Songs of WW l and ll

Songs for book

The songs that were new during the two wars were certainly different. remember singing in the car on our trips from Nashville to Onaway (Waupaca, Wisconsin) during the 1930's. "There's a silver lining, through the dark clouds shining, turn the dark clouds inside out, 'til the boys come home" was one of Mother's favorites. "It's a long, long way to Tipperary, farewell Leicester Square, but my hearts right there" was another. "There's a long, long trail awinding, into the land of my dreams, where the nightin'gales are singing and the bright moon beams. There's a long, long night awaiting until my dreams all come true, 'til the day that I'll be gain' down that long, long trail with you." Of course Irving Berlin's songs were the hits of the time during the war, like "Over there, over there, send the word, send the word over there, that the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming, the drums rum tumming everywhere. Send the word, we're coming over and we won't be back 'til its over over there." One of my favorites was, "K--.k--, Katie, beautiful Katie, you're the only g--, g---, girl that I adore." I"m not sure if it were a World War song or not, but I always loved singing," Lindy, Lindy, sweet as the sugar cane, Lindy, Lindy, say you'll be mine. When the moon am shining, then my heart am pine-ing, meet me pretty Lindy by the water mellon vine".

By the time WW II started for America, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville had become the seat for much of the people's music. So many new country songs relating to the war effort become popular. Most of them didn't last very long but I'll never forget "There'll be smoke on the water, on the land and the sea, when our Army and Navy overtake th enemy" and "Get up mule, we're not through, got a lot of plowing to do, so it's haw to the left and gee to the right, we gotta plow to win this fight". One of the real tear jerkers at the time was "I'm writing this letter from a trench, Mom, and it fills my poor heart with pain". Perhaps the Broadway type songs were more lasting, like "The Boogie Woogie Bugler Boy from Company B", "I'll walk alone, but to tell you the truth I am lonely, but my heart tells me true that you're lonely too. There are dreams I must gather, etc". And of course, "Rosie the Riveter" was a big hit. "The White Cliffs of Dover", "A Nightingale Sang in

Berkely Square" and one I thought was particularly poingent, "My Sister and I remember still, a tulip garden and an old Dutch mill and we think of our friends who had to stay, but we don't talk about that". This last one was from a young person who had been fortunate enough to have been evacuated from Holland to England before the German occupation. Another hit of the time was, "They're either too young or too old, they're either too gray or too grassy green, What's good is in the Army, what's left will never

harm me."

When I finally got in the service I went through Infantry Basic Training,

fully expecting to head for Europe and the Battle of the Bulge which was raging at the time. The Navy had its songs like "Anchors Away Me Boys, Anchors Away", the Marines had "From the Shores of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli" and the Air Corps (not yet separate from the Army) had its "Up we go, into the wild blue yonder, up we go into the sky. Down we go, spouting our flame from under, off with one hell of a roar. We live in fame, go down in flame, nothing can stop the Army Air Corps". The Army did have its old WW I song, " And the caissons keep rolling along" but I really felt teary when a true infantry song came out--namely, The Ballad of Roger Young. "On the island of New Georgia in the Solomons, just grenades against machine guns in the gloom, 'til this one of twenty riflemen volunteered to meet his doom. Volunteered, Roger Young, fought and died for the men he marched among. To the everlasting glory of the Infantry, shines the name, shines the name of Roger Young".

From Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 until I went in the Army in September 1944, several of our close neighbors on Fairfax Avenue in Nashville were lost. First to go was Harry Denham who lived next door, older brother to my closest friend, Jimmy Denham. Harry was tough as nails and it was not surprising that he joined the Marines early on. He was not a big guy but when he was barely sixteen years old he made the head lines in the Nashville papers by chasing down and well-throtelling an older and larger man who had snatched the purse of his aunt with whom he was walking in downtown Nashville. Harry established his fame in the Nashvile paper at the time by becoming, "Harry Halloran Shankafoot, purse snatchthief catcher Denham". I sadly remember the day when Jimmy came over from next door, crying, to tell me his mother had just received word that Harry had been killed on the island of Tarawa. There was liitle doubt in· our 1 6 year old minds at the time that he surely had taken at least 20 Japs with him when he went down

About a year later we heard that Johnny Ozier living next door on the other side of us had gone down in his B-1 7 over Germany. Then we heard that Conrad Jamieson, living on Acklin Avenue directly behind us, had been killed in Europe. Conrad was also a young man, not to be tampered with. I remeber his trying to get me to box with him as preparation for his trying out for Golden Gloves in Nashville. I took a couple of sharp blows to the head which I felt rather forcefully, even through the well padded boxing

gloves, and begged off any further assistance in his plans.

Some of mother's closest friends were the Manchesters, across the street and down four houses. Dr. Manchester was a professor at Ward Belmont College. They had two sons, Tom and John. Tom was a medical doctor who survived the war. Unfortunately, John was a Navy pilot who failed to return to his aircraft carrier in the Pacific after a mission. I expect that he was lost in the Battle of Midway when so many flyers were lost in the most significent Navy engagement in the Pacific. That battle was the turning point in Japan's surpremacy although it took 3 more years before the final surrender. My current good friend, C. W. "Moose" Smith, had graduated from the Naval Academy in 1939 and was at sea, but not in that particular engagement, when the Navy put out a call for volunteers to become pilots- presumably to replace all those lost at Midway. Moose became a pilot on a carrier several months later but says that there were no more true combats with Japanese pilots other than trying to ward off the Kamikazi attachs. His combat flying experiences off a small carrier were mainly as support for combat landings on the Pacific islands.