A Memory.............

[Bob Wright]

The scheduled time change today has got me to thinkn' of days of yore...............

During World War Two, radio station announcers, when giving station identification and time, would give the time as "Three o'clock, Central War Time." We were on a permanent Daylight Savings Time during the War.

Also: I remember, at age maybe four or five, having money, money enough to buy a penny piece of bubble gum with money left over. So, I went around the corner and bought one piece, paying cash for it. It was the thin, flat, square kind of bubble gum, with a card inside. I unwrapped my purchase there in the store, and looked at my picture card. It was of an F4U Corsair. The picture showed a light blue overall model of an early Corsair, the model before the cockpit was moved back.

Gazing at the picture, I asked Mrs. Gillespie, co-owner of the grocery store, "Who's going to win the war?"

Mrs. Gillespie looked at me rather sadly and said, "I hope we are."


Bob Wright

 

[Jeepnik]

I’m a boomer. Never really thought about the war being in doubt. Movies from that time showed the outcome never in doubt. Propaganda, I suppose , to keep morale up.

When I got older and began to understand things better I realized just how iffy the outcome was. Like a lot of us post war babies I think our parents shielded us from the reality and made sure we would never know the struggles and doubt they lived with.

 

[Snake45]

I wonder if it was this picture:

 

[Bob Wright]

I wonder if it was this picture:

View attachment 8871

No, the photo was a profile view of the left side, climbing at about a 30 degree angle. And it was colored. This as best as I can remember, I was only about four or five years old at the time!

Bob Wright

 

[Bob Wright]

I started to school in the fall of 1943, and we still had air raid drills. We were told that the Germans would fly across the ocean to New Orleans, then fly up the Mississippi River to Memphis, and bomb the Army Depot, Pidgeon Thomas Iron Company, and Messick School. (Other schools probably substituted their own names)

The Army Depot was a logical target, of course. Pidgeon Thomas Iron Company had a contract to build landing craft (Landing Craft, Infantry = LCI's) for the Navy.

Messick School? To kill kids who would grow up to be soldiers, of course!

Bob Wright

For those of you not familiar with Memphis, it is situated on a bluff overlooking the River. The LCI's were fabricated on a bluff near Riverside Park and launched sideways into the Mississippi River.

 

[Snake45]