World War II Year

Salem’s Part In World War II: A Year By Year Chronology

December 7, 1941 – It begins

On that day that would “live in infamy,” December 7, 1941, Salem residents– like most of the Nation–were stunned and outraged. But one group of Salemites–parents and friends of Willamette University’s football team, coaches and chaperones–were in considerable anxiety for the safety of their loved ones as they were dangerously near Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack on Honolulu that fateful Sunday.

Just the day before, Willamette’s Bearcats had defeated the University of Hawaii 21-6, and they were looking forward to a few days of “R & R” in the Islands before leaving for their next scheduled game with San Jose State on December 16th. That plan was scuttled; the next three weeks were spent in Honolulu patrolling the beaches until the party returned by sea, December 26th, to their homes.

Other homes in Salem shared the anxiety of those Willamette folks: Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hinz’s grandson was on one of the ships sunk at Pearl Harbor. Harold Hendrickson on the “U.S.S. West Virginia” (most severely damaged of the ships berthed at the harbor), William D. Croghan, Jr., and Verdi Sederstrom on the “Oklahoma” (reported sunk during the attack), Art Boyle on the “Pennsylvania,” and Glen Hochstetler on the cruiser “Astoria”–all stationed at Pearl Harbor that Sunday–gave their families in Salem anxious moments with fears for their safety. John Sayre and Bob Eaton of Salem, also at Pearl Harbor with navy units, were feared potential casualties.

Another target of the early morning raid was Midway Island where Ben Titus, Jr., served as a radio operator with the U.S. Army as did Dorn E. Arnold; their Salem families awaited word of their survival. Wake Island was also hit by Japanese bombers that morning; Kenneth C. Boley, employed there with the Army, gave his Salem brother cause for concern. An airman at Hickam Field near Pearl Harbor, T.A. Raffery, gave the Raffertys here worries as the airfield was devastated during the attack. All survived the initial attack though some were wounded and later returned to duty.

Immediately on the news of Pearl Harbor breaking, Japanese-Americans became targets for retaliation:  in Norfolk, Virginia, all Japanese nationals in the area were rounded up and arrested; on the West Coast, in Los Angeles harbor and San Francisco Bay, all Japanese aliens were taken into custody and turned over to immigration agents. Tacoma, Washington, Army officers called for the immediate “rounding up of all Japanese nationals in the Pacific Northwest,” but Salem’s officials reported no such orders had been received here. “The vast majority of our Japanese in this area have been here many years and are either citizens or wish they could be.”

Even so, a few Salemites took the matter into their own hands and set out to wreak revenge upon some Japanese farmers in the Lake Labish area. Their posse of avengers was defused by a group of local ministers and one Willamette University student and bloodshed was averted.

A total blackout of all West Coast cities was ordered on December 8th; 40 or 50 air raid wardens volunteered to patrol Salem (one as young as 15), making sure no lights showed from city windows to guide Japanese planes to their targets. Boy Scouts were stationed on the streets to catch cars traveling with other than their parking lights on.

* * * * * * * *1942

As 1942 began, National mobilization for war became the order of the day. Auto production ceased so the automotive industry could gear up to produce war materiel; rubber was rationed, tires disappeared from the civilian market; gas rationing went into effect; scrap metal was collected and turned over to the war effort; draft boards processed the scores of young men answering the call to protect their country; blackouts in all coastal cities continued, and the speed limit was reduced to 35-miles-per-hour; liquor production was curtailed till the end of the war. 

Shortages of the following everyday items brought home the realities of a war-time economy: metal hair curlers, wigs,. lawn mowers, girdles, sugar, quinine, gin, tea, rubber diaper covers, metal caskets, electric appliances, fly swatters, tin soldiers, electric trains, and bicycles. Scrap drives, war bonds, ration books, defense stamps, air raid wardens, articles in the newspapers offering advice on first aid after exposure to poison gas, blood drives, civil defense meetings, cautions such as “Loose lips sink ships”–all became commonplace as the Nation, and Salem, prepared for an all-out war.

Despite uniformly bad news from all the battlefronts: Wake Island taken in January; Singapore’s fall in February; the Battle for the Philippines culminating in April with the fall of Bataan; that same month Burma fell (Hong Kong had fallen the previous December.) By June, Nazi U-boats had sunk 213 vessels in the Atlantic during the previous six months; in the Pacific, the Battles of the Coral Sea, and Midway and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands engaged thousands of sailors and Marines with thousands of ships, planes, and munitions against the enemy; North Africa was overrun by Erwin Rommel’s Panzer divisions; and Stalingrad was fighting for its life–despite all these reverses, morale in the U.S. remained high with the spirit of “We Did It Before and We Can Do It Again.” Another hit song of that era was “Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition.”

Salem concerns were those of a Nation at war, with a few distinctly local matters. In February, President Roosevelt had issued Executive Order 9066 calling for the internment of all Japanese, “citizens or not,” in one of ten resettlement camps further inland. That same month in Portland an espionage cell of some 30 Japanese was raided, leading to the Capital Journal’s editorial of February 21st justifying the “Purging of Potential Spies.” Marion County’s 193 residents of Japanese descent were shipped on June 2, 1942, to a camp at Tulelake, California, about 35 miles south of Klamath Falls, Oregon.

In January of 1942, a project was begun that ultimately affected–economically and socially–Salem’s wartime experience: the construction of Camp Adair in neighboring Polk County. By June, troops were arriving to begin training at the camp: “A city for 40,000 was built in six months.” Some 8,000 civilians worked on the camp’s 1,800 buildings and, after completion, more were employed to staff the five movie theaters, 13 post exchanges, two service clubs, the hospital, banks, post office, and phone exchange.

Every Friday night, groups of Salem girls took the bus to Adair to dance with the servicemen–who, in some cases, became their future husbands. The soldiers who preferred to come into Salem for recreation hung out at the U.S.O., 693 Chemeketa Street, or at favorite dance spots: the Crystal Gardens at the corner of Liberty and Ferry Streets, or the Salem Armory. Willamette University and the YMCA offered their facilities and services to Adair’s soldiers. Salem homes were opened to servicemen each weekend and, despite shortages, those homes offered home-cooked meals and a taste of family to men far from home.

A huge iron and steel scrap drive on July 30th covered the west Courthouse lawn with every manner of container, toy, auto part, appliance, or household item imaginable, leading a trio of welders/sculptors to construct “Scrappo” from the ten tons of scrap metal, a symbol for the mighty efforts. Some 1,500 Salemites heard the metal sculpture “speak” (via Gardner Knapp, ventriloquist, and C.W. Paulus, who moved “Scrappo’s” jaw!) And millions more throughout the Nation saw “Scrappo’s” performance as the event was filmed by Universal Film Exchange, Inc., to be shown in theater newsreels across the country. Children who collected a pound of rubber that day were treated to a special free performance at the Elsinore Theater.

The war came too close for comfort in June and September of this year when Seaside was shelled from enemy ships and a Japanese plane, launched from a submarine offshore, flew low over Curry County and dropped a thermite bomb. It caused little damage in the forested area–burning only .01 of an acre –as it had been dropped from too low an altitude, but the incident proved not only the audacity of the enemy, but also that Oregonians were closer to the war zone than they had thought!

In July of 1942, Willamette’s V-2 College Training Program, in cooperation with the Navy and Marine Corps, was established to meet “the military’s need for a steady supply of college educated officers.” Lausanne Hall, the all-female dorm, was re-designated the “U.S.S. Lausanne” and furnished housing for the trainees.

Late in the year, disaster struck the State Hospital when 47 patients died of poisoning: the assistant cook had inadvertently mixed roach powder instead of powdered milk into the scrambled eggs served that morning in November. Initially thought to be the work of a saboteur or spoilage of the eggs, the truth became known the following day: a tragic accident.

* * * * * * * * 1943

News from the warfront changed to a more optimistic tone with the beginning of 1943.

In February, Hitler’s army capitulated at Stalingrad, beaten by the weather as well as stubborn Russian resistance.

By May, the Afrika Korps of General Rommel sufferred defeat at Tunisia and, two months after that, Sicily was invaded.

Hamburg, Germany, was bombed to ruins in August and, by September 8th, Italy, one of the Axis powers, had surrendered.

The Marines took Tarawa in November, and began air attacks on Formosa.

All of these developments were followed closely in Salem as many of the city’s younger generation were involved in these campaigns. Wall maps of the world were posted on many a living room wall so that battle actions could be traced, resulting in memorable and powerful geography lessons as the world’s war progressed.

Copper pennies disappeared from the scene to be replaced by zinc 1-cent pieces.

More immediate concerns for Salem folk began in the year of 1943:

The Willamette flooded in January,

1. washing out the underpinnings of the Mellow Moon skating rink and lodging the timbers against the west side of the Marion-Polk County bridge.
2. Four hundred homes in the Valley were affected;
3. Ten people drowned before the river crested at 30 feet.
4. Sewers had overflowed in North Salem as the heaviest snowfall in six years blankets the city.

As rationing became more stringent, restaurants’ meat supplies were cut and the U.S.O. had to begin charging for the food they offered.

Butter was in short supply, and housewives lined up in front of whichever grocery store had received any of the precious commodity.

1. A butter substitute–oleomargarine–appeared on grocers’ shelves and pro-vided a diversion for youngsters. By law, the fake butter had to be packaged white, containing a small gel capsule of yellow coloring; by squeezing the pack-age and breaking the capsule, the soft white “butter” took on a light yellow color and, when thoroughly mixed, was placed in molds to resemble sticks of butter. As the margarine was packed in plastic, on occasion too vigorous squeezing caused the bag to break and a greasy mess ensued!

Coffee, tea, sugar–always in short supply–headed the list of hard-to-get articles but, as time went on, other items of food began to disappear from store shelves. Victory Gardens sprouted in nearly every backyard as trucks to deliver produce to the stores broke down or were commandeered for war purposes.

Living in the lush Willamette Valley, Salemites had access to a greater variety of nuts, fruits, and vegetables than other parts of the Nation, but shared the problem of transporting all that fresh produce to market. Also, harvesting that abundance was a constant source of worry for producers: there were never enough hands, even using schoolchildren or State prisoners, to help.

Soldiers from Adair were brought in, and some stores closed early so the employees could help out in the fields.

To alleviate the shortage of hands, Mexican harvesters were imported this year. A farmers’ market opened near Marion Square; sponsored by the city, it brought some of the rural plenty to city dwellers.

Marion County education shared in that lack of manpower: 13 schools failed to open in September for lack of teachers.

While the legendary Bob Hope entertained troops overseas, a phenomenon on the homefront saw its beginning: troops of “bobby soxers” swooned over the sultry voice of a young singer from New Jersey, Frank Sinatra. Salem girls weren’t immune to the crooner’s appeal and formed fan clubs to support the popular idol. “Frankie” never made it to Salem for a personal appearance, but that was all right – – there were always his records and radio broadcasts of his concerts.

A local celebration was nearly obscured by war news: Oregon’s centennial. At Champoeg on May 2nd, some 2,000 gathered for a commemoration of the State’s first efforts at self-government. That same day in Portland, as a centennial event, the Liberty Ship “Robert Newell” was launched, “in honor of one of the mountain men” who participated in the 1843 Champoeg meeting.

Penicillin became the wonder of 1943 when its use to prevent infection was proved on the world’s battlefields. At home–

1. Women knit “stump socks” or rolled bandages (grim reminders of the casualties of war).
2. Gold stars in front windows began to replace the blue stars posted with pride to show a family member in the armed services, gold signifying that a loved one had been killed in action.

By July 16th, war casualties from Salem were listed on the roster of those killed in action or dying of battle wounds. But a far more serious and immediate threat to the children of Salem appeared that summer: infantile paralysis, the dreaded polio, that crippled or killed.

The year ended on an upbeat note, however: though the Christmas tree on the Courthouse lawn once more lacked lights, Salem citizens took pride in having their city ranked first in U.S. cities of like size for traffic safety. And the alumina plant project was awarded to Salem in November. Also, the Aluminum Can Company proposed a million dollar plant to be located in the city.

* * * * * * * * 1944

The third year of the war, 1944, began on a promising level with news of the Axis defeats on all fronts:

in January, Leningrad was recaptured by the Russians;

February saw Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands taken;

June 5th, Rome was captured by American forces, and the next day occurred the massive invasion of France–176,000 men assaulted a 60-mile front at Normandy. Also in June, the Imperial Steel Works in Japan was bombed to ruins.

By July Eniwetok, Guam, and Saipan in the Pacific Theater had been captured, and the Japanese retreat from Burma began.

On August 25th, Paris was liberated;

Warsaw’s liberation followed in September as the Allies crossed the German border.

October saw the capture of Peleliu Island, landings at Leyte in the Pacific, and General MacArthur’s return to the Philippines. Also, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to his fourth term as President;

Federal price controls kept retailers from profiteering on wartime scarcities, and some innovative Salem merchants created unique transportation solutions:

1. Curly’s Dairy utilized a horse to pull its delivery truck;
2. carpooling conserved precious gas resources;
3. bicycles with sidecars or pulling carts became a daily sight around the city.

In July, the last division at Camp Adair moved out for overseas duty, but even before that mass exodus, a new use for the camp had been decided upon: some 200 Italian POWs took up residence in the barracks, guarded by a small crew of soldiers. Their help and that of later German POWs interned at Adair greatly enhanced the workforce in harvesting hops, beans, cherries, and other commodities that summer and fall.

Two items that have become standard in our time were introduced in August of 1944: the first prototype of a calculator and the ballpoint pen.

Another development that proved not so beneficial was the advent of DDT, heralded as the insecticide that would “wipe out the mosquito and malaria, liquidate the household fly, cockroach, and bedbug, and control some of the most damaging insects that prey on the world’s crops.”

Shortages of household items became more pronounced this year: textiles were added to the list of scarce articles: cotton and wool goods, such as suits, sheets and pillowcases, towels, tablecloths, curtains, shirts, bed-spreads, draperies, and dishcloths virtually disappeared from the merchants’ shelves.

Despite the fact that Salem had a thriving flax industry, the total output of the Miles and Salem linen mills went to the war effort.

Linen strands in ships’ fire hoses helped extinguish fires on board;

latticed linen cargo nets and lifelines assisted in rescuing seamen from ocean waters;

linen oil lines on tankers replaced rubber ones; linen hammocks on shipboard and linen awnings on lifeboats were familiar necessities to the Nation’s sailors; linen parachutes substituted for the impossible-to-get silk ones; waxed linen-covered wiring in the instrument panels of aircraft proved far superior to any other material; and the sturdy thread was used to stitch soldiers boots, devise their insignia, keep the seams of sacks from bursting, and served as lines for signal flags to send messages between ships.

November’s Armistice Day celebrations were somber, as the toll of Salem’s war dead had reached 73 men. Another casualty of note in Salem circles was 31-year-old Asahel Bush, war correspondent for the Associated Press, who had died and been buried in the Philippines on October 26th, killed at Leyte by a Japanese bomb.

Word of the lifting of restrictions on West Coast Japanese (to become official on January 2, 1945) reached Salem in December. The relocation camps were to be closed and former residents could return to their homes and property. Sadly, not too many of Salem’s former Japanese chose to return: only 7 of the pre-war 250 came back to the city.

Although 1944 went into the record books as one of the driest in history–with only 25.13 inches of rain–produce from the surrounding farms kept Salem’s canneries running at full bore. Labor was still a prime issue and “Victory” shifts of four or five hours were instituted to augment the regular shifts required to process all the beans, sweet corn, plums, cherries, tomatoes, berries, apples, beets, carrots, peaches, prunes, rhubarb, and potatoes that kept the canneries running from May to December.

Three Salem companies had government contracts to supply the armed forces- -Calpak, Paulus Bros. Packing Co., and Allen Fruit Co.–with canned, frozen, and dehydrated fruits and vegetables. Recognized for their “outstanding accomplishment as a food processor,” Calpack received an “A” award in March of 1944 by the War Food Administration.

Some 12 canneries in the city operated around the clock to provide food for military and civilian consumption. One, the Salem Community Cannery on Portland Road, which was run by high school students and faculty, began in July of 1943 and closed down in the fall of 1945; each participant in the cooperative venture was allowed 100 cans of food per family member. Salem’s cannery was one of 12 community canneries in the state sponsored by school districts.

Besides labor problems, another concern for local canneries was scarcity of tin-plate for cans, leading to alternative methods of preserving: glass jars, freezing, and dehydrating. Water resources were another worry; even after completion of a pipeline from the North Santiam River and tapping the Willamette’s waters, many of the canneries had to dig wells to keep their operations going.

And the effluent from these canneries–most of them were along Front Street– made for severe pollution of the Willamette, leading many Salemites to joke about which cannery was operating, and what they were processing according to the color or smell of the river.

Two disastrous cannery fires closed out the year: in November, Producers Co-operative Packing Company on Front Street burned with a loss of over $100,000 in equipment, sugar, and cherries.

Just over one month later, in West Salem’s Blue Lake plant was completely destroyed by fire along with half the year’s pack of canned and dehydrated foods. Exploding cans, for several days after the December 31st fire, made the area resemble a war zone.

* * * * * * * * 1945

With the advent of the new year, the Nation could finally see an end to the war; as FDR was inaugurated for his 4th term, news from the warfront was of successive victories over German and Japanese forces.

In February, the German Siegfied Line, last defensive barrier to invasion of German territory, was attacked.

That same month, D-Day on Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theater commenced; by March, the island was taken, though with a terrible loss of life.

On all fronts, the prospects looked promising for an early end to the conflict.

Restrictions on civilian goods eased: liquor production resumed; the W.P.B.s ban on electricity for night-time baseball games was lifted; the amount of steel allocated for civilian production was doubled, making mass production of cars, home appliances, and so on once more possible; bans on producing dozens of civilian items were removed.

In the midst of all this encouraging news, two tragedies marked the spring months: On the National stage, President Roosevelt died suddenly at Warm Springs, Georgia, victim of a cerebral hemorrhage. The strong, calming voice of the leader who declared, “The only thing America need fear was fear itself,” was stilled forever. Oregon mourned the loss of a great leader at a crucial moment in our history.

Then, in early May, came the news that Klamath County Sunday School picnic group had found an unexploded Japanese “balloon bomb” and set it off, killing 5 children and one mother. A monument near Bly marks the site where the only loss of life on this continent from enemy action occurred. Just two days later, Germany surrendered unconditionally to General Eisenhower, ending the war in Europe. Hitler had committed suicide on April 30th in his Berlin bunker, but the detail had yet to be confirmed. Rather than wild celebrations, the news was received in Salem with prayerful quiet, for there was still an enemy in the Pacific to be subdued.

That objective required another four months and the unleashing of a weapon more devastating than any yet known to man. On August 5th, the atomic bomb was dropped over the Japanese Army base Hiroshima. Packing more destructive power than 20,000 tons of TNT, the bomb–hideous as it was in terms of material and human destruction–played a huge part in persuading the Japanese to capitulate. A second atomic blast a Nagasaki three days later proved the final action in the Pacific theater: Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 14th.

Then, and only then, did Salem celebrate: “shrieking, hornblowing, gunshooting, singing, and praying” through the two days’ holiday proclaimed by President Truman for Wednesday and Thursday. Banks and all government agencies (aside for essential services) were closed; retail stores closed on Wednesday; liquor stores and taverns closed for both days; playgrounds and swimming pools closed on Wednesday; and all scheduled meetings were cancelled so Salemites could enjoy the blessings of peace at last. (Only the canneries worked overtime to process the perishable harvest of fruits and vegetables.

Along with all the joy and elation, there was deep sadness, too, for many families in the city had lost loved ones in the 4 years of war: 142 men dead, not counting those Missing In Action or still hospitalized with serious injuries.

The war was over, the young men who survived could return home, industry could shift back to production of civilian goods, peacetime mobilization could begin; a new era of prosperity was on the horizon. The atomic age had begun, but a plethora of benefits to humankind had been introduced, including the development of radar and streptomycin this year. Art treasures stolen by the Nazis were returned to their various countries, and the war criminals who had instigated such horrendous acts could be rounded up to be tried by International courts of justice.

The United Nations was established to assure there would be no repeat of this most catastrophic worldwide war.

Researched and written by Sue Bell

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Bibliography:

NOTE: Details on National events and battlefront news were taken from a series to Time-Life Books: “Time Capsules” for each year of the war, extracted from the pages of “Time” magazine; published 1968.

1. Oregon Statesman Extra, 7 December 1941, 1:1 & 2:2; 26 December 1941, 9:6 & 7.
2. Oregon Statesman, 4 January 1942, 3:7; Capital Journal, 8 December 1941, 9:6 & 7.
3. Oregon Statesman Extra, op. cit., 1:1 & 2:6.
4. �The Scene,� Summer 2003 (W.U. magazine), p. 21.
5. Capital Journal, 9 December 1941, 19:7.
6. Idbid., 18 February 1942, 3:7
7. Statesman Journal, 15 February 1981, 1A.
8. John H. Baker, �Camp Adair� (Newport, OR, 2003), pp. 30, 79, 81, 83, 135, 136; Oregon Statesman supplement 8 November 1942, pp. 1-56.
9. Capital Journal, 31 July 1942, 12: 1, 3, 4.
10. Oregonian, 22 June 1942, 1:3 & 7; September 1958, p. 44.
11. �The Scene,� Summer 2003, pp. 18-19.
12. Capital Journal, 19 November 1942, 13:6.
13. Oregon Statesman, 4 January 942, 1:4, 2:1.
14. Ibid., 1 January 1944, A2:4.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., 3 May 1943, 1:4 & 2.1.
17. Ibid., 1January 1944, A2:4.
18. Capital Journal, 11 July 1944, 9:8.
19. �Time,� 12 June 1944 issue.
20. Oregon Statesman, 31 December 1944, 6:1.
21. Ibid., 4 July 1943, 5:1.
22. Ibid., 11 November 1944, 1:2; 15 November 1944, 2:2.
23. Ibid., 31 December 1944, 5:5; Statesman Journal, 15 February 1981, 1A & 14A.
24. Oregon Statesman, 31 December 1944, 1:5.
25. William Lucas, �Canning in the Valley,� pp. 18, 19, 70, 137, 151.
26. William Lucas, �Canning in the Valley,� pp. 126, 269.
27. Oregon Statesman, 13 April 1945, 8:2.
28. Oregonian, 25 February 1959, 8:1; Capital Journal, 17 August 1950, 11:1.
29. Oregon Statesman, 8 May 1945, 1:7.
30. Ibid., 7 August 1945, 1:7.
31. Ibid., 15 August 1945, 1:4 & 8.

This article originally appeared on the original Salem Online History site and has not been updated since 2006.