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Wethersfield Historical Society

Wethersfield Historical Society

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Uncle Al Goes to War

Home » Articles From The Community » Uncle Al Goes to War

The thing I remember most about the war was how pervasive it was. The movies, books, newspapers and radio all seemed to be about the war and if we should forget about it for a minute there were those posters reminding us about the three bad countries we were fighting represented by their evil leaders Mussolini, Hirohito and Hitler. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The war started for me on a Monday morning in the second grade. I was 8 years old.  I have a vague memory of excitement in the class that morning; a remembrance of children talking to each other in whispers and then someone saying to me, “Did you hear? The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor!” I had no idea what he was talking about. I gathered from the tension in the air and the hushed tones it was something serious and bad. I tried to look grave.

Shortly after this I heard that my Uncle Al, who used to wrestle with me on the couch, was going into the Army. The great thing about it was that because people said he wouldn’t be back home for quite awhile I could have all his model plane collection. Boy was I happy. At the time it would not have mattered much to me if I had known that Uncle Al would be gone for four years and would never see his to mother or father again as they would die while he was gone. I was just too happy to get those airplanes.

It wasn’t long after my Uncle left that the first thing happened that made me feel that this war business might not be a good thing even in my protected world. My parents, especially my mother, began to worry that my father might be drafted, which I learned meant he might have to go into the army even if he didn’t want to. They never spoke to me or my brother directly about it, but we could hear them talking in hushed tones and every once in awhile my mother would cry softly trying very hard not to make a big thing out of her worries, as you never involved the children in those days.

Finally after some prodding and tears on the part of my brother and me my father told us not to worry. First of all, he had some medical problems which would keep him out of the service and more importantly he worked in the defense industry making parts for airplanes so they needed him more at home than in the army. The health thing baffled me as my father seemed to me to be the strongest person in the world, but I was proud of the defense work stuff…it must have meant that my father was important. My brother and I were convinced but I think mom worried for most of the war.

Uncle Al Goes to Wargworek_family-thumb-320x223-137.jpgSome other things began to happen that made me slowly realize that this war might be about more than getting my uncle’s model airplanes. First of all I couldn’t get rubber bands to fly those models and soon after that the balsa wood used to make them could no longer be found in the hobby stores. It seems the Japanese had captured the islands where we got these things so they were no longer available and I was reminded when I whined about this that the rubber we had was needed for tires and life rafts for our servicemen. Then my best friend moved to Ohio.  His father, who sold buses and ambulances, had been called back to the main plant to work. They were now going to make tanks and other war vehicles. I guess he, like my father, was important to winning the war but I did miss my friend. We used to throw grounders to each other all afternoon and play fantasy baseball games. I, being tall would always pretend to be the first baseman and Ed was the rest of the infield. Now I had to play with the younger kids in the neighborhood, jeez!

Uncle Al Goes to Wararmy628-thumb-320x274-143.jpgStrange names began to creep into the general vocabulary. Names like Bataan, Corregidor, Midway, Morocco and Guadalcanal. Slowly the supply of new baseball cards dried up and was replaced by pictures of Generals like MacArthur or Patton and Admirals Nimitz, King and Spruance. The cards were all of the same style; a large picture of the hero looking out sternly and in the back ground a battle of planes, ships or cannon. There was no way we were going to lose the war with men like this leading us.

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Articles from the Community

  • Articles from the Community
    • 284 Brimfield Road
    • A Birds-eye View of Wethersfield's History
    • A Boyhood Visit to G. Fox & Company
    • A Brief History of Wethersfield United Methodist Church
    • A History of Franklin Avenue
    • A History of Temple Beth Torah
    • A Life of William Beadle
    • A Shepard and his Flock: Counting Chairs and Tracking Down Apprentices at the Wethersfield Historical Society
    • A Whaling Family
    • About the Authors
    • Black History in Wethersfield
    • Childhood Memories of the Wethersfield Homefront
    • Colonel John Chester
    • Connecticut at War: 1634 – 1781
    • Connecticut's Black Governors
    • Connecticut's Witch Trials
    • Dividend
    • Fairway 6
    • Foodways
    • Francesco A. Lentini – Three-Legged Wonder
    • Frank and Lou
    • George Whitefield – The Billy Graham of Colonial America
    • Governor Thomas Welles
    • Griswoldville Connecticut (1680-1987)
    • History of Public Libraries in Wethersfield
    • History of the Church of the Incarnation
    • History of Trinity Parish (Episcopal)
    • History of Wethersfield Library
    • Horribles Parade
    • Horseradish King
    • Houses of Worship
    • Irish Immigrants in Wethersfield 1860 to 1900: Outcasts to Neighbors
    • Issacson's Field Plane Crash
    • Jared Butler Standish
    • Meet Mr. Wethersfield: Alfred W. Hanmer
    • Mill Woods Park: A History
    • One Branch of the Josiah Willard Family of Wethersfield
    • Rediscovering Benjamin Lee Whorf
    • Religion in Glastonbury: the Congregationalists
    • Reverend and Colonel Elisha Williams
    • Rocky Hill: A History
    • Sgt. Maj. Robert H. Kellogg
    • Slavery and Wethersfield
    • Sophia Woodhouse's Grass Bonnets
    • Still Fighting Fires After All These Years
    • Table of Contents
    • The "Conference State"
    • The Blue Violet
    • The Chesters of Blaby Leicestershire England
    • The Contentious Life of James Wakelee
    • The Eel-Catcher’s Travels: Robert Seeley 1602-1667
    • The First Church of Christ
    • The Undoing of Silas Deane
    • The Welles Family and the Establishment of Newington
    • The Wethersfield Elms
    • The Wethersfield Meteorites
    • The Woman Came To Do Laundry
    • They Even Survived Rocks on the Track
    • Thomas Hickey: George Washington's Wethersfield Kidnapper
    • Town's Biggest Fire
    • Twentieth-Century Wethersfield
    • Wethersfield Almshouse 1843-44
    • Wethersfield Enters the Revolution
    • Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church
    • Wethersfield Illinois
    • Wethersfield in the Civil War by Wes Christensen
    • Wethersfield Prison Blues
    • Wethersfield Street Life 1634-1995
    • Wethersfield Summers
    • Wethersfield: A History
    • Wethersfield: The Cradle of American Seed Companies
    • Wethersfield's "Other" Plane Accidents
    • Wethersfield's Homebuilders: 1634 – 1900
    • Wethersfield's Homebuilders: 1900 – 1930
    • Wethersfield's Homebuilders: 1940s and Beyond
    • Wethersfield's Top 10 Natural Disasters
    • Wethersfield’s Dinosaur Footprints
    • Wethersfield's Glorious Baseball History
    • Who was Charles Wright?
    • William W. Anderson Veteran of the Allied Invasion of Normandy June 6
    • Wintergreen Woods: A History
Wethersfield Historical Society Wethersfield Historical Society
150 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT 06109
p. (860) 529-7656 f. (860) 563-2609
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