The War Years (Part 4): Women Proved Their Mettle

By ANDY ZAHN

September 29, 2014

PART 4

On the home front many men were gone into the military. There was a need for people to enter the work force and do the jobs that the men left behind. Who else but the women to fill these slots and to work in factories making such things as jeeps, trucks, B-17 bombers, rifles and so many other products?

With many husbands now earning “21 dollars a day, once a month” as GIs, where they used to bring home $35 a week, there was a need for extra income. The women were magnificent!  The plants building war items flew on their flag poles a letter “E” for efficiency awarded by the government. Even far more important the women were forced to manage the household budget, pay the bills, taxes, mortgages, or rents and raise their children by themselves long before “single moms” existed. Some men owned businesses and it fell on the wives to take over the business and put in the hours that required so when the war ended the business was still there.

Andy Kless had a little dining car on Springfield Avenue, and when he was in the Navy, Mrs. Kless took over, cooking, washing dishes, etc. Andy was a friend of mine and when he returned home the business was in good shape. Andy got a GI loan, removed the old dining car, and put in a beautiful shiny new diner. He later bought two more new diners in Irvington, but when the town went to ruin the one diner was moved to Beachwood where it now stands. Adele Joa in Pine Beach, NJ, took over Mack’s Tavern on Highway 9 in Bayville while her husband was in service.

Another side of this was that the mothers and wives were not hardened by the horrors of being on a battlefield, and provided a nurturing, warm, loving environment for the children and the returning veterans. Civilized nations did not send their women off to war. During and after the war we had women in service; my wife was in the USAF, but we didn’t put then in harm’s way. In the Korean “Conflict” we were capturing and holding as POWs women from the Chinese Army. We were horrified that women would be sent into combat! Now we are doing the exact same thing. Even worse, we have fathers and mothers both in service and both being deployed with grandparents watching the kids. There is talk of reinstituting the draft and now a possibility of drafting girls. Like they say, “we’ve come a long way baby,” and I for one don’t like it at all.

CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAGE

Back on the Naval Supply Annex in Stockton, California, construction was under way. It was on Rough and Ready Island with deep water on the navigable San Joaquin river. Dad was fire marshal and was in charge of all things related to fire protection. He hired all war veterans and trained them plus oversaw the building and equipping of the fire houses, fire engines, alarm systems, sprinklers — the whole nine yards.

The commanding officer was Capt. William Ross who was called back into service from retirement. He was a supply officer, perhaps around 60 years old, who came up through the ranks. He had a son my age who was a classmate in high school who always addressed his father as “SIR.” The son, Bill, graduated from the Naval Academy and worked with Ross Perot on the new Honor Code. I would guess he became an admiral. The last time I saw him I was taking him back to the USS Missouri in New York harbor in 1952 and I was being kicked out of the Waldorf-Astoria bar for not wearing a coat and tie.

The executive officer was Commander Tom Long who graduated from the Academy but was placed in the reserves because they had an oversupply of Ensigns at the time. He was a supply officer and was called to active duty for the war.

The security officer was a Lt. Commander who will remain nameless. He was in civilian life an employee of the FBI. He got into an accident with a Navy jeep and his secretary, who was apparently more than just his secretary, suffered a broken leg. Capt. Ross relieved him and made Dad the security officer, where he did such an outstanding job that he was promoted from Lt. Commander to Commander in six months. Personnel wanted to fire Dad’s secretary because she was second generation Japanese and her parents were interred, but Dad said “NO WAY.” Her brother was in the Go For Broke Regiment fighting in Europe which was made up of second generation Japanese men. In Oakland, California, there were green houses that had been run by Japanese who were put it interment camps, and the public had such hatred for the Japs that the windows were all busted.

The officer in charge of the base police was Lt. M.P. McCormick who came up through the ranks. He worked in an auto assembly plant in Missouri and every summer was laid off, turning to husking corn on farms to make a living. To get away from farm work he joined the Navy and made Chief Petty Officer in 12 years which was very fast at that time. When Pearl Harbor was bombed he was at sea on a cruiser and they received orders to not return to port. His wife and baby daughter were on the island and he didn’t know how they were, or they how he was. His ship with an aircraft carrier were ordered to show up all over the Pacific Ocean so as to make the Japs think we had more ships than we actually had. When we started getting our strength back and were landing on islands working our way towards Japan, Mack would go ashore on the beach looking for landing spots and would use semaphores to inform the fleet where to make a landing. He was a character; one look at him and you knew this man was different, that he was his own man. He wore his service hat tilted to the left and that stood out. After the war we visited him on an APA attack transport ship in New York harbor when he was assigned as 1st Lieutenant and had to learn the ropes. We visited at his house in Norfolk in 1950 and I believe he retired as a Commander.

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