USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Shelburne > History and tradition of Shelburne, Massachusetts > Part 25
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SECOND WORLD WAR
THIS part of the record, as in the case of the First World War, will make no attempt to deal with the activities of the town of Shelburne as distinct from those of Buckland. Without hesitation the people of the two units acted in the only way they could act effectively, as members of a single community. Except for the lists of the men and women in the Armed Forces and the enactments of the town meetings, no separate records were kept, and even the articles voted by the town meetings, so far as they dealt with prob- lems arising from the war, were duplicates each of the other. The dividing river presented serious prob- lems of a practical nature, as will be mentioned later, but these problems themselves promoted a greater
unity, and few people, if any, seemed to care that there was a political boundary.
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To those whose memory includes the events of 1914-1917 as well as those of 1938-1941, the develop- ment of sentiment about our active participation was especially interesting. Opinion was less acutely divided and there was a gradual acceptance of the inevita- bility of our being involved. There were several rea- sons for this: the memory of the previous experience ; the astonishing early success of the German war machine and its brutal disregard of accepted codes of human and international decency; the terrible bomb-
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ing of English cities and the marvelous fortitude with which their inhabitants met the raids; and such pre- war activities as assistance to our allies, the Selective Service Act, and the organization of civilian defense. Perhaps the most important, however, was the differ- ent attitude of the Federal administration of the nation. Instead of President Wilson's "too proud to fight" and "he kept us out of war," President Roosevelt used every method available to aid our future allies, to align our sympathies with them, and to increase our industrial and military resources in preparation for active war. Some lapses from this trend ("I promise you that no American boy will be sent into foreign wars") were taken for nothing more than pre-election talk and, unfortunately, an indica- tion of a low state of political morality. The continu- ance of the Selective Service was far more impressive, even though it narrowly escaped defeat in a vote- timid Congress.
The drawing of names for the Selective Service, as the nation's first peacetime draft was then called, began shortly after the election of November, 1940. The following March the newspapers reported that thirty-eight thousand men from New England had been notified that they had been "selected," but only about half that number had actually been inducted. A month later the War Department announced that twenty-eight new camp sites were being planned and that one million four hundred thousand men would be in the Army by June. At the same time (April 18, 1941) President Roosevelt commented that Ameri- cans were not "adequately aware" of the situation in Europe but were becoming more so. Nine days later Athens was captured, the fourteenth European capital to fall before the German onslaught. But, "London still holds."
LOCAL CIVILIAN ACTIVITIES
During the spring and summer of 1941 the Federal government set up detailed and intensive plans for civilian defense organizations, and these plans were transmitted through the State governments to the local communities. These are described at some length below, and in the meantime other preparations were started.
On July 2 a campaign was begun to raise funds for the United Service Organizations which was to provide entertainment, hospitality, and many minor comforts for the men and women in the Armed Services, combining the work done during the First World War by the Y.M.C.A., the Salvation Army, the Knights of Columbus, and similar groups.
Three weeks later a drive was started by the Boy Scouts to collect used aluminum for airplane factories. This was launched by a parade of some eighty floats and other decorated vehicles, followed by a band concert and a rally attended by a crowd estimated at one thousand people. In this parade, by the way, the "V" emblem for victory was first used in Shelburne Falls on the float of the Shelburne Falls Girls' Club
and on that of the Sawyer News Company. At the end of the week the great crate at the eastern end of the bridge contained nearly half a ton of utensils which people - mostly housewives - found they did not greatly need.
A month later stickers appeared on the windshields of automobiles, pledging the drivers to reduce their usual consumption of gasoline by one third. This goal was not quite attained - filling stations reported decreases in sales varying from ten to twenty-five per- cent - but there was some saving, and the real pur- pose - to prepare us for rationing later - was worth the effort.
Two series of valuable evening classes were held here in the shop at Arms Academy. Many women were trained to operate metal-working machinery so that they could take the place of men in the war industries locally and at the larger plants in Green- field. Later, instruction was offered in the repair of farm machinery. The men learned enough from the shop teachers to justify the term "instruction," but the actual work was naturally on their own imple- ments ranging from wheelbarrows to tractors. Skilled assistance, power tools, and a warm, well-lighted place to work, enabled farmers to keep in service much irre- placeable equipment which would otherwise have be- come useless.
The story of the rationing of scarce materials was the same as in the country at large. Shortages in gasoline, fuel oil, certain foods (especially meats and sugar), shoes, and other items, became nuisances, as did the tiny coupons with which they were purchased, and housewives learned to plan closely. The school- teachers handled the rationing well; the local ration- ing board, set up to deal with exceptional cases, was efficient and fair-minded; and "chiseling" was held down to a minimum by the force of public opinion and good cooperation.
The Red Cross, traditionally forehanded, was also in action months before the war broke out. People of both sexes and all ages were trained in "first aid" under the supervision of Mrs. Merritt Ware, a veteran nurse of the First World War, and Fire Chief Roy S. Turton. Classes in home nursing were conducted both for adult women and for girls at Arms Academy. Some thirty women completed the courses for canteen workers. Quantities of surgical bandages were folded and tied by women who met several afternoons each week in the Community Rooms; some of them worked several hundred hours each year.
At the request of the Army authorities an aircraft warning station was set up near Shelburne Center and connected with a telephone network which covered the borders of the nation for many miles inland. Men, women, and older pupils took turns in keeping this station open twenty-four hours a day.
Probably the only important organization which was not set up before the actual outbreak of the war was the local company of the State Guard, and this was not authorized until after Pearl Harbor. Under the com-
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mand of George S. Cadran, a Marine Corps veteran of the Philippines, it was trained to repel raiding parties, maintain means of communication, establish road blocks or keep roads open, and handle local disturbances. The men (ages 18 to 50) were equipped with neat dark green uniforms and were armed with rifles and some special paraphernalia. The numerical strength never fell below the authorized sixty-one, although a total of forty members were drawn off into the national Armed Services.
The largest and in many respects the most remark- able group activities were those included under the name of Civilian Defense, with some seven hundred people trained and ready to be "alerted" at any hour of the day or night to deal with "incidents." This latter term was the euphemism used to cover any- thing from a suspiciously loosened bridge plank up to an epidemic or a destructive air raid. Shelburne Falls was one of the more probable of the minor targets in the State because of its dams and power plants, its two bridges on a main highway, and the vital rail- road bridge below the village.
In case of a raid or a threat of one, bells and whistles were sounded for a "black-out" and couriers were sent out of the village to notify more distant homes. A campaign of education had previously been put on to demonstrate "black-out" methods and mate- rials. Wardens patrolled the streets to see that no lights showed, and watchers were posted in the fire tower on Mount Massaemet for the same purpose. If any "incidents" occurred (in each rehearsal several were simulated ), the warden in that locality telephoned to the Report Center from which the proper crew was sent out to deal with it, whether it was an incendiary bomb or a broken leg. These crews included fire trucks, first aiders, rescue and demolition squads, and ambulances. These latter were closed delivery trucks and station wagons which were brought into service and equipped with stretchers made by the boys in the Arms Academy shop. These crews were all organized in duplicate, one of each being stationed on each side of the river in case the bridge was impassable. The chairman of each organization was at one of the ten telephones in the Report Center; and as reports came in, they made contacts with their own crews, each of which had assembled at an appointed place on the first alarm. A group of Boy Scouts was at the Report Center to carry messages in case the telephones were out of use.
The post wardens and many householders had been kept informed as to how to deal with different types of incendiary bombs as they came into use (chiefly on London), and many homes had fine-spray pumps, bags of sand and long-handled shovels as well as black-out window covers.
At the same time first-aid stations were equipped in Cora Smith Hall and in the Crittenden School, and trained personnel went to them and remained in readiness. Also, canteens were established, with as- signed workers, in the vestries of the Methodist and
Baptist Churches. Their duty, in case of "incident," was to provide coffee and hot food to the workers and to any residents who were driven from their homes.
The Report Center itself was located in one of the Community Rooms. In addition to tables, telephones, chairs, permanent ventilating black-out shades and a cot bed, it was equipped with an organization chart with each chairman's telephone number and also with a large wall map of the town. This map showed clearly all such vital features as water mains, bridges, dams, power plants, the telephone exchange and cables, and all gasoline stations and oil tanks. The Center was one of the best in the State and was manned continuously from December seventh. Women were in attendance from seven in the morning to seven in the evening in three-hour shifts, and two men divided each night shift, the first usually staying until eleven or twelve and the second sleeping there after the final telephone check from Greenfield. Supplementary centers were set up on a much smaller scale in Shel- burne Center and Buckland Center.
The first practice test was conducted on November thirteenth, followed by several more during the early months of the war. Some of those tests were in con- nection with county-wide and state-wide rehearsals. Very rarely indeed was anyone absent from his or her post.
In addition to these air-raid precautions, several other services were organized. Supplementing the local medical setup under Dr. John B. Temple and Dr. John S. Outhouse as deputy, another medical unit was organized to include Ashfield, Charlemont, Colrain, Hawley, Heath, and Rowe, as well as Shel- burne and Buckland. All the doctors of these towns were organized under Dr. Temple; plans were made whereby the Cowell Gymnasium could be quickly converted into a temporary hospital, and several hun- dred dollars worth of medical and surgical equipment was stored there. An evacuation committee listed all homes where one or more rooms could be used, either by local people driven from their homes, or by others if evacuated from Boston or other large cities. The canteens mentioned above would serve food to such people and also to military personnel being routed through the town. The canteens tested their organiza- tion by serving noon lunches, at cost, to local business- men and others.
The actual setting up of this structure began in May, when John W. Farley of Boston was made chairman for the State and John W. Heselton of Deerfield for Franklin County. On June 23 a meet- ing of representatives from all the towns in the county was held in Greenfield, and ten men from Shelburne and Buckland attended. Following that, local com- mittees were appointed, mass meetings were held, the instruction classes mentioned above were begun, and local organizations were built up. The technical aspects of air-raid defense were based on the experi- ences of London and other British cities, and informa-
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tion regarding each new type of bomb and the meth- ods of handling it was cabled to Washington and relayed throughout the country. At a large meeting held on November 1 a very impressive series of motion pictures of a London air raid was shown, giving actual details of fire-fighting and first-aid work. The seven days beginning November 11 were desig- nated as "Civilian Defense Week" with emphasis on health, the prevention of waste, and the enrollment of more defense workers. A mass meeting was held in Memorial Hall, featured by an appropriate pro- gram by the pupils and teachers of Arms Academy.
Harry P. Shaw was appointed over-all chairman of the entire civilian organization and served vigor- ously and with contagious enthusiasm throughout the war. Earl R. Lovering was vice-chairman and did a great deal of detail work in getting the organization started, until his company transferred him to another town. Elmer S. Hallet then took over as vice-chair- man and served tirelessly and efficiently until peace came. William Hunter was the first chief air raid warden ; his earnestness and speaking ability were very effective in arousing interest, but his own occupation prevented his continuing as air raid warden. He was followed by John O. Woodsome, who served efficiently "for the duration." Deputy wardens under him were Ralph W. Wells, Kenneth W. Smith, Edward A. Milne, Harry M. Chamberlain, and Earl H. Purin- ton.
Two other men should be mentioned especially, for no one put in longer hours or handled work which was less pleasant - Harold G. Hoyt, a member of the Franklin County Draft Board, which had the duty of selecting men for induction, and Herbert P. Ware of the Board's Advisory Committee. The amount of time they spent without compensation in studying registration blanks and in interviewing registrants, their parents, wives and employers, was little realized, and neither was the strain on their nerves and their sympathies.
To compile a list of all those who served would be impossible. The names of chairmen and their deputies are given later in this section as they appeared on the organization chart in the Report Center, but the hun- dreds of others who worked willingly, unobtrusively, and efficiently are entitled to the same credit. Nearly twenty-five per cent of the population of the two towns took part in the work as compared with an average of ten per cent throughout the State. Very rarely did anyone decline to take on a task that was offered. The absence of jealousy and bickering was a matter of widespread comment; and honest differences of opinion seemed to be settled without bitterness. No one received any material compensation whatever, and it was noticed that some of those who were in a posi- tion to profit the most financially from the war activi- ties were the most untiring in their defense efforts.
Very little of all this appears in the records of the town meetings, probably because of the nation-wide and state-wide scope of the effort and partly because
the expense was largely covered by Federal and State appropriations. The regular town meetings of 1942 through 1945 inclusive voted sums of $750, $500, $150 and $100 respectively for local defense, and in each case Buckland did the same.
No account of civilian activities would be complete without reference to an episode which occurred some two years after the war but was directly connected with it.
Knowing that food shortages in England still con- tinued, it occurred to a group of women in the Art Center that some descendants of the man for whom the town was named might be affected by the shortage and perhaps even in distress. This man was William Petty, who had the titles of first Marquis of Lands- downe and second Earl of Shelburne.
Correspondence was initiated by Mrs. Alice M. Ware with the town of Bath, England, where part of the Landsdowne estates were located, and two generous packages, largely canned meats, were mailed, the costs being met by contributions by the group men- tioned above. A letter from the director of the Victoria Art Gallery and Municipal Libraries stated that the direct line of claimants to the titles was ex- tinct, and a letter from the mayor of Bath, quoted below, tells what was done with the packages. It is interesting to note that anyone not actually on govern- ment relief was considered to be in "comfortable cir- cumstances."
Guildhall Bath 29th July, 1947
Dear Mrs. Ware,
Your very interesting and generous food parcel reached me yesterday, and, except for a little cocoa which had become spilled, it was in perfect condition. I do want to thank you most sincerely for your kind- ness in sending this.
I expect you would like to know that I have had the parcel divided and sent to two elderly ladies who are living alone. Both are in what we call very "com- fortable circumstances" - a phrase which has now- adays come to mean that you are not in those cate- gories which are provided for under current legisla- tion! I am therefore particularly pleased to receive any gifts such as yours, in order to be able to help cases such as this. I know that this help will be appre- ciated to the full, as is the kindly thought and concern for our needs which prompted you to send it.
May I, in the name of Bath, thank you once again, and assure you that you have given much help and pleasure to people who are now suffering the effects of this austerity world.
Very truly yours,
Mayor
Mrs. H. P. Ware Shelburne Falls Mass. U.S.A
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THE WAR BEGINS
With all this intensive preparation it might seem that the nation's actual entrance into armed conflict would be simply another step along a path that was already becoming appallingly familiar. The nature of this entrance prevented any such routine acceptance. No one was really prepared to have the calm of a pleasant Sunday afternoon blasted by such news as came over the radio from Pearl Harbor, and the effect was electrifying rather than staggering. The Civilian Defense Committee met at once in the quarters of the American Legion. By nightfall the Report Center was manned on a twenty-four-hour schedule and was ready for operation, and guards were posted at dams, power plants and bridges. On Monday the telephone network of the Army's Air Raid Precaution System warned that planes were approaching New England and later added the cryptic announcement that there was "considerable substantiation" of the report. On Tuesday a similar report caused another "alert" (ad- jectives easily became nouns or verbs in the midst of so many disruptions of our normal existence) and schools were closed at noon. It was not until Wednes- day that the first tenseness diminished; but the sense of danger and the determination to meet it persisted until long after the British and American Air Forces had finally driven the once-powerful Luftwaffe back into purely defensive action. The shameful affair at Pearl Harbor and the terrible possibilities of further disasters which it exposed were mitigated by two most wholesome after-effects in the community as in the nation at large:`any question as to whether we should enter the war was silenced at once, and the country was aroused and united as it never had been in any other war in its determination to see the conflict through to a victory that would be conclusive.
Much of the impact of the war on Shelburne may be accurately described as an intensified continuation of the activities begun in April, 1941, as outlined above. Rehearsals of preparations for air raids werc the most spectacular. Red Cross work was unceasing, and the nuisances of rationing and of shortages in food, fuel, gasoline, and clothing, were accepted with only a little real grumbling and evasion. Arms Academy pupils gave up interscholastic athletics for a year and a half, because of the distance from their competitors, and limited themselves to intramural contests. The sale of war bonds and war savings stamps was heavy and continuous. Campaigns for funds for the Red Cross and United Service Organizations were frequent and well organized, and quotas were consistently over- subscribed. A large group of Arms Academy pupils raised several hundred dollars for the U.S.O. by putting on an excellent musical show in Memorial Hall without any help or supervision from their elders. Radios were, of course, tuned in during all hours of the day and most of the night; most of the news that came in was fairly accurate, and even the early defeats in the South Pacific and in North Africa were not too badly minimized (if one listened care-
fully and long enough). While radio "commenta- tors" ranged from the conservative to the sensational, most of them kept within reasonable bounds. Another marked change in the life of the town was caused by the number of women who went into paid employ- ment. Industries in both Colrain and Greenfield operated continuously day and night, and bus trans- portation was started between those towns and Shel- burne Falls on a schedule to conform to the changes of the three eight-hour shifts. Likewise the employ- ment out of school hours of boys and girls of high school age increased sharply, especially on the farms, where it was a matter of necessity. During some sea- sons, such as apple picking, organized groups, under teachers, were sent out where they were needed the most. The rumble of freight trains, instead of the prewar average of one every two hours, was heard several times every hour. Many of the loads were for shipment overseas; we learned later that thousands of tons of explosives were sent through here, unsus- pected by us, and routed to avoid large cities, and finally loaded into ships at the little town of Sears- port, Maine. Thus, if a train or a ship exploded, the loss would be a small village and not a large city, as happened at Halifax in the First World War.
While these alterations were being made and ac- cepted in the material aspects of the town's daily life, the people were also accepting the necessity of parting with those who would have to change entirely their manner of living and perhaps even never return. The Selective Service Act, in effect for over a year, prepared the nation and the town for the first war- time calls, but it did not soften the first impact of any departure. Some waited for their draft calls, and others enlisted, especially the comparatively large num- ber who preferred service in the Navy, but regardless of the manner of their entering the services, or whether they left singly or in groups, the effect was the same. In any small New England village there is always a strong underlying sense of unity, and when any boy left for war, the. feeling in his home was shared by a group of friends and neighbors. Possibly this feeling was more acute because the town's first battle death occurred within only a few weeks after we entered the war and only a few miles off our coast. Russell D. Chamberlain went down when his ship, the destroyer, Jacob Jones, was torpedoed early in February 1942. He was the first, not only from his town, but from his school and from the county. Memo- rial services were held for him in his church, as for the others who were lost; but there was no faltering in the town, nor was there any in the nation. It is probable that the American people did not realize fully, either before or after Pearl Harbor, how near to defeat the Allies were on some occasions, but they knew well that victory would be costly, and their attitude was one of grim determination. There were few who did not sense the horrors of the fighting in the South Pacific, or of the deadly battle against the German submarines as men and supplies were being
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sent across the North Atlantic, or the tenseness of waiting for the invasion of Europe. When the latter was announced, so great was the tension that the church bells called the people to doors that were open all day long for prayer. When the news came of the surrender of the German armies, the celebration was tempered with the same grimness - it was only a seventh-inning stretch, as one baseball-minded veteran of the First World War described it - the job was not finished. And even when Japan quit under the devastation of two atomic bombs, the joy was much quieter and the celebration far less effusive than on Armistice Day of 1918. Possibly it was because so many young lives had been lost, or possibly because the people had learned in twenty-seven years that the order to cease firing did not bring peace on earth.
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