Exploring what it was like for civilians at home. Those who loved. Those who waited.
Excitement. Fear. Romance. Adventure. Patriotism.
These are a few words which describe the emotional landscape of Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor as men raced to enlist to serve their country. Or at least these are words we have been programmed to recite when talking about life on the home front during World War II. But was life at home really what the TV and movies have us believe? I don’t think so. I believe there is a dark side that most people choose to ignore. It’s too painful to think about, research, or write about, but it’s something we need to discuss. If we want to help heal ourselves, our lineage and the world, we need to stop romanticizing war and glorifying everything about it and do the deeper work to heal. I talked about the veteran’s perspectve in my last article, Have We Over Glorified War?
Keep Them In Fear, Survival Mode, and Scarcity
One thing I have personally noticed is that every generation has at least one, sometimes two, huge collective events that shattered reality and kept people in fear and survival mode. People who live in fear are easily controlled.
When I look at the lifetime of my World War II grandparents, Joseph and Libbie Holik, I know they both lived to see World War I erupt overseas and while neither had family serve in that war, the impact was felt on the home front. Event #1.
Fast forward to the end of October 1929. The stock market crashed and America plunged into financial darkness. We entered the phase of life known as The Great Depression. My grandparents lived through this as well. How it exactly impacted them I’m not quite sure other than I know they married April 19, 1930 in Chicago (by choice or necessity I’m still not sure but that’s a story for my next book). Together, they raised three boys during the Depression but based on family photos, they had a good life. They travelled locally during the summer to Fox Lake and surrounding areas to camp, fish, and swim. They took a few out of state vacations. Perhaps life wasn’t so bad for them as it was for others, even if they didn’t have much, they appear happy.
Then we reach 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor. My grandpa was 35 at the time with three boys at home. He worked for the Railroad in Chicago. In 1943, he chose to enlist in the U.S. Navy and became a USNR Armed Guard sailor. He left grandma at home with three young boys, who were roughly 12, 10, and 8. My dad was the bonus baby after grandpa was discharged.
Whether he enlisted out of duty like his partially blind brother who served in the Army MPs in Chicago, or knew he would be drafted so chose his path, I will never know. What I do know is that the family had been through a lot and with little time to truly process these large collective events. Which means, all that energy and unprocessed emotions were passed down through the generations and I was the “lucky” soul who chose to step up and heal the lineage. To do the deep work and find answers through the family secrets.
Life on the Home Front
Life on the home front during World War II was not all romance, and young love and marriage. It was rationing, hard work, changing of roles when the father, uncle, husband, son went to war. Families saved every penny they could to keep things going while the breadwinner was away.
Victory gardens were grown. Children participated in aluminum, steel, and rubber drives to support the war effort. Women helped in USO Clubs, joined the military, took up factory jobs and other positions men had to vacate. They built stronger communities as they banded together to help watch and raise children, work, feed each other, and emotionally support each other when those telegrams arrived.
The movies have us believe life was incredible on the home front and everyone was in love. But in reality, that’s really not what was taking place. Yes, there were numerous wartime quickie marriages. Some of these and one night stands resulted in babies. Wives worried about husbands. Parents worried about sons. Siblings tried to fill some of the gaps of those who were in the military. Fear invaded the radio programs, newspapers, and letters.
We must consider how many of our civilians suffered from PTSD as a result of the waiting, worry, incredible life changes, and in many cases, the loss of their loved one due to war. Whatever that looked like – physical death or a change mentally, physically, or emotionally. We must also consider the children who already existed or were born into this time, who never got to know their father as who he was prior to his wartime experience. In some cases, never got to know their father at all because he was killed.
After all my research, communicating with my grandparents on the other side, exploring our family history and the inherited trauma, I believe without a doubt my grandma Libbie suffered from PTSD. I also believe I inherited some of that.
Waiting….Waiting…Waiting….
Parents.
I’m sure it wasn’t easy for parents to send a son or daughter off to war, especially if the father had served oversease in World War I. He would have known the reality of war. After tearful goodbyes when their son left for basic training or returned home for a brief furlough prior to shipping overseas, the worry of the parents must have been intense. Parents usually prefer to outlive their children and the thought of losing one is devastating.
Communication during the war was not quick like it is today. This is something researchers either don’t consider or just forget. Those were not the days of email, texting, and social media. They were the days of Telegrams that arrived by Western Union, often with bad news. They were the days of V-Mail and letters being sent in an unreliable system. A system in which letters could simply vanish if the ship on which they were being transported sank. Or the truck on which they were being moved was hit by artillery or a mine and blew up, burned up. Parents, siblings, and wives, would have waited for word from their service member.
Children and Siblings.
Depending on how old a child or sibling was when the father or brother shipped out, determined how they handled the loss. For some siblings, they created vivid imaginative stories about their brother as a Fighter Pilot Ace or a ship’s commander, when in reality their brother may have worked as ground crew for a bomb crew or served as a fireman on a Navy vessel.
Children of service members, depending on age, may not remember their father, or have glimpses of memory. The war was all the rage and children dressed in sailor uniforms, participate in war drives, and played soldier. To them it was usually a game. At least until the war ended and their father returned – in a casket or as someone else.
Each child processed the war differently. They were influenced by how their family, church, and community helped them process. There were also the radio broadcasts and newspaper articles promoting victory and positive news and propaganda to help keep spirits up. How much this helped or hurt, I do not know.
Wives.
The wives left at home fell into two categories. Those in established marriages, with or without children and those who married as a wartime romance. Women who had been married for some length of time, were able to get to know their husband in various ways. They may have been married long enough to establish a rhythm together of life, work, and downtime. Their marriage may survive a year or more apart and not result in divorce.
On the other side of the marriage coin, I’ve read many IDPFs (Individual Deceased Personnel Files) in which quickie marriages were had, perhaps a child conceived right before a Marine boarded a ship to die in the next campaign, that resulted in massive family trauma and drama when the service member died. If the widow had not remarried by the time the military gave her the option about her husband’s remains, she had the legal final say about whether he should remain overseas or be returned home for burial. She received his personal effects and monies.
This angered many families who may not have known the woman their son married, or not known her long. Many of the IDPFs have scathing letters about these quickie brides and how they shouldn’t have a right to decide what happens. In some cases when the widow did remarry, she legally lost her right but didn’t always report this. In those cases, I’ve seen death files with letters from mothers providing a marriage license proving the widow remarried and that the legal next of kin should be changed.
Then we have a case in my own family. Virginia Scharer married my cousin Robert Brouk. Robert was an AVG Flying Tiger who survived being shot by the Japanese. He returned to Chicago in July 1942, met Virginia at the end of the month and they fell in love. He was stationed next in Orlando to train pilots and had to leave Chicago by October to begin work. The two didn’t want to be apart so they married late November 1942. Three weeks later, Virginia watched Robert die in a plane crash at the Orlando airfield as he was training pilots. A widow after three weeks of marriage and only 20 years old. Robert’s parents sued Virginia over his effects, war diary, and money. Then the family lost track of her…until I wrote Robert’s book and we connected. After Robert’s death she joined the Women’s Army Corps and took up his fight. Today Virginia is 103. You can read his story and war diary in my book, Stories of the Lost. Virginia’s story is in The Tiger’s Widow.
How did my grandma feel about her husband being at war? She never told me while she was alive. I only have whispers about it from the other side.
The Change in Communication and the Service Member
Finally, regardless of who was waiting at home, many parents, wives, and siblings noticed changes in their service member through the letters they sent (or didn’t) home. Frequency of letters changed. Tone changed. Perhaps there was no communication of any kind.
The Silence and Change. In Thomas Childers’ book Soldier from the War Returning, the wife of an Army Air Force ground crew member noticed her husband’s tone had changed in his letters home. He was no longer so upbeat. He didn’t write as frequently. She couldn’t put her finger on it but something had changed.
He complained about the weather, the mud, the food. He wrote about London, but only vaguely – no more personal than a prewar guidebook, all surface. With an almost tactile certainty, she [Mildred] could feel a growing detatchment in the familiar handwriting.
Some days she dismissed her misgivings as the products of an overheated imagination, her own form of combat fatigue. She was reading too much into the sparse letters, wanting more when circumstances dictated that there would always be less.1
How many parents or wives felt something similar in the letters they received from their service members? Communication began one way and slowly changed, with both the service member and woman left to wonder what changed. How can they go back to the way they were? How can the service member discuss what his experience was or how he finally felt he couldn’t get close to anyone because they all kept dying?
The Prisoner of War. In Childers’ book, he includes a story about Mert (Michael) whose bomber went down and he was a German POW for more than a year. For much of that time his parents had no idea what happened to him. A telegram was received stating Mert was Missing In Action. Later that he was a German POW. Then the Red Cross sent information until Mert was finally able to send a letter home.
Mert’s parents waited for word, prayed their son would make it through the war. The propaganda at the time likely didn’t ease their fears as they heard how horrible the Germans were. The Red Cross may have provided some support through their Prisoner of War Bulletins. How much relief did this actually provide the families at home? The relief may only have come when the family received a telegram that their son was liberated and on his way home. For families who received word their son had died, the waiting was over, except for the return of remains, if that was even possible.
Regardless of the circumstances of war, families and service members had limited contact with each other for a year or more. This would have impacted both sides and left them feeling anything from fear, worry, anticipation, anxiety, nervousness, grief, and loss of the life they could have had if the war had not occurred.
Where Do We Go Next?
War provided a complicated set of questions, emotions, and a lot of secrets and silence. If these secrets and silences weren’t brought into the open after the war, what was the impact on the veteran, his family, and future generations?
Stay tuned because I have one more article to wrap up this short series coming where I’ll talk about the veteran returning.
Would you like help with your WWI or WWII Research?
I am taking new clients and have space for one or two new book clients. To learn more about a possible research or book project, email me at jennifer@ancestralsouls.com to set up a free consultation to discuss your needs.
Additional Resources
Psychology for the Fighting Man. https://archive.org/details/psychology-for-the-fighting-man
Psychology for the Returning Serviceman. https://archive.org/details/psychologyforthereturningsoldier
Soldier to Civilian. Problems of Readjustment. https://archive.org/details/soldiertocivilia00prat
The Veteran Comes Back. https://archive.org/details/veterancomesback00wallrich
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