Reality Check

For four years they sacrificed in Northampton County. Gas was rationed, shoes were hard to come by and fresh fruit and vegetables seemed to disappear right out of the ground. Almost all the young men had gone away, many of the town’s fathers too. Women were working in factories, even though that meant schools went without teachers. Even some churches stood empty, the preachers gone.

The world was at war. And yet in Virginia, a cradle of American democracy, a state rich in military academies and the birthplace of Gens. Washington and Lee, nothing quite compared to what happened in Northampton County in 1943. That was the year they ate muskrat stew. “All kinds of substitutes are being put into practice during these abnormal times,” recorded the county historians, who signed their report simply Mrs. Upshur and Mrs. Nottingham. “Since our meatless days, the lowly muskrat has become very popular, and the stews are relished with enthusiasm even when they include carrots.”

Abnormal times, indeed. Virginians were eating muskrat to save better food for the troops fighting in World War II. It was one of many sacrifices, large and small, in a war effort that began in December 1941, after Japan mounted a sneak attack on American military forces in Pearl Harbor.

America today is again fighting back after a sneak attack. Since Sept. 11, life has turned topsy, anxious. Americans wonder how they should respond, and what can be expected of them as the nation reacts to threats to our shores. Logically, we have have looked for guidance in the response to Pearl Harbor and the ensuing four years of involvement in war. Of late, popular books and movies have romanticized life for World War II’s “Greatest Generation.” Americans, we’re told, were united in their determination and grit, and were brave at home as well as abroad.

Were they

? Which brings us back to the sturdy people of Northampton County, Va., dining on muskrat stew. The tale of their diet is buried in 10,000 pages of home front remembrances stored in the basement of the Library of Virginia at the state capital in Richmond. After Pearl Harbor, the state Conservation and Recreation Department decided to record the effect the war was having at home. Dr. H.J. Eckenrode, an aging state historian, commissioned local correspondents from each of Virginia’s 95 counties to mail regular dispatches to Richmond detailing life in their communities. The idea was to publish an account of home front experiences. Who knew then how that war was going to end, and maybe the book would help the next generation understand what it may be up against when enemy aircraft descend from the sky.

After the war, the project was scuttled, except for some compilations honoring Virginia’s war dead. Eckenrode died, and his collection was all but forgotten, even if it was always there for the asking, should some new generation have a need. On those brittle and yellowed pages are accounts of patriotism and pettiness, joy and anguish, foolishness and anger, all as unadorned as that meager stew.

Nearly a lifetime after Dec. 7, 1941, vigorous warriors have grown into frail men. Americans 60 years ago had more in common with their Civil War ancestors than they do with Americans of today, so sweeping have been the changes of the last half-century. Yet to turn the pages of those Virginia diaries is to feel an instant kinship. The sense of outrage over a sneak attack and the will to strike back are identical, then and now. Substitute Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden for the enemies below, and the words could have been uttered this autumn:

“Boys who had never been away from home for any length of time left with their chins up saying they would make it tough-sledding for the Japs and Germans when they got sight of them,” wrote Isaac H. Looney, an insurance salesman in Buchanan County.

F.W. Kling Jr., a writer in Amherst County, reported in December of 1942, “In spite of all that we have been told to the contrary, the average citizen here still feels that one American can whip 10 Japs.”

“People seem to want to get the ‘whole gang’ who started this, tie their hands behind them and let Punjab in Orphan Annie do the rest,” Elfie C. Meredith of Brunswick County reported in July 1944.

Fear also connects 21st century Americans to that particular war, for it’s a kind of fear we have rarely known--that we are not safe in our own country. Today, we eye strangers and watch for unclaimed suitcases and unfamiliar letters. Passengers vow to attack future hijackers. Aging veterans wish they could fight back. U.S. military jets patrol the skies over major cities and the National Guard walks our airports.

During World War II, German submarines were spotted off the East Coast. Norfolk, Va., with its great Navy yards, organized a “Civil Defense Army” of 50,000. Air raid tests were run day and night. Volunteers manned observation towers and listening posts. Evacuation drills were practiced. People learned how to strap on gas masks. Every street boasted a block warden. Richard M. Marshall, Norfolk’s civilian defense coordinator, cautioned that “it would be folly to relax our vigilance even for a moment.”

Colonial Williamsburg built wooden towers to watch for enemy warships coming up the James River. In Surry County on the other side of the river, a lookout post was set up at the courthouse, then moved to the old Bacons Castle that had watched for the British during the Revolution. Old “doughboys” who’d gone to France a generation earlier to fight in World War I brought their binoculars down from the attic and served as Civil Defense wardens.

Those fears also led to another reaction, one that also has spanned the years. Some German immigrants spoke favorably of the Fatherland, and that inevitably irritated many listeners. Although the Germans were not herded off to camps as Japanese Americans were on the West Coast, there nevertheless were harsh feelings and dark suspicions during the war years in Virginia.

Pauline Bourne, an attorney and correspondent in Grayson County, reported that townspeople did not appreciate the comments from “one native-born German, a naturalized citizen of America, (who) thinks that the Germans have many punches yet” to win the war. She and others criticized him for predicting that “there will be plenty of fireworks” to come against U.S. troops, and for blaming the Jews for “all the world trouble and the war.” The diaries have no accounts of actions against German Americans in Virginia that compare to the violence--some deadly--directed at Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent since Sept. 11.

The diaries also make plain how different the enemy is today. It seems unlikely that Al Qaeda or other terrorists would be treated like the German soldiers held as prisoners in camps in Virginia in the 1940s. In Alleghany County, correspondent Mabel Tompkins said German prisoners were used to cut pulp wood and work in the tobacco warehouses, adding with a bit of mockery, “they are also being used as tenpin boys in the bowling alley.”

Elizabeth Green Penick in Halifax County wrote: “One man took three German (prisoners) to the drug store for drinks. They walk the streets, in twos or threes, unguarded; whiskey, beer and wine has been given them, and money, ‘folding’ money.

“Several high school girls have given them candy, cigarettes, apples, newspapers, and flirt with them whenever they pass them on the streets,” Penick continued. “I talked with one of the teachers at our high school and she said that they had talked with the young girls very seriously as to their attitude over these men, and they said, ‘Oh, they ARE cute.’ ”

Pacifists, on the other hand, were not treated so gently. Looney complained about a Jehovah’s Witness who traveled around Buchanan County teaching that “God’s kingdom does not need to be defended and that it is sinful to engage in any part of war activities.”

Mrs. Blake W. Corson of Buckingham County enclosed a copy of a classified advertisement from the nearby Farmville Herald, in which a local dairy farmer was seeking to hire two men with the inducement that the jobs might help keep them out of the draft. The ad sorely embarrassed Corson, and she suggested that “it would not have been understood by our grandfathers and, perhaps, won’t be quite clear to our grandchildren” either.

In Floyd County, the local high school kept a scroll with the names of about 125 former pupils who were honored as Patriots for joining the armed forces. Not counted, wrote Susan Harris Hall, “were the few conscientious objectors” in town. “In the War Between The States, hundreds of soldiers went from this county,” she boasted. “Today, but two are left to tell the tale.” And now, she added, “Floyd is a distinctive county. Ninety-five percent of all the people own their own farm. There is not a foreigner in this county; not a Catholic” even.

Mrs. George P. Parker wrote of several hundred conscientious objectors housed at an abandoned camp in Bedford County, where they helped in the fields and orchards. At night, vigilantes sneaked out and painted the farm fences yellow.

The Bedford Bulletin editorialized that it was “only natural” for people to resent the pacifists. Army Sgt. John P. Laughlin attended a church social while on home leave, only to find many of the girls dating the pacifists. “I, for one, with all my heart, wish I had never attended that meeting,” he said.

Life in America in the 1940s was still largely rural and far more simple than it is today. Family farms made up the backbone of the Virginia economy. The pace was country-slow, and people knew how to wait for news from the war. Patience was a virtue. (In Halifax County, the mother of a sailor knitted 65 sweaters and 32 helmet linings--”A record I believe,” bragged correspondent Penick.) There was no e-mail, no CNN. The phone seldom rang.

So vast are the differences between America then and now that comparing war efforts can be fickle. Today, out of a U.S. population of some 281 million, a little more than 1.4 million people are in the armed services--less than half of 1% of the population. At the close of World War II, nearly 9% of the nation’s 140 million people were in uniform, some 12 million. Americans sacrificed far more then than we are being asked to give up today.

Virtually every resource in the nation was called upon to provide food, arms and supplies for World War II.

As determined as the Bush Administration is to root out terrorists, the government has yet to ask its citizens to join in a collective call to action similar to that of the 1940s. Bush has asked Americans to volunteer to help the organizations of their choice, and to generally support the fight against terrorism. Many Americans have donated money or their labor to help victims and charitable organizations, but the scale of involvement simply does not compare--at least not yet. Instead, we have been urged to spend money, buy stocks, fly airlines--in other words, to carry on with our lives more or less as usual.

During World War II, the message at home was nearly the opposite. Materials needed for the war effort were rationed. Women turned out to fill jobs left by men going off to war. Many businesses and schools closed. Military conscription began and was broadened. Lamented Mrs. Richard F. Taylor in Amelia County: “It is almost impossible to get a potato . . . . To find you cannot buy such a thing as a common potato!”

Mrs. John Lee Cowling in Isle of Wight County wrote, “BEEF is extinct--except for the ‘local cow,’ and if toughness is any sign of age, these we eat are prehistoric. And we can only get THAT twice a week.” In Alleghany County, a whole “mangy emaciated cow” sold for $121 in the local stockyards.

In Amherst County along the Shenandoah Trail, Kling reported that if a “merchant could get hold of 100 pairs of black market nylon hose, he’d sell them out in one day--to the best people in town.” Prospective mothers were at a loss to find safety pins.

Campaigns to save and scrimp did help the troops. Reports across the state told of bond and stamp drives, scrap metal and waste paper collections, Victory Gardens, meetings at the local courthouses where women wrapped bandages and sewed and knitted into the night.

Volunteerism was the rage--just as this year, when a nation with vastly more personal wealth gave more than $1 billion, as well as donations of blood and blankets, to help the victims in New York and Washington, D.C.

During World War II, Mrs. Edgar M. Hollandsworth in Henry County wrote of a young couple with two boys, one 6, the other a newborn, and how they let their longtime maid go in order to save more money for the war effort. “The lady of the house does her own work, including laundry, nursing etc., now and continues with Red Cross activities and church work as well. Of course the husband is quite cooperative in the matter of nursing at nights.

“The money saved by doing their own work is invested in two $25 War Bonds monthly. The older boy walks to school (a mile from home) each day and uses the money that he formerly (first semester) paid out for taxi fare (the only conveyance available) to buy Defense Stamps.

“This family also is buying the minimum in clothes and investing the money saved in Defense Bonds. The father is a leader in the Civilian Defense Program and also is a Minute Man.”

Then came a dreaded ban on pleasure driving. The car could be used only for essential trips--to work, to school or the doctor. Americans complied, mostly. But neighbor spied on neighbor. Who was that out last night driving to the picture show? “Too much complaining is being done,” wrote Miss Meredith. “Many are prone to complain of So-and-So using gas unnecessarily, and then a few minutes later her young son is seen spinning along in the Packard. Where is he going?”

The people of Fairfax County sent a petition to President Roosevelt demanding that he exempt them from gas rationing, arguing that some trips were necessary even if they weren’t “essential,” as defined by the government. “If the vacuum cleaner breaks, it must be taken to be fixed,” the petition said.

In Accomack County, the price of gas became steep indeed. “What gasoline means to the average American resulted in a murder over five gallons of the ‘petro,’ ” reported the county’s writers, who did not sign the report.

Rubber was scarce for tires, leather hard to get for shoes. For a while, horses and buggies were fashionable again. “We are still walking,” cheered on Miss Meredith. “And ladies are using bicycles more than ever.”

Then the draft was expanded to include husbands and fathers. “Several have been called who have children,” wrote Miss Bourne of Grayson County. “The women seem brave and one hears no complaint. Recently, a rural carrier was called who has a house full of children. Rumor says that his wife will carry mail.”

Hollandsworth in Henry County wrote “the story is told of a father of five children who was drafted recently and the mother left home and forsook the children before the father left for the army.” Hollandsworth added that “it seems heartless and cruel to break the home in that way, but this is total war, they say.”

She said that even long-awaited visits from young men who had gone off to join the armed services did not always boost morale in town. Many were weary and anxious for the world to return to normal, much like Americans are today.

“Some soldiers home on furlough expressed the feeling of being tired of war, of the monotony of their work, of the slowness of the war,” she wrote. “Others said there never seemed to be an end to the war.”

Time could stand still back then. “The little town of Wise, which normally has around 1,300 inhabitants, is now virtually a ghost town,” wrote Mrs. Margaret Barron Taylor in 1943. “One corner juke box place which had many frequenters until late hours of night before the war is now closed. Other places close earlier and the young folks are less seldom seen on the street. Among the farmers there seems to be little excitement about the war.”

To keep spirits up, Virginians had the town social. One Sunday evening in March 1943, the Trinity Church hosted a supper for 60 soldiers stationed in Smithfield. Reported Cowling: “Smithfield ham, chicken salad, hot rolls, coffee and home-made chocolate cake was served.”

Monthly “Strut” dances were held downtown. “It is needless to say they always have a mob. They dance by a nickelodeon, and everybody seems to be happy. During the evening a committee sells War Bonds. Would you believe it?”

But life was not a swing dance. Grocery shelves went empty, gas stations and drugstores went bust. “No workers,” observed Miss Meredith in Brunswick County. “Teachers will have to don overalls in order to make a living.”

The postmistress in Giles County kept a sewing machine handy at the post office so she could sew on slow days. Kling reported that “pupils, particularly girls, are quitting school to go to work in the factories.”

Yet despite all their sacrifices, some Virginians still had more to give. “Many feel we should be doing more, that there should be an absolute ‘all out for war’ all over the country,” Mrs. Taylor wrote in April 1943. “There are many, I believe, who want and would be so willing to help if they knew just what to do.”

the response to sept. 11 has just begun. We have grieved with families of the more than 4,000 who died, but we have yet to experience heavy losses of soldiers and sailors and military pilots, or to be called upon for major sacrifices in our way of life and to know the fatigue of living that way for years. The WWII diaries suggest what may lie ahead.

“Six of our boys have ‘cracked up’ due to nervous conditions. They will be rehabilitated,” reported Miss Hall in Floyd County. “We have several boys AWOL, but are attempting to get them into the service again.”

“People are rather depressed over the war situation,” wrote Susie Leake from Goochland County. “People are beginning to realize more fully that this is bound to be a long war.”

In Charles City County, Sue Ruffin Tyler summed up feelings: “The insanity, confusion, contradiction, squabbling, red tape, waste, and the continuing centralization of control from Washington mortify and disgust us.”

“One of our mothers is in the hospital now because of worry over her five sons being in the army,” Hollandsworth wrote. “Word has come to one young wife from her husband himself that he has been seriously wounded and is in a hospital in Italy. She has worried so much that she lost eight pounds this week. One of the high school senior girls had a mental collapse. She was rushed to the hospital. These trying times are causing many such cases as this.”

By February 1945, Miss Tompkins wrote, “We are all good and tired of this. As one level-headed nurse said to me last week, ‘There are liable to be a good many breakdowns after it is all over.’ ”

But there were moments of utter joy, and appreciation. “Cecil Rife, 24-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. A.G. Rife, came home after an absence in the United States Army in the islands of the Pacific,” Looney wrote. “The visit came as a complete surprise to members of the family. As the little party stopped along the way, cousins, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews were aroused from deep slumber (around 10 o’clock p.m.) and a great rejoicing took place.

“By the time the local hero and his escorts reached the home of his parents, cars loaded with relatives and friends began to arrive and soon the house was bursting with the crowd. “ ‘Uncle’ Gus, the father, opened his country store and treated the guests with apples, candy and smokes. The celebrating which began the minute of this son’s arrival continued throughout his five-day leave. More than a hundred guests enjoyed the old-fashioned games and songs.

“The realization that our way of life is worth fighting for was keen in the hearts and minds of those present.”

That realization was sorely tested, however, in the small Virginia community of Bedford. On June 6, 1944, Allied forces made their bloody landing on the shores of France to begin the invasion of Europe. On that day, 23 boys of Bedford fell. It was the greatest single sacrifice of any American community during wartime.

This is how Parker of Bedford County said it felt:

“July 1--Bedford County has been greatly saddened by the loss of her fine young men . . . Business is at a standstill . . . Memorial services are being held.

“Aug. 15--People are brave, but tensely anxious. Bedford has been ‘hard hit.’

“Sept. 15--The whole county is depressed because of the sorrow that has come to so many families.”

In Wythe County, Frances C. Sanders described the white flowers that decorated Main Street each time the local train carried home another coffin. Sometimes a parent--a suicide victim-- was buried later, next to the soldier.

at the end of world war II, the county correspondents were asked to collect photographs and biographies of all who had served in the war, living or now dead. Many families cooperated; others wished to be left alone. To them, their sacrifices were done.

“Ensign Elmore H. Hood, whose mother lives in Salem, Va. I sent her a blank form, but no response,” reported Rev. I.T. Jacobs of Augusta County.

“Pfc. Harwood P. Lambert. I have written his father four times. No response. “Houston Nichols (USN), Ellard, Va. Written his mother four times, but no reply. I had someone call on her, but have heard nothing.

“Pfc. George C. Shifflett, Waynesboro, Va. Sent his mother a blank form and two cards, but all returned unclaimed.”

Our war of Sept. 11 is frightening and unfinished, and who can fault us if we tremble over what lies ahead. But the past will travel with us. It lights our way. Because it was not that long ago, just 1945, that a group of amateur war correspondents completed their work, their war finally over. As Herbert Bradshaw reported on his last page from Greensville County: “The flags are waving bravely in the summer sun.”