It’s rained all day. It started last night. A nice, light, mild rain. It was almost polite, this rain. And it’s continued like that. Presumably it fell overnight, politely. And it has done so all day today, a considerate guest, happy to entertain and also to leave the soil damp, and the grass greener.
It has also cooled everything considerably. We didn’t hit the 60s today … that’s company for ya. We’re due more rain the rest of the week, but it starts warming up a bit tomorrow. And, next week, summer arrives.
But, today, I’ve spent some of the time enjoying the view. And drawing up plans for the fall term. (I now have two weeks of one class mapped out in my mind!)
Also, I made a few more cufflinks today. I have all the materials here, but have been holding off for the summer time. I figure I’ll do a few at a time.
Also, I have a lot of cufflinks.
In a few minutes, I’m going to iron some pocket squares. (So, by Friday, I’ll be on to cleaning closets. I really need it to warm up, and/or to get my bike back on the road.) I have even more pocket squares.
But, first, let’s check in on the kitties, since they are the stars of the site’s most popular regular feature. It is pretty easy to see why. Phoebe is just posing it up on the stairs.
Poseidon has no time to pose, he’s too busy using his nose.
Yesterday afternoon, this was on the porch. Ordinarily we buy this at the store, but my lovely bride told me she found a great deal online. Then she told me the details and the prices were so low they must have been ~INSANE!~ Or something. That’s all great, but every one of those things is 42 pounds.
Someone had to carry those around the corner to the porch. I love saving money, and I’m happy when we buy in bulk. But, as I moved those bags in from the porch, and then through the hallway, laundry and into storage in the garage, I was offering silent apologies to the delivery person.
This weekend I finished Molly Manning‘s War of Words. She’s the law school professor and best selling author of three mid-century histories. I bought this one in 2023, and finally opened it on the Kindle on Friday night.
It is a well researched, and very breezy look at the efforts of giving reading materials to the citizen soldiers of World War II.
Perhaps the most important letter to the editor that Yank dared publish came in April 1944, when Corporal Rupert Trimmingham shared a story about a cross-country trip he took with eight other Black soldiers on army business. They traveled from their home base of Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana.
In Arizona, Fort Huachuca was a source of pride. As the Arizona Republic reported in 1942, the fort was “home of the splendid 93rd Infantry Division, [the] first all-colored division to be organized in World War II,” and “one learns in a hurry at Arizona’s Fort Huachuca” that “America’s colored citizens . . . make some of the nation’s finest and most efficient fighting troops.” Trimmingham, used to Arizona’s customs and attitude toward Black troops, was amazed by how differently he was treated by the Camp Claiborne community.
According to Trimmingham, after a one-night layover in Louisiana, he and his fellow soldiers discovered that “we could not purchase a cup of coffee at any of the lunchrooms” because, “as you know, Old Man Jim Crow rules.” Trimmingham continued:
The only place where we could be served was at the lunchroom at the railroad station but, of course, we had to go into the kitchen. But that’s not all; 11:30 A.M. about two dozen German prisoners of war, with two American guards, came to the station. They entered the lunchroom, sat at the tables, had their meals served, talked, smoked, in fact had quite a swell time. I stood on the outside looking on, and I could not help but ask myself these questions: Are these men sworn enemies of this country? Are they not taught to hate and destroy … all democratic governments? Are we not American soldiers, sworn to fight for and die if need be for this our country? Then why are they treated better than we are? Why are we pushed around like cattle? If we are fighting for the same thing, if we are going to die for our country, then why does the Government allow such things to go on?
And so Trimmingham closed his letter to Yank by asking a question that “each Negro soldier is asking. What is the Negro soldier fighting for?”
When Yank published Trimmingham’s story, a flood of letters poured into Yank’s mailbox. Nearly every message to Yank spoke to the indefensibility of treating enemy combatants with greater respect and courtesy than a fellow American. “Gentlemen, I am a Southern rebel,” a letter by Corporal Henry S. Wooten Jr., began. “But this incident makes me none the more proud of my Southern heritage!” Wooten continued:
Frankly, I think that this incident is a disgrace to a democratic nation such as ours is supposed to be. Are we fighting for such a thing as this? Certainly not. If this incident is democracy, I don’t want any part of it! … I wonder what the “Aryan supermen” think when they get a first-hand glimpse of our racial discrimination. Are we not waging a war, in part, for this fundamental of democracy? In closing, let me say that a lot of us, especially in the South, should cast the beam out of our own eyes before we try to do so in others, across the sea.
Hundreds of letters agreed with Wooten’s sentiments.
Sergeant Arthur Kaplan complimented Yank for printing Trimmingham’s letter and said, “It seems incredible that German prisoners of war should be afforded the amenities while our own men—in uniform and changing stations—are denied similar attention because of color … What sort of deal is this?”
“I’m not a Negro, but I’ve been around and know what the score is. I want to thank the YANK . . . and congratulate Cpl. Rupert Trimmingham,” wrote Private Gustave Santiago.
One missive, signed by an entire outfit, laid bare the hypocrisy of the army’s policy on racial segregation and the government’s claim that this was a war for freedom. The unit explained, “We are white soldiers in the Burma jungles, and there are many Negro outfits working with us. They are doing more than their part to win this war. We are proud of the colored men here,” they said, and “it is a disgrace that, while we are away from home doing our part to help win the war, some people back home are knocking down everything that we are fighting for.” Ironically, this letter remarked that soldiers from other Allied nations had marveled at the racial diversity of the United States Army and how all troops worked cohesively together. Were they masquerading a lie? It angered them to know that German soldiers were being treated better at home “than the soldier of our country, because of race.” The letter closed by stating, “Cpl. Trimmingham asked: What is the Negro fighting for? If this sort of thing continues, we the white soldiers will begin to wonder: What are we fighting for?”
Trimmingham’s letter provoked such outrage that it commanded the attention of the home front. The New Yorker published a fictionalized account of Trimmingham’s story in June 1944, which was reproduced repeatedly in the New Yorker’s books of “war stories” over the following decades. A dramatic skit about Trimmingham’s story was aired on national radio. And when Yank produced a volume of its best stories, Trimmingham and the letters responding to Trimmingham’s letter were included.
Months after his original letter was published, Trimmingham appeared in the pages of Yank again. “Allow me to thank you for publishing my letter,” he began. Every day brought a fresh batch of letters from fellow soldiers, many from “the Deep South,” who condemned the treatment he had received. “It gives me new hope to realize that there are doubtless thousands of whites who are willing to fight this Frankenstein that so many white people are keeping alive.” If white allies would “stand up, join with us, and help us prove to their white friends that we are worthy, I’m sure that we would bury race hate and unfair treatment,” Trimmingham said.
Here are Trimmingham’s letters, which are often held up as important sequence of events in the eventual integration of the United States military. As a soldier, Trimmingham served as an electrician in the Army Corps of Engineers. Born in Trinidad, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1925. After the war he went to work for Singer Sewing in Indiana and became naturalized citizen in 1950. He lived the last 30 years of his life in Michigan, where he died in 1985.
There’s a part of one chapter covering publications initially aimed at WACs. It seemed that two things were true, a lot of people resented WACs serving in a time of war. And a lot of male soldiers were reading women’s magazines.
Given male troops’ appetites for women’s periodicals, it was a sound conclusion that WACs would not be the only ones reading the magazines and newspapers that were being printed by and for them. And if more men read serious articles about the important war work the WACs were doing, the animosity most male soldiers felt for the WACs might dissipate.
And thus, in lieu of the Stars and Stripes, there was the Service Woman newspaper, which covered stories about women serving in the army, navy, marines, coast guard, army nurse corps, and navy nurse corps. Its coverage was comprehensive and showcased the importance of the work being done by women—from saving lives in combat zones to enduring long periods of captivity as prisoners of war. Those in the European theater replaced Yank with Overseas Woman. This magazine reported on WAC scientists, female doctors, and women who were test pilots for the Army Air Corps. Articles explored what work might be available to women after the war and how the war might change traditional gender stereotypes. Rather than read what men thought women should do, Overseas Woman was an empowering periodical that did not underestimate the intellect or ambition of its readers.
There were also smaller-scale newsletters for individual posts, like Fort Des Moines’ WAC News, which confronted the “malicious and untruthful reports about the Wacs.” One issue included an interview with a civilian correspondent in Algiers, who insisted that “one Wac was doing as much work as two or three men soldiers could do,” and that the correspondent was told by “General Eisenhower and various other officers … that the Wacs were so valuable to the American Army in North Africa that they wished they had ten times as many as were there.” WAC News also had some fun with the army’s double standards, reporting how WACs proudly hung photographs of “pin-up boys” in their bunks. And when the WAC News celebrated its second anniversary in print, Milton Caniff and Sergeant Sansone joined forces to create a congratulatory cartoon featuring their famous characters, Miss Lace and Wolf. Over six thousand copies of the paper were printed, and one thousand were mailed to posts across the world. If anything would lure male readers to this servicewomen’s newsletter, seeing their favorite cartoon characters emblazoned on the front cover was an ingenious ploy.
Here’s a bit more on Miss Lace, which was a big hit with service men, and more on The Wolf.
Another thing you get out of this book is some nice overviews of specific unit newspapers and newsletters. You’re only as good as your source material and in this Manning really proves her work. There were a few thousand publications for the people in uniform, most of them stateside and in Europe (because MacArthur was a thin-skinned egoist). So I looked up the newspaper for the 35th Division, which was where my great-grandfather served, in the 137th Infantry Regiment as a combat medic. I saw a few examples online, and it’s interesting to see how the paper evolves and improves as their circumstance changes. Here’s a rag they put out in December of 1944, just days before the Battle of the Bulge began.
That’s Sgt. Junior Spurrier, who, the next March, would receive the Medal of Honor for what he did in November 1943.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy at Achain, France, on 13 November 1944. At 2 p.m., Company G attacked the village of Achain from the east. S/Sgt. Spurrier armed with a BAR passed around the village and advanced alone. Attacking from the west, he immediately killed 3 Germans. From this time until dark, S/Sgt. Spurrier, using at different times his BAR and M1 rifle, American and German rocket launchers, a German automatic pistol, and hand grenades, continued his solitary attack against the enemy regardless of all types of small-arms and automatic-weapons fire. As a result of his heroic actions he killed an officer and 24 enlisted men and captured 2 officers and 2 enlisted men. His valor has shed fresh honor on the U.S. Armed Forces.
Spurrier lost a brother in the war, and had his share of struggles when he returned to civilian life. But there’s no getting around what he did when the push was on.
Manning, the book author, has it that there were 4,6000 unique newspapers created, produced and published by soldiers during and around the war. Some of them were made with great skill, and sometimes they were made on the backs of old reports, or with whatever resources they could scrounge together. (It was a war.) She didn’t have them all, of course, but imagine everything we could learn, big and small, if we had copies of all of those little publications. That’s what her book is trying to allude to, and it’s a good read of overlapping interests. And I’ve got another of her books on my Kindle, too. But, first, a funny memoir.
