![]() I survived, but the incident did teach me a needed lesson in the importance of proper documentation. The usually calm owners were frantic (think seismic intensity) until the lathes were finally found. Unfortunately I didn’t make out the paperwork properly, and the shipment was lost in transit. On one occasion, I had to send 12 Pratt & Whitney lathes to Russia, one of our few allies at that time. I learned quickly, however, and was soon shipping refurbished machines to factories around the world where they were being used to fabricate the badly needed materiel of war. ![]() I was given his job, but little training. Their shipper had enlisted and, a few weeks after I arrived, had left for military duty. Lying in my bed, I daydreamed of the time when I would be part of the Army Air Corps, piloting a P-41 fighter plane, and knocking enemy aircraft out of the sky.Īfter graduation I began working at Botwinik Brothers, a machine tool rebuilder located in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was not a time of great confidence in American military superiority. England, alone, was left to resist the Nazi regime, and although we were supplying that island outpost with arms, our ships were being sunk at a frightening rate by ubiquitous German U-boats. Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France and other countries had collapsed under the military might of the powerful German forces. And that we might even lose the war.Īmerica was also at war with Germany, Japan’s ally, but our participation there was limited. There was talk that we could ourselves be invaded. It seemed that there was little we could do to stop the enemy’s bloody advances. Our once secure bases throughout the Pacific were, one by one, falling under Japanese control. The months between this unprovoked attack and my graduation had seen battle conditions go from bad to worse. This devastating assault on our main Pacific base had destroyed most of our heavy ships, and had left us with few vessels to defend ourselves from future Japanese aggression. Just hours before his announcement, the surprise attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor had occurred. Six months earlier, on December 7th, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had announced over the radio that a declaration of war had been declared against the Empire of Japan. It was a time when not only I, but the whole country, was uncertain of the future. ![]() I was handed the cherished piece of paper by the Chairman of the School Committee, Harold W. After a brief talk by Samuel Beeber, the short, plump principal of the school, the presentation of what I had struggled to obtain for four long years was made. Army as an inferior, poorly trained, lesser-motivated service (but one that was accepting black draftees and enlistees in segregated units), Holcomb declared, “The Negro race has every opportunity now to satisfy its aspirations for combat in the Army.THE WAR YEARS 1942-1945 PREPARATION FOR BECOMING A SOLDIERĪt 4:12 on Wednesday, June 24th, 1942 in the auditorium at South High School in Worcester, Massachusetts, I was presented with my high school diploma. Like most white officers, Holcomb rigidly insisted that blacks had no place in his Corps as they tried to “break into a club that doesn’t want them.” As the Corps frowned upon the U.S. In 1936, 57-year-old, four-star general Thomas Holcomb became the Corps’ 17th commandant, beginning his seven-year reign over all things Marine Corps. Marine Corps would be receiving black Americans. For the first time in 167 years, the U.S. Roosevelt with a massive march on Washington to protest the military’s policy of racial segregation, America’s commander-in-chief (with his wife’s urging), signed Executive Order #8802 mandating that all services accept qualified African American enlistees-draftees. Philip Randolph threatened to embarrass President Franklin D. On June 25, 1941, after black labor activist A. The Army, too, thought they were only good enough to tackle menial duties and perform manual labor. The Navy barely tolerated them in restricted capacities as cooks, waiters, servants for officers, and dockside stevedores. Prior to the summer of 1941, the United States Marine Corps did not want them.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |