For the Love of their Country

Author:  Thomas Marrow

Publisher: Old Warrior Books

True Stories of World War II Military Soldiers

They were young citizens, most not old enough to vote. They answered their nation’s call to war after enduring The Great Depression.

Many had never been more than 50 miles away from the place where they were born, yet these youngsters traveled thousands of miles to engage in history’s greatest global conflict – World War II.

Millions of young people from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand formed the Allied Forces to enter into deadly combat with their counterparts of the Axis Powers from Germany, Italy, Japan, Austria, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. The Allied goal was to free Poland, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Russia, large portions of China, Korea, Manchuria, hundreds of islands in the Pacific, and nearly all of Southeast Asia, all under the dictatorships of the Axis Powers.

While World War I was horrific in itself to be sure, the 20^th century had two defining events: the Great Depression, which began in 1929, and the Second World War, which ended it.

From 1929 until the mid-1945, the world was in crisis. As late as 1944, it wasn’t clear whether the Allied nations would prevail against the fascist empires of Germany, Italy, and Japan, known as the Axis Powers. After the surrenders of these three nations, the victors would discover just how close the Axis was in developing new and horrific war machines that would have turned the tide of battle in their favor.

Ironically, if it hadn’t have been for that world war, the Depression might have dragged on for several more years. Out of necessity, the United States pulled itself from economic ruin by gearing up for war. Thousands of men and women were put back to work churning out war materials in defense factories, while millions of other young men became citizen soldiers.

With the Selective Service Act brought back by Congress in 1940, a new term crept into the American slang: “G.I.,” which stands for “government issue.” Whether a young man volunteered or was drafted into the U.S. Army, he was known as a “G.I.” – a citizen soldier.

The stamina and toughness of what the 21^st century now knows as the “Greatest Generation,” was forged by tough times by those who endured both the Depression and World War II, and cannot be over-stated.

“We never went hungry. We always had plenty to eat,” my father would say countless times over the years about that decade of Depression days, which began with the crash of the U.S. stock market in October 1929. “We just never had any money to buy things.”

My father, like yours truly, was the son of a meat cutter. He was born in Seymour, Iowa on May 4, 1916, the second of five sons. As a boy and then a young man, he was called upon to work in the family business, usually for no pay. When Dad was able to work for cash during the early years of the Depression it might be for as little as $1 a day. The Depression was the defining moment in his life, whereas for his younger brothers and many of his peers, it was World War II.

Dad told the story of how he spent the summer of 1934 immediately following his graduation from high school. He was sent to his uncle’s farm in a nearby community to work through the harvest. Dad had saved up enough money to buy a two-year-old Chevy, but, because his uncle never paid him any wages, he was unable to buy gas for the car.

“All I could do after supper each evening until bedtime was sit in my car and listen to the radio. I had just enough gas to get back home when the harvesting was done.”

Such things were expected of children by their parents and relatives in those days.

“Your board and keep was all the pay you could expect,” Dad would lament.

On a trip west with some buddies to pick apples in Washington in 1936, Dad drove south along the California coast all the way to Tijuana, Baja Norte in Mexico. Along the way he and his friends saw the Golden Gate Bridge under construction in San Francisco Bay.

After his trip west, Dad returned to Iowa determined not to end up in the meat business; he bought a Sinclair Oil station and, in 1938, married my Mom.

I was born on April 11, 1939. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Dad moved us to the Des Moines area where he got work in the war effort.

Because he was older and head of a family draft laws at that time allowed my father to avoid military service. He went to work in an ordinance plant in Ankeny, Iowa that manufactured ammunition. Dad ended the war supervising a crew constructing rubber gas tanks for B-29 bombers at a Goodyear plant in Lincoln, Neb. For my father and those who lived through it, those dark days of the ‘30s never faded from their memories. 

For those who fought in World War II, it often has been said their stamina resulted from the ordeals suffered during the Great Depression. Without those days of struggle and sacrifice, the Allied Forces might not have been so successful.

For many young men entering the armed services during the early days of the war, it would be the first time they would have enough to eat and the first new clothes they had ever worn. Some young men from the more rural states had never owned a pair of shoes. Many could barely read, and others had never been out of their home county. Most of what they knew about America was from books, magazine and newsreels at the movies on Saturday night. The laws regarding education were such that many young men dropped out of school by the 8^th grade, many before that. The sons of farmers, who would inherit the family acreage, saw no need to go beyond.

This book relates stories as told by citizen soldiers from both the Allies and Axis forces. The author interviewed these men who live or lived in Southern California over a 10-year period from 1995 to 2006. Most of their stories appeared in my columns and features published in the North County Times daily newspaper of Oceanside, California. While most of these old citizen soldiers have left us, the remainder clings to their memories from those horrific years that have defined their lives.

These stories are a small example of the millions who lived and survived both the Depression and World War II. All, to a man, willingly answered their nation’s call to arms -- For Love of Their Country.