Quonset Hut Village Gave WWII Veterans a Foothold in Southland

No, they’ve got no time for glory in the infantry.

No, they’ve got no use for praises loudly sung.

But in ev’ry soldier’s heart in all the infantry,

Shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young.

From “The Ballad of Rodger Young,” by Frank Loesser

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Rodger Young has been dead almost 60 years and, although his selflessness is commemorated in a ballad, his sacrifice to the nation is nearly forgotten. But some Angelenos may remember two long-gone local landmarks that were dedicated to the Medal of Honor winner, who hailed from Ohio.

Young, 25, was in the Solomon Islands with the 148th Regiment, 37th Infantry Division of the Ohio National Guard. On July 31, 1943, his platoon came under intense fire from a Japanese machine gun nest on New Georgia.

Young stood just 5 feet 2 and weighed a mere 125 pounds. He had poor eyesight and a hearing loss. Yet he saved the platoon, single-handedly taking out the enemy gunners.

He slithered forward on his stomach, taking one bullet in the left shoulder, another in the left thigh. His platoon leader ordered him to return, but he turned and said, “I’m sorry, sir. You know I don’t hear very well.”

Despite his wounds, he drew himself up 15 feet from the muzzle of the machine gun and threw a grenade, killing the five Japanese soldiers. Their final shots killed him too.

His bravery inspired the nation, and Los Angeles was no exception. The German American Turnverein Hall was renamed the Rodger Young Auditorium/Center in his honor.

And the nation’s largest veterans housing project became Rodger Young Village.

Tens of thousands of servicemen had passed through L.A. on their way to the Pacific, and they liked what they saw. When the war ended in 1945, they came here to begin their families.

But there had been no building during the war, and housing was in short supply. Newspaper classified sections brimmed with ads from veterans begging to be accepted as renters:

“No sympathy or charity. Wanted: Just a Home. Whatever you have to offer. We aren’t perfect, just normal people. Veteran, wife and child. Won’t you please call us.”

“Have bride but no threshold. Newlywed couple without home. Please rent us a bungalow, apartment or house, furnished or unfurnished. Up to $50.”

About 162,000 families, including 50,000 veterans, were living in tents, garages and old trailers, or were doubled or tripled up in existing housing.

John Bettencourt and his family of eight were victims of that housing shortage. When their car broke down near Latigo Canyon Road and Pacific Coast Highway, on their way from San Antonio to San Francisco, they pitched a tent and lived on the beach several months. Bettencourt found a job, but not a house.

Even when a car plunged off the highway, landing near their tent, and newspapers wrote of their plight, no one offered them housing because they had six children.

Allen Farnum and his wife walked down Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard pushing their 3-month-old son, Lesalyn, in a carriage with a sign on it reading, “Contents for Sale.” They received 23 offers of housing.

“We just had to do something drastic for the baby’s health,” Farnum said

The Mizrahis -- David, Sophie and their 2-year-old son, Bobbie -- set up a pup tent in Pershing Square downtown to demonstrate the seriousness of their situation. The park commission ordered them to leave.

Finally, in early 1946, the city lumbered into action. Obtaining 100 acres of the decommissioned National Guard air base in northeast Griffith Park, the Housing Authority erected 750 surplus naval Quonset huts to house 1,500 families, or about 6,000 residents. Who better to name the village for than war hero Rodger Young?

On April 27, 1946, much of the city tuned the radio to the opening ceremony, which featured Jack Benny, Phil Harris, Dennis Day and Bette Davis.

“This project is an example for governmental teamwork,” Gov. Earl Warren boasted. “It required the readiness of the federal government to provide the structures and other materials, the city of Los Angeles to furnish this site and the state government to assist financially.”

On May 23, 1946, James and Elizabeth Parkhill and their two children became the first family to move in, vacating a trailer parked behind the Hollywood Bowl, where Parkhill was night watchman.

For James Parkhill, 31, an Army veteran, the attraction was not just the low rent -- about $35 a month, including utilities -- it was the amenities: Their trailer had no running water or electricity, but plenty of mice.

The Parkhills lived in the village almost two years, during which they had another child and saved enough money to buy a new home in Sun Valley.

The elongated huts were divided into two private living quarters, each with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a combined kitchen and living room area. The huts were simple and sturdy -- like life in the village.

Most of the necessities were there, and a few luxuries: grocery store, barbershop, beauty shop, shoe repair, drugstore, baby store, malt shop, school, library, playground, community newspaper and bar. Mothers washed clothes in wringer washers and hung them to dry on the clotheslines beside each hut.

Residents did most of their shopping there, and shop owners benefited from the government’s decision to allow only one business of each kind.

Lucille Butts ran the busy baby shop, where she was on the front lines of the postwar baby boom. Within months, she complained that there were 500 expectant mothers and not enough diapers for the upcoming births.

Fortunately, David Blanchard, the first baby born in the village -- on July 1, 1946 -- arrived just before the shortage. His proud father, Al, was a veteran and a KTTV cameraman.

More than 7,000 elementary school children passed through the village school doors in its eight-year existence, while many older ones were bused to Le Conte Junior High School in Hollywood.

Most residents couldn’t afford automobiles, but they enjoyed regular bus service from the park entrance to 5th and Main streets downtown.

“A dental office looked out over the equestrian trail in back of the village,” recalled Thayne Powell Martin, who lived there during her teens. “I remember having a stubborn tooth removed while horses passed by.

“My sister and I enjoyed the Friday night dances in the recreation hall and pedaling our bikes along the park’s roads. A few times we hid behind bushes to watch movies being made. It was a wonderful time of our lives,” Martin said.

Initially, villagers embraced cooperative living, but fears of a communist conspiracy soon set them against each other. In October 1946, friction developed between the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic group, and two acknowledged members of the Communist Party, Sidney and Libby Burke.

Libby, a professional dancer and village activist and the secretary of the Rodger Young Village Resident Council, was accused of spreading radical propaganda at house parties and inciting youths to take up arms in support of socialism.

Sidney, a member of the Newspaper Guild and editor of the Communist Party’s paper, the People’s World, was accused of not being a veteran, although he had served in the merchant marine during the war. Over vociferous protests, the Burkes were soon ousted by the city.

As the years passed, orange groves gave way to housing tracts, and village residents fulfilled their dreams of suburban life. Rodger Young Village closed in February 1954. Arthur Toy and his family were the last to leave.

On April 3, 1954, workers dismantled most of the village to make way for the Los Angeles Zoo parking lot and, later, the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage.

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Next Week: The Rodger Young Auditorium/Center