thedrifter
05-17-09, 08:56 AM
Valley mobilizes at the outbreak of WAR!
Comments | Recommend
It was a time of sacrifice, patriotism and a will to win
May 16, 2009 - 10:38 PM
By STEVE SINCLAIR/Valley Morning Star
EDITOR'S NOTE: More than six decades have passed since World War II, but memories of the upheaval and transformation it brought home to the Valley are still strong in the people here who lived it.In a five-part series that starts today and resumes Friday for the Memorial Day weekend, the Star revisits lives changed forever by Pearl Harbor; how the Harlingen area geared up for war; how Cameron County contributed to the war effort; dealing with the combat death of a friend; and finally, the unbelievable news that after nearly four years of total war effort, peace had arrived.
To call Sam Fordyce a small Rio Grande Valley town may have been an overstatement. It was located near La Joya, and in late 1941 it wasn't much more than a collection of houses spawned by the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad.
But it did have a rodeo arena.
"My dad was putting on a rodeo there and I was riding in that rodeo," recalls Valley rancher Frank Yturria. "They interrupted the rodeo to announce that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor."
It was Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, a day that shook the nation.
"I went back to school on Monday morning and the entire class went into the auditorium. It was explained to us that we were at war."
Such news had a profound impact on the Valley. But the Valley would have an equally profound effect on America's war effort.
Valley crops fed U.S. troops and allies and the home front. A Brownsville factory churned out military uniforms. Young Valley men fought and shed blood on distant battlefields.
From Harlingen alone, 94 men were killed in World War II.
Two Valley men, Marine Sgt. William J. Harrell of Mercedes and Army Sgt. Jose M. Lopez of Mission, were awarded America's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. Harrell earned his medal during the battle of Iwo Jima and Lopez at the Battle of the Bulge. Both survived the war.
The city's first casualty was John Spaeth, a sailor who served on the USS Shaw, a Navy destroyer dry-docked at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7.
According to the Navy Historical Center, the Shaw was hit by several bombs and its forward magazines exploded, severing the bow and wrecking her bridge area. Spaeth was killed during the attack.
The ship, however, was repaired and returned to action.
Even though Pearl Harbor was thousands of miles away, there was even concern the Valley itself could be attacked.
The Valley Morning Star reported in its Dec. 11, 1941 edition that "a complete check of cities from Weslaco east to the Gulf of Mexico at midnight Tuesday revealed that the Valley had responded "better than expected" to the U.S. Army's first call for a blackout.
"The precautionary measure, described by Maj. Grover C. Goodrich, commanding officer of Fort Brown, as a ‘test blackout' ordered by the Eighth Corps Area Headquarters in San Antonio, was reported to have been under check by planes flying from other points in the Valley."
Lights in Harlingen were "practically completely" blacked out shortly after the warning was relayed to the chief of police and fire departments by the Valley Morning Star.
The fire siren was sounded and police went into action in an attempt to black out every light.
Sounding of sirens in the various Valley cities brought a flood of telephone calls to police and fire stations and the offices of the Valley Morning Star.
Radio stations broadcast blackout orders every few minutes starting at 10:45 p.m.
Thus, with the declared war only two days old, the first real touch of war reached the Valley.
The war also produced a patriotic fervor as Valley men and women joined the military - sometimes in groups, including all nine seniors on one high school football team.
Weslaco's Glen Cleckler was on a school trip when he learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
"The Weslaco football team had a yearly trip after the season was over and we had gone to Austin to see the University of Texas play Oregon in a football game," said Cleckler, who later became the first principal at Harlingen South High School.
"We came back to our motel in San Marcos and got the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor," he said. "I was a junior in high school. One year and two months later, we joined the Marines."
Cleckler then opened a manila folder that contained a black-and-white photo.
"These guys here were seniors on the Weslaco football team," Cleckler said. "These football players, along with a few other seniors from Donna, joined together and took their oaths in San Antonio."
Cleckler was among the group.
The nine Valley teenagers took the train to California for their Marine Corps basic training.
"It was the first time most of them had ever ridden in a train," Cleckler said. "After boot camp, we all went our separate ways."
Cleckler fought in the Pacific Theater and eventually on Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest battles in the war.
World War II wasn't just about fighting on distant battlefields, however.
In 1942, German U-boats roamed the Gulf of Mexico, including the South Texas coastline.
"We had heard reports about U-boats and even a rumor that they had landed saboteurs," Yturria recalls. "But of course, the rumors turned out to be not true."
The U-boat scare was very real, however. According to "Torpedoes In The Gulf" by Melanie Wiggins, 56 ships were sunk by German U-boats and 14 more were damaged in the Gulf of Mexico.
"By 1943, nine patrol stations were established on Padre Island," according to the National Park Service.
"There is no indication that spies or saboteurs ever landed on the island, but there was plenty of evidence of U-boat activity against shipping in the debris that was washed up on the shore," the park service reported.
U-boats abandoned the Gulf of Mexico in 1943.
The early days of World War II took an unseen toll on Cameron County.
According to the Jan. 6, 1943, edition of The Brownsville Herald, the Cameron County divorce rate shot up 32 percent after 342 couples divorced in 1942. The numbers are evidence of an interesting phenomenon, but there was nothing in the report to explain why it happened.
"The Valley at war is turning into another Reno," The Herald reported.
Perhaps the Valley's major contribution to the war effort, outside of people, was agriculture.
The South Texas Canning Association reported that 50 percent of the fruit and vegetables grown in the Valley were sent overseas to allies.
"Our part of winning the war is to make sure our local crops are picked and harvested," according to the canning association.
During the war, the Valley had more than 20 canneries.
The Valley's agricultural contribution to the war effort wasn't just citrus and vegetables.
In 1943, area farmers were asked to switch from American to Egyptian cotton and 35,000 Valley acres began growing the long staple cotton, which was used for "military requirements," according to The Herald.
In Hidalgo and Willacy counties, farmers were asked to grow sweet potatoes, and 1,000 acres were switched over to that crop.
To further aid the war effort, 20,000 acres in the Valley were planted with castor beans for medicine after the military reported at one point that only a month's supply remained.
Fausto Yturria, Frank Yturria's father, contracted with the Army to raise mules, which were used as pack animals in inhospitable terrain.
As the Valley's young men and women enlisted in the military, a shortage of farm workers resulted, so much so that drastic measures were proposed.
"Axis war prisoners may be used next summer to help produce the food that allied fighting men will need to crush the enemy," noted J.A. Walker, chief of Labor Branch for the Food Production Administration, in early 1943.
"The Valley is one of the nation's leading food producing areas and has faced an already acute shortage due to the fact that thousands of able-bodied men have been called into the armed forces and thousands of others have obtained war jobs, taking them away from farms," said The Herald in a front page story on Feb. 5, 1943.
"The government has requested Valley farmers to multiply their crops and produce far more than ever before of both fruit and vegetables," according to The Herald.
There is no evidence that POWs were ever used to work Valley fields during the war, though Texas had numerous internment centers.
Walker later said the federal government hoped to import 60,000 workers from Mexico and other Latin American countries to harvest crops.
The Valley also raised cattle, but beef was rationed throughout the country. Fausto Yturria found a way around that.
"Dad had a herd of buffalo, and buffalo were not rationed," said Yturria, now 86. "He had one buffalo slaughtered every month in Raymondville and announced ‘buffalo meat - no quota' - and everyone came for it."
Frank Yturria served in the Army Specialized Training Unit during World War II.
The Valley contributed to the war effort in other little-known ways that only now are coming to light.
One was work for the development of the jet engine that took place in Brownsville. It was one of the military's most important secrets.
And the Valley was a finalist in undoubtedly the most important secret project of the war - building the atomic bomb.
"As work proceeded on the development of the bomb, the military considered eight possible locations," wrote Mike Cox in TexasEscapes.com.
"Four sites were in New Mexico, in the same state as the project headquarters in Los Alamos. California had two of the sites and one was in Colorado. Finally, one site lay in Texas: Padre Island," wrote Cox.
In one sense, Padre Island made sense. It was already being used as a bombing range by the Navy and development on the island was years away. At the start of the war, Padre Island was made off-limits to civilians.
But New Mexico won out, and the atomic bomb was eventually tested in that state's desert near Alamogordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945. On Aug. 6, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, with another landing on Nagasaki three days later. On Sept. 2, Japan
surrendered.
Ellie
Comments | Recommend
It was a time of sacrifice, patriotism and a will to win
May 16, 2009 - 10:38 PM
By STEVE SINCLAIR/Valley Morning Star
EDITOR'S NOTE: More than six decades have passed since World War II, but memories of the upheaval and transformation it brought home to the Valley are still strong in the people here who lived it.In a five-part series that starts today and resumes Friday for the Memorial Day weekend, the Star revisits lives changed forever by Pearl Harbor; how the Harlingen area geared up for war; how Cameron County contributed to the war effort; dealing with the combat death of a friend; and finally, the unbelievable news that after nearly four years of total war effort, peace had arrived.
To call Sam Fordyce a small Rio Grande Valley town may have been an overstatement. It was located near La Joya, and in late 1941 it wasn't much more than a collection of houses spawned by the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad.
But it did have a rodeo arena.
"My dad was putting on a rodeo there and I was riding in that rodeo," recalls Valley rancher Frank Yturria. "They interrupted the rodeo to announce that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor."
It was Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, a day that shook the nation.
"I went back to school on Monday morning and the entire class went into the auditorium. It was explained to us that we were at war."
Such news had a profound impact on the Valley. But the Valley would have an equally profound effect on America's war effort.
Valley crops fed U.S. troops and allies and the home front. A Brownsville factory churned out military uniforms. Young Valley men fought and shed blood on distant battlefields.
From Harlingen alone, 94 men were killed in World War II.
Two Valley men, Marine Sgt. William J. Harrell of Mercedes and Army Sgt. Jose M. Lopez of Mission, were awarded America's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. Harrell earned his medal during the battle of Iwo Jima and Lopez at the Battle of the Bulge. Both survived the war.
The city's first casualty was John Spaeth, a sailor who served on the USS Shaw, a Navy destroyer dry-docked at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7.
According to the Navy Historical Center, the Shaw was hit by several bombs and its forward magazines exploded, severing the bow and wrecking her bridge area. Spaeth was killed during the attack.
The ship, however, was repaired and returned to action.
Even though Pearl Harbor was thousands of miles away, there was even concern the Valley itself could be attacked.
The Valley Morning Star reported in its Dec. 11, 1941 edition that "a complete check of cities from Weslaco east to the Gulf of Mexico at midnight Tuesday revealed that the Valley had responded "better than expected" to the U.S. Army's first call for a blackout.
"The precautionary measure, described by Maj. Grover C. Goodrich, commanding officer of Fort Brown, as a ‘test blackout' ordered by the Eighth Corps Area Headquarters in San Antonio, was reported to have been under check by planes flying from other points in the Valley."
Lights in Harlingen were "practically completely" blacked out shortly after the warning was relayed to the chief of police and fire departments by the Valley Morning Star.
The fire siren was sounded and police went into action in an attempt to black out every light.
Sounding of sirens in the various Valley cities brought a flood of telephone calls to police and fire stations and the offices of the Valley Morning Star.
Radio stations broadcast blackout orders every few minutes starting at 10:45 p.m.
Thus, with the declared war only two days old, the first real touch of war reached the Valley.
The war also produced a patriotic fervor as Valley men and women joined the military - sometimes in groups, including all nine seniors on one high school football team.
Weslaco's Glen Cleckler was on a school trip when he learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
"The Weslaco football team had a yearly trip after the season was over and we had gone to Austin to see the University of Texas play Oregon in a football game," said Cleckler, who later became the first principal at Harlingen South High School.
"We came back to our motel in San Marcos and got the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor," he said. "I was a junior in high school. One year and two months later, we joined the Marines."
Cleckler then opened a manila folder that contained a black-and-white photo.
"These guys here were seniors on the Weslaco football team," Cleckler said. "These football players, along with a few other seniors from Donna, joined together and took their oaths in San Antonio."
Cleckler was among the group.
The nine Valley teenagers took the train to California for their Marine Corps basic training.
"It was the first time most of them had ever ridden in a train," Cleckler said. "After boot camp, we all went our separate ways."
Cleckler fought in the Pacific Theater and eventually on Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest battles in the war.
World War II wasn't just about fighting on distant battlefields, however.
In 1942, German U-boats roamed the Gulf of Mexico, including the South Texas coastline.
"We had heard reports about U-boats and even a rumor that they had landed saboteurs," Yturria recalls. "But of course, the rumors turned out to be not true."
The U-boat scare was very real, however. According to "Torpedoes In The Gulf" by Melanie Wiggins, 56 ships were sunk by German U-boats and 14 more were damaged in the Gulf of Mexico.
"By 1943, nine patrol stations were established on Padre Island," according to the National Park Service.
"There is no indication that spies or saboteurs ever landed on the island, but there was plenty of evidence of U-boat activity against shipping in the debris that was washed up on the shore," the park service reported.
U-boats abandoned the Gulf of Mexico in 1943.
The early days of World War II took an unseen toll on Cameron County.
According to the Jan. 6, 1943, edition of The Brownsville Herald, the Cameron County divorce rate shot up 32 percent after 342 couples divorced in 1942. The numbers are evidence of an interesting phenomenon, but there was nothing in the report to explain why it happened.
"The Valley at war is turning into another Reno," The Herald reported.
Perhaps the Valley's major contribution to the war effort, outside of people, was agriculture.
The South Texas Canning Association reported that 50 percent of the fruit and vegetables grown in the Valley were sent overseas to allies.
"Our part of winning the war is to make sure our local crops are picked and harvested," according to the canning association.
During the war, the Valley had more than 20 canneries.
The Valley's agricultural contribution to the war effort wasn't just citrus and vegetables.
In 1943, area farmers were asked to switch from American to Egyptian cotton and 35,000 Valley acres began growing the long staple cotton, which was used for "military requirements," according to The Herald.
In Hidalgo and Willacy counties, farmers were asked to grow sweet potatoes, and 1,000 acres were switched over to that crop.
To further aid the war effort, 20,000 acres in the Valley were planted with castor beans for medicine after the military reported at one point that only a month's supply remained.
Fausto Yturria, Frank Yturria's father, contracted with the Army to raise mules, which were used as pack animals in inhospitable terrain.
As the Valley's young men and women enlisted in the military, a shortage of farm workers resulted, so much so that drastic measures were proposed.
"Axis war prisoners may be used next summer to help produce the food that allied fighting men will need to crush the enemy," noted J.A. Walker, chief of Labor Branch for the Food Production Administration, in early 1943.
"The Valley is one of the nation's leading food producing areas and has faced an already acute shortage due to the fact that thousands of able-bodied men have been called into the armed forces and thousands of others have obtained war jobs, taking them away from farms," said The Herald in a front page story on Feb. 5, 1943.
"The government has requested Valley farmers to multiply their crops and produce far more than ever before of both fruit and vegetables," according to The Herald.
There is no evidence that POWs were ever used to work Valley fields during the war, though Texas had numerous internment centers.
Walker later said the federal government hoped to import 60,000 workers from Mexico and other Latin American countries to harvest crops.
The Valley also raised cattle, but beef was rationed throughout the country. Fausto Yturria found a way around that.
"Dad had a herd of buffalo, and buffalo were not rationed," said Yturria, now 86. "He had one buffalo slaughtered every month in Raymondville and announced ‘buffalo meat - no quota' - and everyone came for it."
Frank Yturria served in the Army Specialized Training Unit during World War II.
The Valley contributed to the war effort in other little-known ways that only now are coming to light.
One was work for the development of the jet engine that took place in Brownsville. It was one of the military's most important secrets.
And the Valley was a finalist in undoubtedly the most important secret project of the war - building the atomic bomb.
"As work proceeded on the development of the bomb, the military considered eight possible locations," wrote Mike Cox in TexasEscapes.com.
"Four sites were in New Mexico, in the same state as the project headquarters in Los Alamos. California had two of the sites and one was in Colorado. Finally, one site lay in Texas: Padre Island," wrote Cox.
In one sense, Padre Island made sense. It was already being used as a bombing range by the Navy and development on the island was years away. At the start of the war, Padre Island was made off-limits to civilians.
But New Mexico won out, and the atomic bomb was eventually tested in that state's desert near Alamogordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945. On Aug. 6, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, with another landing on Nagasaki three days later. On Sept. 2, Japan
surrendered.
Ellie