world war 2 – Page 8 – Hinges of History

World War II and Sacrifice

Here are some interesting facts and figures about public sacrifice during World War II:

1. The tax rate for most Americans averaged about 20%. For the richest Americans, the tax rate ranged between 80 and 94%. The government framed taxes as a patriotic duty so that the county could pay for a war on multiple fronts (Europe, Africa, The Pacific) and end that war quickly. American involvement in World War II lasted from December 1942 through August of 1945; the last troops were demobilized by 1946.

2. People were asked to change their eating habits in order to help preserve more essential food for American troops. Things like sugar, butter and meat were all in short supply to the average public. People received ration coupons, which they used when purchasing items.

3. And it wasn’t just eating, People were also limited as to the amount of gasoline they could purchase. By the end of 1942, more than half of the vehicles in the country were limited to just four gallons of fuel a week (cars on average got about 15 MPG). War workers and other “essential” personnel could get more gasoline, but the vast majority of the public was limited in terms of personal driving.

4. Other industrial goods were also rationed. Tires were the first, because most rubber came from the Dutch East Indies, which was controlled by Japan. But steel was also crucial to the war effort. Consumer car production during the war was suspended. Manufacturers looked for alternate ways to package caned food goods.

5. People coped. Magazines discussed ways to use soy and other non-traditional products as meat and sugar substitutes. People planted Victory Gardens, backyard or neighborhood gardens where they could get unlimited amounts of vegetables for the dinner table.

6. Since people couldn’t drive, they turned to mass transportation, which was provided by both cities and towns as well as private companies. Buses served communities large and small across the country, offering a way to get from one place to another. Train service was also more extensive. Americans used mass transit in record numbers, hitting a peak of 23.4 billion riders in 1946. Carpooling was also encouraged.

7. There were other government-mandated restrictions. The government Office of Price Administration froze prices on many raw manufacturing materials in order to stave off inflation which is often common during the war. Women’s hemlines were raised so as to save fabric. People living near the coasts used blackout curtains to keep the cities dark in case of an attack.

8. Men between 18 and 64 had to register for the military draft, and men between 18 and 45 were immediately eligible for induction. Draftees would serve in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. But people also enlisted for the various services (the Navy was an all-volunteer branch), largely to be in control of their own destinies. About 12 million people were serving in the U.S. military at its peak strength in 1945.

9. Unlike the Depression, when the unemployment rate was around 20%, people were working during World War II. The unemployment rate was less that 2% for most of the war. Stateside people were employed by the military and other government agencies or worked in war production plants (in addition to other businesses, shops, schools, etc., which remained open during the war). People had a pent up urge to spend the money they made.

10. So, the government asked people to buy War Bonds, essentially helping to financially support the war OVER AND ABOVE the taxes they paid. Bonds matured in 10 years and sold at 75% of their value. Bond sales totaled $185.7 BILLION during the war, and more than 85 million Americans — half the population — purchased them.

Woman in a Man’s World

Janette experienced the good and bad of America’s reaction to women in military service. The concept of women in uniform was completely new to many Americans. They were used to seeing women participate in the military as nurses, but not taking the same jobs as men.

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After more than a year and a half in the service, Janette went home to Indiana to visit friends and family. She shares one negative encounter she had with the sister of a childhood friend:

” I go in the house, I guess. Her sister was in there. I didn’t know her sister. I had never met her sister. I was in uniform because you had to wear them all the time. And her sister said …

‘I want you to leave!’ Just as soon as I stepped in the door.

She wanted me to leave; I couldn’t imagine what was going on. And Teresa, this friend of mine, said to her … ‘What do you mean?’

She [the sister] said, ‘It’s because of her that my husband has to go out on a ship and any woman in uniform should not be in.’ She said, ‘It’s the worst thing that ever happened to our country.’

You see, from her point of view, that was how she thought. But I, I was astounded. I just said, ‘Oh, no, they need everybody.’ … Then I turned around and left. There was no point in arguing or anything. But I’ll never forget that because that was a shocker.”

Janette also had positive experiences where she was honored for her service in touching ways. She shares about an experience she had in the bus station while returning to the base from her visit home:

“I was walking through the station and a very elderly man said, ‘Ma’am?’ And I looked at him. He said, ‘Here’s 50 cents I would like to give you.’

And I said, ‘Oh, no. I don’t need that. I’m going back to the base.’

He said, ‘No, I just want to give it to some service person.’

I kept saying, no, but finally I saw he was so patriotic he just wanted to give it — see, it almost makes me cry to think about it. And I so I took it and thanked him and went on. That was his contribution. I’ll never forget that.”

Tomboy

Janette finished a bachelor’s degree at Purdue University. She minored in physical education, which was her passion and got her major in home economics. Through her four years in school she spent most of her free time in the gymnasium as a member of the athletic association.

When she graduated she got a job teaching home economics and coordinating 4H in an high school in northern Indiana, but she didn’t stay there for long. Pearl Harbor was struck and the very next day Janette signed up for the WAVES.

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(‘Coach Janette’ pictured above on the bottom row, left.)

Her love for sports started when she was a child. Her father was an avid sports fan and would play catch with Janette and her sister after he came in from working in the fields at night.

After officer training, Janette was sent back to Pensacola as an athletic officer. She and another WAVE set up an athletic program so that the women could pick and choose athletic activities each day in order to fulfill their physical fitness requirements. She even arranged for the WAVES to have athletic clothes that they could use, since their uniform set didn’t include anything suitable for playing sports.
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“If a man could check out shorts or get shorts, see, for the activity, so could the women. See that was the first time I’d come up with equality.” – Janette Alpaugh

Janette Shaffer Alpaugh

Janette Alpaugh (Shaffer at the time), originally from Indiana, joined the WAVES in January 1943. She was part of the second class of WAVES to attend boot camp in Cedar Falls, Iowa. After boot camp she applied to become a Link trainer, where she learned how to instruct men who were training as pilots in flight simulation. Janette was stationed in Pensacola, Fla., as a link trainer before she went on to become a WAVES officer.

She grew up on a big farm, north of Indianapolis, where she says she was raised like a boy. While Janette’s girlfriends were helping their mothers in the kitchen, Janette and her sister were helping her father with the farm. The family only had one boy, Janette’s younger brother, and everyone’s help was needed. Her time working on the farm, however, gave her a passion for hard work and athletics. Photobucket
“[My Father] treated us just like boys. We did farm work that any boy our age would have done.”

Sharing Her Experiences

Helen and her husband had four children together, three girls and a boy. They were married nearly 30 years when Chuck was killed in a plane crash in Mexico City in 1979. The crash was all over the news and Helen’s friends and family did their best to shelter her from all the coverage. Photobucket

Helen and Chuck, pictured above, at the last party they attended together.

Helen turned 80 years old in 2000 and moved in to a retirement community. It was too boring for her though! She couldn’t stand all the talk about blood pressure and gossip about ambulance visits.

That was when she decided to start writing a book and share all of her experiences. She started on an old typewriter until it broke down and her son bought her a computer. With the help of her children, “Okay, Girls – Man Your Bunks!” was published in 2006. A copy of the book can be found here. In the book Helen goes into greater detail about her experience in the WAVES, her struggle with alcoholism as an adult, and her family and marriage.

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The Duties of a Servicewoman

At radio school in Madison, Wis., Helen learned Morse code and did communications work during the first part of the war. She and the other girls in the office would receive 24-hour news through the teletype machine and they were responsible to hand out a printed version and pass along any important information. They also communicated to other bases through code and operated telephone banks.

In November of 1943, Helen began working at the Air Traffic Control on the main base in Corpus Christi. There she worked with pilots, giving weather conditions, keeping track of flights and controlling the flow of air traffic. SNJ planes were used for training during World War II and Helen’s first airplane ride was on one of these small aircraft. Pictured below are two Navy WAVES washing an SNJ training plane in Florida.

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(U.S. Navy Photograph)

Helen and her husband, Chuck, who was a pilot, later bought their own SNJ plane. They are pictured below riding in the plane over Palm Springs, Calif.
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Something About Men in Uniform

Helen speaks boldly about what it was like to date service men during wartime. She admits that it was difficult knowing they may be shipped out the next day and never return. “We needed love,” she says.

Below: One of the men Helen dated for nearly a year, Bill from Arkansas. The girls jokingly called him the “greek god” because of his good looks and Helen complains that other women were always hitting on him in front of her.

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“We were young and we were at the peak or our hormones and there was a damn war going on. There was a war going on. OK, we went to bed with guys. We made love. It felt good. It felt safe. It wasn’t something that we were running around getting money for or doing every days. We were in some people’s eyes, promiscuous. In my eyes, we were normal.”

Helen met her husband, Chuck, a commercial pilot, in the Los Angeles airport after the war where she worked in an airport restaurant. Their first date, oddly enough was at a strip club, and it was something they laughed about from that day on. They were married in Los Angeles in March of 1951.

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“Chuck was 6 foot 4 inches, good-looking, and my favorite thing – a pilot.”

Partners in Crime

Helen’s mother came to visit her in Corpus Christi. Some of the girls, along with Helen, took her to Port Aransas or Mustang Island, off the coast. She took photos of some of the WAVES, insisting they pose on the beach in nothing but their underpants and bras. (Helen is third from the left.)

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“I loved the water … the ocean is my main thing.”

Though the war was full of horrible things and hard times, Helen wanted to make the best of it. For her, the easiest way to get through the difficulty was to have fun and embrace those around her. She grew particularly close to a fellow WAVE named Theda, and they were “partners in crime.” Theda gained a reputation for sneaking into town in her civilian clothes and was continually getting into trouble for it. Helen is pictured below (third from the right) with friends, celebrating at the Swan Club.
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“And I remember … a big ol’ Texan that listened to us all arguing one night to the pros and cons of women in the Navy and he sat back and he looked around and he said, well, one thing I can tell y’all. Sure smells better around here.”

Little Helen Edgar

Helen was born in Philadelphia, but because of the Depression, when she was young, her family moved to New Jersey so that her father could find work. She had one older brother, Jim, who also enlisted in the Navy, shortly after Helen.

Helen started working soda fountain and drugstore jobs when she was 15 and she jokes about going from job to job. Her life plan was to go to college, get married and have kids. The strike on Pearl Harbor, in 1941, changed her plans and sent her on an adventure into the WAVES.

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“I got fired a lot. I gave too much ice cream to my friends.”

Spotlight on Helen Edgar Gilbert

Helen Gilbert was one of the first women to join the WAVES. Born in 1919, she grew up in Philadelphia and worked in the Navy as a radio operator during World War II.

Because she was part of the first group of women to enlist, they didn’t even have uniforms for the first several months of training. She had worked at the RCA (Radion Corporation of America) prior to joining the WAVES, and when her officers found out, she was assigned to train in Madison, Wis., at radio school, learning Morse code.

It was October of 1942 and Helen was excited and nervous to leave her hometown. She was stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas, during the war, and Pensecola, Fla., at the end of the war.

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“When we broke into that man’s world, the Navy, the United States Navy … when we did that and made them respect us, when I see Navy officers today who are women, admirals, women, I think, hot damn, we did it! We did it.”