thedrifter
07-03-08, 06:49 AM
War & Remembrance: USO's restoration stirs up World War II-era memories
By Wilbur D. Jones Jr.
Star-News Correspondent
Published: Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 5:53 a.m.
My 66-year life with the Second and Orange USO began at age 7 when my father, active in the war effort, served on its dedication committee in April 1942.
The war dominated my childhood and indelibly shaped my personal and professional life as a naval officer and historian. As a boy, I played war games with friends in our Forest Hills neighborhood, and we followed every inch of the news. We boys believed our troops overseas won the war because of us.
To see, touch and talk to real soldiers and Marines, we visited them at the county’s USOs, including Second and Orange. Sometimes, we’d get uniform pieces and insignia.
Social life flourished in Wilmington, even if there was a war on. Cookouts were popular if a soldier brought steaks from the mess. Beaches and Greenfield Lake Park nudged out downtown’s nefarious establishments as spots to find casual or long-term acquaintances. Dancing was a convenient diversion from rationing shortages. It seemed as though everyone fell in love, if only for a moment.
Some relationships would last lifetimes.
Love, at the kitchen sink
My traditional, religious parents monitored the people with whom my sister Elizabeth – 21 in 1943 – and I associated.
By mid-1943, the USO encouraged families to “take in” soldiers and Marines for Saturday nights to aid the war effort. We’d provide supper, bed, breakfast and a visit to church and neighbors before they returned to base. My parents responded, but with no-nonsense conditions: Send us only those who did not drink, smoke or curse. Officials respected this and screened prospects.
That August, four Army officer candidates from Camp Davis arrived at our home on Colonial Drive. I watched them gulp lemonade, wolf down their food, devour an entire chocolate cake – itself rare under rationing – and leave after supper. One, George Garniss, joined us the next day at Church of the Covenant Presbyterian and stayed for supper again.
Afterward he donned an apron and washed dishes, to Elizabeth’s delight. For both, it was love at first sight. After his return from India in 1946, they married here. Both died in early 2006, after almost 60 years together.
Hostesses and Victory Belles
Such romances were commonplace and one bore directly on the USO. The parents of Wilmington architect John Sawyer, who designed the renovated USO, are Camp Davis soldier Bob Sawyer from Wisconsin and pianist and singer Ray Bennett, who was fresh out of New Hanover High when they met at the USO in 1943. They married after his European service.
On another night Davis soldier Percy Hedquist, from North Dakota, visited the building with his lieutenant. The only motor pool vehicle available was a 2½-ton truck. Later that night, Percy drove Josie Henry home. She rode up front while the lieutenant sat in the back. Percy later married Josie.
Glenn Willard ran the USO’s women’s activities, hostesses and Victory Belles, the teenage dance hostesses. Sailor Miles Higgins arrived on a minesweeper and phoned his mother. “I didn’t know any better. He looked innocent,” Glenn recalled. That night Miles walked her home and said he would marry her after the war. They wed in May 1945.
Frances Coughenour served as a hostess. Pennsylvanian Chuck Dinsmore tried to pronounce her name tag. Immediately they began going out, and five days before he shipped out to the Philippines, they married.
Hannah Block, who entertained the troops and recruited hostesses, assembled a stable of “60 different girls” from all over the region for dances here and at Camps Davis and Lejeune. “A lot of them married the boys and I would have to replenish over the years,” Hannah said. “The USO pushed me into it. The girls came in and wanted to join up.”
Guided by Hannah’s handbook
Daddy took me to the Second and Orange USO occasionally to watch soldiers and girls dance to swing music in the confined space ventilated by open windows, while uniforms and skirts lounged amid a steady roar of idle chatter, trumpet solos and heavy tobacco smoke.
The hostesses, a mixed socio-economic group of mostly high school girls or young country club-set ladies, wore dresses and saddle oxfords. Before she met George, Elizabeth, a college graduate working at the shipyard, dolled up with the others.
The USO was no pick-up joint. Etiquette and rules governed troops and volunteers and formed the basis for Hannah’s handbook. “Life wasn’t all strained,” Hannah recalled. “We deliberately tried to make it light because those boys would work like dogs to become soldiers. It couldn’t be all work and no play.”
Soldiers hung on the USO snack bar checking college football scores while downing scads of Pepsi and doughnuts, as others placed telephone calls home and closed the booth door for a minute of feigned privacy. Some sought solitude in a wing studio to write letters, cut recordings for parents or play board games.
Outside on the street Marines congregated on the curb, shot the breeze and whistled at passing girls. Military police chastened privates to look sharp and act smart, and broke up corner disagreements between rowdy sailors and paratroopers fighting with broken beer bottles. Some of the war’s biggest battles were fought not only in The Bulge and Iwo Jima, but on Front Street nearby.
‘Its usefulness will not end’
Those servicemen continued to come and go at the USO, past V-J Day and the war’s end in August 1945. As men began returning, volunteers learned how to entertain combat veterans. This required fewer women, but clubs still recruited replacements. “Sooner or later, the USO will go out of business,” warned a September 1944 Star-News editorial. “What to be done with the buildings and equipment … presents a problem. … The main USO at 2nd & Orange is city property. Its usefulness will not end with the war.” So right.
By war’s end, the military had nearly evaporated and social contacts subsided. The USO at Second and Orange closed in June 1946, and a month later the city also acquired the Ninth and Nixon Negro USO property.
Ever since I returned to my hometown of Wilmington to live in 1997, this USO has been at the heart of my passion and work to preserve the rich World War II legacy of Wilmington and Southeastern North Carolina. When hearing the building would be destroyed, I linked with other preservationists in saying, “No way.” Its history had to be saved.
Now, in a remarkable public-private partnership and teamwork involving the city of Wilmington, Thalian Association, Community Arts Center Accord and World War II Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition, and the Coalition’s previous preservation successes, our town through its mighty contributions to the war effort has earned the privilege to be proclaimed “America’s World War II City.”
Do I sound emotional? I am. I’m downright proud of our accomplishments. Although the restoration remains a work-in-progress, it seems hard to realize this weekend ends our intense 11-year effort. My fervent dream has come true.
This grand old WWII building, one of a handful in the country still standing, glows with the beige of its original exterior paint. The lobby is restored as a museum: the polished hardwood floor; original walls, colors, and radiators; reproduction furniture and area carpets; display cases with Army and Marine uniforms; Hannah Block’s piano; USO artifacts; and photomurals of home-front life.
The building is a trophy to historic preservation and a national treasure to be enjoyed.
Wilmington native and nationally known, award-winning historian Wilbur Jones chairs the WWII Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition. His two books on WWII in Wilmington and Southeastern North Carolina are A Sentimental Journey, and The Journey Continues.
Newsroom: 343-2004
The history of one USO
During World War II, the USO at Second and Orange streets emerged as a principal off-duty destination for nearly 1 million servicemen and women stationed or training in Southeastern North Carolina.
Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and one of a handful USO structures still standing nationally, the building is an arts resource and a hub of the region’s legacy supporting Wilmington’s designation as “America’s World War II City.” The lobby is restored to its wartime appearance and is a home-front museum.
The federal government constructed the building in 1941 for $80,000 to serve only whites. It built another for black servicemen at Ninth and Nixon streets. That USO no longer exists and is the site of the Community Boys and Girls Club. Both opened in early December to serve soldiers and Marines from Camp Davis, Camp Lejeune, Fort Bragg, Fort Fisher and Bluethenthal Field Air Base, as well as nearby Navy and Coast Guard personnel.
The national United Service Organizations operated 13 New Hanover County clubs and a 14th at Southport. The YWCA, YMCA, National Jewish Welfare Board, and National Travelers Aid Association operated the main club.
Civilians staffed the club daily around the clock. Within strict USO rules, hundreds of local women and teenage girls volunteered as hostesses and dance partners, to help the snack bars and in other ways.
USOs were for more than merry-making and socializing. Besides big-band swing dances, events included photography and drama classes, art exhibits, ping-pong and fishing contests, community sings, quiz programs, and wedding receptions.
After the war the city of Wilmington acquired the building for recreational use and renamed it the Community Center. On April 9, 1948, it hosted the opening ceremony of the first annual Azalea Festival.
By the 1960s, the focus shifted to visual and performing arts, and in 1973 it was renamed the Community Arts Center.
In 1997 the auditorium stage was named for Hannah Block, and in 2006 the building itself. Today, it remains a mecca for arts and a place for youth groups, as well as a wartime home-front museum and public meeting place.
– Wilbur D. Jones Jr.
To view video
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080703/article/806924102&tc=yahoo
Ellie
By Wilbur D. Jones Jr.
Star-News Correspondent
Published: Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 5:53 a.m.
My 66-year life with the Second and Orange USO began at age 7 when my father, active in the war effort, served on its dedication committee in April 1942.
The war dominated my childhood and indelibly shaped my personal and professional life as a naval officer and historian. As a boy, I played war games with friends in our Forest Hills neighborhood, and we followed every inch of the news. We boys believed our troops overseas won the war because of us.
To see, touch and talk to real soldiers and Marines, we visited them at the county’s USOs, including Second and Orange. Sometimes, we’d get uniform pieces and insignia.
Social life flourished in Wilmington, even if there was a war on. Cookouts were popular if a soldier brought steaks from the mess. Beaches and Greenfield Lake Park nudged out downtown’s nefarious establishments as spots to find casual or long-term acquaintances. Dancing was a convenient diversion from rationing shortages. It seemed as though everyone fell in love, if only for a moment.
Some relationships would last lifetimes.
Love, at the kitchen sink
My traditional, religious parents monitored the people with whom my sister Elizabeth – 21 in 1943 – and I associated.
By mid-1943, the USO encouraged families to “take in” soldiers and Marines for Saturday nights to aid the war effort. We’d provide supper, bed, breakfast and a visit to church and neighbors before they returned to base. My parents responded, but with no-nonsense conditions: Send us only those who did not drink, smoke or curse. Officials respected this and screened prospects.
That August, four Army officer candidates from Camp Davis arrived at our home on Colonial Drive. I watched them gulp lemonade, wolf down their food, devour an entire chocolate cake – itself rare under rationing – and leave after supper. One, George Garniss, joined us the next day at Church of the Covenant Presbyterian and stayed for supper again.
Afterward he donned an apron and washed dishes, to Elizabeth’s delight. For both, it was love at first sight. After his return from India in 1946, they married here. Both died in early 2006, after almost 60 years together.
Hostesses and Victory Belles
Such romances were commonplace and one bore directly on the USO. The parents of Wilmington architect John Sawyer, who designed the renovated USO, are Camp Davis soldier Bob Sawyer from Wisconsin and pianist and singer Ray Bennett, who was fresh out of New Hanover High when they met at the USO in 1943. They married after his European service.
On another night Davis soldier Percy Hedquist, from North Dakota, visited the building with his lieutenant. The only motor pool vehicle available was a 2½-ton truck. Later that night, Percy drove Josie Henry home. She rode up front while the lieutenant sat in the back. Percy later married Josie.
Glenn Willard ran the USO’s women’s activities, hostesses and Victory Belles, the teenage dance hostesses. Sailor Miles Higgins arrived on a minesweeper and phoned his mother. “I didn’t know any better. He looked innocent,” Glenn recalled. That night Miles walked her home and said he would marry her after the war. They wed in May 1945.
Frances Coughenour served as a hostess. Pennsylvanian Chuck Dinsmore tried to pronounce her name tag. Immediately they began going out, and five days before he shipped out to the Philippines, they married.
Hannah Block, who entertained the troops and recruited hostesses, assembled a stable of “60 different girls” from all over the region for dances here and at Camps Davis and Lejeune. “A lot of them married the boys and I would have to replenish over the years,” Hannah said. “The USO pushed me into it. The girls came in and wanted to join up.”
Guided by Hannah’s handbook
Daddy took me to the Second and Orange USO occasionally to watch soldiers and girls dance to swing music in the confined space ventilated by open windows, while uniforms and skirts lounged amid a steady roar of idle chatter, trumpet solos and heavy tobacco smoke.
The hostesses, a mixed socio-economic group of mostly high school girls or young country club-set ladies, wore dresses and saddle oxfords. Before she met George, Elizabeth, a college graduate working at the shipyard, dolled up with the others.
The USO was no pick-up joint. Etiquette and rules governed troops and volunteers and formed the basis for Hannah’s handbook. “Life wasn’t all strained,” Hannah recalled. “We deliberately tried to make it light because those boys would work like dogs to become soldiers. It couldn’t be all work and no play.”
Soldiers hung on the USO snack bar checking college football scores while downing scads of Pepsi and doughnuts, as others placed telephone calls home and closed the booth door for a minute of feigned privacy. Some sought solitude in a wing studio to write letters, cut recordings for parents or play board games.
Outside on the street Marines congregated on the curb, shot the breeze and whistled at passing girls. Military police chastened privates to look sharp and act smart, and broke up corner disagreements between rowdy sailors and paratroopers fighting with broken beer bottles. Some of the war’s biggest battles were fought not only in The Bulge and Iwo Jima, but on Front Street nearby.
‘Its usefulness will not end’
Those servicemen continued to come and go at the USO, past V-J Day and the war’s end in August 1945. As men began returning, volunteers learned how to entertain combat veterans. This required fewer women, but clubs still recruited replacements. “Sooner or later, the USO will go out of business,” warned a September 1944 Star-News editorial. “What to be done with the buildings and equipment … presents a problem. … The main USO at 2nd & Orange is city property. Its usefulness will not end with the war.” So right.
By war’s end, the military had nearly evaporated and social contacts subsided. The USO at Second and Orange closed in June 1946, and a month later the city also acquired the Ninth and Nixon Negro USO property.
Ever since I returned to my hometown of Wilmington to live in 1997, this USO has been at the heart of my passion and work to preserve the rich World War II legacy of Wilmington and Southeastern North Carolina. When hearing the building would be destroyed, I linked with other preservationists in saying, “No way.” Its history had to be saved.
Now, in a remarkable public-private partnership and teamwork involving the city of Wilmington, Thalian Association, Community Arts Center Accord and World War II Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition, and the Coalition’s previous preservation successes, our town through its mighty contributions to the war effort has earned the privilege to be proclaimed “America’s World War II City.”
Do I sound emotional? I am. I’m downright proud of our accomplishments. Although the restoration remains a work-in-progress, it seems hard to realize this weekend ends our intense 11-year effort. My fervent dream has come true.
This grand old WWII building, one of a handful in the country still standing, glows with the beige of its original exterior paint. The lobby is restored as a museum: the polished hardwood floor; original walls, colors, and radiators; reproduction furniture and area carpets; display cases with Army and Marine uniforms; Hannah Block’s piano; USO artifacts; and photomurals of home-front life.
The building is a trophy to historic preservation and a national treasure to be enjoyed.
Wilmington native and nationally known, award-winning historian Wilbur Jones chairs the WWII Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition. His two books on WWII in Wilmington and Southeastern North Carolina are A Sentimental Journey, and The Journey Continues.
Newsroom: 343-2004
The history of one USO
During World War II, the USO at Second and Orange streets emerged as a principal off-duty destination for nearly 1 million servicemen and women stationed or training in Southeastern North Carolina.
Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and one of a handful USO structures still standing nationally, the building is an arts resource and a hub of the region’s legacy supporting Wilmington’s designation as “America’s World War II City.” The lobby is restored to its wartime appearance and is a home-front museum.
The federal government constructed the building in 1941 for $80,000 to serve only whites. It built another for black servicemen at Ninth and Nixon streets. That USO no longer exists and is the site of the Community Boys and Girls Club. Both opened in early December to serve soldiers and Marines from Camp Davis, Camp Lejeune, Fort Bragg, Fort Fisher and Bluethenthal Field Air Base, as well as nearby Navy and Coast Guard personnel.
The national United Service Organizations operated 13 New Hanover County clubs and a 14th at Southport. The YWCA, YMCA, National Jewish Welfare Board, and National Travelers Aid Association operated the main club.
Civilians staffed the club daily around the clock. Within strict USO rules, hundreds of local women and teenage girls volunteered as hostesses and dance partners, to help the snack bars and in other ways.
USOs were for more than merry-making and socializing. Besides big-band swing dances, events included photography and drama classes, art exhibits, ping-pong and fishing contests, community sings, quiz programs, and wedding receptions.
After the war the city of Wilmington acquired the building for recreational use and renamed it the Community Center. On April 9, 1948, it hosted the opening ceremony of the first annual Azalea Festival.
By the 1960s, the focus shifted to visual and performing arts, and in 1973 it was renamed the Community Arts Center.
In 1997 the auditorium stage was named for Hannah Block, and in 2006 the building itself. Today, it remains a mecca for arts and a place for youth groups, as well as a wartime home-front museum and public meeting place.
– Wilbur D. Jones Jr.
To view video
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080703/article/806924102&tc=yahoo
Ellie