USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Wenham > Wenham in World War II : war service of Wenham men and women and civilian services of Wenham people > Part 22
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George Day
Gordon Davis
During these weeks of preparation Chief Hall and his corps of re- serve police carried out a practice blackout which proved how heart- ily the population was trying to cooperate. This was on October 16, 1941. Householders devised all sorts of methods to black out lights in their homes-shutters, heavy portieres, paper, and lacking these, sat in darkness during the blackout period.
The officers were stationed in different parts of the town, and at a speed of 12 miles an hour, were expected to check every home in their districts, asking cooperation where they found lights burning. The purpose of this practice evening was to find how quickly the work could be done.
This committee worked hard; they were daily stimulated by floods of literature from the various state division headquarters; they met weekly-twice a week-even oftener, and with such energy and per-
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severance that in comparison with the seemingly complacent village, they sometimes felt that the town was not as awake to the gathering war clouds as it should be.
From the outset it was agreed by the Wenham and Hamilton chairmen that all new war services should be combined and under- taken as one committee. The further combination of Topsfield and Essex with Hamilton and Wenham made it possible for these four small communities to secure the ablest state instructors to prepare volunteers for their work. These classes were held in the Hamilton High School gymnasium, the largest and most central place available.
Philip Horton Smith prepared a map of Wenham from several surveys and this map enabled the director to divide the town into five zones, each zone having a chairman and a corps of assistants.
Delano Kennard as Chief Warden was tireless in his efforts to make civilian defense a dependable and working organization. The wardens and their helpers, the members of the fire and police de- partment took first aid training as fast as classes were available. By the end of 1941, 143 had completed the course, 69 from Hamilton and 74 from Wenham.
It was the responsibility of the fire department to reduce to a minimum all fire hazards from possible bombing; such a clearing of attics Wenham had never known! The accumulation of generations in old houses were ruthlessly sacrificed, to be mourned later. Buckets of sand were placed in strategic spots in the home.
It will be noted that among the wardens there was a surprising number of women, originally enrolled for daytime work in lieu of men, but who usually took men's places and groped their way in the darkness to check on the condition of their division. There is the memory of one moonlight night when the shadows of the town in the white moonlight made a picture never to be forgotten.
There was great zeal in carrying out the letter of the law. In July 1942 a surprise blackout drill for sky glow involved 80 or more of the wardens at a time when a working shift was returning home. Many workers were halted. At Wenham Neck a load of navy workers, complying with orders to halt, slept on nearby lawns until the blackout was over.
Mr. Kennard, quoting from records, states, "On Feb. 26 the first A. R. P. drill took place during a blackout from 9 to 9.39 P. M. 'Incidents' were held and the various fire, police, first-aid and war- dens' services were given a test. From that time, for nearly two years, more than 150 men and women of this town were on call
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for an 'alert'; they attended practice sessions of their various units almost weekly, and were subjected to daylight and night tests, some- times planned, and at other times unannounced."
A report on one surprise blackout showed that within five minutes after the first "alert" was received, the report center personnel be- gan to assemble and when the air raid audible alarm was sounded on receipt of "Green Two" signal, all personnel had been mobilized.
Chief Warden Kennard further recalls, "On that particular night, 53 of the 69 recorded wardens reported; 15 of the 22 regular fire- men ; 23 of the 38 auxiliary firemen; all of the regular police; 13 of the 15 auxiliary police; seven of the seven on the report center staff ; four first-aiders of the town's single first-aid party ; two of the two ambulances, and six of the 12 Boy Scout couriers assigned to various points, for a total of 126 of the 172 volunteers then on the rolls. That night the State Guard company of Hamilton-Wenham also turned out and did guard duty at the center, the fire house, and other points."
A typical example of how these drills were carried out, taken from the records, was as follows: "The incident :- 'The D'Amato house on Porter street is fired by an incendiary bomb; residents unable to cope with fire, and three children hurt.' This incident occurred at 8.50 P. M. At 8.54, a warden reported the incident to the center; the message was cleared through the center, and at 9.05 fire apparatus was despatched arriving on scene at 9.12; at 9.20 an ambulance was despatched from medical center, and 9.25 two first- aiders were on the scene applying splints, and giving theoretical first-aid treatment to the 'injured' children. Meanwhile, more than 10 similar 'incidents' were being reported and receiving services all over town through this well arranged system."
"Incidents," reporting road blocks, etc., all had to be noted on the map at the report center, and in despatching equipment, all such details as well as needs in other parts of the town were considered. The ingenuity of those who made up these "incidents" often pre- sented real problems, as for example, one night the communication to the fire house was theoretically disrupted, and calls had to be re- routed via courier from a nearby house. Following the tests, there would be a critique and all participating would be praised or criti- cized on their actions during the "raid."
Fortunately all of these activities were in the nature of practice. The only "alert" the local group had for other than practice pur- poses was a call late one night to mobilize volunteers to hunt for a
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flyer who had bailed out over Boxford following an air crash ; around midnight a dozen or more responded in short order, joining forces with men from other towns to aid in the search for the victim who was found and brought to safety early the next morning.
MEDICAL DIVISION
Another department of Civilian Defense was the Medical Divi- sion. The Medical Division of the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety was organized for the care of injured civilians. The 351 communities of the state were divided into regions and the medi- cal equipment and duties of personnel standardized.
Hamilton and Wenham were organized as one community in region IV, with Dr. Peer Johnson of Beverly as regional director.
While it was desirable that the various volunteer committees of the Medical Division be trained Red Cross workers, it became evi- dent that the Red Cross, operating under Congressional charter, had, first of all, definite responsibilities to the armed forces. There- fore, all civilian work could not be left entirely to Red Cross trained workers. There were just not enough people.
There was some confusion and unavoidable duplication in the setup of this division, combining, as it did, groups trained under Civilian Defense, Red Cross, and the Woman's Defense Corps. All tried to equip themselves by suitable training for the services for which they had volunteered.
A preliminary organization was set up in June 1941, when first aid classes were started. It was not until December 10, 1941 that a complete medical center was set up, under Dr. John Corcoran, with Miss Clementina Haynes, the local visiting nurse, as his deputy, with five sub-committees.
At this time, December 10, 1941, a census was taken of the nurs- ing force in the two towns; the number was small, eight registered nurses, two public health nurses, three practical nurses, in addition to the twenty-nine who had completed Red Cross home nursing, and the 143 who had completed first-aid training.
The headquarters of the Medical Center was established in the vestry of Christ Church, Hamilton. Here were stored the supplies ; here, the division assembled at all air raid warnings. From this center the ambulances sped with stretchers and first aid helpers to the place of disaster, to bring back those whose injuries did not require hospitalization.
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At a prearranged signal, hundreds of empty LCVP's and LCM's (personnel and tank landing craft) were launched from the trans- ports on the providentially calm waters, and were soon speeding in orderly formation like waterbugs toward the beach. The hideous bombardment seemed to slacken momentarily and our aircraft laid a thick white smoke screen over the beaches, under which cover our little landing craft turned about when three hundred yards from the beach and scurried back to the waiting ships.
Our feint completed, we hoisted aboard our boats and headed for sea. After several days in a designated waiting area, about one hundred miles east of Okinawa, uneventful except for an occasional submarine alert, we received a dispatch-"USS Lowndes with a destroyer escort will proceed alone to the main western invasion beaches to await further orders." We knew this meant plenty of action. But that is another story.
JAPANESE PARACHUTE ATTACK LEYTE, DECEMBER 6, 1944
On the night of November 26, 1945 the American Command got their first intimation that the Jap had one more trick up his frayed sleeve.
The island of Leyte in the Philippines was already considered secure when this last threat struck.
Several enemy transport planes crash-landed in the surf near XXIV Corps Headquarters. Two landed safely, and about thirty of their passengers escaped our troops and headed inland. Most of them were killed during the next few days, but documents taken from their bodies indicated that a major airborne attack against our airfields was in the making.
There wasn't a great deal to do except tighten up the defenses and wait. Enemy plans were for a co-ordinated attack in which remnants of Jap ground troops from the hills would join their air- borne brethren. On December 4 the enemy began infiltrating American lines in large numbers from the mountains and on the night of the 6th, the Japs struck.
Just before dusk a force of 38 transport planes roared in from the sea. About 30 planes were shot down, but the Japs were able to land about 250 men at one end of San Pablo airfield. Meanwhile 400-500 Japanese ground troops had penetrated through to nearby Busi airfield, and a few parachutists had landed there. Both fields
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were in the zone of the XI Airborne Division, but in anticipation of just such an attack, the First Battalion of the 382nd Infantry, 96th Division had been attached to the XI Airborne and ordered into positions in the airfield area. The First Battalion's Company "B" killed some of the paratroopers before they reached the ground, and a number more were shot during the night. In the morning they killed more of the Japs who were coming out of the hills.
The same morning, (December 7) "A" Company moved into position with a company of the XI Airborne and attempted to re- take San Pablo airfield. It was a day of confusion, for the Japs were wearing American uniforms taken from Air Forces' personnel, and the action was more of a brawl than an organized battle. Casu- alties were very heavy on both sides.
On December 9 the First Battalion gathered most of its units together inside one perimeter. At dusk the rifle companies set off in various directions to intercept separated Jap patrols. That left the battalion headquarters personnel, a few mortarmen and some bat- talion medics to defend the perimeter. By then the Jap menace was thought to be mainly eliminated, and the men had set up a few liv- ing tents. The Japs were not gone, however, and at midnight they launched a wild drunken Banzai charge of about 150 men, a group about equal to our own. The clerks, medics and supply personnel proved up to the task, and threw rifle and machine-gun fire at the enemy, stopping their charge before it could penetrate the line. They killed 50 Japs at a cost of seven casualties.
For the rest of December, the Battalion patrolled in the hills west of Burauen, eliminating what few Japs remained.
SICILIAN INVASION
Her engines stopped and the USS Chase with some four thousand men aboard, gradually lost her forward speed. At last she dropped her anchor in the Mediterranean, seven miles off Gela on the south coast of Sicily. This was D-Day-July 10, 1943, but it was still pitch dark except for the occasional flash of a naval gun and the fires burning on the distant shore. At 3:30 we had breakfast and just as dawn was breaking I went over the side.
The Higgins boat scraped the sand and we all jumped arm-pit deep into the surf and waded ashore. I had been ordered to wait on the beach until I received further instructions. Consequently, I climbed the highest sand dune I could find and watched what went
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on. In spite of everything that happened to me in the ensuing two years-and quite a good deal did-the invasion of Sicily remains one of the unforgettable high lights of the war. Perhaps it was be- cause this was a new experience for me, perhaps it was because I realized that I was seeing the actual unfolding of the greatest am- phibious operation in the military history of the world up to that time. Or it might have been because I saw a loaded 22-ton truck strike a land mine and simply disintegrate and then watched truck drivers who had also seen it, criss-cross the beach as though nothing of any importance whatever had taken place.
The Mediterranean was sapphire blue and the sun was shining on a thousand ships, spread out as far as the eye could see. There were Liberties, Transports, LST's, LCI's, landing barges, Navy pa- trol boats, destroyers, everything imaginable. The big boats rode at anchor while the others shuttled back and forth putting supplies and men ashore-everything except tanks and artillery. Those came later and just in time.
In an endless stream, the men and materiel came across the beach. Bombing didn't stop it, shelling didn't stop it, nothing even slowed it up. The dead were buried in a little temporary cemetery behind the sand dunes, the wounded were evacuated to the Liberty ships in the bay and the invasion went steadily on.
The Rangers had landed soon after midnight and had captured the town of Gela. The First Division swarmed ashore in the pre- dawn twilight and with comparatively few casualties had taken their first objectives. The 45th Division was on our right flank and the 3rd had hit the beaches near Licata, several miles to the west of us.
The First Division consolidated their positions and continued on, to take Mt. Olivio airfield, if they could. The Division Staff was bivouacked in an olive grove behind a ridge. Generals Terry Allen and Teddy Roosevelt seemed very well satisfied with the situation. But as the afternoon wore on, things seemed to worsen. The shell- ing of the area was more frequent and more accurate. Enemy bombers made life very uncomfortable-not to say uncertain. Dur- ing the evening it was rumored that the 1st Division had had to re- treat to their original positions under unfavorable circumstances. With that unpleasant news, we settled down to what must be a most unusual thing in Sicily in July, a very chilly night.
Sunday, the 11th, will long be remembered by every soldier in the First Division Sector. The Germans mounted a tank attack on the plains north of Gela and the situation became very grave indeed.
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At the same time, the Italians drove a wedge between us and the 45th Division on our right, actually reaching the beach. We were shelled with such intensity and precision from the enemy positions in the hills that we suspected the Germans had taken over. Generals Allen and Roosevelt looked worried and General (then Colonel) "Wild Bill" Donovan, Chief of O.S.S., who had come ashore as an observer, looked as though he had discovered plenty to observe. I spent most of the day in a slit trench in the lee of a cement irriga- tion ditch, wishing devoutly that I was elsewhere.
Fortunately for us, about this time the heavy cruisers Boise and Savannah steamed into position, took the enemy gun emplacements in the hills under fire and put them out of business. Even more im- portant, was the timely arrival of some tanks and artillery which moved immediately to the battle raging north of Gela and turned the tide in our favor. The Germans were driven back, a counter attack by the 1st and 45th Divisions eliminated the wedge of Italians to the east and the beachhead was secure.
OFLAG 64
It is hard to believe that the sight of a barbed wire enclosed prison camp could look good to anyone, but to the small remnant of the 179th Task Force, it seemed like an oasis in the desert. We had been shuttled back from the front in ammunition trucks and in coal tenders on locomotives. Guarded by escaping German submarine crew men, we had suffered the abuse and tempers of all the Germans with whom we had come in contact. We had been paraded before a German Youth School to satisfy the ego of some lowly "Ober Leut- nant" and been pushed around every railroad station and wayside. It would have been bearable had we been fed and had cigarettes but the Krauts evidently thought that we were camels or the like. To add to that, one of our greatest worries was our own planes, which I'm afraid, bothered us more than the Germans.
The great gates of Stalag XII in Limburg, Germany, just across the Rhine, were swung open and we plodded wearily through under the stares of the guards and were brought to a halt outside the head- quarters building. Waiting for us was a detail of trained officers and men who immediately went to work on us. Names, ranks, etc. were taken again by two officers who stopped and looked over each man carefully. It was here I first realized what the word "arrogant"
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meant, that I had heard applied so often to these men in the States, as I tried to stare down the cold eyes of a German captain. I saw him check my name on his paper and he passed down the line, and then I was taken over by one of the men of the detail and given my "umpteenth" search. These boys really knew their business. I was left as clean as a plucked hen of everything that could be of per- sonal value to them. They missed pictures, etc. in my wallet and a small compass, designed especially for just this sort of thing.
We were soon herded to various tents, buildings and enclosures, according, evidently, to rank, and had begun to look forward to a chance to wash, a cigarette or even some food. I and nine others were to wait awhile for all this, for Lt. Jenkins (C.O., 179th Inf.) and I were taken with eight enlisted men to a central building where we were given a spoon and a Red Cross box. We were then marched out through the gates again to the town of Limburg and a dreary looking castle which commanded a bluff overlooking the country- side.
Here we were introduced to the famed Intelligence Section of the German Wehrmacht, who, with smiles and perfect English, escorted us individually down the dark narrow stairs and corridors to a row of small cells with contrastingly large thick doors complete with small covered peep-holes, all the while spouting the dark history of their "perfectly wonderful old castle" and cautioning us not to worry as our stay with them would be "most pleasant."
Two days later, after refusing to fill out their "hotel register" which they jokingly handed out as we entered, the guard unlocked the great door and escorted me up inside the great stone building to a room where I was to be given interrogation by a German non-com. Very pleasant formalities were flung back and forth and I was in- vited to take a chair and offered a cigarette. The Kraut methodical- ly lit a pipe and chattered amiably about nothing at all while I en- joyed his rationed cigarette. He started his job in a pleasant chatty manner but gradually brought himself around to the things he and his like were curious about. When he received the (I hope) silence I was supposed to maintain, he swung to a little different tack. He began to tell me all he knew about me and my unit, its "travels," equipment and my bosses. He backed up a lot of it with manuals complete with photographs of equipment, etc. After all this, a few pointed implications were made and I was abruptly sent back to my little cell, evidently to think it all over. I mixed up a new concoc- tion of powdered milk and jam I had been experimenting with from
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my Red Cross box. I also ran a rather alarmed eye over what re- mained. I'd have to slow down.
Several days later, after I had seen and heard a Frenchman and two Russians given a beating in the corridor, the Sergeant and I were together again. This time I got no cigarette or chatty build- up. It was all business. There were three things his bosses wanted to know. A reserved grin at him really brought action. He raged in true Nazi style for twenty minutes. I learned that American culture consisted of "nigger music," refrigerators and chewing gum and that our worst enemies and future conquerors were the South Americans. The Sergeant had spent several years working there in a Diplomatic Corps. When he mentioned that his son was a prisoner of the Russians and it brought a real grin, he called the guard in a rage and informed me my fate was in my own hands. He couldn't help me. (As if he would !) The next few days I sweated, I guess, but after finding a way to swap grins (no talking allowed) with the others at our morning toilet, I felt better.
Days went by and finally we were given a dogtag and a card to send to the Red Cross making us full-fledged "Kriegsgefangene." We were marched away to the rail yards and loaded twenty-five or thirty in a cage in one end of a box-car to begin our long journey across Germany to Poland, the real prison camp.
The trip is a story in itself but we finally arrived at "Oflag 64," Shubin, Poland and were searched again and assigned to barracks.
The prison routine sounds very simple on paper but to us it was as complicated a life as any we had ever experienced. There is an old adage which says, "Familiarity breeds contempt" and so it goes. Constant association with hungry, tired, worried and war-sick men soon drove men into their various channels of character, good and bad, and the various make-ups in them came to light.
The camp had been converted from a boys' reformatory school, a little more room added, and a lot of wire and sentry towers. When we arrived we had been given two very small German trench blank- ets, assigned a tiered bunk, a locker, and a place at mess. Also a position at "Appel," the counting formation. Gradually we new men fitted into the pattern of things. There was ersatz coffee at about 8 A.M. and "Appel" sounded at 8.15 A.M. At twelve, we moved, in shifts, to a large hall in one of the buildings for the noon meal. We were divided into messes of eight men who sat at the same bench every day. On the table was one loaf of heavy German bread, a bowl of cabbage soup and a jug of "ersatz." It was my job to
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divide the soup. Every noon it was two-thirds of a cup of soup and a three-quarter inch slab of bread.
At three o'clock another "Appel" sounded on the plow share, which hung as a bell near the gate. At five we entered the mess hall again for supper. This meal consisted of a large bowl of boiled potatoes and more "ersatz." When it was all divided each man had three or four potatoes, depending on their size. We had to save a piece of bread from the noon meal if we wanted to supplement the potatoes. At nine o'clock all lights were out and everyone was in bed. No one was allowed outside the barracks after dark, the exact time being set from time to time.
These "Appel" formations and mess formations were, of course, our high spots in the day. The long intervals between created the chasms into which men's minds could wander. Food was the basic topic of conversation during these long hours of inactivity. Some men even went as far as to create yearly post-war menus for them- selves, complete with fantastic recipes which could only be concocted by the minds of hungry men. Women often contend that the chief topic of conversation of men is women, but here I can truthfully say, they took a definite back seat to a roast stuffed turkey.
Each barracks, a one-story wooden building with a cement floor, housed about 60 men and was heated by two porcelain charcoal-burn- ing stoves. The amount of charcoal was determined by the number of men, the temperament of the Germans and the accuracy of the Russian aircraft. One could only feel the heat if one leaned against the stove, and several men, sleeping in strategic positions, constantly had large dark brown "cooked places" on their backs. Others, un- able to get near the stove, either stayed in bed or shivered. Every- one developed painful cases of chilblains and the most serious cases were transferred to barracks with wooden floors.
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