about the war'; books on labor, as unions organized; books on garden- ing, cooking and sewing as frantic mothers tried to fit the pattern of their family to the ration orders." Then, as peace problems loomed, people wanted "books on peace, on the plans for peace, the hopes for peace. . . .
"It was with a feeling of deep gratitude that we hung out the sign 'Library closed in celebration of V-J Day,' locked the door and joined the throngs which moved toward the churches of the city."
As with other organizations, the wartime accomplishments of the library were performed so effec- tively because of prior service to the community in peacetime and the constructive efforts of Charles L. Wooding and his staff in preserv- ing the American heritage and the cultural gifts of all the ages and of all peoples, and making it a true in- strument of public enlightenment. Wooding retired in August, 1944, after more than fifty years of de- voted loyalty to the library, and in November, Celia T. Critchley, who had been his assistant for some years, was appointed to succeed him.
Under her direction the library has steadily improved its profes-
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THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
sional competence and has broad- ened its purposes. The most re- markable achievement of her first year of administration was to im- prove the children's department, with a resultant increase of circula- tion of 81.5 per cent, five times the increase in adult circulation. To- day the number of books borrowed from the library by children ex- ceeds 125,000 a year, many thou- sands more than those borrowed by adults. This augurs well for the next generation that will be the Bris- tol of tomorrow.
The Forestville branch of the Bristol Library was started in 1904 in a building on East Main Street provided until 1947 by the Sessions Clock Company, which also paid for the light and heat and, until the depression, the salary of the librar- ian. In 1950 the Forestville branch moved into its present home on Central and Garden Streets, the Frederick N. Manross Memorial Library, presented to the city by Arthur N. Manross in memory of his father. Later this gift was sup- plemented by a substantial sum of money to beautify the grounds and establish a community park.
The branch at the New Cam- bridge Housing Development is still maintained. The library gives bedside service to the hospital, and has one of the few Bookmobile serv- ices in Connecticut. On request it provides home service to any shut-
ins. Weekly service is given at five schools where collections are main- tained.
In the fireproof vault for rare books, Marion O'Connor has cata- logued and properly arranged the materials on Bristol history, much of it consisting of rare documents, in modern pendaflex files.
The little-used third floor audi- torium was renovated, integrated with the library and made available for civic activities. Art and other exhibits, lectures, study courses, work shop' classes, book fairs, ad- visory reader service and other activities have helped make the Bris- tol Public Library one of the out- standing libraries of Connecticut and of the country.
Bristol's war service records, sta- tistics and the data concerning the activities of the home front were collected and preserved by the Bris- tol War Historical Committee, un- der the Mayor and City Council, headed by Fuller F. Barnes. The published report, Bristol Connecti- cut in World War II, edited by Henry E. Cottle, for so many years principal of the High School, is a detailed yet vivid account, which includes personal records and the campaigns of Bristol men in the entire Pacific theater of the war. It is particularly valuable for its rec- ord of activities on the home front. One whole section is devoted to the many contributions made by Bris-
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tol industries and manufacturers.
Industry was involved in all war work. Some companies went into wholly new kinds of production. Others were able to adapt their usual production.
Bristol is the home of springs, and springmaking is an indispensable part of all industrial and defense production; as Vice-President Ly- man D. Adams of the Associated Spring Corporation has remarked, "It is impossible to name anything manufactured in which a spring action is not associated, either in the product or its production."
Even before Pearl Harbor, Asso- ciated Spring production increased rapidly. The need for springs in every moving machine, in transpor- tation and in household appliances expanded with fantastic rapidity. All war materials, or the machines making them, used one or more springs and more precision and greater durability were required to meet the new requirements of speed, power, tremendous heat in autos, airplanes, tanks, guns and other mechanisms. The Bristol units of the Associated Spring Cor- poration, several with a century of experience, were able to meet all special requirements.
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