KCPT-OVER HERE- The Show and More

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Transcript of "OVER HERE"

SEGMENT 1
NARRATOR: SECTION I WORLD WAR TWO. WE KNOW BY HEART THE IMAGES OF HEROISM… THE MEMORIES ECHO IN OUR SOUL… AMERICA’S MEN AND WOMEN CHARGED INTO THE VARIOUS WAR FRONTS ALL OVER THE WORLD, INTO COMBAT AND INTO HISTORY. THE HOME FRONT IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED FOR THE FIGHTING FRONTS. BUT IT WAS NO LESS IMPORTANT. THE MASSIVE BUILD UP OF WEAPONS AND SUPPLIES OVER HERE WAS AS IMPRESSIVE AS THE FIGHTING OVER THERE. KANSAS CITY’S HOME FRONT WAS NO EXCEPTION. HOMETOWN HEROES ROLLED UP THEIR SLEEVES, WIELDING HAMMERS AND DRILL GUNS; DONNING CIVIL DEFENSE HELMETS AND ARM BANDS, STANDING UNITED AGAINST A COMMON ENEMY. THIS IS THE STORY OF MANPOWER, MUNITIONS AND MILITARY MIGHT. THIS IS THE STORY OF OVER HERE. ONE SINISTER EVENT SET IT ALL IN MOTION, BEGINNING ON A QUIET SUNDAY MORNING IN DECEMBER.
Irvin, J - That was December 7th of 1941. It was a beautiful day in Kansas City. Wilson - Ah man, all of the sudden it came on the radio, special notice, special notice Lewis - I know the exact spot in that yard where I was standing when that announcement came, came through. Carey Well I think we all knew it was going to happen eventually but not that quick - maybe just declaration of war but it didn’t happen that way. Surprise attack -
INSTANTLY AMERICA WAS YANKED OUT OF ISOLATION AND THRUST INTO THE WORLD CONFLICT.
Spain - All of the sudden you found yourself saying, "this is my home, they’ve bombed my people." Ellis - 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.
THE NEXT DAY, EVERYONE HUDDLED AROUND RADIOS, LISTENING TO THE WORDS WE FEARED
Murphy - there was a full assembly... Ms Hawkins our principal had the radio up on the podium and we heard President Roosevelt booming voice, "yesterday, the 7th of December," and we knew we were at war.
AMERICANS IMMEDIATELY ASKED THE QUESTION "WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?" WHILE MANY ABLE-BODIED MEN AND WOMEN JOINED THE ARMED FORCES, OTHERS FOUGHT OUR FOES BY WORKING IN DEFENSE PLANTS AND VOLUNTEERING WHERE EVER THEY COULD. BUT FIRST AND FOREMOST IN EVERYONE’S MIND WAS PREVENTING ANOTHER SURPRISE ATTACK.
Kozak - Everyone knew that submarines from both the Germans and the Japanese had been sighted on both coasts and that ships had been out there, and there really might be a real and present danger that we didn’t feel so much in the Midwest.
EVEN WITH NO IMMEDIATE THREAT, KANSAS CITY CIVIL DEFENSE ASSIGNED AIR RAID WARDENS AND PLANE SPOTTERS TO WATCH THE SKIES. ARMED GUARDS WERE STATIONED AT THE RIVER, STOCKYARDS AND PUBLIC UTILITIES, (DETERMINED TO PROTECT OUR ASSETS.)
Davis - Got involved, very involved in Civil Defense. ...a lot of people thought that there was a chance that we would get bombed. Kozak - Early on they would have what we call now disaster drills. Then if this happened how would you get people to the hospital... where would the ambulance go, that sort of thing if a bomb should occur
32 BUILDINGS IN THE CITY WERE DESIGNATED AS BOMB SHELTERS. SIRENS WERE INSTALLED THROUGHOUT THE CITY TO ALERT CITIZENS TO AIR RAIDS AND BLACK OUTS.

Lewis... We had, we had a few black outs, yes, pulling down the curtains, turning out the lights, staying inside. You’d hear the sirens go off ….
Kozak... When there were no lights in houses, no street lights and no cars on the road…it was really dark.
Brown … My mother was one of the wardens and she’d put on her hard hat and she had a whistle, I believe and her flashlight…
Ziegenhorn... and I remember an embarrassing event when I was a child. When we had a light shining underneath the blind and the local air raid warden came in and told us about it. But for some reason I thought that was really embarrassing, maybe if we’re gonna cause us to lose the war or something.

EVERYONE VOLUNTEERED. GIRL SCOUTS & CAMPFIRE GIRLS ROLLED BANDAGES FOR THE RED CROSS. BOY SCOUTS AND AMERICAN WAR DADS BECAME AUXILIARY FIREMEN AND POLICEMEN, INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT DUTIES AS OUR MEN AND WOMEN WENT OFF TO WAR. BUT BY 1943, ENEMY INVASION SEEMED UNLIKELY, SO WE SWITCHED FROM CIVIL DEFENSE WORK TO HELPING ON RATION BOARDS, WITH VICTORY LOAN DRIVES AND RED CROSS BLOOD DRIVES.

Winn... Everything was goal driven in those days. War bonds, goal driven. And blood, same thing. And we would play that up and make every city feel that they had to reach their goal, by golly.
Dungans... I believe that I was the first woman in KC to belong to the gallon club. Two men beat me. But, I was thought that was something that I could do…

BY JULY 1944, THE KANSAS CITY RED CROSS HAD SENT 156,000 PINTS OF LIFE-SAVING BLOOD OVERSEAS, OUTRANKING ALL OTHER CITIES, EXCEPT NY. OF COURSE, WE HAD A LITTLE HELP…

Winn … we called the Midwest Kansas City because we drew the blood from the people in Ottawa or Lawrence or wherever they were. … but many times because of the percentage we were well over the goal.…we even had people that would go through the line in the morning and they would try to come back and go through again in the afternoon.

KANSAS CITY WAS GENEROUS WITH MONEY AS WELL, BUYING WAR BONDS TO FINANCE THE WAR. BOND RALLIES FEATURED GERMAN MESSERSCMIDTS, JAPANESE MINI-SUBS, AND OUR OWN MILITARY MIGHT, BRINGING THE WAR CLOSE TO HOME. HOLLYWOOD GOT INVOLVED, PROMOTING THE PURCHASE OF WAR BONDS.

EVEN SCHOOLS HAD WAR BOND DRIVES.

Holland …we used to buy our stamps, our victory stamps over at the school for ten cents a piece, and put them in a book. And then when the book got filled up, you could take it and change it into a war bond.
Bergman... And in those days, it wasn’t the record stored in a computer. We actually got a bond, which we, we held onto. ….
Bongino... Some of us concocted little poems and sayings… "Buy an extra bond, folks, set those villains up in smokes, if you’re father’s in it, come on and let him win it." You know, to me it made sense.

INVESTING MONEY AND TIME IN OUR COUNTRY HELPED. BUT THE SUDDEN PUSH FOR WAR MATERIALS TIGHTENED OUR BELTS FURTHER.

Dillingham …Everything was rationed. And you had to learn real quick to get along the best you could.
Brown … I remember them talking, "our soldiers need, you know, things more than we do."

RATIONING BEGAN IN JANUARY ’42 TO CONTROL PRICES AND DIVERT ESSENTIAL MATERIALS TO THE WAR EFFORT. FROM BUTTER AND CANNED GOODS TO BICYCLES AND SHOES, ULTIMATELY 20 HOUSEHOLD GOODS MADE THE "R" LIST.

Murphy... Every person know matter how old or how young had a ration book, a stamp book. And you had so many stamps a month for sugar, coffee, meat,
Kozak… Meatless Tuesday was a point of pride to not have meat on your table, lots of macaroni

CREATIVE COOKING BECAME A CHALLENGE, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE FIRST CASUALTY OF RATIONING WAS SUGAR. SUGAR CANE WAS PROCESSED INTO INDUSTRIAL ALCOHOL WHICH WAS USED TO MAKE EXPLOSIVES. CANDY, CHOCOLATES AND COOKIES BECAME LUXURIES.

Holland …we lived in a duplex upstairs, and the people lived downstairs from us was a lady and her little girl…. she was coming home from the store …She just had a little bitty sack, ‘bout like this in her hand, …Asked what she had in it, she told me it was gold dust. I said, "Really Gold Dust?" She’s "well, not really it’s sugar and it might as well be gold dust."

THE LACK OF SUGAR ALSO POSED ANOTHER CHALLENGE FOR THE HOME FRONT HOUSEWIFE.

Kozak... We had a large victory garden and we canned a lot of things. A lot of our sugar didn’t go on our cereal it went into those jars!

VICTORY GARDENS CROPPED UP EVERYWHERE AS A WAY TO OFFSET WARTIME FOOD SHORTAGES. NO BARE PIECE OF LAND WAS SAFE FROM THE SOWING OF CARROTS, LETTUCE AND POTATOES.

H.Smith … And I remember here at the college, down in one corner of the athletic field, an area was allocated for victory gardens. …
Desko... There were several of them down there in the Fairfax area. The people’d get off their day shift and they’d go out and hoe around in the garden and stuff like that….

IN 1942, THERE WERE 5000 GARDENS IN THE CITY, BUT BY JUNE 1943, THERE WERE 44,000. ALTHOUGH LIFE WITHOUT SUGAR AND MEAT POSED A BURDEN FOR FAMILIES, ADULTS FELT THE LOSS OF CERTAIN LUXURIES LIKE ALCOHOL, CIGARETTES AND COFFEE.

Ellis …the things that I missed, and that shocked me when they disappeared, and I mean they disappeared practically over night was nylon hose.

SILK WAS NOW REPROCESSED FOR PARACHUTES AND NYLON WAS USED FOR ITEMS LIKE TOW-ROPES. NYLON AND SILK HOSE BECAME HOT COMMODITIES.

Bergman …There was a huge black market in it. I went to work for Emery Bird Thayers. And my first job there was security of nylon hose…

THE OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION LIMITED OTHER CONSUMER PRODUCTS, AS WELL.

Desko They didn’t make cars. There were no refrigerators. No stoves.. You couldn’t get anything new. You had to buy whatever was used and you’re lucky to find it.

THE LAST CIVILIAN AUTOMOBILE ROLLED OFF THE LINES IN FEBRUARY OF ’42. LATER THAT SPRING, THE FIRST GAS SHORTAGES HIT THE EAST COAST. AND BY MID-MAY OVER 8 MILLION MOTORISTS WERE REQUIRED TO REGISTER FOR GAS-RATION CARDS.

H.Smith So you rode the street cars in those days…If you car-pooled you got an extra gas ration.
Murphy... You never saw a taxi cab going down the street with one person in it. We had to have two or three passengers or two or three stops along the way.

SOME COMPANIES EVEN REVERTED BACK TO HORSE & BUGGY IN A PATRIOTIC EFFORT TO SAVE GAS AND TIRES.

Bergren …you did absolutely no traveling other than that was essential for the war purpose….
Palmer, D … I remember there being signs along the road saying, "Is this trip really necessary?"
Stevinson… And they put a speed limit of I believe 45 miles an hour …to save rubber.
Cantrell... It’s a funny thing we was supposed to turn in all our extra tires… and usually then we would get tires recapped if we needed them….
Spain... So pretty soon we had patches on the patches.

WITH METAL DIVERTED TO WAR PRODUCTION, AND SILK AND RUBBER NO LONGER AVAILABLE SINCE THEY TOO CAME FROM JAPANESE-OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, WE HAD SCRAP DRIVES TO MAKE UP FOR THE SHORTAGES. THE IRON IN ONE OLD SHOVEL, AMERICANS WERE TOLD, COULD BE RECYCLED TO MAKE FOUR HAND GRENADES.

Thomas... We saved everything. Tin cans, every scrap of metal that could be found you saved. …
Desko... Everybody collected aluminum…if you had an old coffee pot or some pans that you weren’t using. Put them in the scrap heap for the war effort.

STUDENTS EXCELLED AT THIS ASSIGNMENT.

Murphy... The salvage commandos were a unique little group of kids…And we gathered waste grease, newspapers and tin cans up from people in our assigned areas. Our grade school, Bancroft received the "S" flag which was for salvage… and they had a big awards ceremony and raised it and it flew under the American flag throughout the rest of the war

COLLECTING WASTE FAT WAS A NASTY TASK FOR MOST PEOPLE, BUT IT WAS ESSENTIAL IN MAKING AMMUNITION. WE WERE TOLD THAT ONE POUND OF GREASE CONTAINED ENOUGH GLYCERIN TO MAKE ONE POUND OF BLACK POWDER, TWO POUNDS MADE FIVE ANTI-TANK SHELLS. THERE WERE OTHER UNUSUAL COLLECTIONS. FARM YOUNGSTERS WERE GIVEN THE SPECIAL TASK OF GATHERING THE REPLACEMENT FOR KAPOK, THE MATERIAL FOUND IN LIFE JACKETS AND SLEEPING BAGS, SINCE IT TOO CAME FROM AREAS IN THE PACIFIC.

Palmer, D... And it was decided that the fuzzy stuff in milkweed pods would be a good substitute. …So they gave us gunny sacks and we went and collected the milkweed… And we thought we were doing something really, really important. Because maybe we’d save somebody’s life …

SCRAP DRIVES AND VICTORY STAMPS KINDLED YOUNG PATRIOTIC SPIRITS, BUT THE VERY REAL ASPECTS OF THE WAR NEVER STRAYED FAR FROM THEIR MINDS.

Ziegenhorn …when Hitler invaded Poland, my father and I …began a scrap book of the headlines out of the Kansas City Star. And every day we would cut and paste and make this scrap book…
Spain... We had maps on the wall of the class room, National Geographic Maps, good maps, and we had pins for everybody that we had any idea where they were…
Palmer, D... I do remember hearing grown-ups talk about, if the Axis won …for occupying the United States, that the plan was to divide it down the Mississippi. Everything east of the Mississippi would be occupied by the Germans. And everything west of the Mississippi would be occupied by the Japanese. And we lived west of the Mississippi. And I was old enough, and heard enough grown-ups talk to know that that was bad.

BUT IT WAS THE ALLURE OF THE AIR THAT SET IMAGINATIONS ALIGHT…

Irvin, J... I was interested in aircraft identification. I made that a hobby and I could identify lights of the B17 flying fortress, the B24 liberator and all those. So when I did enter the navy I did real well in that area…
Ziegenhorn... I had pictures of airplanes on my wall of fighter planes and bombers. And the B-25 was a favorite because I knew it was manufactured here in Kansas City…
Palmer, D... And I remember one little booklet that came in a cereal box that had all the different models of airplanes, and identifying them. And so, when an airplane went over the farm, I’d run outside and see if I could figure out what airplane that was…

FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS ALIKE, NOT A DAY WENT BY WITHOUT KNOWING A WAR WAS ON, AND NEWS OF ANY KIND WAS CRAVED.

Chowning... When you go to the movies, first they’d show a cartoon, then they’d show the news of the day.
Spain... What we went for were the newsreels, because we got pictures, what we were allowed to see, of course, of how the war progressed.
Brown… when we’d see Hitler in the news reels of what an ugly man. I mean, he was mean looking. … and we would boo him very loud and say, "Kill those Nazis". Ziegenhorn… that was an exciting thing to me to see actual pictures from Movietone of the war, the tanks, the airplanes…
Bongino... It was an adventure happening somewhere else. And you got to see it without being in it. You saw it in the movies, and the newsreels and on the radio and comic books….

PERSUADING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC BECAME A WARTIME INDUSTRY FOR THE OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION. TINGED WITH PROPAGANDA, THE GOVERNMENT PRINTED THOUSANDS OF POSTERS…THEY INSPIRED US TO FIGHT FOR VICTORY, AND SOLD US ON THE IDEAS OF RECRUITMENT AND CONSERVATION.

Noble …I remember in the school cafeteria there was a poster on the wall that said that a grade school in New Jersey had cleaned their plates so well that they only had a cup of garbage for the whole month. And I remember looking around at my classmates and thinking oh dear we’re not, we’re not doing that…Well then suddenly when I was a little older I realized that probably someplace in New Jersey there was a poster on the wall that said a grade school in Missouri cleaned their plates so well that they only had a cup of garbage.

MORE THAN ANYTHING, IT WAS THE RADIO THAT BROUGHT THE FAMILY TOGETHER, TO LISTEN FOR NEWS ABROAD AND PERHAPS ESCAPE FROM EVERY DAY WORRIES.

Brown... And we did all sit around the radio and look at it as they show in some of the old films. Like well, we were imagining what was going on in the news broadcasters were very dramatic….
Dillingham …if it hadn’t been President Roosevelt with his eloquent voice on radio, for the fireside chat as he called it, he kept the American people on the level. And aroused them enough to know that we had a job on our hands and we had to win.…

THE FIRESIDE CHATS LIFTED OUR HEAVY SPIRITS, BUT IT WAS THE MUSIC THAT PUT US "IN THE MOOD."

Laycock... We had books that printed the words to all the songs. Frank Sinatra songs,
Ellis … 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 silly thing.
Miles ... Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Vaughn Monroe. …
Winn … Benny Goodman, … Charlie Barnett, some of the big bands would come through in those days and they were a big draw, big bands and big dance floors. Miles …Best music ever made to this day.
H.Smith …those were foot stamping days. Great Days. But that didn’t mean that we weren’t aware of what was going on as far as world affairs were concerned.