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Memories of World War II  |
New book describes life
in wartime New York City
of TheColumnists.com
It is 65 years now
since the end of World War II, fought by the Greatest Generation,
as Tom Brokaw called them, and won valiantly with much loss of
life and the appreciation of a saved segment of humanity.
Kids of today may have heard of Bastogne and Iwo Jima, Midway
and Pearl Harbor, Okinawa and Normandy, mostly from films and
even a bit from history books.
But to really have experienced it an old soldier has to be in
his 80s now and even those home front warriors are pushing past
seven decades. I’m one of them.
We went through it, too, the too young or too old, the 4Fs, the
deferred or the disabled in cities and towns, on farms and factories,
caught up in the national trauma.
Richard Goldstein, an editor and writer for The New York Times,
has created a splendid study of the stay-at-homes during those
hectic years with his book “Helluva Town: The Story of New
York City During World War II" (Free Press, $28).
Even as a child of 9 to 13 over those war years we contributed
with our victory gardens and our savings bond money, with the
squashed tin can collections for battle weapons, with the acceptance
of ration cards and blackouts, with the devoted obedience to
air raid wardens, including my own father.
Goldstein creates a vivid picture of everyday life at home in
New York City during those years, brings about the empathy for
those far away in battle and connects us all to the tragedy of
the Gold star mothers, those who lost their sons that we may
live.
He describes one of the most touching experiences of World War
II, the loss of the five Sullivan brothers--George, Francis,
Joseph, Madison and Albert of Waterloo, Iowa--who died off Guadalcanal
in November 1942 in the torpedoing of the destroyer Juneau, commissioned
at the Brooklyn Navy yard. It was the heaviest loss by a single
family in American Naval history.
Their sister, Genevieve Sullivan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas
Sullivan, parents of the lost sailors, entered a class at Hunter
College in the Bronx in 1943 as a trainee for the WAVES, the
Naval program for females during the war.
She told reporters she wished to repeat the message her brothers
had often conveyed to the family, “If you’re a good
Navy person, you keep your chin up.”
Goldstein captures the incredible tales of the city during that
time from the doings of the colorful mayor, Fiorello La Guardia,
to the invasion by a group of Nazi saboteurs who came off the
beach at Amagansett, Long Island, about a hundred miles from
Manhattan after landing by submarine for the purposes of a terrorist
plot.
John Cullen, 21, just out of boot camp at Ellis Island and lifeguard
training for the Coast Guard at Jones Beach, was patrolling the
sands armed only with a flashlight and a flare gun for signaling.
He spotted a man through the fog fully clothed walking in front
of three others in bathing suits. It was twenty five minutes
past midnight June 13, 1942.
“Who are you?” he called out as he flashed his
light in the man’s face.
“A couple of fishermen from Southampton who have run
aground,” the man said.
Cullen suggested the men come with him to the nearby Coast Guard
station. They refused and walked off. He reported the incident
to his superiors and the hunt was on. A total of eight men dropped
off by German subs were captured when one of their own turned
them in.
Six of them were executed in the Washington, D.C. electric chair
on August 8, 1942. The other two were sent back to Germany after
the war.
Goldstein details the sinking of the Normandie in New York City
harbor, the July 25, 1945 accidental crash of a plane into the
Empire State building (with chills of 9/11 being felt by all
readers), the nightlife of the city at war, including a tale
about the famed Latin Quarter run by the father of Barbara Walters,
race riots in Harlem, famed Café Society in Manhattan
and the entertainment offered up by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart.
Goldstein’s war tales are as dramatic, exciting, revealing,
entertaining as any of the battle books of the combat war from
Norman Mailer’s “The Naked and the Dead,”
Irwin’s Shaw’s “The Young Lions” to
James Jones’ “From Here to Eternity.”
More than 17 million men and women served their country in uniform
during World War II across the globe.
Millions more served at home by keeping their homes, villages,
businesses and communities operating safely. Goldstein’s
book explains that they earned as much glory.
©2010 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The book cover is courtesy of the publisher. This column first posted April 5, 2010.
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