Q. Pearl Harbor

I could hear President Roosevelt talking about the "Dastardly attack on Pearl Harbor that we were now in a state of war with Japan." It was not only shock and emotional, it was almost a physical feeling that everything looked just exactly as it had when I home two or three hours earlier and now everything was different. And people in the rooms were listening to the radios. And people were crying, wondering, what’s happening. You know, what’ going to happen next. And then there were those souls that said, "Oh, well you know, our boys will get over there and they’ll have that wrapped up , you know, 6 months, it’ll all be over with, be a memory." Didn’t work.

The boys were so excited. For some, it was a great big adventure. Because there again, times had been so hard, and maybe some of them, probably the first time they’d ever been on a train, ever been away from home. They were strutting around in their uniforms, and for a lot of them, it was the first time they’d ever had all new clothes from skin out. They were just like little bouncy puppies, so full of enthusiasm.

They’d want your phone number, or address so we could write. So, we’d exchange addresses, and some of them would write and some didn’t. And then, right along with that time came the V-mail letters which were little tissue paper like things--very light weight , and the guys could send them for free. And as they got more and more into the war theaters, every so often, apparently they would write something that was censored and then would be blacked out. No matter how you held it up to the light, you couldn’t read it. A lot of them would write, then pretty soon, you didn’t hear from him anymore. And you wondered, did they lose the address, did they, were they not living anymore or what. You just never knew.

Q. A Feeling Of Unity?

You felt so close to everybody. People didn’t seem to mind when the rationing came, or the little things you couldn’t get anymore. It was all for the war effort and helping the boys. People that , you know, couldn’t go to work in the plants or something, baby-sat that did have children, or the women did Red Cross volunteering. You know, there was civil defense training and things like that. And everybody got involved some way. You just didn’t sit at home and think, you know, this doesn’t affect me, because it did affect everyone.

Taking Sheet Metal Course

I took a sheet metal course to go to work at the bomber plant. I think it was a 6 week course. There used to be a boys trade school here in KC that was called Lathrop Trade School. And that’s where it was. I took my course for 6 weeks, to learn how to shoot rivets and buck rivets, and we had to buy a tool box with a basic outfit of tools. So then, when the call came to go to the bomber plant , we were just real thrilled. It was a lot better money than anything I’d ever seen. Of course, everybody wanted to work in the defense plants because, there again, everybody had been so poor for so long. .

Working at the Bomber Plant & Entertainment

I was a lot smaller then, than I am now--a lot more agile. The part of the plane that we worked on was the center section, and there were three gas bays on each section where the wing would eventually join. I would get stuck down in those gas bays, head first down or any other way you could in there to reach the person on the outside that was driving the rivets. You have this metal bar that you had to hold up there to flatten it out when it got in there. And some of those places were really hard to get into. But here you are down here in this metal thing, with your head hanging down here and all these rivets going like machine guns everywhere. I don’t know how I can hear anything to this day. I used to come out of there, and my ears would just be ringing from that. But apparently it didn’t damage them.

Social Life

Social life was after we would get off work. If you were going to do anything entertainment-wise, you had to do it after you got off work, because if you went home and went to bed, by the time you got up it’s time to go to work again. Some of the shows started staying open for the defense workers. I guess some of the bowling alleys did. I know there was somebody that was trying to organize recreational things for the workers.

We would devise our own entertainment. We would go to breakfast, a bunch of us together, eat breakfast, sit there and talk. Then eventually everybody would drift away and go home, go to bed and get ready for the next day. I lived over there on 24^th and Charlotte, where the Truman Medical Center is now. And we would walk up to 27^th and Troost to the Barclay Café and have breakfast up there and play the juke box. Some of those corny old songs, "Born to Lose" and "Pistol Packin’ Mama" and then some of the war things, you know. "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" , and all that sort of thing. That was kind of our social life.

Notes on the Bomers

We used eat in the lunch in the bomb bays, because part of the center section where we worked had the area where the bombs would be carried. We would all take our lunches and go sit in the bomb bay and eat our lunch. And every so often we’d scribble a little note on the side of the thing to the guys, wishing them well and hurry home soon.. Just little things like that.

Sabatoge

When we first started over there we had quite an extensive orientation. They told you not discuss your job with anybody on the outside. They used to have all these stickers up all around the plant… "Loose Lips Sink Ships" was one I remember so much. When we’d go into the plant, you’d have to go in with your purses open. If you had a lunch bag, the guard had to see in that. Same way when you would go out. To me it was unthinkable that anybody would bring anything in, but I guess even then they were worried about that. As far as I know, no one ever did, never heard of anything like that. But security was around all the time. You had to watch what you were doing, and you didn’t make remarks about the airplanes or about anything for that matter.

Rationing

My mother did the grocery shopping, but I do remember having the ration books for sugar, meat and butter. I’m not even sure you. You know, it’s like that, the things that I missed, and that shocked me when they disappeared, and I mean they disappeared practically over night was nylon hose. After the war was over, when they first started coming back, you would have to go to the stores and get on the waiting list in order to get, you could have one pair.

Scrap Drives

They would tell households to go through and (collect) any old aluminum pans or things you didn’t need. Tin foil, that was something else people saved. Even the foil from cigarette packages.


Rationing at the Bomer Plant

No, but they were conscious, constantly telling us don’t waste things. When you were driving your rivets, if they weren’t totally flush with the skin, if you’re gun got a little side ways, it would make a groove there. And that could be damaging to that airplane, because that could create a week spot there. People were more conscientious about making sure it was done right.. Maybe that was your brother , or your son or somebody you knew that was going to be flying that airplane and you didn’t want to do anything that would make it subject to failing or something