refleXions - updated November 15, 2001

The WWII Time Capsule is tightly shut.  Someone took care to seal it well. With a little effort, you're able to open it and discover its contents.  A roll of yellowed papers unravels to reveal a handwritten memoir of the time.  The handwriting is hard to decipher, and appears to be written by a man.  You put it aside for a moment to look at other items in the capsule.  There are two military medals: a purple heart and a bronze star.  There is paper currency from France and England, along with assorted coinage. Most interesting are the yellowed snapshots featuring a smiling young man with a beautiful, dark-haired young woman. Intrigued, you begin reading the memoir.

MEMORIES OF THE 1940’S
by Norman E. Hiersche

Most of my memories of the early 40’s have to be with World War II taking place in Europe. With the exception of the United States, much of the world was at war with Germany, Italy and Japan. America was hoping to stay out of it. At the time, I was a young teenager living in Massachusetts. Everyone knew one another in my small hometown of Ludlow, population 7,000. It was unnecessary to lock homes at night and the worse crimes that were committed were by boys stealing apples from the apple tree when returning home from the swimming hole.

In general, looking back at the 40’s, I remember it as a time when everything was inexpensive. The cost of gasoline was $0.15 a gallon. We could go to the movies for $0.10. An ice cream cone was $0.05, and sometimes we could get double dips for $0.05. Wages were also very low. I can remember working at a local grocery store for ten cents an hour. Wages of $5.00 to $10.00 a week were common, but one could purchase a home for $5,000, and a new automobile was under a thousand dollars.

During the War my father, who had served in WWI, was an Air Raid Warden. There was rationing of everything. Food stamps were issued that we used to get meat and other supplies. There was a shortage of most everything and all efforts were going towards producing materials for the War Effort. It was a time of tremendous patriotism. When America was forced into the War, the support of everyone for the War Effort was 99%.

My first real recollections of World War II occurred when Japan attacked us on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. This event changed our lives for many years to come. As high-school students, we were called upon to do many tasks that would have been done by able-bodied men if they were around, but many of our men had been drafted. I remember going to Wilbraham to pick apples in the Fall of 1943.  I also recall that we would leave school to do the snow shoveling on the local bridge. In the Summer of my junior year I went to work at Ludlow manufacturing company where my job was softening hemp. This was the dirtiest job that I ever had.

This was also a good time in my life, because I got very involved in sports at Ludlow High School. We had a new coach, J. Earl Chevalier, who played a major part in our lives for the two years he was coaching basketball and baseball. There was a renaissance of sports in Ludlow during the 1943-1944 school year. Our basketball team did very well for the first time in many years and our baseball team was just as good. The whole town of Ludlow took us into their hearts and followed us everywhere we went. It was a fantastic experience that I will never forget. Several young men left high school in their senior year to join the service. We all realized that the War was going to affect our lives in many ways. Our senior year in high school was certainly not a normal one.

In October of 1944 I entered the army and was sent for Basic Training at Camp Wheeler, Georgia. I spent fifteen weeks there and in March was on my way to war in Europe via troop ship. My Basic Training had been shortened because in Europe the Battle of the Bulge was taking place. They needed replacements as fast as they could get them. I was one of them. My troop ship landed in LeHarve, France and I was assigned to the 86th Division. I was transported by train to join my Division in Belgium.

I was assigned to the 342nd Battalion, A and P platoon (Ammunition and Pioneer). One of the first persons that I met in this situation was a young man that I knew vaguely from Ludlow, by the name of Bill O’Connor.

 Shortly after arriving there we were moved by truck to Cologne, Germany. The first night that we arrived in Germany I experienced my first signs of combat: we were shelled. We were at that time billeted in a farm house and I slept through the entire shelling. On April 26, one week after I had joined my outfit, we were ordered to ferry troops across the Danube River in small boats. My first real action was also my last action. As we are about to enter the boats to cross the river there was an explosion, and I felt as though someone had hit me with a baseball bat. I realized at that time that I had been wounded. I crawled up a river bank, where a Medic took me to an Aide Station. Incidentally, the War in Europe ended on May 6, a little over a week after the War ended for me.

From there I was transported to a medical airfield and then flown to Paris, France to a hospital. Then I was flown to England and spent the rest of my time in Europe at a hospital in Arrington. I arrived in England during the second week of May and was transported back to America in early July of 1945. My hospital ship, the Louis A. Milne, landed in Charleston, South Carolina. Then I went by train to Framingham Massachusetts, to Cushing General Hospital, where I stayed until I was discharged on August 16, 1945. My total military career encompassed ten months and 28 days. Two days before I was discharged, I was promoted to Private First Class.

As I look back upon my military career, it was very short but eventful. Few experienced as much as I did in a very short period of time. I nearly entered and left the service while still age eighteen. I earned a Purple Heart and after I had been discharged and was at home, I received a Bronze Star in the mail.

When I left the service I had very little use of my right arm. The wound that I suffered was an injury to the ulnar nerve in my right arm. I was not sure how much use of my arm I was ever going to have again. I now had to decide what I was going to do with the rest of my life.  I realized that I had to put my life in order and in September I enrolled at Cornell University as a Chemical Engineering student. My stay at Cornell was very pleasant, but before very long I realized this was not the field that I wanted to enter for my life’s work. I completed one year at Cornell.

In the Fall of 1946, I enrolled in Springfield College as a Physical Education major. I had regained much of the use of my right arm and hoped that coaching would be my chosen career. I spent four of the very best years of my life at Springfield College, graduating in the Spring of 1950. While at Springfield I participated in basketball and baseball all four years. Even though I was not a star performer at either sport I did confirm the fact that I wanted to spend my life coaching.

The Summers of 1946 and 47 were spent as the lifeguard at Haviland Beach in Ludlow. I still did not have complete use of my right arm, but it was good enough so that I could row a boat. I am sure that this is how the town of Ludlow showed its appreciation for my war service. I remember enjoying my work as a lifeguard and consider those Summers as two of the best of my life.

In the Winter of 1949 I met the love of my life, Mildred, and after a whirlwind courtship we were married August 27, 1949.

The 40’s were very eventful for me and served to determine how I was going to spend the rest of my life. I can be very thankful that Uncle Sam saw fit to provide an education for the men and women who had done so much in their military service. I’m sure that this is the best money that the government has ever spent. It provided a college education to a great many men and women who would never have been able to afford it on their own. I’m sure that the return that America received from this expenditure is far greater than they ever imagined it would be.

Perhaps the biggest change that took place during the forties was the entering of women into the work force. Women now felt an obligation to go to work to replace the men that were called in to the service. Almost every able-bodied man from 18 to the 40’s was now in the service. The women did a great job and for the first time their prime responsibility was not that of motherhood. This certainly was a change that has now been reflected in society as a whole. Women have never returned to what was once their primary role of being a homemaker and mother. I am not sure that this has been all for the best.

After the War, from the middle 40’s on, was a time of great happiness and prosperity in America. It seems that everyone was working or going to school. We were in a baby boom generation and everyone had the opportunity to succeed. The forties were a good time and also a very bad time: so many young men had their lives ended by a war fought to save Democracy.  I hate to imagine what the world would have been like had Nazi Germany won the War. Actually, the War was fought to save the world. 

CREDITS: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), URL: http://www.nara.gov/exhall/powers/powers.html
webmaster@nara.gov

"WASTE HELPS THE ENEMY" Poster by Vanderlaan, produced by the Douglas Aircraft Company, NARA Still Picture Branch, (NWDNS-79-WP-103)

"VICTORY waits on your fingers" Poster was produced by the Royal Typewriter Company for the U.S. Civil Service Commission, NARA Still Picture Branch, (NWDNS-44-PA-2272).