thedrifter
12-03-07, 09:36 AM
A WWII story brings fearful times in Springfield to life
By Tom Stafford
Staff Writer
Monday, December 03, 2007
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Occasionally while reading a story, a movie reel begins to turn in my head.
Sentences unfold and visuals arrive.
The result is not seamless cinema.
But there's a tone to the visuals — a kind of film-like quality — that seems to string them together.
It's in this way I watched a movie in my mind the other day about Springfield in the time of Pearl Harbor.
The story is the late Bill Burgstaller's "On the Home Front," which takes up a mere three-and-a-half pages in freelance writer Janice Stevens' "Stories of Service: Valley Veterans Remember World War II."
The valley of the book title is California's Central Valley, where Burgstaller lived in his senior years.
But "On the Home Front" is set along the banks of Buck Creek in 1941.
And if it were a movie, it might open with Burgstaller leaving the old Catholic Central at the end of the school day and making his way to his bagger's job at the Clauer Brothers grocery on Lagonda Avenue.
.
In the job he not only bags and boxes cans, produce and staples at the store but delivers them to customers' home. And even before Dec. 7, 1941, the good, observant lad notices "the worry on the faces of mothers every day."
With war rumbling on other continents, "most of them didn't have any boys in the service yet," our grocery boy tells us, "but they were of the age to join or be drafted, when and if needed."
The need arose when Japanese bombs destroyed ships and kneaded the earth at Pearl Harbor during an attack whose concussions soon echoed around the nation.
Burgstaller pans over the stands at a boisterous Catholic Central football game to break the news.
After the announcement over the PA, "stillness blanketed the stadium like a fog," he writes. At game's end, "cheers of victory and the usual applause didn't materialize .... The stadium emptied quickly as the crowd rushed home to hear the news on their radios."
More news soon arrives about the deaths of two Springfielders: Billy Welch on the oversize coffin that was the USS Arizona and Dicky Ward, killed while holding a flashlight to show fellow sailors a way out of the Oklahoma.
And by the time word arrives about Ward receiving the Medal of Honor, Springfield — like the nation — is a headlong rush.
Factories are working three shifts, and as men stream off to the service, women step up to production lines.
"Grandmothers filled in as babysitters .... buses and streetcars were busy 24 hours a day .... restaurants were busy all night to accommodate the shift workers and members of the military who started arriving and departing at all hours of the night," he writes.
Ration booklets appear, just as everything else seems to disappear.
"Meat, fatty foods, fish, dairy products, cigarettes, coffee, fuel oil, gasoline, sugar and chocolate were some of the rationed items. Anything made of metal, nylon or rubber made the list."
Stars in the front windows of homes, however, are plentiful.
A blue star indicates a family member in the service. A silver one says someone missing or taken prisoner. A gold one signifies a death.
"Families had a difficult time, but I thought mothers suffered the most," our grocery boy tells us. "Maybe it was because I saw them more often in the grocery stores and talked to them when making deliveries."
Like everyone else, Burgstaller knows the sound associated with the delivery everyone fears: The ringing of the Western Union boy's bicycle bell, which too often brings news of yet another young man for whom the bell of mortality has tolled.
Our young man's grocery job eventually gives way to a defense job at the Robbins & Myers plant on Lagonda Avenue, where he first sweeps up metal shavings, then trucks items to and from the lathes, then becomes a stock chaser, who collects finished items for shipment.
Just as his grocery job took him all over town, his chaser job "spread my work over several departments where women performed every job," he says.
"They were welders, furnace tenders, assemblers, wirers, inspectors and dozens of various machine operators. They hunched over benches, loaded furnaces, operated machines and kept assembly lines moving."
And when the shift bell rang at 11:30, "they were always tired and eager to get home but worried about what news awaited them and the thought of hearing that dreaded bicycle bell during the night."
On March 7, 1944 — his 17th birthday — Burgstaller enlisted and would serve 21 years in all in the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force.
Along with the rest of the baby-faced recruits on his troop train, he felt a sense of apprehension.
"But we shared a good feeling," he writes, "and were thankful that the home front was in such capable hands."
***
William Edward Burgstaller, who spent 25 years in the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, died in June at age 80 in Fresno while having lunch with his men's group.
His sister, Springfielder Ann Benston, recalls her brother being "the nicest of us all" and describes him as a painter, poet, teacher and writer, as well as a man who tended to withhold judgment on others.
He also was a man with a movie maker's eye.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368 or tstafford@coxohio.com.
Ellie
By Tom Stafford
Staff Writer
Monday, December 03, 2007
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Occasionally while reading a story, a movie reel begins to turn in my head.
Sentences unfold and visuals arrive.
The result is not seamless cinema.
But there's a tone to the visuals — a kind of film-like quality — that seems to string them together.
It's in this way I watched a movie in my mind the other day about Springfield in the time of Pearl Harbor.
The story is the late Bill Burgstaller's "On the Home Front," which takes up a mere three-and-a-half pages in freelance writer Janice Stevens' "Stories of Service: Valley Veterans Remember World War II."
The valley of the book title is California's Central Valley, where Burgstaller lived in his senior years.
But "On the Home Front" is set along the banks of Buck Creek in 1941.
And if it were a movie, it might open with Burgstaller leaving the old Catholic Central at the end of the school day and making his way to his bagger's job at the Clauer Brothers grocery on Lagonda Avenue.
.
In the job he not only bags and boxes cans, produce and staples at the store but delivers them to customers' home. And even before Dec. 7, 1941, the good, observant lad notices "the worry on the faces of mothers every day."
With war rumbling on other continents, "most of them didn't have any boys in the service yet," our grocery boy tells us, "but they were of the age to join or be drafted, when and if needed."
The need arose when Japanese bombs destroyed ships and kneaded the earth at Pearl Harbor during an attack whose concussions soon echoed around the nation.
Burgstaller pans over the stands at a boisterous Catholic Central football game to break the news.
After the announcement over the PA, "stillness blanketed the stadium like a fog," he writes. At game's end, "cheers of victory and the usual applause didn't materialize .... The stadium emptied quickly as the crowd rushed home to hear the news on their radios."
More news soon arrives about the deaths of two Springfielders: Billy Welch on the oversize coffin that was the USS Arizona and Dicky Ward, killed while holding a flashlight to show fellow sailors a way out of the Oklahoma.
And by the time word arrives about Ward receiving the Medal of Honor, Springfield — like the nation — is a headlong rush.
Factories are working three shifts, and as men stream off to the service, women step up to production lines.
"Grandmothers filled in as babysitters .... buses and streetcars were busy 24 hours a day .... restaurants were busy all night to accommodate the shift workers and members of the military who started arriving and departing at all hours of the night," he writes.
Ration booklets appear, just as everything else seems to disappear.
"Meat, fatty foods, fish, dairy products, cigarettes, coffee, fuel oil, gasoline, sugar and chocolate were some of the rationed items. Anything made of metal, nylon or rubber made the list."
Stars in the front windows of homes, however, are plentiful.
A blue star indicates a family member in the service. A silver one says someone missing or taken prisoner. A gold one signifies a death.
"Families had a difficult time, but I thought mothers suffered the most," our grocery boy tells us. "Maybe it was because I saw them more often in the grocery stores and talked to them when making deliveries."
Like everyone else, Burgstaller knows the sound associated with the delivery everyone fears: The ringing of the Western Union boy's bicycle bell, which too often brings news of yet another young man for whom the bell of mortality has tolled.
Our young man's grocery job eventually gives way to a defense job at the Robbins & Myers plant on Lagonda Avenue, where he first sweeps up metal shavings, then trucks items to and from the lathes, then becomes a stock chaser, who collects finished items for shipment.
Just as his grocery job took him all over town, his chaser job "spread my work over several departments where women performed every job," he says.
"They were welders, furnace tenders, assemblers, wirers, inspectors and dozens of various machine operators. They hunched over benches, loaded furnaces, operated machines and kept assembly lines moving."
And when the shift bell rang at 11:30, "they were always tired and eager to get home but worried about what news awaited them and the thought of hearing that dreaded bicycle bell during the night."
On March 7, 1944 — his 17th birthday — Burgstaller enlisted and would serve 21 years in all in the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force.
Along with the rest of the baby-faced recruits on his troop train, he felt a sense of apprehension.
"But we shared a good feeling," he writes, "and were thankful that the home front was in such capable hands."
***
William Edward Burgstaller, who spent 25 years in the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, died in June at age 80 in Fresno while having lunch with his men's group.
His sister, Springfielder Ann Benston, recalls her brother being "the nicest of us all" and describes him as a painter, poet, teacher and writer, as well as a man who tended to withhold judgment on others.
He also was a man with a movie maker's eye.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368 or tstafford@coxohio.com.
Ellie