A CHILD'S VIEW OF WORLD WAR II
Dan Summerfield
Copyright 2011 by Dan Summerfield
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Cover photo courtesy Department of Defense
Cover art by Dan Summerfield
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“God makes three requests of his children: Do the best you can, where you are, and with what you have now.”
African proverb
FOREWORD:
From December 7, 1941 to September 2, 1945 when the Japanese surrender was signed aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, America was consumed with the war fronts in Europe and the Pacific. But because those years were spent in the relative isolation of an orphanage, this child's view of the war was necessarily limited to a very small portion of the home front. Despite that limitation, the war affected every aspect of my life and the lives of all the children at the orphanage.
Whether child or civilian adult, the war determined the relationships one had, where one lived, what one had to eat and what clothing to wear, and where he or she worked or went to school.
For the civilian population World War II was a time of giving, though we children in the orphanage had nothing to give. It was a time of sharing, but all we shared was a poverty stricken environment with thirty or forty other children. When the war was finally over our celebration was short lived because while the rest of America went on to unheard of prosperity our poverty continued.
That poverty, however, was the simplest part of the equation. The complexities came with the memories of the war and how it affected each of us, now as well as then.
This then is a child's view of World War II.
CHAPTER 1
It is strange living in the 21st century knowing that an event directly influencing my life took place in an early year of the last century.
The year was 1917 and the event was the United States entry in the Great War, which later became known as World War I. Though we were involved in those European battles for just over a year and a half, the U.S. took its share of casualties, among them my father who didn't get his gas mask on in time and inhaled some of the dreaded mustard gas. He would spend over a year in a military hospital before being declared recovered and discharged. The recovery was never complete however, and the mustard gas inhaled in France in 1918 would cause the cancer that killed him in the early 1940s.
I have few memories of my father, Charles Allsbury Summerfield. I’ve been told he had an eye for the ladies and loved a drink, but I have no first hand knowledge of these. One thing I do remember quite clearly is the large cancerous goiter that hung from the side of his neck like an overripe honey dew melon.
In 1937, the year of my birth, America was still in the Great Depression. The times continued to be very hard, little money was circulating and the word "poor" was no longer commonly used to describe a person or family. What Americans had once called poverty was now the median condition in the United States, as it was in most industrialized countries. But even given the acceptance of a certain level of poverty as the norm, our family was known as "poor."
Dad and my mother came to Michigan from the coal and timber country of West Virginia. He found employment as a prison guard at Southern Michigan Penitentiary in Jackson and, I’m told, was paid $16 and change for working a forty-hour week.
With four sons already, two of them still being fed and clothed by a father whose weekly wages did not amount to what today would be only a decent tip at a one star restaurant, there is little doubt in my mind that had abortion then been legal I would not be here. My parents simply could not afford another mouth to feed. What my older brother Harold, never known for subtlety, once told me was true: "You were an accident," he said.
Thankfully, the two oldest brothers were old enough to work, Charles Jr., or Chuck as we called him worked full time, Harold part time. Each brought a little more money to the family. That stopped, however, when they both went off to World War II. Chuck would fly bombing missions as a tail gunner in Europe. Harold, who joined the Merchant Marine, had three ships torpedoed under him in the North Atlantic.
I have no specific recollections of the events of December 7, 1941. I was too young but even at four years old I could sense the adults' panic, confusion, fear and anger.
All of these emotions were in the faces of relatives and friends who streamed into the little frame house on Mechanic Street where we lived. It was in their voices as they huddled together, speaking quietly so as not to alarm the young children with fearful speculation about the unknowable future.
And it was in their eyes as they furtively glanced our way, looking away quickly when we became aware of the glances. That something horrible had happened was apparent. That it would affect all of our lives in one way or another was not, at least not to me.
Chuck, now married, left for military service for the duration of the war, and the financial assistance he had been able to give our parents ended. An enlisted man's pay was barely enough to support his wife, Hazel, and their soon to be born baby daughter.
Harold left for Merchant Marine duty and his financial support also ended. Now Dad was without a job because of his illness, and for some reason Mom was unable to work. Our family’s only income was a small disability payment given to him by the government because of his having been gassed during his war. That the family would soon be forced to separate became inevitable.
That separation is my most vivid memory of those early years. It came when my brothers Bob and Bill and I were told we were being sent to an orphanage, St Joseph's Catholic Orphanage, which was a few blocks from our home. Bob was about fourteen years old, Bill was ten, I was nearly five.
My mind's eye reaches back to that time and seems to remember my mother's eyes filling with tears as I ran the short distance to where she and my father stood. There is a tactile memory of cloth, the clutching of her dress while tearfully begging her not to send me away, and dad ordering me to go stand with my brothers, who both stood silently looking confused and betrayed. I did as ordered. Bill put his hands on my shoulders and said, "I’ll take care of you Dan."
There is no memory of my mother hugging or kissing us goodbye, though I'm sure that occurred.
I thought mom and dad drove us to the orphanage after packing our clothes in cheap cardboard suitcases and loading them in the car. Bill, five years older, has a better memory of that day. He says we were driven there in a taxi and dad was the only one who went with us. Quite probably he had by that time sold the family car
And there are the final memories of that day: Entering the wooden doors of a huge brick building; a last admonition from our father to obey the three black cloaked women, who stood on a wide stairway looking like a murder of crows perched on a power line; lying in bed sobbing quietly before finally and mercifully drifting off to sleep.
CHAPTER 2
St. Joseph's Orphanage, torn down and long gone now, was the huge red-brick former mansion of a long deceased Catholic millionaire. The building sat on approximately five acres in the middle of a blue collar neighborhood in Jackson, Michigan.
The grounds were beautiful with heavy wrought iron fences blocking off two sides of the property. A third side was fenced off with a four foot wire fence which kept the children away from the railroad tracks running next to the orphanage. Just on the other side of the fence was a hobo jungle where the hobos and tramps who rode the rails would build small bonfires for cooking, and camp overnight while waiting for the next slow moving train to come through. The fourth side, not fenced, was blocked by a thick wood lot which we children thought ran on for miles but was probably only an acre or so deep.
There were rumors about that fierce forest, rumors that a pack of vicious animals waited deep in the interior: Animals that would track down any child, who, on purpose or by accident, wandered onto its leaf strewn floor, and tear his throat out. The rumors might well have been started by the nuns as a means of keeping the children from using the wood lot as a means of escape. However the rumor started, I believed it implicitly. And though the older kids scoffed at the rumor, none of them ventured into the woods to disprove it. No one I knew ever tried to use it as an escape route, though we all thought about it constantly.
One first entered St Joseph's through a set of massive oak doors at the front of the building. Inside the large entrance on the immediate right was a small chapel that could seat sixty to seventy. There Mass was observed seven days a week with a visiting priest officiating; low Mass attended by the nuns Monday through Saturday, and both low and high Mass on Sundays. The Sunday high Mass was attended by everyone in the orphanage.
On the left side of the entrance was the office of the Mother Superior who was responsible for running the orphanage, and beyond the office were the quarters where she lived.
Past the chapel on the right side was a dining room large enough to hold the thirty to forty children the orphanage might house at any given time, and next to the dining room was a small kitchen where the meals were prepared. Past the kitchen was a locker room where each child had his own locker to hang up pajamas, extra clothing, shoes, and boots for the winter. Beyond the locker room was the side entry commonly used to enter the building.
A dozen nuns reported to the seldom seen Mother Superior, and were responsible for all aspects of life in the orphanage including feeding, clothing and disciplining the children, cooking, doing laundry and all the other necessary duties, even to making sure the wartime black out curtains covered the windows at night.. The nuns themselves were quartered in small, separate rooms somewhere in the building. I never learned exactly where.
Dominating the main floor entry was a massive oak staircase that led to what had been a large ballroom but was now used as a dormitory. The wooden floored room was lined with long rows of bunk beds. Highlighted at the far end was what had been a slightly elevated bandstand, now used as a small library and play area.
This dormitory was where the children slept and during rainy days played when they weren't in class or working at the chores assigned them. During severe winter weather they might spend several days in a row without leaving the dorm except to eat, do chores. and attend morning reading classes or Sunday Mass.
CHAPTER 3
The Mother Superior oversaw the general operation of the orphanage, Sister Ladislaus acted as Chief of Staff, attending to the daily operation. Her duties seemed to mostly consist of disciplining the children and bossing the other nuns. From the surreptitious glances of dismay often exchanged between other nuns when she gave an order, it appeared to be an assumed rather than appointed position.
All nuns are regarded by the Catholic Church as “Brides of Christ", a title which comes with their vows of Earthly celibacy.” Sister Ladislaus, known as The Enforcer, may have been a Bride of Christ but there is no doubt that upon her death she was met at the Heavenly Gate by St Peter and immediately handed divorce papers.
Her name was taken from the Catholic Church’s Saint Ladislaus, an eleventh century king of Hungary who was reputed to have been a true protector of his faith and of the poor and defenseless.
She was indeed a protector of her faith, so much so that she despised all non-Catholics, which included the Summerfield brothers. We were, she once told me in a fit of rage, stealing food from the mouths of more deserving orphaned Catholic children who could not enter the orphanage because of our unwelcome presence. It was The Enforcer, who gave me my first experience with bias and prejudice; unfortunately, I was the target.
As for being a protector of the poor and defenseless, no one in the country was more poor and defenseless than the children at St Joseph's but, whether they were Catholic or not, The Enforcer was the one who inflicted punishment and pain on those children she judged to be bad.
Though probably only in her mid to late thirties at the time, her seamed, leathery face, a Hollywood version of the face of a Marine drill sergeant, was perfectly cast for the role.
The kindest description of her was in an article in a national magazine reviewing the life of Tom Monaghan, owner of the Dominoes Pizza chain and former child resident of St. Joe's. Even in late middle-age he was reported to still have nightmares about The Enforcer.
The writer described her as “Dickensian.” We children had far more fitting descriptions, and as we became adults those descriptions would become more and more unprintable.
Make a mistake in her presence and the leather razor strap she always carried attached to the belt at her side came out and the command was given to hold out a hand. The brutal whacks from the doubled up strap ran anywhere from one to ten, and if a hand was pulled away while the strap was whistling down the punishment was doubled and taken out on both hands. The child was ordered to close his eyes so that he couldn’t see which hand was about to be hit. Opening the eyes brought even more whacks. That was punishment for what she considered venial sins. Mortal sin punishment was administered with a steel yardstick applied with enthusiastic vigor to the bare rear end.
Corporal punishment was not frowned upon in the 1940s as it is today. In fact, the punishment she then afflicted would be considered serious felony assault today, and the one who administered it would face equally serious prison time. But that was a different time, and with a world war going on the justice system neither knew or cared about children who had been delivered to the tender and loving mercies of the Catholic Church.
The Enforcer and I would become mortal enemies.
CHAPTER 4
he faces of the children at St Joseph's Orphanage appeared as a constantly changing canvas.
Children came in, some of whom were orphaned; others without mothers and whose widower fathers were called to war, and some, like the Summerfield brothers, came from families that simply could not afford to keep them.
Other children left. Some of them went back home to parents suffering guilt at the abandonment of a child, others who were true orphans were taken into the homes of relatives, still others were adopted by couples without children of their own.
Interestingly, whatever the number of children there at any given time, there was never a case of obesity among them, and the terrible meals were not the reason Having no toys, play time, held outdoors, was quite basic, very rough house and burned up enormous amounts of calories.
Summer and winter, the game most played was King of the Mountain, , which took place on a high, steep terraced slope in the lawn. One kid would gain the top of the terrace and declare himself King, then it was up to the rest of us to throw him off and claim the title for ourselves
Hide and seek, tag and dodge ball, each with its own rough rules, were other favorites.
Often while playing outside during warm weather we would hear the toot of a slow moving freight train. Gathering by the fence near the hobo jungle, we would wave and cheer as the engine moved past. The engineer and fireman would wave back and sometimes throw a small wooden box containing the chalk used to mark freight cars. Older children would scramble across the fence to retrieve the chalk, then it was off to the sidewalks to compete against each other in hopscotch.
It wouldn't be long before the nuns confiscated the contraband chalk because every patch of sidewalk on the property was marked with hopscotch squares and the innocent graffiti of childhood.
At its peak St Joe's held more than forty children. At its lowest there were no more than twenty Though living there for over four years, I have real memories of only a few.
One was Eddie Herrera, about my size but a year older and tough as nails. Eddie was neither orphaned or abandoned. His whole family , which included an older sister and younger twin brothers, lived at the orphanage. Eddie's father was the maintenance man and his mother did some cooking and other chores at St Joe's.
My recollection is that the parents and sister, Alicia, lived in a small house on the property, while Eddie and the twins, Alberto and Roberto, lived in the orphanage itself and slept in the second floor dormitory.
The father did the janitorial work, was grounds keeper for the property, managed the heating with the coal fired boiler in the winter, and maintained a Victory type garden planted with berries and vegetables during the growing season. Mr. Herrera also acted as the institution's barber, cutting the children's hair on a regular basis.
The Herrera parents, the mother once again pregnant, and Alicia would leave St. Joe's in 1944 so that he could work at a higher paying job, probably war production work in a factory. Eddie and the twins remained behind.
The twins, Alberto and Roberto, were the opposite of Eddie. They were quiet, polite, and studious in the classroom. Eddie was loud, a bit devil may care and definitely not the scholarly type.
Eddie's best friend was a tough Polish-American kid named Ted, last name unpronounceable. Ted was the kid who would teach me how to wax the kitchen floors and the staircase leading to the second floor dormitory.
There are two others I remember well. Gilbert, another non-Catholic who was two or three years older than me, and Tommy Monaghan, who later in life would become the Thomas Monaghan, billionaire owner of the Dominos Pizza chain and former owner of the Detroit Tigers..
It is not because of any foreknowledge of a brilliant business acumen that I remember Tommy Monaghan. It is because when my brother Bob and then Bill finally left the orphanage, Tommy looked at me and said, "I guess you don't have your brothers here to protect you anymore, do you, Dan?" He said it quietly, but the threat was definite. Mouth off once and the other kids would beat the crap out of me.
I must confess that I had in fact used the older brothers as a shield against getting into fights several times, but that I had overused the sibling protection never occurred to me. Needless to say, some of the kids tried to badger me into fighting over the next few days, but I walked softly kept my mouth shut, and survived.
It was, I suppose, the beginning of wisdom.
CHAPTER 5
With millions of men enlisting or being drafted into the armed forces following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the need for uniforms to clothe them became a wartime imperative. Every enlisted soldier, sailor or Marine needed multiple uniforms. For the soldiers and Marines this meant each individual would be issued several Class A dress uniforms, shoes, socks, underwear and several of the famous H.B.T. (herring bone twill) fatigues, now referred to as battle jackets and pants. Sailors, too, needed dress white Class A uniforms and denim shirts and bell bottom denim trousers as work uniforms.
Washington soon decided that new civilian clothing would have to be put on virtual hold for the duration of the war, and in June, 1942 clothing rationing went into effect. The civilian market for new clothing immediately dried up though, like other rationed items, the black market was a sometime source of supply.
That rationing would have no effect on the children of St Joseph's Orphanage. Stockpiled in attic storage rooms was enough clothing for a hundred or more children, though any new child who had somehow developed an early fashion sense would be deeply disappointed in the selection. All the stored clothing was second hand, though not badly worn. It had all been donated over the years and was woefully out of fashion.
At St Joe's what you wore was what was issued to you. The clothes you were wearing when you came in to the orphanage immediately went into the communal clothing pool and there was a good chance you would never wear that clothing again, though you might very well see another kid dressed in it. The socks Santa gave me and brother Bill and the shirt given to Bob would only remain in our possession until the first laundering. Then it was into the clothing pool and, after laundering, given out on a non-ownership basis.
Summertime wear at the orphanage was simple: A short sleeve shirt, some kind of short pants, and, for the most part, no shoes. After three months of playing outside during summer vacation the warm weather shirts and pants would be in tatters and the soles of our feet were as thick and tough as a Hobbit's.
The normal outfit for cooler weather was a light cotton long sleeve shirt, a pair of brown corduroy knickers and clunky, very heavy high top leather shoes. A cloth cap topped things off. Fully dressed, we looked like miniature versions of golfer Bobby Jones in the early 1920s. During winter a jacket and rubber galoshes, each invariably a size too large , were added to the ensemble.
In peacetime there might have been some embarrassment in wearing such long out of fashion clothing, but during the war we were seldom given a second look. The days when the fashion of men's suits and ties changing on a regular basis and women's skirt lengths changing with the season were over, at least for the duration of the war.
With the exception of the armed forces, everyone was stuck in some kind of out dated fashion style, with the exception of the military. And, if there was any style to be admired it was the military uniform, which would also remain mostly unchanged for the duration.
It was probably that long out of date clothing that made me care little for fashion throughout my life. Whether it was or not, I seem to have spent most of my years on this Earth developing the sartorially perfect rumpled look.
CHAPTER 6
Isolated as we children were, the sights and sounds of men going to and coming from the war surrounded us. Trains chugged or roared past the orphanage day and night. Through the windows of the passenger trains whizzing by we could see hundreds of uniformed servicemen being transported to their bases, or to the east or west coast for shipment overseas and ultimately to the areas of combat.
Heavily laden freight trains carrying deadly cargo chugged by at a slower pace, some so long and heavy there would be an engine in front pulling the cars, another in the middle both pushing and pulling, and a third engine pushing at the very end where the caboose would normally be.
While we couldn't see what the enclosed box cars carried, the open flat bed cars were often loaded with trucks, jeeps, huge tanks with large cannon projecting from the turrets, immense artillery pieces, or stacked crates of ammunition
Frequently there would be what we guessed was secret cargo, cargo covered by large tarpaulins and guarded by soldiers carrying loaded rifles and submachine guns who, even in mid-winter, stood guard next to the tarps.
With supplies so desperately needed in both Europe and the Pacific, the War Department used every railroad engine, boxcar, and open flatbed available. The engines were mostly diesel but occasionally a coal fired, smoke generating engine came chugging through. When the wind was just right the smoke would leave us gasping as it covered the entire orphanage grounds.
On the thoroughfare outside the orphanage fence, occasional long convoys of olive drab painted trucks and jeeps driven by men wearing battle dress rolled by.
The skies were often filled with bomber, fighter and transport planes, many flying at the minimum altitude of five thousand feet. The incredible roar of unmuffled engines was the War Department's way of showing citizens they were getting their taxpayer money's worth.
Watching this tremendous flow of men and materiel, the thought often crossed my mind that if the leaders of Germany and Japan could see those trains, planes and convoys they would soon realize this was only one of thousands of cities and villages such armadas were passing through. Once that realization came, the war might end very quickly.
Then came a beautiful, cloudless summer day when a flight of four bombers flew low over the orphanage as all the children were playing outside. Excited by the sight, I pointed to the last bomber and said, "That's my brother Charlie's plane."
Oh yeah, how do you know that?" said one of the kids, his voice dripping with both disbelief and sarcasm. "I just know it," I replied.
At that very moment, the pilot in the last bomber must have seen the group of waving kids on the lawn below. He waggled the bomber's wings several times as if to signal "Hello, I see you down there".
"See what I told you," I said. "That's my brother saying 'Hi' to me."
My stock with the other children went up for at least a week after that incident.
CHAPTER 7
There were two wars affecting my life; Most important was the war that was consuming the rest of the world and which had placed me and my brothers in the orphanage. Then there was the small private war between myself and The Enforcer. The latter broke into the open one winter evening at supper time.
A meal at St Joe's Orphanage was seldom a pleasant experience, whether during wartime or not. Much of the food served was donated by local grocery stores and restaurants just before the expiration dates ran out, and came close to being rancid before being cooked and served
The few good meals came when area Catholic farmers butchered a hog or a no longer productive milk cow and donated some of the meat to the orphanage. Tiny bits of those meats would occasionally show up in the soups served at lunch time.
There were also a few good meals during the growing season when farmers donated surplus fruits and vegetables. These had either been rejected by the military or could not be sold at market because they were a too bruised or misshapen. They were still fresh and tasty, though. Most of the vegetables donated were carrots and turnips. The carrots were all right but the turnips, much loved by the nuns, are one of those veggies I reject to this day.
Year around, most meals could only be described as both unappetizing and depressing.
Breakfast was watery, unsweetened oatmeal and a single slice of dry stale bread without butter used to mop up whatever was left in the cereal bowl. No fruit juice or milk was served with any of the meals. We drank water or nothing.
The oatmeal was unsweetened because we were at war and sugar was rationed, though there undoubtedly would have been no sugar even if it wasn’t rationed. The bread was dry and stale because it was what is known as “day old bread,” a euphemism used to hide the fact that it was too stale for the grocers to sell and would have been thrown out but for the donation to the orphanage.
Lunch was a bowl of either beef or chicken “shadow” vegetable soup, shadow referring to the custom of those in conditions of poverty waving a piece of beef or chicken over a pot containing a large amount of water and a small amount of vegetables, The shadow cast by the meat was the flavoring, but the meat, itself was never actually dropped into the pot. At the orphanage, the children got the shadow soup and the nuns got soup with whatever meat might have been available.
With much of the nation’s fresh produce going to the millions of men and women in service, the tasteless canned vegetables we ate most of the year came in huge, pre-war institution size cans. Occasionally, one would contain green split peas which became the soup of the day, or more accurately the soup of the next three of four days. I cannot recall how it tasted, but brother Bill does and to this day refuses to eat any kind of split pea soup.