Cleveland in World War II

By Brian Albrecht and James Banks

Berthed on the Cleveland lakefront, the battle-hardened submarine USS Cod serves as a proud reminder of the wartime contributions from the Greater Cleveland community. Clevelanders did their duty and more, from round-the-clock work on the factory assembly lines to the four Medal of Honor recipients on the front lines. The Cleveland Bomber Plant churned out thousands of B-29 parts, while Auto-Ordnance Co. developed the design for the Thompson submachine guns used by GIs on nearly every battlefield. Indians pitcher Bob Feller left the game to go into the service, and Clarence Jamison flew with the famed Tuskegee Airmen. Through interviews and archival material, authors Brian Albrecht and James Banks honor a time when Clevelanders of all stripes answered the call to arms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781625854124

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

The damn Japs, the damn Japs bombed Pearl Harbor!" That’s how Robert Laczko remembered his birthday party on Sunday, December 7, 1941, when interviewed by a Plain Dealer reporter in 2014.

He was not yet of school age, getting ready for his birthday at his grandmother’s house on Buckeye Road. The adults were listening to the old Philco radio when he heard men hollering and slapping the radio and pounding on it.

The excitement was a mix of English and Hungarian, as he recalled. Few knew where Pearl Harbor was. He remembered his mother crying. Soon, all the women in the home were crying, he said.

It was a day he will never forget.

As the war progressed, he remembered that all the women in his close-knit neighborhood consoled neighbors who lost a relative in the war, always with ample food.

He remembered one time, a Dodge OD (olive drab) army staff car came to a neighbor’s house, and some officers got out. He didn’t know what it was about. Later, he found out that somebody died.

The two ethnic communities of young Laczko’s neighborhood, Hungarian and Italian, united when an Italian mother lost two sons, leaving her alone. He remembered, I watched the ladies of our neighborhood take this Italian woman under their wing. It was a beautiful thing, part of the greatest generation.

Beyond the neighborhoods and out to the far Pacific naval base of Hawaii, word of the shocking attack by the Japanese resonated with devastating impact, hitting Cleveland with personal poignancy. Two sons of the city died on the USS Arizona. Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, fleet commander, died on his flagship, along with more than 1,100 crew members, including twenty-six-year-old ensign William Halloran. Both died instantly, incinerated in the blast. Weeks later, when divers searched the sunken wreckage, the only trace of the admiral was his Naval Academy ring, class of 1906, fused to a stanchion.

Kidd was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for conspicuous devotion to duty, extraordinary courage, and complete disregard of his own life. He was known as a working admiral. His wife, Inez, christened the DD-661 USS Kidd, a destroyer serving in the Pacific, a year after she lost her husband.

A native of Cleveland, Kidd was born on March 26, 1884, and graduated from West High School. His son, Isaac Kidd Jr., graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy six months after his father’s tragic death. Ike, as he was known, served in the Pacific in World War II, retiring as an admiral after nearly half a century of service.

The sudden and devastating loss of three thousand lives on American soil struck most Americans in waves of numbing disbelief. We were neutral, but our unguarded shores and far-flung islands were under attack. The shocking but irrelevant phases of months ago, like the rape of Nanking or the Battle of Britain, became instantly real as Remember Pearl Harbor joined the chorus of the Allies’ cries.

The many neutrality acts of the late 1930s and President Franklin Roosevelt’s rhetorical attempt to quarantine the aggressor fell on diffident ears in Congress. The nation was still economically weary and globally disengaged. The lingering disillusionment stemming from the Great War and the priority of finding a steady job were far more important than Europe’s perennial troubles. Cleveland’s large ethnic populations were more firmly planted in the United States than in the old country.

The news out of Europe in 1940 was not good. The desperate evacuation at Dunkirk and the photos of Hitler in Paris, while disturbing, did not concern isolationist Americans. The establishment of a peacetime draft in 1940, the first since the Civil War, did become law but was opposed by Cleveland’s two congressional representatives, Democrat Martin L. Sweeney and Republican Frances Payne Bolton, the first female from Ohio to hold a House seat.

The president had concluded an executive agreement with Great Britain to exchange fifty aged destroyers for islands in the Caribbean, prompting Congresswoman Bolton to remark that if he can do what he likes with our destroyers without consulting Congress…God alone knows what he will do with our boys.

Congressman Sweeney had served Cleveland in a variety of political offices and, from time to time, confronted rivals within the Cuyahoga County Democratic party. He often held strong opinions that could become confrontational.

During the draft debate in 1940, a physical confrontation erupted. Sweeney felt any draft would be a first step to dragging the United States into another European war. A fellow Democrat from Kentucky and a World War I veteran, Beverly Vincent, called Sweeney a traitor and an SOB, compelling Sweeney to take a swing at his tormentor. He missed. Congressman Vincent responded with a fist to Sweeney’s jaw.¹

By the summer of 1941, tempers had cooled, but the implications of the draft had not. The vote on the extension passed by one vote, with both Sweeney and Bolton voting nay.

Because the new draft law added an additional six months to enlistments, some draftees were referred to as the OHIO gang, as in Over the Hill in October, suggesting defiance or desertion. Few deserted. It was a minority movement but did not bode well for America’s military preparedness.

Simply put, most Americans wanted nothing to do with Europe. But in an instant, neutrality evaporated, and the nation stopped to catch its breath. Four days after Pearl Harbor, the war dramatically expanded when Germany declared war on the United States. Now, the nation faced the Axis powers of Japan, Germany and Italy in a global war of undetermined duration that would test the resolve, resources and resilience of all Americans.

The mounting losses on Wake and other island outposts were deeply troubling to the leadership of our armed forces. The vast Pacific posed a different kind of war than those occurring in North Africa and Europe. Fortunately, the aircraft carriers based at Pearl Harbor were at sea when the Japanese attack came. This was small compensation when assessing America’s total armed strength.

Militarily, the nation was pitifully unprepared. The U.S. military capability was ranked sixteenth in the world, nosing out Romania. Its enlisted military strength was at an anemic 160,000 and none were battle ready. Most uniforms were still wool, remnants of the Great War.

Beyond mere numbers, the army still maintained a cavalry unit and stables of more than twenty thousand horses and mules. As late as 1942, a local paper ran a photograph from Fort Bliss of Clevelander Private Frank C. Hetzel, who, with the Seventh Cavalry, would fight the war on his charger.²

The under- and ill-equipped U.S. forces relied on broomsticks and wooden machine guns to simulate battle, and trucks became tanks with cardboard signs and some paint. When viewed from the twenty-first century, this scenario, just six months before Pearl Harbor, seems ludicrously charming in its innocence. Few, if any, in the military—and fewer still in the nation—had any inkling of what would be required to sustain and win a global war. Nuclear fission was barely at the talking stage among the scientific fraternity.

Making the transition from the tedious drudgery of the Great Depression to a national commitment of war production was initially exciting, and a relief, channeling energy and igniting cities, counties, states and the nation in a common cause.

Soon, however, myriad details emerged, requiring time and organization to sort and implement immediate answers to diverse needs. One word captured the attitude of the nation, victory. Less clear—as each week, month and year of the war ticked by in agonizing detail—was when and how would victory be realized?

Victory was a compelling slogan but not a strategy. It would be achieved only by the combined mobilization of factories, farms and households in support of our boys overseas. Commitment must be total! It must be free of the gloss of romance and heroics. The nation—along with Cleveland and every other town, village and hamlet—eventually came to terms with the harsh reality of World War II. It was a coldblooded nightmare of sustained battle, destruction and death. Victory, by whatever description, was a macabre stew of gore and glory.

Cleveland, like other major cities, was still struggling to work its way out of the Great Depression. Unemployment was still in double figures. Ironically, the war catapulted the nation to unprecedented recovery. Yet no one could predict that this second global war, scarcely twenty years after the last world war, would be more devastating. World War II was so destructive that the United States has not dared to declare war since.

The great dilemmas for all Americans were the complexities and anguishing doubts about all facets of a war. If one could turn the daily, weekly and monthly pages of history as each year advanced, it would become clear that any timetable was useless, given the complexity of waging a global war in tandem with allies. Each victory or defeat put in motion and re-framed the next priority.

In 1942, transforming military priorities into reality was agonizingly slow, requiring organization and time to train, equip and deploy troops. The United States was a slumbering giant, suddenly awakened from a deep sleep. By Monday night, December 8, the homefront was a hive of undirected energy and anxiety, tempered by worry and doubt. Everyone felt compelled to do something. Age was no barrier to get in the fight.

Clevelanders, like most citizens, needed time to assess the physical and emotional damage while contemplating the complexity of mobilizing the enormous components that would place the nation on a total war footing. There was a palpable urge to do something, to get involved. Helping at all levels was instantaneous. As the first city in the nation to organize and develop volunteerism, known nationally as the Community Chest, Cleveland had acquired valuable experience, leading the nation in the selfless crusade to aid war efforts.

Training, mobilizing, equipping, rationing and coordinating business and industry while defining new roles for women and minorities would require time and rethinking old prejudices. Who would do the work of war while millions of soldiers were in training and sent overseas? How would the wounded be dealt with? Were there enough hospitals to treat the wounded who would be sent from far-off battlefields to stateside hospitals? The army medical department was understaffed and lacked facilities to deal with the thousands of wounded who would be arriving soon on the nation’s coasts for treatment. The U.S. Army maintained only five general hospitals. How many more could be built and where? What about those lost in battle far from home? What were the logistical demands of taking the war to the enemy? Who could have predicted that half a million German prisoners would be held in the United States, some only yards from homes in the village of Parma Heights, a Cleveland suburb. Questions outran answers.

It was as if the city and the nation had become an enormous twenty-four-hour war machine—given life by dedicated men and women whose labor transformed the nation into a living, breathing entity with hundreds of thousands of interdependent moving parts, all human. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt captured the era in a carefully understated quote, It was no ordinary time.³

This book tells the story of how a city answered the call to the greatest challenge of the twentieth century. Rather than focus on a few people, our goal is to connect dozens of citizens who did not know one another but, through their collective service, forged a unity that led to unprecedented and unrecognized cooperation in a common drive to win the war.

There are a few famous names in these pages, but there are many more whose contributions on the battlefront and homefront were unknowingly united and are, for the first time, brought together.

1

CLEVELAND MOBILIZES THE HOMEFRONT

The suddenness of war shifted the nation’s attention from the economic struggle of chasing phantom jobs to a riveting focus on attacking our enemies. The new priority of the war diverted personal struggles and erased doubts caused by the Depression. Americans now had a wider vision: they must answer the call to arms, to come to the aid of the nation. It was as if the population had just received a massive injection of patriotism.

The sense of community that engulfed Cleveland and all Americans was created by the intensely emotional expenditure of energy driven by and focused on a cause larger than the self. Perhaps it was the combined experience of individual deprivation of the Great Depression followed by instantly awakening to a different, but greater, challenge that nurtured a culture of cooperation and unity. Tom Brokaw captured it in the phrase the greatest generation.

There was a keenly felt sense of personal innocence regarding the sneak attack by Japan. The lament We were neutral confirmed America’s virtue. It was if the United States’ splendid isolation kept it from the chaos of the rest of the world, the vast oceans like a blanket of comforting insulation. Americans could avoid the contagion of war if they remained observers. Europe always had problems. Indeed, the phrase the phony war confirmed Europe’s aging charade as a nonissue for the United States.

In an instant, America’s naïve vision of the world vanished in the death, fire and tragedy of Pearl Harbor. Families with those in the service were immediately impacted. Radio, newspapers, newsreels and even Hollywood films knitted the nation into a continental tapestry of total commitment for the duration, as the slogan went.

The concept of a global war encompassing all the major oceans, the islands in the far Pacific, the coast of North Africa and the landmass of Europe not only tested one’s awareness of geography but also presented a staggering strategic challenge for engaging the enemy. Where would the Allies strike back at the enemy? Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, most Americans would have been hard pressed to find it on a map.

Unlike our current media-savvy culture obsessed with images, 1940s America had only the radio (AM of course) as a national platform. It could inform and unite, as well as entertain millions simultaneously. President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) was the first president to use and master this audio media, putting him directly in touch with the electorate. In a national crisis, the nation turns to its president. The nation was facing its second and worst national catastrophe.

FDR’s many fireside chats put Americans in direct touch with the president, a form of communication they had come to embrace during the Depression years. It was as if he spoke directly to each citizen. His patrician voice resonated, giving hope to the 25 percent of unemployed workers in 1933. Having just been elected to an unprecedented third term in 1940, the president now faced a global war.

The president; his wife, Eleanor; and their four sons were in uniform, setting a leading example of total commitment to the war effort. FDR’s distant cousin Teddy also had four sons who served in the Great War. One, Quentin, perished in a dogfight in the skies of France.

With the approach of George Washington’s birthday in late February 1942, Clevelanders and the rest of the nation were told to have world maps ready for a major radio address. By the evening of the chat, maps of the world were in short supply. Clevelanders young and old gathered around the radio awaiting the urgent message. In some homes, the radio was a piece of furniture dominating the living room. Some may recall staring into the speaker to catch every word.

The president, with the gravitas befitting the commander in chief, took to the air to describe the kind of war and the sacrifices that lay ahead. On Monday, the twenty-third, in the Cleveland darkness on a twelve-degree winter’s night, a fatherly professor of geography explained the importance of the far Pacific islands. With a delicate measure of optimism countered by the reality of some setbacks, the president outlined America’s road ahead. This remarkable geography lesson and candid review of the challenges facing America warrants a quick look.

By celebrating the birth of the father of our country and linking it with the Spirit of ’76, FDR said this allowed us to talk to each other about things as they are today and things as we know they shall be in the future. It was a new kind of war, with unknown geographical locations, some mere dots on the vast Pacific. I have asked you to take out and spread before you a map of the whole earth, and to follow with me the references which I shall make to the world encircling battle lines of this war. It was estimated that 80 percent of the public were at their radios with maps following along as they listened eagerly to the president’s message.

In addition to the geography lesson, the president urged production to support the demands of a global war while admitting, We have suffered losses and there would be more. However, your government has unmistakable confidence in your ability to hear the worst, without flinching or losing heart.⁴

Militarily, the war was both a strategic and logistical nightmare. America’s allies needed to be included, requiring deft discussions. The Big Three—Franklin Roosevelt; Winston Churchill, the prime minister of England; and Joseph Stalin, the premier of Soviet Russia—presented a curious but vital trinity.

Of the three countries, only the United States and Great Britain were free of occupation forces. Stalin and the Red army were critical to the success of defeating Hitler, but the close relationship between the two English-speaking democracies created tension and suspicion within Stalin’s strategic interests.

With Roosevelt and Churchill dominating global strategy, the president concentrated on the European Theater of Operations (ETO). The so-called Germany first strategy seemed misplaced, since it had been the Japs who attacked the United States. In the early months after Pearl Harbor, it was the navy, marines and army shouldering much of the battle in the far Pacific. Japan’s control of the Pacific ultimately required amphibious landings, combining naval, air and land forces in a series of island assaults.

Underlying the urgency and furious pace of community involvement was genuine worry about another attack. The fear of invasion was more prevalent on both coasts, but Cleveland experienced a stunning demonstration a few weeks after Pearl Harbor. Earle L. Johnson taught the city, and the nation, a lesson when flying his own plane. He bombed several Cleveland factories with one-hundred-pound sacks of flour. The white roofs were the shocking proof that added impetus to the county’s efforts in civilian defense.⁵

Johnson, a well-known Cleveland businessman, was the national commander of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) in 1942, becoming part of the national organization of the Office of Civil Defense. The CAP, under his leadership, expanded to include over 200,000 civilian volunteers.⁶

Before Pearl Harbor, the United States had walked a delicate diplomatic tightrope of neutrality and preparedness. In September 1939, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation declaring the United States’ status as a neutral nation, while simultaneously urging the strengthening of its defenses. By May 1941, German submarine attacks had taken a devastating toll on the country’s shipping. In response, the president issued Executive Order 8757, creating the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD).

The OCD coordinated federal civilian defense measures with state and local governments. Under the leadership of the War Department Service Commands, Cleveland was named the coordinating center for the Fifth Service Command. The OCD symbol featured a white triangle inside a blue circle, and personnel wore white armbands and helmets.

By 1942, the nation responded to the call. Over five million were enlisted in various aspects of civilian defense. However, as the fear of a direct attack lessened, some aspects of the program were discontinued. But for most of the nation, 1942 was a year of rigorous vigilance and readiness.

To coordinate clocks and avoid confusion over the start and end of daylight saving time, the president issued an executive order requiring all clocks to remain on daylight saving time, known as war time, until the end of the war. Obviously, the four time zones remained unchanged.

In January 1942, the Cuyahoga County Council for Civilian Defense was established under the leadership of William A. Stinchcomb. The county was divided into twenty-nine air raid report centers all linked to Cleveland’s Central Police District No. 1 on Payne Avenue. The various report centers were further divided into zones and the zones into sectors.

Booklets, pamphlets and films flooded area offices. The popular What Can I Do? listed dozens of citizen-based activities to win the war. In addition to air-raid wardens, blackout drills, training seminars and myriad other action venues was the coveted Victory-Home Award for households. If one met the list of expectations and instructions, a Victory-Home Award with a certificate was displayed on the front door.

The five criteria were:

This home follows instructions of its air-raid warden.

This home conserves food, clothing, transportation and health.

This home salvages essential materials.

This home refuses to