USA > Vermont > Windham County > Rockingham > History of the town of Rockingham, Vermont, including the villages of Bellows Falls, Saxtons River, Rockingham, Cambridgeport and Bartonsville, 1907-1957 with family genealogies > Part 42
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and black, this time over Poland as the German Army invaded it in 1939. And again war's dark fingers reached out into Rockingham as to every town and village in the land and the son of W. W. I veterans took up their guns as their fathers had done before them. At once 200 aliens were asked to register at the Bellows Falls Post Office and several Finns left to help their homeland fight the invasion.
In 1940 the town had collected $2,118.19 for war relief of Holland, Luxemborg and Belgium and defense training courses for young men opened was well as a District Recruiting Office in October. On Communist files in Windham County were 140 names, most of them pleading innocent in that they had not realized what they were signing when they joined this sub- versive group. All men from 21 to 36 registered at the Armory and all industries went to work under the National Wage and Hour Act which put them on a 40-hour week. This upset the Superset Brush Factory schedule and several times its noon whistle blew at 11:30 which in turn upset many village clocks. Rockingham installed the Federal Government's Food Stamp Plan for families on relief in 1941 and everyone eligible could buy a dollar's worth of orange stamps and get 50c worth of blue stamps free. Federal Food Stamps were in use for everyone the same year with Mrs. George Storey, chief clerk of the ration board. Troops moved through the town in long brown lines with as many as 1,700 men in 275 trucks at one time. Then Co. E tightened its collective belts and went to war, leaving Co. D of the Home Guard to take its place. The awaited order came through in January, calling for mobilization on Febru- ary 24, 1941 and again the men were stationed at the Armory, this time 100 of them under Lt. John Angell with 30 men quar- tered there and the rest allowed to go home at night. The first of them marched off to war with the cheers of 2,000 people ring- ing in their ears, a contingent of 15 men under Sgt. Charles J. Coffey which left on the night of March 7 for Camp Blanding, Florida where they went into training. The parade which saw them to the train included the rest of Co. E, legionnaires; local organizations, and the high school band. The following night was open house at the Armory with hundreds of people at a farewell party. A few days later another parade formed out- side the Armory with the Kurn Hattin band and the Boy Scouts added to the retinue which escorted the rest of the boys to the station with Claire Congdon and Francis Bolles as marshalls. As the troop train came into sight, the bands played The Star Spangled Banner and Co. E marched single file on board, off to war again, from which 19 of them would not return. One of these was Bill Glass who wired his boss, editor Roland Belknap of the TIMES from Nichols Field, P. I., that "he had every- thing under control." The first nurse to join the army, one of 13 from Vermont, was Lt. Katharine Lawlor. Edward Howard
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was transferred to the ski troops at Fort Lewis, Washington and besides the fighting men, the U. S. Recruiting Office at Spring- field, took men between 18-62 for laborers at Pearl Harbor at 62c an hour. At the old CCC Camp in Westminster, the 706th Military Police Battalion was quartered for the winter in 1942 while the Home Guards took over the Armory and the protection of the town, under Capt. Melvin Damon with 40 volunteer enlistments. On May 19, with 50 men and 3 officers, Co. D was inducted into the Vermont State Guard. Their new uni- forms did not arrive until August 1941 but they began to guard bridges and dams four days after Pearl Harbor when the United States declared war, December 7, 1941.
The Rockingham Community Defense Council was con- stituted in 1941 and was the first in Vermont to go over the top in the USO drive. In 1943 this was headed by J. Emerson Kennedy for Westminster and Rockingham. Everything pos- sible was salvaged for the war effort and in July there were 1,435 pounds of aluminum collected for the government and a scrap drive resulted in 495 tons of iron, ranging from three- legged cooking pots of the pioneers, discarded sinks and doughnut kettles to old water pipes and horse shoes and included the Civil War cannon in front of the Armory, donated by the Na- tional Guard who received a commendation for the largest single item of the drive. Tin cans were faithfully jumped on to flatten them, collected and left to gather dust and rust in freight cars and storehouses although many pairs of shoes must have been worn out in the process, shoes only replaced by those of a composition material which was the bane of housewives as they strove to eradicate black marks on their floors. There were 4,000 pairs of nylon and silk hosiery collected in North Walpole and Bellows Falls for parachute making and tons of waste paper provided admissions to shows at the Opera House. Pierce-Lawton Post collected old license plates for defense materials.
Labor conditions were acute and the Connecticut Valley Orchards recruited students to pick apples. Defense units began to function in high gear and a Civil Defense Blood Bank was organized with Dr. R. C. Fuller in charge who was also head of District No. 8 for medical care of the Vermont Council for Safety. The shortage of doctors became acute as many went into service. By late summer of 1942, which was the darkest period of the war (Columbia Encyclopedia), tire rationing was on the books with bicycles no exception. The January quota that year, from this district, was seven tires and even cars wore stamps which had to be affixed before February 1, 1942. You could only get a new car if you had a priority and if it was pur- chased before January 2 of that year-and if the dealer happened to have that car in stock on that day! One mail carrier finally got his badly needed Ford only after the postmaster contacted
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Washington and it was removed, packed for shipment overseas, from a boat in Boston. A new tire, even under the quota, re- quired certain classifications to get a certificate from the tire ration board and spare tires were prohibited although one man boasted of having hidden several in the hay in his barn. Tires were re-capped over and over again but gasoline rationing, in force in May, 1942, made any unnecessary travel impossible and rural dwellers pooled their gas to go to town, to church and to roll bandages. To a nation already jittery with war talk, the German war refugee who told the Rotary Club that Hitler would no doubt use chemical warfare, brought consternation. Once more, every untoward act was suspected and three high school boys and their teacher, returning after dark from a hike on Fall Mountain, were promptly arrested when their flash lights were spotted from below. People watched nervously for fire explo- sives to land in their backyards and Robert Douglas, high school science instructor, lectured the public on how to approach a bomb. Bomb cellars or air raid shelters were an important topic of the day as they have been recently and even cellar bulk- heads were fitted up with tinned food, lanterns, cots, books and water. Courses in motor mechanics were given, by Robert Austin.
Rockingham is proud to remember that she over-subscribed to almost every call for help during this war. On August, 25, 1942, an outdoor Bond Dance in the Square, organized by the Merchant's Association, raised $35,000, three times the quota set. War Loan Drives replaced the Liberty Bond Drives, of W. W. I and in the Second Drive, Rockingham subscribed over half a million dollars; in the 4th, $416,475 and in the 7th, $897,850, more than double the quota. In 1945 the Red Cross War Fund was 216% over the quota, $13,151. At the Masonic Temple, Red Cross headquarters were set up under the direction of Mrs. Winifred Whitcomb who gave unsparingly of her time and strength. Here 60,000 surgical dressings were prepared by local women, most of whom were also enlisted in the Nurses' Aides Corp, Air Raid Warning duty, canteen work and many other emergency projects.
Oil rationing began late in 1942 and worried householders who had converted from coal to oil before the war and who were warned to fill their tanks in the summer, nervously counted their coupons, turned thermostats down, wore sweaters in the house and used their patriotism to keep themselves and their families warm. Again came the point rationing system when, in May, people began to stand in line to receive their sugar which was cut to 34 pound a week because of hoarders who often, ironically, found their supplies of various comestibles spoiled in hot weather. In Rockingham 145 people were denied ration books because of sugar surplus on hand. All food was strictly rationed and four restaurants agreed to close one day a week. They were also
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short of help. By 1946 food shortages had reached their peak and all eating places closed their doors early. But 1944 saw all meats except beefsteak and roasts, off the ration list. The War Food Administration sent a carload of potatoes for distribution among schools, hospitals and welfare agencies while the OPA stoutly denied that butter and eggs were spoiling in warehouses in Burlington despite acid editorials to the contrary. Vermont civilians registered for War Ration Books on May 4, 5, 6, and 7, 1943 at the high school, books more precious than bank books for they meant food. By that same year, 490 local boys were in the service, some of whom did not wait for their diplomas but rallied to the colors when Uncle Sam removed the parental per- mission clause. The Merchant's Association hung a Service Flag over the Square as their tribute to the boys who had gone.
And again Morgan's Field blossomed to war gardens, the Victory Gardens of W. W. II and the V-for-Victory sign was made by everyone with the first two fingers of the right hand. However, V-for-Victory Vegetables meant nothing to the thieves who looted them one night, requiring thereafter a police patrol to safeguard the results of hard hours in the sun with rake and hoe. Everyone found a spot of land somewhere even if they had to spade up their front lawns to raise a few rows of corn, beets and lettuce. Canning was once more the order of the day but this time many things were also frozen as the Bellows Falls Co- operative Locker took over much of the labor of hot kitchens. In May, 1942, 40,000 pounds of flour arrived in Bellows Falls, secured through the Red Cross and distributed free to communities in the United States. No corn, potato and rice flour bread this time!
Selective Service set up re-employment plans and rehabili- tation in 1943 and a public meeting was held the next year to form a post-planning committee to insure jobs for returning veterans. Daylight Saving returned on February 9, 1942 to save electricity for defense and became so popular that it has remained ever since. Shops in Springfield, Vt. were on day and night shifts and many women donned dungarees and carried dinner pails. Men were classified and re-classified by the draft board each week. On February 16, 1942, all men 20-44 regis- tered and in the final age group, 660 men between 45-65 regis- tered for selective service on April 27, 1942. On February 1, 1943, the percentage of volunteers was higher in Vermont than in any state except Texas with that state boasting 826 and Vermont 650. (Peacham: The Story of a Vermont Hill Town by BOGART.) Local firms working on government orders in- cluded the Green Mountain Tissue Co., Inc., Moore & Thomp- son Paper Co., Standard Paper Co., White Mountain Paper Co., Superset Brush and Lecuyer Bros., the latter producing jungle hammocks and mosquito netting for the armed forces. H. P. Hood shipped eggs overseas regularly. Rent control went into
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effect May 1, 1946 with the board consisting of Byron Robinson Francis Bolles, Hardy Merrill and James Bigelow. The next May the Junior Fire-Police were originated and that year Chief Gignon had trained an auxiliary fire crew and Police Chief Ansel Monroe had 36 men as members of an auxiliary police squad.
Early in June in 1941, Municipal Judge A. T. Bolles was selected as Chief Observer of District Air Raid Warning Centers with headquarters in the Square. In 1942, Claire Congdon was District Civil Director of Aircraft Warning Service for the 5th District comprising Windham and Windsor Counties. In 1943 George Maine held this position and Preston Belknap was Chief Observer of the Ground Observation Corps. E. Gerald Adams was elected captain of the Local Defense Unit and in June, 1941, Francis Bolles conducted a meeting at the Armory where volun- teers were called for to train in different departments of Home Defense. Co-operating with the Army Air Force Corps, four Observation Post were arranged and manned that month, at regular intervals of six miles apart. The first area was at Kurn Hattin Homes in Westminster with W. I. Mayo as Chief Ob- server, the second at Athens with George I. Maine, the third between Bellows Falls and Saxtons River at the Ski Bowl farm with Mr. Hogarth in charge and the last one near Grafton with C. B. Jones. However, the Ski Bowl post was later abandoned in favor of a unit on the height of land behind the Parochial School in Bellows Falls as being more accessible to volunteers who worked in 3-hour shifts, the posts operating on a 24-hour schedule. The Air Raid Warning system was an essential part of the defense program to obtain warning of hostile air threats and protect civilian and industrial areas. They were maintained across the country from coast to coast where lonely hilltop watchers stood on duty, scanning the skies, ready to report in to Albany each plane that crossed the heavens. These faithful men and women reported for duty in blizzards and rain, sun and sleet, to keep their virgil in lonely shacks like the one in Bellows Falls where the chunk stove balanced on a brick for its missing leg, hot in summer and bitter in winter, with a ladder leading up to the glass cubicle (which periodically had its windows broken by small boys) which stuck up like a periscope on a submarine and where the watchers scanned the skies in winter. During the Korean "cold war" this station was re-opened and "Opera- tion Skywatch" began once more in October, 1952, under Con- tact Chief Supervisor Daniel J. Bosworth for Civil Defense District No. 8, operating on an 18-hour day because of lack of volunteers although the U. S. Air Force had ordered a 24-hour spotting service. "Cold wars" do not seem to generate the rush of patriotism caused by "hot" ones. During W. W. II the watchers learned each plane in the book and a school was held in the Episcopal Parish House with Mrs. Mildred Doe as instructor and many people, especially women, were amazed on
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examination day, to find how high they rated in identifying a British Halifax from a Junkers 87 or a Japanese Zero from a B-17. Many a lady who didn't know a motor from a meter or a sewing machine, could tell you immediately that the A-31 had odd-shaped wings and a high tail and that the Italian bomber SM-79 had three air motors. But many of these hard-learned lessons were out-dated long before the test papers were finished. Yet proudly these men and women of the Civil Defense Force wore their pins and blue-and-orange arm bands of their service. And while there were those who cried that "everyone knew that there was never any real need for all those air raid stations; that it was just to bolster the morale of the people," it was a real task for hundreds who gave of their time and energy as their sons gave of theirs at Iwo Jima and Normandy.
The Rockingham Free Public Library collected 1,223 books for servicemen. To get a new tube of tooth paste or glue, you had to turn in a used tube of some kind; old tubes no longer went into the garden as markers for the roses and iris. The first black-out test was on June 9, 1942 and was judged entirely successful. A state-wide test on March 23, 1943, proved that Bellows Falls was able to handle the situation if war came. That year, at the March meeting, the town voted $2,000 for Civil Defense.
Among celebrities who were in town from time to time, in official capacities, were Winston Churchill and Mckenzie King, who slipped through almost unknown on their way from Wash- ington, D. C. to Ottawa, Canada. Lt. Frances Rich, daughter of actress Irene Rich, came to Bellows Falls in 1943 to recruit girls for the WAVES. Many famous stars of the screen traveled from town to town for Bond Rallies. In 1941 excitement ran high wide and handsome when word got around that Dorothy Lamour had elected to come to Bellows Falls. People stood in line, some as long as four hours, waiting for a glimpse of the movie favorite. When the word was passed along, "Here she comes!" all the craning necks and eager eyes could see was a weary woman asleep on the shoulder of her escort.
Local boys serving in the Pacific at the time of Pearl Harbor were Clayton Raymond and Harold Ballinger with the Navy; "Bill" Glass and Donald Jacobs with the Army and Eugene Orth who had entered the Navy when he was twenty and was Pharmacist 2-c on the U. S. Cruiser Houston. Orth was be- lieved lost in the battle of the Java Sea on February 28, 1942 and was missing for three years as a Japanese prisoner, the first Bellows Falls man so classified. The first realization that he was alive was a radio message heard over Montreal after which his mother, Mrs. Edna Orth, received a wire from Vice Admiral Louis Denfield, chairman of Navy Personnel. Philip Gobie, formerly of Bellows Falls, was wounded at Pearl Harbor. The first local boy to lose his life in this war was Gordon Graham
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who was among the hundreds on the rusty hulk of the transport ship Dorcester when it was torpedoed on February 3, 1943. It became famous for the Four Chaplains, two Protestant minis- ters, a rabbi and a priest, who gave their life jackets to the soldiers and themselves elected to go down with the ship in the freezing North Atlantic. Mrs. Antonia Kissell had six sons, all in the service, as follows: Sgt. Joseph, 2nd Lt. Bernard, Pfc. William, Cpl. Tony, Sgt. Frank and Private Stephen. Mrs. Louise (Lynch) DeMange also had six sons, (Lynch) from both Rock- ingham and North Walpole, and a step-son in the service: Pvt. Charles N., S. 1-c Walter L., W.M. 3-c Paul R., S. 2-c Philip E., Pvt. John E., Pvt. Leon F. and William J. official inspector at a Springfield shop, rejected three times for operations on one leg. Albert T. DeMange, S. 1-c served as navy cook. Capt. Martin Lawrence, USN, held the office of assistant chief of the newly set-up office of Research and Inventions, Navy Depart- ment, Washington, D. C. in 1946 and was charged with all administrative matters of this office. The work included in- vestigations into use of atomic energy as a propulsive force for battle ships, development of nuclear munitions and the educa- tion of navy personnel along these lines. In 1941 he was mana- ger of the Naval Research Laboratory at Anacosta in Washington and responsible for the gigantic task of increasing the station from a scattered few buildings to one of the largest and best equipped in the country. He received the Legion of Merit for "exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States."
Bert E. Merriam of Elmore, Vt., formerly superintendent of schools in Rockingham, with his wife, had been in Manila, P. I. since 1926 as secretary with the YMCA and were both imprisoned there in St. Thomas University at the outbreak of W. W. II, suffering many hardships. Soon after Pearl Harbor, Mrs. George Welch of Bellows Falls, received a letter from the Merriams, that they were taking the next boat for San Francisco but evidently that boat never left. In 1945 a letter to Mr. Merriam's niece in Springfield, Vt., announced that they had both been liberated but had lost from 50 to 100 pounds in their long ordeal. However, Mr. Merriam at 80 and his wife at 75, firmly expected to recover as soon as they reached Vermont. But they had suffered too many depredations at the hands of the Japanese and Mrs. Merriam passed away in Morrisville, Vt. in 1948 and her husband, three years later. A very tall man, Mr. Merriam never regained his physical vigor; his hair and Van Dyke beard were snow white and his hearing badly impaired. In a letter via the Red Cross in 1945, the first chance they had to write, he said that American troops entered Manila the night of February 3, 1945, to a city of death where everyone was slowly starving to death in the camp of 4,000 people including 400 children. The army immediately fed them with govern-
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ment beans, meat, vegetables, coffee, milk and sugar but so weak were the prisoners that few could walk any distance and men and women were put into separate hospitals at once. The Merriams asked for transportation home on the first ship avail- able, what it was or where it was going, was immaterial. How- ever, they did not dare return to the cold of Vermont that first winter in their weakened condition as all their warm clothing had been destroyed by their captors as well as a valuable library of 600 books. Mr. Merriam presented the Rockingham Library with several books before he died. He will be remembered by some older people, perhaps, as a member of a popular male quartet about 50 years ago which also included J. H. Blakely, Ed Rowe and W. E. Stockwell.
Word began coming home of this boy or that, wounded, killed or winning the Purple Heart like Danny Relihan of North Walpole who had both legs broken when hit by machine gun fire during an allied landing in Algiers and Sgt. James Baldasaro who crawled within 50 yards of Jap battle lines to string a tele- phone wire to direct Mortar fire after which half a dozen machine guns were cleaned out. Sgt. Joseph Scanlon was killed, gunner on a Flying Fortress on a mission over Italy after being twice wounded and decorated. There are, of course, many more heroes of this war whose records will remain forever valiant but which are impossible to use here in their entirety.
V-E-Day and the end of the war in Europe was celebrated in Bellows Falls on May 10, 1945 with closed stores and church services and eight Liberator bombers roaring slowly over town. V-J-Day on August 14 saw Rockingham with an honor roll of 751 names and as the fire alarms and mill whistles began to blow steadily, announcing the end of another war "to end all wars," people went wild. The Square was again filled to bursting as thankful folks laughed and wept and, forgetful of the long months of gas rationing, sped their cars through town, leaning on their horns, so that none might sleep that night without knowing that the boys would soon be home. Co. D paraded and the next day all shops closed and every church held a prayer service. That night the Legion sponsored another parade and dance at the Armory. Surely this was the last war to strangle the country in its bloody fingers! Sudden cancellation of war orders in Springfield plants caused much consternation with the night shift dropped by some shops and hours shortened by all of them.
While not much was known about Co. E after it left home, the lifting of the censorship-letters deleted, newspapers with- out news- allowed publication of its story during the War. It left Camp Blanding for Camp Shelby, Mississippi as the 43rd, including the 172nd Infantry Regiment which included Co. E. and continued training and adding more men until up to full strength, it moved in September, 1942, to the west coast and sailed on the President Coolidge on October 6, 1942
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for Espiritu Santos. Most of the 43rd reached New Zealand on October 21 but as the ship pulled into the habor at Espiritu on the 25th, she hit two American mines and sunk within 70 minutes but the men of the 172nd had swum or been carried ashore with only what they were wearing. They were re- outfitted slowly and continued training in New Caledonia and Guadalcanal. They then spent two weeks practising invasion tactics at Euphades on the New Hebrides. On May 30 the 172nd, spear-headed the New Georgia invasion, becoming the assault party. Co. E, now 150 men strong, engaged in a bitter 30-day fight against a strong Jap position guarding Liana Beach . There was hard jungle fighting and Co. E was with the first patrol going onto Munda Field and with the first wave to land on Arundel and after this was over, the 172nd, already had 82 days of combat, the longest record of the War at that time. There were five months of rest in New Zealand until July, 1944 when the 43rd was called up to help defend Aitape, New Guinea. It was in the Sixth Army Invasion of Luzon; loading into a convoy on Christmas Day, 1944, Co. E was first ashore on the northern end of the line which stormed ashore on Mindoro Island at daybreak of January 9.
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