USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1916-1955 > Part 17
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With the community still feeling the results of the depres- sion, this was a serious matter for thousands of families. City authorities declared the price increases unnecessary and "wholly unwarranted." They officially denied rumors of impending "shortage." But prices did not come down.
Though the effect was not so immediate, Pittsfield soon began to feel, with the rest of the country, the pinch of higher Federal taxes as the Congress appropriated more and more bil- lions for national defense. In an unprecedented measure that some derided as impossible to achieve, Washington initiated and successfully carried through a program to build 50,000 airplanes within a year, at the same time strengthening the Army and Navy.
In August 1939, even before the outbreak of hostilities abroad, members of the local National Guard units-Company I and the Headquarters Company of the 3rd Battalion, 104th Infantry-went by special train to Plattsburg, New York, where
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for two weeks they participated with 52,000 troops in the larg- est peace-time war games in our history.
During the manoeuvres, National Guard units were pitted against regular Army detachments and did so badly that the War Department immediately called them out again for an- other week of training in the field.
In November 1939, with the weather wet and getting colder, some 400 Guardsmen from the Berkshires and from Greenfield assembled in Pittsfield and took over a former CCC camp on West Mountain, which they "successfully defended against all comers," they said, "and suffered no casualties to speak of," though they described the week as generally miserable and "worthless."
Aiding a national campaign to increase recruiting for the armed services, the city held several large patriotic meetings in the Armory. This was followed by a house-to-house canvass in search of single men aged 18 through 35 who might be per- suaded to join the Army.
Recruiting, it must be said, was not brisk, and more meetings were held, with a plethora of speakers urging all younger men to do their duty. During 1940, more than 300 from the Berk- shires volunteered for service in the Army, with Pittsfield sup- plying a third of these.
During the year, at the local airport, ten students won their "wings" as graduates of the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Sponsored by the Civil Aeronautics Administration in Wash- ington, this program was designed to provide the military flying services with young men who knew how to get up in the air- and down again-and could immediately proceed to advanced training.
At the same time, about thirty young people, including sev- eral girls, took private flying instruction at the airport. All of this greatly stimulated local interest in aviation and led to the formation of the Berkshire Flyers' Club.
One of the early graduates of the local Civilian Pilot Train- ing Program was William F. Avery, who joined the Royal Air Force, became a junior officer, and was one of the city's first
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casualties in the war, being killed while in service in England in December 1941.
War orders from abroad and growing defense expenditures at home stimulated industry throughout the country, markedly in Pittsfield. The local unemployment problem, which had been more or less acute since 1927 and very severe throughout the Thirties, began to ease as more and more workers found jobs, with a consequent sharp decline in the number on the relief rolls.
By the end of 1940, the level of employment in the city was higher than it had been in 1929. It had increased more than 25 per cent within the year as the wheels of local factories started humming again at full speed. Industry here and else- where suddenly had to meet the needs not only of the military but of millions of re-employed workers who were in the market once more for many things they had been deprived of during the long Depression.
The Berkshire, the Wyandotte, and other local mills began turning out woolens and various textiles by the millions of yards, chiefly for use in military uniforms, overcoats, and blan- kets. The machine shops of the E. D. Jones & Sons Company, producers of paper-mill machinery, were put to work making anti-aircraft searchlights, machine tool parts, metal shields for cannon, and propeller shafts for Liberty ships.
The greatest expansion of working force and facilities oc- curred at the General Electric plant. The company built in its Morningside area a $750,000 power-house extension, a new $150,000 plastics building, a $100,000 and then a $325,000 ad- dition to the transformer tank shop, and a large new $8,000,000 facility on Plastics Avenue for making naval ordnance equip- ment. More than 90,000 yards of earth had to be moved for the construction of this building, which was 800 feet long and 320 feet wide. By the end of 1941, the number of workers at the General Electric plant totalled almost 10,000, more than twice as many as three years before.
A new era in local labor-management relations opened in 1940 when, after more than two years of organizational work,
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the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was officially recognized by the General Electric Company as the bargaining agent for those employed at the local works.
Early in 1937, after the historic decision of the United States Steel Company to sign a company-wide union contract with the CIO steel workers, the General Electric Company agreed to discuss a similar contract with the CIO electrical workers union. Organization of workers at the Pittsfield plant was slow and met with many difficulties. Police Chief Sullivan prohibited the circulation of union leaflets at the General Electric gates as a "violation of city ordinances."
All previous attempts at trade union organization in the plant had failed. But there was a new climate of industrial relations throughout the country, and by 1939 there were two union locals at the plant-one for shop workers, the other for office workers.
Early the next year, they petitioned the National Labor Rela- tions Board for an election to determine whether the employees at the local plant wished the UERMW to act as their bargaining agent. By a vote of 2,723 to 1,322, the shop workers chose Local 255 of the union to represent them. Local 254 was chosen to represent the "white collar" workers.
Since June 4, 1940, when the results of this election were an- nounced, the trade union movement has been one of great in- fluence and growing weight in Pittsfield.
The result of the vote at the General Electric plant, by far the largest employer in town, encouraged more trade union or- ganization. A local Retail Clerks Association decided to affiliate with the CIO. A new independent union, the Federation of State, City, and Town Employees, organized a local in Pittsfield with about 130 members.
Meantime, other new CIO unions had established themselves in the city, which had previously known only the older and more conservative AFL craft unions, such as the carpenters, the bricklayers, the plumbers, the tinsmiths, and others.
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In 1937, a strike at the Lichtman Tanning Corporation, dur- ing which striking workers clashed with the police, brought about recognition of a CIO local. Other CIO unions were rec- ognized by the Berkshire Button Company and the Musgrove Knitting Company. In May 1939, the Berkshire Woolen Com- pany accepted Local 301 of the Textile Workers of America (CIO) as the sole collective bargaining agent for its more than 600 workers.
Hostilities in Europe had quieted down to minor skirmishes after the swift Nazi conquest of Poland. Britain and France were at war with Germany. But there was little action along the Western Front-so little that the war there became known as "the phony war." But the quiet was deceptive. The Western world was about to be rocked by a series of lightning strokes that would shake it to its foundations.
In the spring of 1940, Nazi forces suddenly attacked and overran Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium-all of them neutrals. Nazi armored columns made a bold dash across northern France to the Channel, cutting off the bulk of the British armies. By heroic means the latter were finally evacu- ated from Dunkerque and returned to England after all seemed lost. On June 14, the Germans occupied Paris. Three days later, France capitulated, having been attacked from the rear by Mus- solini in her hour of peril.
A shock to the entire world, the fall of France left Britain standing alone in the fight against the exultant and seemingly irresistible fascist powers, which began reaching out with fire and sword in many directions.
Ignoring strong American protests, the Japanese established a puppet regime in China and moved into French Indo-China. Hitler sent his victorious armies to the southeast, down the Danube valley, to reduce the Balkans. Mussolini invaded Greece and began successful attacks on British positions in the Mediterranean. Franco Spain gave the Axis its "moral" support, which was all it could afford at the moment, though it later contributed a "Blue" division to Hitler's forces.
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For the anti-fascist world, particularly for the European de- mocracies, the year 1940 was one of almost unrelieved catas- trophe, with disaster piled upon disaster.
It was in this atmosphere of gloom and doom, just after the fall of France, that the Berkshire members of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies called a public meeting in Pittsfield. More than 1,000 people from the city and sur- rounding area crowded into the high school auditorium to hear a number of prominent speakers discuss the alternatives of American foreign policy.
In the end, the meeting voted, with only seven dissenting voices, that it should be our policy, in the interests of humanity and national defense, to aid Britain by every means "short of war."
This seemed to be the majority opinion throughout the coun- try. Though the feeling against war still ran strong as it had all during the Twenties and Thirties, relatively few objected as surplus arms and aircraft were released to Britain and the nation rapidly stepped up its military preparations and took other security measures.
New defense taxes were levied. All aliens were required to register and report regularly under a national statute still on the books. The local registration roll bore the names of more than 3,000 aliens living in Pittsfield and neighboring towns. The Armory on Summer Street was closed to the public and placed under 24-hour guard, as were all drill sheds in Massachusetts. The local National Guard units were called, as a year earlier, to participate in large war games and field manoeuvres in up- state New York.
In Washington, after protracted debate, the Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act, the first peace-time pro- gram of compulsory military service in our history. It was de- signed to run for a year and provide training for 1,200,000 troops and 800,000 reserves.
On October 16, 1940, all men aged 21 through 35 were re- quired to register for possible selection and training. In Berk- shire County, out of 16,400,000 for the nation as a whole,
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15,069 registered. Pittsfield's total was 6,002. Two weeks later, with President Roosevelt observing, Secretary of War Stimson drew the numbers of those who were to report immediately for examination in their respective districts.
It was against this background of fascist triumph abroad and of hurried defense measures at home that the 1940 national election was held. As its presidential candidate, the Republican party chose-to the dismay of the Old Guard-something of a maverick, Wendell Willkie, formerly a Democrat. A man of simple tastes and broad social understanding, an Indiana lawyer of humble beginnings who had risen high in the financial world, he was sardonically and unfairly ridiculed by the Dem- ocrats as "the barefoot boy from Wall Street."
Acting rather coy for a time, as the political proprieties de- manded, President Roosevelt accepted his nomination by the Democrats for a third term in the White House, being the first to challenge the two-term tradition established by George Washington. Many regarded this as a trend toward "dictator- ship," the very thing we were so much concerned about abroad.
Both candidates and parties campaigned against active par- ticipation in the war. As they were generally agreed on foreign policy and the urgent need of building up national defense, the presidential election was largely fought on the third-term issue.
Pittsfield, Berkshire County, and Massachusetts again gave President Roosevelt a majority, though by a much smaller mar- gin than in 1936, which was the country-wide pattern. Never- theless, Roosevelt carried thirty-eight states, winning 499 votes in the Electoral College to Willkie's 82. Much as the local press disliked the results, it declared that the American people had "decisively spoken" and should now close ranks to meet the dangerous tasks ahead, which was done with little or no dis- affection.
During the campaign, Willkie had visited Pittsfield and spoken to an enthusiastic crowd of 8,000 people on the Com- mon. Mayor Fallon declined to serve as a member of the com- mittee named to welcome Willkie on the ground that it was not part of his duty as a non-partisan mayor to welcome, or in
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any way favor, the candidate of one party or the other, whether the race was for the presidency or for state and county offices.
Immediately after the national elections, the first Pittsfield men to be accepted under the new selective service act-seven, in all-departed for the induction center at Springfield. Many more soon followed. Under the terms of the original act, these men were to serve only a year. But their service was later ex- tended to eighteen months.
Under the selective service act, two draft boards were ap- pointed in Pittsfield-#122, with Frederick M. Myers as chair- man, and #123, with Leon L. Riche as chairman. The boards functioned under the same direction throughout World War II.
Before the first selectees had finished their service, the coun- try was plunged into global war and required every fighting man it could muster. Of the seven men the city first mustered under selective service, six were still in uniform five years later. Of these, five had served overseas.
As part of the mobilization drive, all National Guard units were called into Federal service in January 1941. The two local companies, with about eighty Pittsfield men in their ranks, en- trained for Camp Edwards down on Cape Cod. As they marched to the station, there was no fanfare of any kind. There were no bands playing, and only a few people gathered along the streets to cheer them and wave goodbye.
"It wasn't like this twenty-five years ago when we left for the Border," remarked an old soldier, a member of beloved Com- pany F. "When we marched down from the Armory, both sides of the street were lined with people. And when we left, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army loaded us down with cig- arettes and candy. I can't understand the people's attitude today."
Most people felt that war had become far too terrible to be an occasion for flag-waving and shouting crowds. War had lost whatever romantic aspects it once had. It was now a cold and scientific business, totalitarian in character, having about it much of the impersonality of a machine. In a sense, it had ceased to be a matter of individuals and did not lend itself to
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demonstrations of local pride and patriotism. World War II was a very different war in almost all respects from those that had preceded it.
Early in 1941, at the request of the Air Defense Command, the city established an aircraft warning service. More than 300 men and women volunteered for duty. A thousand or more were doing work of various kinds for the Red Cross, which was actively recruiting for its Volunteer Nurses' Aides Corps.
Mayor Fallon opened the first sale of defense bonds and stamps by purchasing a $1,000 bond, which got the loan drive off to a good start. Pittsfield oversubscribed its quota, with workers of the city contributing a relatively large amount. Nine out of ten General Electric employees bought bonds, altogether investing within a few months' time more than $1,000,000 in defense securities.
Military preparations and general defense measures went steadily ahead in all parts of the country through 1941. For many dismal years there had been far more workers than jobs. Now the trend was reversed. In many industries there were more jobs than men to fill them. As in World War I years, there was a rapid increase in women workers.
The General Electric and other local factories were soon using their working staffs in three shifts to keep operations run- ning around the clock. Some went on a 7-day work week, pay- ing time and a half on Saturdays, and double time on Sundays. With labor in great and increasing demand, wages in the city went up step by step, resulting in larger weekly payrolls than ever before.
Pittsfield forgot its "Depression blues" and began to take on an air of general prosperity sadly lacking in the Thirties. In October 1941, as a sign of the times, North Street merchants and others in the business district instituted the practice, since continued, of keeping their stores open till nine on Thursday evenings for the convenience of thousands of shoppers who once again had money to spend.
With employment high and steadily rising, workers were at- tracted from other communities, which faced the city with a
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housing shortage that became more and more acute. Very few houses had been built during the Depression; many old "tene- ments" and rooming-houses were in bad repair.
New building construction had soared to $2,575,000 in 1940 and almost reached $2,000,000 the following year. Even so, there were not enough houses or other desirable living quarters to go around, resulting in considerable overcrowding that tend- ed to force newcomers to seek quarters in neighboring towns.
To help relieve this situation, the Federal Public Housing Authority authorized in 1942 the construction of a $500,000 project designed to provide a hundred temporary prefabricated houses for local war-workers and their families. The project was situated on Benedict Road, at what was named Victory Hill. Though the houses left much to be desired, they met and still meet an urgent need.
Tension between the United States and the Axis powers was rising. But as the year 1941 wore on, our actual participation in hostilities seemed as remote as ever until that fateful Sunday, December 7th, "a day that will live in infamy." Millions of families from coast to coast were listening to their favorite radio programs on that quiet Sunday when all programs were suddenly interrupted with the announcement from Washington that the Japanese were attacking Pearl Harbor, our great mid- Pacific naval base in Hawaii.
A large Japanese fleet had crossed the North Pacific unde- tected and stopped a few hundred miles north of Hawaii, where its aircraft carriers sent up swarms of bombers and fighters for a "sneak" attack on the ships in Pearl Harbor, and on neighbor- ing airfields and Army installations.
Effecting complete surprise, swooping down early in the morning, the Japanese airmen did tremendous damage in their short two-hour attack. Of eight great battleships caught like sitting ducks in Pearl Harbor, four were sunk, one capsized, and the rest were badly damaged. Altogether, nineteen warships were lost or disabled, as well as 120 American planes on fields near by.
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Bombs and bullets from the sky killed 2,335 of our soldiers and sailors, and 68 civilians. Almost 1,200 people were wound- ed. One of the injured was Raymond Trczinka of Pittsfield, a sailor on one of the battered destroyers in the harbor.
Having brilliantly executed their coup with diabolical skill, the Japanese flyers returned to their ships, having suffered vir- tually no losses, and the fleet sailed away untouched.
Pittsfield was stunned, as was the rest of the country. The nation had never suffered such unmitigated military disaster. Americans were at once angry and humiliated to be caught so off guard, so literally asleep, at a time of world crisis with dan- gers lurking on every hand.
There has never been any good explanation of the almost fatal breakdown of our military intelligence services. It was known that a big Japanese fleet was at sea, that it had sailed from the Kuriles late in November, presumably bound for Southeast Asia.
Two Pittsfield servicemen were killed in the Japanese attack. The city's first soldier fatality was Sergeant Edward J. Burns, stationed at the Wheeler air base. To honor him, an elm tree was later planted in Park Square. Subsequently, a memorial stone with a bronze plaque was placed beside it.
The other to die was Roman Walter Sadlowski, a sailor killed at Pearl Harbor on one of the battleships sunk there. A few months after his death, a special book collection dedicated to his memory was established at the Berkshire Athenaeum. Later, he was honored with a memorial stone placed in the small park at the junction of North and First streets.
On December 8, the day after the Pearl Harbor debacle, war was declared on Japan with only one dissenting vote in the Congress. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, and we reciprocated.
With heavy fighting facing us on two long and far distant fronts, the military conscription act was expanded to include all men aged 20 through 44. Registration began almost imme- diately, adding 9,000,000 names to the draft rolls.
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President Roosevelt submitted the "world's biggest budget," a total of 56 billions, calling for 9 billions in new taxes, a staggering sum in itself.
Shortly, he submitted a supplementary budget almost as large -43 billions to raise the number of troops to 4,500,000 and to build 148,000 planes within a year. All of this and even more would be needed before victory was won, for American and Allied forces had to retreat again and again under shattering reverses before the tide of battle turned.
American losses were heavy as the Japanese swept down the Pacific and into the Indian Ocean to occupy Burma and serious- ly threaten India and Australia. Already holding much of Eu- rope in thrall, Nazi Germany suddenly attacked its ally, the Soviet Union. In a gigantic offensive its armies were soon knocking on the gates of Leningrad and Moscow.
German-Italian forces were racing across North Africa toward the Suez Canal in an effort to conquer the Near East and upset the whole strategic balance. German submarines were prowling the Atlantic in "wolf packs," heavily damaging Allied shipping, sinking American and other vessels within sight of our shores. For many months the outlook was very black indeed.
Pittsfield took the crisis in its stride, with much less than the general hysteria, keeping its eye on the practical things that had to be done. Its response to Pearl Harbor was a rush of en- listments-thirty-nine for the Army in one day. By this time, more than 850 men and women from the city were in service, most of them volunteers.
As soon as war was declared, more than 900 volunteered for duty as air wardens. In January 1942, Pittsfield had its first practice air-raid alarm. As soon as the sirens sounded, if at night, the city was "blacked out" for twenty minutes. Not a light, inside or outside, was to be showing.
Householders either turned the electric switches and sat in the dark, or hurriedly draped heavy curtains over the windows, as the air wardens outside on the streets or on the roofs pa- trolled their beats in "tin" hats and white armbands, quick to warn about defective curtains or to report to the proper au -.
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thorities the habitually careless or the "subversively" uncon- cerned.
As the official view was that German or Italian-or even Japanese-planes might be overhead any minute, all of this was very serious business in Pittsfield as all over the country.
Shortly, however, the Office of Civilian Defense in Wash- ington cancelled Pittsfield's allotment of gas masks, having decided that the city was in no immediate danger. But its prac- tice of air-raid alerts continued for several years, until it was quite obvious that an enemy plane, even if it could span the Atlantic or Pacific, was not likely to choose any spot in the Berkshires as its target.
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