Let's begin talking about working in the plants.

A lot of people was leaving and going to work in the bomber plants, and out at Arlington or Remington. They were paying more than the Power & Light was, big, big money. Some of them asked me how come you donít go there. And I was satisfied where I was. I had a good steady job, and I knew that we were going to have electricity for a long time. So, I was really satisfied where I was.

***[The war] didnít affect KCP&L outside the employees would leave you know, and go to other jobs. The only thing was, when you worked at the Power and Light, it was a utility, you see, and you was told. You wasnít even supposed to talk about the war or anything like that, because they were afraid that there would be a conflict. Somebody would hear it and make some big deal out of it.

Q. Civil Defense

A. I got very involved in Civil Defense. We had a lot of meetings about buildings, bomb shelters. That was a big thing then. And of course, a lot of people thought that there was a chance that we would get bombed. There was quite a few bomb shelters around. Of course, you got a lot of instructions on that. What to take in, into a bomb shelter, how to prepare for it. There was a lot of that, a lot of meetings.

We never had a black out. As far as I remember, we had a dim out a time or two, you know where the lights would go way down. They done that on purpose, you know. Just to show people what it was. But never a black out.

POW's IN RIVERSIDE

That was very interesting. They were Italian and they was right here close. And we would go over there on a Sunday afternoon and weather permitting and we would talk to the prisoners. A lot of them could speak pretty good English. And they liked it here because they knew that they wasnít going to get shot at. They would take loads of them into town, truckloads of them into town, and took some of them down here, a lot of people donít know what it was, but the Belgian Bottoms. Thatís where they raised a lot of vegetables. Thatís all it was down there was vegetables. Belgian bottoms. And operated by a lot of Belgian People. And then they took some over to Leavenworth, there was quite a few prisoners down there. But theyíd take a truckload. And they would always wave if Iíd see them in the morning. theyíd wave going by.

There was some Italian people lived right close to us and they would go over there and talk to some of them in Italian. And they would take them Italian cookies and things like that. As far as the prisoners were concerned, you wouldnít know it was a prison camp You could have opened up the gate and you couldnít have run them off, because, they were safe there. They was out of the Army, wasnít getting shot at or nothing, you know. And one of the guards lived in one of our tenant houses even. So it was interesting to talk to them.

THE POW BUILDING

It was a great big building. How could I describe that building? The old clubhouse of the race track, and it was fixed up just like a barracks- like an army barracks. And they had a big kitchen there. And the cooks stayed there all the time. They had to cook them the meals.for probably two hundred men.

Regular soldiers-MPís, guarded the prisoners. They treated them just like they would anybody else. Yeah, there wasnít any difference. They would talk to them. They would go back and forth home. And they treated them just likeÖThere never was no rough stuff. You couldnít tell there was any prison camp even.

We gave cigarettes and candy bars, lots of them. The Italian prisoners would come home early on Sunday or on a Saturday afternoon. I donít know where they took them in town. Now, those down in the Bottoms down there, working in the fields down there, they would work pretty late on Saturday. They didnít get the Saturday afternoon off like the others. But then they would come home reasonably early, around 4 oíclock. They would go down in the trucks and get them.

SUNDAY SERVICES FOR POWís

They had services down there on Sunday. Yeah, different ministers would go down. Now as far as the Catholics are concerned, of course, they would take them in the truck and go to service and they all came back. And we would be out at church. It was always kind of comical, you know. "Are you saved now? Yeah, weíre saved." It was just a joke you know.

DID RESIDENTS CARE ABOUT POWís?

No, no, nobody paid any attention to it at all. See,this was mostly farm country back then, and wasnít very thickly populated.around here. I would say people ten miles from here didnít even know there was a prison camp here. It was just the old club house. Thatís all they knew. And you can ask people right now around here, they didnít know there was a prison camp. Because they came in afterwards, you see.

POWís GOING HOME

I remember when they found out they was going to leave and go home. ëCourse they was all tickled when the war was over. They began to ship a lot of them out before the war was over. There wasnít that many there then. Maybe half of them. They were shipping them out.

A-Bomb

Well, you hate to say it. You were glad it happened. Because after that happened, you knew that was the end of it, you know. And the war, you forgot about the atomic bomb and the damage that it did. You really didnít know how much damage that itíd done outside that it ended the war. You still knew there was a lot of damage. But you didnít think about that so much, as the fact that it ended the war. And you were glad to see that happen.

Bomber Plant

Well, we knew that there was a bomber plant all right because the airplanes would come over just night and day and night and day. And they wasnít missing our house, ëcause we were that close.

But the most interesting thingfor me was the glider plant over there. You didnít see gliders very often. But once in awhile and you could look up and they would be cutting one loose. And I was more interested in that than anything else. Because I always wanted to go up in one. I thought that was so interesting, and you didnít know what they was using them for. But they would take them up there and cut them loose. And you wouldnít see that everyday, but every once in awhile you could look up and see one pulling a glider. And you knew they were going to cut it loose sooner or later, and they would glide around up there for awhile and then come on in and land. And I was more interested in that than I was the big bombers.