When Youngsters Grew Up

We all have experiences, the memories of which will last a life time. Such was one of mine when I was introduced to World War II. It was a time when my friends and I really began to grow up. We were adolescents in 1941, twelve or thirteen years old. But the war didn't have the immediate impact on us -- as it did to parents who experienced World War I. It was difficult to grasp until the sadness of the war began to affect our family, neighbors and then later on, ourselves.

There were no television newscasts during the war, not like today when scenes of battles are shown at the precise moment they are occurring. Scenes of the WW II were illustrated by Movietone News clips at theaters. They were mostly of allied soldiers smiling and signaling "V" for victory.

For us, it as a time for hero worshipping, proudly talking to soldiers or sailors home on leave, but failing to realize they might never be home again. It was a time when a neighbor, a Marine on Guadalcanal, was traveling in a snazzy blue uniform on a war bond drive. We knew the Marines, but what was Guadalcanal? We didn't know what real war was, not like our counterparts in Europe. We had no ideas what it would be like to be sent to a Nazi concentration camp and be dragged away from our parents, never to see them again. And of course, we had
no idea what it might be like to be one of the children who were told they were to strip down for a shower, unaware that within a very sort time the shower, not water, but deadly gas, would terminate their existence on this planet.

The London air blitz was something we heard about but it wasn't important to kids. We might have learned more about it had we listened to radio newscasts, but that would have meant missing "I Love A Mystery," "The Shadow," of "The Green Hornet" and other programs we loved so well.

The saddest recollection was when I was fifteen and the leader of our gang, Billy Kuhn, turned seventeen. He enlisted in the Navy and we had a going away party for him. Shortly afterward, a blue star in his mother's window was replaced by a gold star. Billy had been killed in the South Pacific. And I grew older wondering if the war would last until I went.

My brother, Bob, joined the Navy and became a radioman-gunner on a Grumman TBM torpedo bomber. They were called "flying coffins" because they were so slow that entire squadrons would be destroyed even before a torpedo was launched. I imagined Bob's plane disappearing into the Pacific Ocean, and I even began to dread looking at the blue star in our window that might be replaced. But Bob survived.

By then, we were old enough to know and to get involved. We were too young to enlist, so the next best thing was to become "Junior Air Raid Wardens." The government worked hard to keep the home front aware of what it might be like should V-2 bombs, launched from U-boats off the east cost, strike vital cities like Pittsburgh or Detroit. Every so often without warning, like the sounds that were heard every day and night in London and other European cities, sirens screeched, lights would go out and we would be involved in a mock air raid. Every home by then had replaced regular blinds with special blackout blinds. It
was exciting to be a Junior Air Raid Warden. We had Red Cross training and wore white helmets with ARW painted on them. Our job was to make sure there were no lights burning that would provide the imaginary enemy with targets. We took it very serious and felt well qualified.

Then it ended. The celebrations commenced. First Germany and then Japan. Although older and much wiser, it was difficult for most of us to even begin to envision the devastation and suffering caused by the Atom bomb. It claimed thousand of lives, but saved lives of perhaps millions of military personnel and civilians had Japan been invaded.

The saddest part of it all was that within five years, we were right back in another war, this time in Korea. And this time I 'was' old enough -- a Marine -- and as I listened to an announcement over our barracks PA system that we were at war with North Korea, I remembered my earlier years and couldn't help but wonder what the new generation of twelve and thirteen-year-old thought about the war, and how many blue stars would be replaced.