HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe War(?) Comes to Bryan
THE WAR (?) COMES TO BRYAN
Written by
William T Harper
4752 Tiffany Park Circle
Bryan, TX 77802
979/575-1452 979/774-1675 (FAX)
Harpersferry _ 2000@yahoo.com
Based on interviews in 1995with
Raymond L. Stetz
1306 Garden Lane
Bryan, TX 77802
(409/822-3866)
INTRODUCTION
"Yesterday, December seventh, nineteen-hundred and forty-one, a day that will live in infamy...."
With those words, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched the speech that culminated in the United
States' declaration of war against Japan, following the sneak attack on the U. S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in the
Hawaiian Islands. Nineteen of our Navy's ships were sunk or damaged and 2,300 servicemen were killed. Two
days later, both Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.
America was thus plunged into the most tremendous global war in the history of mankind. Three years,
eight months and seven days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, that War ended following the dropping of atomic
bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945.
According to the noted historian Stephen E. Ambrose, "For millions of people, World War II was the
greatest catastrophe in history. But for most Americans, the war was a boon. They were spared the physical
destruction that obliterated great cities in Europe and Asia, and fewer than 300,000 American soldiers, sailors, and
airmen were killed in battle out of a total of some 16 million people that served in the armed forces...."
F or those Americans who did not see wartime combat and for those who did not suffer the loss of nor
injury to a loved one, World War II was, perhaps, a "boon". Sometimes for the rest of us it was, at worst, an
inconvenience. We faced shortages and rationing. We were issued blue stamp ration books for sugar, coffee and
almost all other foods. And we had red stamps for meat (two pounds per week, if it was available), fish, butter and
other dairy products.
We suffered (?) mostly from gasoline and automobile tire rationing. We could get only two tires a year - if
they were available and whether we needed them or not. With the widely issued but totally unpopular "A" sticker
on our car's windshield, we could get no more than five gallons of gasoline a week - unless we were a defense
plant worker with a "B" sticker because we needed to drive to the factory, or we were a doctor and had an enviable
"c" sticker that got you all the gas you needed.
Often times, we traded our stamps among ourselves, swapping some red meat stamps for a "C" sticker's
extra gasoline. We collected scrap metal by the tons, along with used newspapers and magazines. We saved and
recycled rubber products, cooking grease and fat (for munitions), tin cans - with the ends cut out and flattened-
and tinfoil, sometimes in baseball-sized orbs and bigger.
We learned to live with "V" mail and by war's end, almost 17 million women were in the work force and
we all knew "Rosie the Riveter." We learned to sing along with "God Bless America," "Don't Sit Under the
Apple Tree," and "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." Over and over, we read and recited the wartime
slogans - "Remember Pearl Harbor," "Keep 'em Flying" and "Loose Lips Sink Ships." And always, before going
anywhere, we were asked to ask ourselves "Is This Trip Necessary?"
There were ear-piercing sirens announcing air raid drills with warnings from white-helmeted air raid
wardens to cover up windows leaking light into our blacked-out communities. We bought $.10 war bond stamps,
filled our little stamp books - always adding at least one $.25 stamp - and traded the $18.75 books in for $25 war
bonds. And, we learned - grudgingly - how to live with our first Pay-As- You-Go income tax deductions.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House and John Nance Garner was back home in Uvalde,
Texas, having been denied the chance to serve a third term as Vice President with a man many called "King Frank
the First". The roads were narrower then and what is now a 90-minute drive from Bryan to Waco took twice as
long - if you had the tires and you could get the gasoline.
We all tasted a new "alphabet soup" of wartime governmental agencies as we tried to digest the OP A, the
WPB, and the SSA. We were well past the stage coach era but not yet into the age of commercial air travel.
People still came out of their houses to marvel at a DC-3 flying overhead but they would soon become blase about
an armada of B-17 "Flying Fortresses" roaring overhead and off to battle.
People still had their milk and other dairy products delivered to their front step and placed in a metal box
on the porch. And they ordered blocks of ice for their Crosley ice-boxes by placing a rectangular foot-square card
in their front window to tell the burly ice man if they wanted a $.10 or $.20 piece of ice left off that day.
It was a time when boys wore bib-overalls to school and knickerbockers to church. Girls wore crinoline
and pigtails. Boys used dope - but only to make model airplanes. And only the girls wore earrings - none of them
pierced. It was a time when the front porch and the kitchen table were the social centers of family life. It was pre-
TV and family members actually even talked to each other.
It was a time when gasoline cost about $.10 a gallon and movie matinees cost a penny more, for which you
saw a double-feature, previews of coming attractions, a couple of cartoons, and the Movietone News with the
stentorian Lowell Thomas narrating.
That's the way it was all across America on the homefront for those three years, eight months and seven
days. They were, as Doris Kearns Goodwin titled her recent book on that era, "No Ordinary Times". But, those
times did not differ much from the norm for the people on the homefront in Bryan, Texas. If anything, due to
those peoples' resiliency, self-sufficiency and the wartime "boon" noted by Mr. Ambrose, the times probably were
even better. At least that's the opinion one gets after listening to the stories of life-long Bryan citizen Raymond
Stetz, who grew into his teens during those years before going off himself to military service.
As a gentleman by the name of Sherman, William Tecumseh, General, USA, once observed, "War is hell."
Obviously, General Sherman did not serve in Bryan, Texas, during World War II. About the most hellish suffering
from that War as it was "fought" in Bryan, according to lifetime resident Raymond Louis Stetz, was that "we were
in short supply of coffee and sugar."
Stetz, born on February 21, 1927 with, as was common in these parts, the help of a black midwife named
Grace Williams, was 14 going on 15 years of age when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941 - that
"day which shall live in infamy." An eighth-grader at St. Joseph's School, located then as its replacement still is
now at Preston St. and William Joel Bryan Ave., about six miles away from his family's farm, Stetz recalled that
as a happy-go-lucky teenager "it didn't hit me at the time. It wasn't too big of a deal. It wasn't a very serious
thing to me and I didn't think too much of it then."
He would later. But at that time and on that Sunday, he was doing pretty much what he always did with his
free time. He was roaming the thick woods surrounding the family's 200-plus acre cotton and com farm on
Leonard Rd. near Thompson Creek (which, by the way, he still works). He was sling-shot hunting for possum,
raccoons or rabbits. With a wink, he confessed to being "not a very good" student at St. Joseph's School
Stetz and his younger brother, Alvin, returned home that Sunday afternoon to hear from a cousin who came
by to relay the startling news of the outbreak of the war in the Pacific. The family's primary concern that
particular day was for one of Stetz' uncles who was a Navy careerman. The family didn't know at the time
whether he was stationed at Pearl Harbor or San Diego (it turned out, thankfully, to be the latter).
The only change in the usual routine the next day at school was that the nuns led the children in the daily
prayer; this time, however, for the servicemen and women who were killed or wounded in the sneak attack and for
the successful outcome of the hostilities. "Other than that," he recalled, "there wasn't very much talk about it"
among his classmates. Unlike some schools in the big cities across the Nation, St. Joseph's School in Bryan did
not have a public address system with which to broadcast President Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech declaring war
on Japan on that Monday morning, December 8, 1941.
Even as the War regressed and rationing of things such as meat and poultry became an annoying and a
miserable way of life for most of the country, "it wasn't a big problem" on the Stetz farm. "We always had a yard
full of chickens, turkeys and geese," Stetz remembered, running his hand through today's full shock of white hair."
"We also had pigs," he continued, "and cattle and as farm people, we would mostly slaughter our own
animals. We were pretty much self-sufficient." Things were so fortunate on the farm that the Stetz family quite
often took ample supplies of meat and vegetables from their farm and gave them to their less fortunate, non-
farming relatives living right in Bryan city.
Even when it came to the dreaded gasoline rationing, one of the most detested and remembered hardships
for most of the people serving on the home front during World War II, Stetz' father, Joe, was given a "B" sticker-
allowing him a much greater allotment of motor fuel than those folks who only warranted an "A" sticker. As a
farmer, he was granted more gasoline to haul his crops to market and to transport itinerant workers to the farm.
"Of course," Stetz conceded almost ruefully, "we did have to patch our old tires and put boots in them."
Although they were of Polish decent, the Stetz family did not allow itself to be drawn into discussions and
hard feelings about the pre-Pearl Harbor blitzkriegs of Hitler's Wehrmacht's as it rampaged through Poland in the
east and France in the west. "Actually," Stetz contended, "my grandparents, who immigrated to the United States
from Poland in the 1880s, wanted to forget all about Europe and the hard times they suffered there."
That feeling spilled over into the next two generations of the family. "Even though they had relatives in
Poland - with whom they did not communicate" - Stetz stressed, "their feeling was that things were good in
America and they didn't want to look back."
As for any anti-German dissent in the Bryan area after war was declared, Stetz claimed it was virtually non-
existent. The nearby people of German decent, he declared, "were folks just like us. As a matter of fact, one of
the German neighbors had two sons in the U. S. Army, one of whom was killed fighting in the war."
Until the fledgling Bryan Air Force Base was opened in 1942, Bryan was "a pretty empty place, especially
of men," said Stetz. "I guess you'd say Bryan was a kind of quiet town," he continued, tilting his head in
recollection. On Saturdays, his father would take him to town where they would visit "one of the local beer joints"
where the son would get a soda-pop and a hamburger - while dad got his refreshments, too. Many times, the
places were almost empty.
In their 1927 Model "T" Ford, they drove to "Opersteny's" (now, "as I recall, known as 'Margie's Place''')
and to "Jake's Place" but there were not too many people in the "saloons" as they were called then. "About the
only time it got crowded was during the summers when the migrant cotton-pickers would come through for the
harvesting season," he recalled with a chuckle.
With the opening of the Air Force Base, which was only about three miles away "as the crow flies" from
the Stetz farm on the road to Caldwell, things started to liven up considerably in sleepy, old Bryan. Because "we
were just country folks", the new air base "changed our lives" in many ways, Stetz revealed as he scratched his
chin in reflection, and "with the bulldozers tearing up the land and all that other equipment, it was exciting." In
some ways it was not, he also lamented, because many of Bryan's old families had to vacate their farms and
homesteads to make room for the military facility.
A number of the servicemen lived off base and there was an acute housing shortage in the city. Young
Stetz was fascinated by the planes constantly roaring over the farm; the T-6s, T-9s and T-11s "and one or two P-38
fighter-interceptors. They were my favorite airplanes."
Of course, he went on, "it was really something" later on when a B-25 Mitchell bomber flew over - just
like the ones General James Doolittle and his raiders blasted Tokyo with in April of 1942 after flying off the deck
of the aircraft carrier Hornet.
As part of the civilian war effort, members of the Stetz family knitted clothes "for the boys," gathered
"Bundles for Britain," gave blood, saved tinfoil ("even that from our chewing gum wrappers"), newspapers, tin
cans, lard and U. S. Savings Bonds and Stamps. "We would buy $.10 Savings Stamps in school, paste them in a
little book, and when the book was full, we'd have $18.75 - enough to by a $25 war bond," Stetz said glowingly.
(As a matter of fact, after the war was over, he was able to buy his first car using, in part, the savings bonds he
accumulated through the stamp program.)
There were War Bond drives that brought Hollywood celebrities to Bryan ("movie actor Jeff Chandler is
the one I remember most," said Stetz). On another occasion, "I recall they brought one of those two-man Japanese
submarines to Bryan and displayed it so people would come out and buy War Bonds." With a mischievous gleam
in his eye, Stetz - still in obvious good health - reported gleefully that "we got out of school early that day just so
we could go see the sub."
The 1944 presidential election pitting the fourth term-seeking incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt against the
challenging New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey created considerable interest in Bryan in general and the
elder Mr. Stetz in particular. "My folks were always Roosevelt supporters," Stetz the younger related. Since
Texas was vital to Roosevelt and his Vice Presidential running mate, Harry S. Truman, there were always
candidate rallies at Fourth of July picnics. Political debates and electioneering meetings were held at places like
the American Legion club (of which Ray Stetz is still a member). "My dad," bragged the son, "was always
drumming up support for FDR and he really let his views be known at those affairs."
It turned out that the war, as it dragged endlessly on, came closer to the Stetz family and City of Bryan.
Now Stetz' older sister, Cecelia, was coming home from school and talking about her many friends who were
going off to war. Stetz' high school senior class yearbook told the story more graphically: In the entire graduating
class, there were 100 girls and only 35 boys! Even the school's teachers were going into the service, Stetz
reported. The Stetz family itself by now had "several uncles and a number of cousins" who were serving in the
military (one of whom was killed in a plane crash in Japan after the War).
A local insurance company was handing out Blue, Silver and Gold Star window flags which identified
families with sons and daughters in the service. A Blue Star was for a family member being in the service, a Silver
Star was for one wounded in combat, and a tear-stained Gold Star was for a loved one killed in action.
Gold Stars were, mournfully, starting to appear in Bryan windows. "One of our neighbors lost a son in
Europe during the Rhine River crossing," Stetz sadly noted. One of his former classmates at St. Joseph's High,
Eugene Conrad, was killed during the invasion ofIwo Jima and "that really hit me hard." The local movie theater
was showing films like "The Sullivan Brothers," which was about four sons from one family who went down with
their ship following a Jap attack in the Pacific.
And as things in the battlefields overseas were heating up, Stetz was growing up. He was in Steven F
Austin High School in the Spring of '45 when he turned 18. One of his classmates wrote in the school yearbook,
"Raymond, we're going to whip them Japs!" (Ed. That student must have failed English.) At that time, he wanted
to, and was eligible to, enlist in the Navy. "I was ready to go," he boasted.
But his mother, Stella, along with his high school principal, Wessa Weddington, persuaded him to finish
high school in May, because, as Ms. Weddington advised him with some curious logic, "you'll make a better
soldier as a high school graduate." And although it probably was not said but surely must have been thought by at
least his apprehensive mother, it would mean a delay in her son's entry into the then raging war in the Pacific
theater.
Just after turning 18 years of age on February 21,1945, Stetz' draft number was called and he took and
passed his army induction physical. He was I-A. Three months later, he was graduated from St. Joseph's High
School in late May and on June 6th - exactly one year after D-Day in Europe - weighing a robust 120 pounds and
standing all of 5' 7" tall, he was serial number 38750460 in the United States Army. He was shipped off to basic
training to prepare for the impending massive invasion of the Japanese home islands - with the expected hundreds
of thousands of casualties.
Although it was to be over two months later with the B-29 Atomic-bombing of the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, World War II had then dramatically and at last forcefully come to the Stetz family in
Bryan, Texas.
Young Stetz was eventually sent to occupation duty in Japan. He returned home and later married Betty,
who had come to Bryan in the early 40s. Together they had six daughters, four of whom still live in Bryan (with
one in San Antonio and one in Troup, Texas). Four grandchildren came later. When asked how he managed his
early life at home among the seven female Stetz members, he answered with a big grin: "I'd just sit down with a
six-pack and cry!"
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