Some Thoughts About the WW2 Generation.
I was born in 1942, in the thick of the ongoing war in Europe, just four months after the US entered the war officially when Pearl Harbor was attacked. My father was a career employee of General Motors at the time, in the GMAC (GM Acceptance Corporation) Huntington, WV arm where he reviewed for approval car and truck loans for customers in the tri-state region of WV, KY, and VA. Dad was born in 1908, so he was thirty-four or so at the time, and not in the first line of those drafted. The government directed that GM stop consumer products, including all automobile and truck production, and convert entirely to military goods. As a result, the company moved him to Dayton, OH where, as far as I can tell he was the production control manager or something along that line for a former refrigerator factory modified to produce fifty-caliber machine guns. After VE Day or shortly thereafter, the company converted back to cars and trucks and refrigerators and such, and Dad was moved back to Huntington and the GMAC loan business. He ended up trying to purchase a small GM dealership in KY, which did not work out, and spent his remaining career in sales at GM dealerships.
The General Motors’ Frigidaire plant in Moraine (Dayton, Ohio) converted from the making of refrigerators to the manufacture of machine guns during World War II. Shown here, in April 1941 (eight months before Pearl Harbor), is machinery for the making of machine guns.
My wife’s dad was in the Army stationed in Panama before the US declared war on Japan and Germany. He had been decommissioned, but was (re)called up for the Air Force where he trained as a waist gunner and tail gunner for the B-17 bomber. He was sent to England and flew 34 missions, all over Germany before completing the maximum number of flights allowed, and came home after the war. He left a handwritten account of all his missions, in great detail; the notebook was turned in when he left the Air Force and was returned to him years later. It is a fascinating story that includes the target, results, and enemy flak, missiles, and aircraft resistance. As far as I know, he never talked about the war. I do remember that he never would set a foot inside an airplane of any sort the rest of his life. After returning to his small hometown in West Virginia, he worked for the Celanese Corporation for well over thirty years and rose to become a foreman in a large factory before retirement.
The Boeing-made B-17.
I know I am scatter-shotting and these two additional examples are different. In our rural neighborhood to the west of Austin, TX an elderly lady lives near us. She was born and grew up in what was, at the time, the Karelia state of eastern Finland. In WW2, Russia invaded Finland, which was a subordinate ally of Germany. The Finns fought a brutal winter war campaign on familiar territory and held the Russian army to a draw, more or less, but at some distance inside their former border. When the war was over, the boundary moved to the Russian-held territory, and the former Kerelia became Russian Karelia and Finnish Karelia, as it is today. Our neighbor, then a young woman, left her former home and escaped to England, where as a nurse, she cared for wounded allied soldiers. She met an American GI there, married, and moved to the US with her husband. She told me once that many of her former neighbors stayed on their farms, but the Russians nationalized all the land there and the people lost their holdings. As you can imagine, she is bitter to this day about this.
Finnish troops in WW2: The Winter War.
A fourth, and final example, involves a random Morse code contact I had on the air (ham radio) several days ago. At the ripe old age of 99, this fellow still handles a mean “bug,” a form of semi-automatic and semi-manual code sender. He lives in Louisiana now, apparently independently. He resides in an apartment and uses the water gutter downspout as a stealth antenna of sorts. I can attest that his signal was just fine when we “spoke.” This gentleman served as a ground communications person in WW2, and continued in the Korean War from a US base in Japan. Based on a website for ham operators, he appears to be quite vibrant.
These are such different stories. Three of the four did not involve the awful face of combat. Yet it was “all in” and that spirit continues with this now aging group, justly defined as our Greatest Generation. I can only imagine, with great respect, admiration, and horror what they and others, especially those on the fronts on the ground, went through. Also, for those in the military away from home, someone was taking care of the children or parents, etc. Everyone did his or her part.
Be safe, stay healthy, and do not take for granted the sacrifices made to keep this country what it has been. I fear some of the pressures today as divsive rather than unifying forces seem rising in the country.
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Enjoy life; it's the only one we will get.
J.K. (Jim) George
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