Midcoast Maine in World War II
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About this ebook
Author Margaret Shiels Konitzky reveals the stories of local heroes and the relentless spirit of midcoast Maine.
While World War II raged overseas, the people of midcoast Maine responded with remarkable achievements on the homefront. The shipyard at Bath Iron Works launched a new destroyer every seventeen days. Bowdoin College had more military than civilian students and held three commencements per year. Boothbay Harbor, Bailey Island and Damariscotta all had military bases, and anyone who owned or sailed a boat was recruited for coastal defense. Women worked at machine shops, registered their neighbors for rationing and volunteered for the Civil Defense and Red Cross. Author Margaret Shiels Konitzky reveals the stories of local heroes and the relentless spirit of midcoast Maine.
Margaret Shiels Konitzky
Margaret Shiels Konitzky grew up in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. She graduated from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, earned an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business and a Museum Studies Certificate from Tufts University. Peggy escaped from the business world in 2001 to pursue her true passions of history and museums. She currently manages several historic house museums for Historic New England and lives with her husband, Gus, and their mischievous cat, Raffi, in an 1830 house in Topsham, Maine.
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Midcoast Maine in World War II - Margaret Shiels Konitzky
Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC
www.historypress.net
Copyright © 2018 by Margaret Shiels Konitzky
All rights reserved
Front cover, top, left to right: Two older men and two women working at Hyde Windlass, 1943. Maine Maritime Museum, BIW Collection; Radar School parade in dress whites in front of Walker Art Building, Commencement 1945. Bowdoin College Archives, Brunswick, Maine; bottom, left: Mrs. Virginia Keefe christening Coastal Transport APC68 at Hodgdon & Goudy & Stevens Shipyards, East Boothbay, July 20, 1943. Boothbay Region Historical Society.
First published 2018
e-book edition 2018
ISBN 978.1.43966.462.9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017963236
print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.657.0
Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is dedicated to my parents, John Michael and Ruth Besson Shiels, for their unwavering love, support and belief in me. Thank you for always being there, always listening and always loving. This is for you.
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. White Christmas
2. We’ll Meet Again…Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When: Answering the Call
3. Anchors Aweigh: Midcoast Shipyards
4. Swing Shift Sally: Women Take on New Jobs
5. Any Bonds Today? Financing the War
6. What a Difference a Day Makes: Bowdoin College and the War
7. American Patrol: Coastal Defense and Brunswick Naval Air Station
8. America Calling: Civilian Defense
9. Keep the Home Fires Burning
10. Angels of Mercy: The Red Cross and Citizens Service Corps
11. Scrimp, Salvage and Save
12. The Ration Blues
13. Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else but Me
14. When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
Appendix I. Women Workers in Cecil Pierce Machine Shop
Appendix II. Brunswick Civilian Defense Office, Canteen and First Aid Volunteers
Appendix III. Brunswick-Area Air Raid Defense Volunteers
Appendix IV. Boothbay Harbor Air Raid Wardens and Messengers, Southport Air Raid Wardens, Boothbay-Area AWS Spotters
Appendix V. Brunswick USO Volunteer Hostesses
Notes
Bibliography
About the Author
PREFACE
This book began with a talk I developed several years ago for the first Wings Over Wiscasset air show, which featured World War II planes, music and a veterans’ discussion. The town manager decided the homefront also needed to be represented, and she volunteered me to do that. As the site manager of two nineteenth-century historic houses in town, a period of furious extracurricular research followed, nineteenth century by day and the 1940s at night and on weekends. The talk was well received despite the audience having to struggle to hear over the airplane engines. After the talk, I went back to my office and filed it all away. Then something interesting began to happen. Through the Historic New England Speakers Bureau, a service the nonprofit regional heritage organization offers to anyone looking for a speaker on a historical subject, the requests for my World War II homefront talk kept coming. And coming. To make the talks more interesting, I did a little more research for each of the communities I spoke to, each time learning about a different facet of 1940s New England life that I then wove into the talk. Every time, the audience included people who had been children or young adults during the war who now wanted to share their memories.
Most people know the basics of life on the World War II homefront—pulling together, working war jobs and dealing with rationing—but few understand the reality of hardships, toil and stress that Americans lived in from 1941 through 1945. Each community experienced the war years in a slightly different way. Those who lived through it never forgot the experience. The research for my talks in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire laid the groundwork for this book, which has given me the opportunity to dig deeper locally, finding new stories and friends along the way.
The aim of this book is to give the reader a sense of what life was like in these communities during the war, who lived here and how they got through it. To understand that, you need to know the context of what was going on in the war at the time, some of which has been forgotten over the years. When possible, I have included the ages, location, family situation and livelihood of the people I mention to give the reader a sense of who they were as individuals and in the context of their town, and to allow for comparisons to today. I hope the balance of context and detail does justice to the story.
My primary source materials were local newspapers and personal interviews. Personal and family information comes primarily from Ancestry.com and local town directories. Business information comes from directories, advertisements and the annual Maine Registers. Secondary sources are listed in the bibliography. Chapter titles came from the music of the 1940s, which boosted morale all over the world and has endured as a uniquely American art form that I have loved and listened to for years.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book could not have been written without the support and assistance of many generous individuals and the staffs of several local historical organizations, including Robin A.S. Haynes and Peter Goodwin at the Sagadahoc History and Genealogy Room at the Patten Free Library; Nathan Lipfert at Maine Maritime Museum; Larissa Vigue Picard, Stephanie Ruddock and Rachael Jeffers at the Pejepscot Historical Society in Brunswick; David Hackett at the Harpswell Historical Society; Barbara Rumsey and Margaret Tew at the Boothbay Region Historical Society; Ron Orchard at the Southport Historical Society; and Bob Bouchard at St. John’s Church, All Saints Parish, Brunswick. Thank you all for your research assistance, encouragement and willingness to share your deep knowledge of local history. Thank you, Pam Brackett and David Cherry at the Wiscasset Public Library, for always helping when I need something and Jay Robbins for sharing your wonderful family document. Calvin and Marjorie Dodge generously gave me hours of time at their kitchen table, sharing their fabulous collection and memories of Damariscotta and Newcastle. Dr. Charles Burden, Maine maritime and Bath history buff, Sue Fitzgerald and Kerry Nelson researched and presented talks to the Bath Historical Society on Bath’s grocery stores and downtown in the 1940s that were an invaluable source of information. Rupert White provided a boy’s-eye view of one of the most exciting local events of the war in a presentation given to the Pejepscot Historical Society and shared stories and memories of Brunswick life during those years. Thank you, Charlie, Sue, Kerry and Rupert, for preserving and sharing those memories. Thank you, Lin Snow, for your wonderful books and your willingness to offer counsel and share great stories. Thank you to the Woofenden family—Todd, George and Randall Woofenden—who, through unexpected family connections, shared family photos and accounts of their grandparents and great-grandparents in Bath. Thank you to Sarah Sherman Brewer for capturing the memories of people in Boothbay and Southport before we lost them. Thank you, Ron Orchard, for sharing memories of Southport. Thank you to Laurie Smith, who started this whole thing. Thank you to my Brunswick parents—Nancy and Ed Langbein—for your support and enthusiasm for all my historic (and life) endeavors. Thank you to my wonderful in-laws, Sally and the late Don Reed, for your support, love and encouragement. And most of all, thank you to my husband, Gus, for your love, patience, help and understanding during the writing of this book.
INTRODUCTION
The world of the 1940s was very different from today. It was a more innocent, less complicated time in many ways, but not necessarily an easier one. Mainers had always had to work hard. Families were larger and ethnic identities felt more closely. Many people had family who had emigrated from Europe or Canada just a few years or a few decades earlier. Others had built lives, worked the same jobs and lived in the same houses or at least the same town for generations. Most people in Maine didn’t have much in the way of material possessions, but they didn’t consider themselves poor. There was no television, computer, Internet or mall. People got their news from the radio and the newspapers. The wealthy and working classes lived parallel but very different lives within the same small towns. Summer residents, known locally as summer people, came back every year to what they considered their second home, but most had little or no interaction with the people who lived there and kept the communities running other than the Mainers who took care of their boats and houses or who served them in stores and restaurants.
Women’s roles in society were basically the roles they had played for centuries. Women were expected to marry, have children and, if economically feasible, stay home to care for their families. Some women worked, went to college and had careers, but the majority of American women, particularly in rural areas, did not. Those expectations were reflected in the media of the time, where the way women were discussed and addressed is dramatically different from what we are used to in the twenty-first century.
Midcoast Maine is made up of rocky coasts, small towns, rural villages, one larger town and one city. Each has its own unique character and personality. Bath, the only midcoast city, was always grittier, more industrial and completely dependent on the maritime-related economy to survive. The pivotal role of Bath Iron Works (BIW) in the city’s development is undeniable, and its success supported the many small businesses and civic and cultural organizations of the community. Bath came out of the Depression before any of its neighbors, but having experienced the dramatic boom and bust of World War I, its residents knew wartime prosperity doesn’t last. As BIW waxes and wanes, the city’s economy does the same. Brunswick has been the intellectual capital of Maine since the turn of the nineteenth century through the presence of Bowdoin College and the men and women associated with it, many of whom left their mark on its rich culture. Throughout the twentieth century, the mix of town, gown, mill and base resulted in a thriving yet historic downtown and a more diverse population and economy than almost anywhere else in Maine. Brunswick welcomed them all and was better for it. Life in Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor revolved around tourism, fishing and boats and had done so since the early nineteenth century. Whatever else is happening in the world and the economy, that cycle continues. Small circles of hardy and hardworking locals keep things running and maintain strong ties to traditions and one another, but tourists and summer residents always return, and the local economy depends on them. Topsham was a mix of mill town and farms, closely tied to Brunswick economically and socially. The mills and some of the countryside are gone now, but the historic village and its character remain. Harpswell remains rural, a quiet place where life has revolved around fishing, farming and family, taking in stride the seasonal influx of town and city folk who escape there to relax. Damariscotta is and was a hardworking, self-sufficient small town with services, arts and amenities that have enabled a steady, loyal, independent, family-centric population to absorb and welcome incomers. The peninsula towns and villages are made up of a combination of fishermen, merchants and professionals and are invaded every year by summer residents and tourists in numbers just slightly less than in Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor. Each has its own slightly different culture but with very similar hubs of gossipers who always know who is doing what with whom and where.
World War II brought everyone together in civilian defense activities, war work and, most importantly, in the strong belief that we were all in it together and everyone had a part to play.
As a fellow historian kept reminding me, so many of these people had nothing, yet they kept giving, year after year. They gave their money, their time and their energy to the war effort, their families and their communities. They did their bit, and more.
Chapter 1
WHITE CHRISTMAS
The signs were everywhere that war was coming. In 1933, the U.S. Navy began giving Bath Iron Works (BIW) orders to build more destroyers. By 1940, the yard had delivered eleven new ships and was one of the leading shipyards in the nation.¹ A build-up was underway. Newspapers and the radio pronounced the bad news from Europe and Asia. Japan successfully invaded China and gradually extended its hold over the country. In the spring of 1940, the Nazis conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. In June, France fell. In July, the Battle of Britain began.
Knowing that the majority of Americans were still opposed to the United States entering the war, but recognizing the necessity of assisting our ally in its time of greatest need, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) signed the Lend-Lease agreement on September 2, 1940, trading old destroyers to Great Britain in exchange for leases on land in Newfoundland and the Caribbean to be used for American military bases.² That agreement triggered even more orders for BIW-built destroyers.³ On September 16, 1940, FDR reinstated the U.S. Selective Service (or draft). On September 27, 1940, Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Agreement to fight any country joining the Allied powers in war. After nine months of escalating German U-boat attacks on British and Canadian merchant ships, the president declared an unlimited national emergency on May 27, 1941, telling Americans that the United States had to join the Battle of the Atlantic. The war…is coming very close to home.…It would be suicide to wait until they are in our front yard.…Old-fashioned common sense calls for the use of a strategy that will prevent such an enemy from gaining a foothold in the first place.
⁴ This was the declaration that America was preparing for war.
Girls shopping at F.W. Woolworth’s Five and Ten Cent Store in Washington, D.C., December 1941. John Collier, Photographer. Library of Congress.
On Saturday, December 6, 1941, American main streets were busy with holiday shoppers. But behind the holiday cheer lurked a jittery uneasiness. Moviegoers watched newsreels of Hitler’s advances and the suffering of the Belgians and the Dutch. At home, Americans listened