Talkshow Thursday: Unintended Hero The Story Behind the Story

Unintended Hero: The Story Behind the Story

By Becky Van Vleet

A kitchen table, a father, a daughter, and a cassette recorder. What’s so special about this? As a baby boomer, I’d always been fascinated with my father’s WWII stories he shared occasionally about the USS Denver, the light cruiser he was assigned to as a teenage gunner in the South Pacific. Fearing his firsthand accounts might perish in oblivion, I whipped out my dated cassette recorder on March 19, 1990, and corralled my father, Walter Troyan, to our kitchen table. I asked him to recount his WWII adventures, experiences, and battles so I could save his stories for our children. For the next two hours he spoke with vivid pride, and I tucked those tapes away, intending only to keep them as family keepsakes.

Fast forward thirty years, during the COVID lockdown, I replayed those recordings and realized they deserved a wider audience. Could I write a book? Preserve my father’s recollections for others to read outside of the family?

Google and other search engines became my friends. I had a big puzzle on my hands to fit all the pieces

together—my father’s stories, ship deck logs, research of the Pacific Theater, for ammunition and guns, the battles, hundreds of other Navy ships, and . . . well, I had a lot of pieces to fit together to formulate a narrative. A well-written one. This was a story, after all, about my father. He was no longer living, and my book must honor not only him, but the other sixteen million Americans who answered the call of duty to fight for our country. They sacrificed school, jobs, families, homes, personal aspirations, and sometimes their very lives. My book must also represent them.

Tap, tap, tap. My fingers flew over my keyboard faster than armor piercing shells firing from battleships for more than a year as a manuscript emerged. Help came from everywhere--my husband, editors, veterans, and friends. Family cheered me on. I took a couple of research trips to tour WWII ships, and I walked on Preble Field at the San Diego Naval Training Facility where my father marched for his boot camp training in 1942. And certainly, God held my hand each step of the way.

Unintended Hero, my debut historical novel, finally made an inaugural appearance on Amazon in August 2022. More than sales, my goal has always been to preserve my father’s firsthand account and honor the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation. Since publication, I’ve been invited into numerous schools to share lessons of sacrifice, teamwork, and patriotism—values my father and his fellow veterans exemplified. It's truly rewarding to witness the enthusiasm of students as they eagerly raise their hands with questions and engage in group discussions about applying these values in their lives. What an honor to pay tribute to my father and the Greatest Generation through today’s youth.

If you would like to book Becky for her interactive presentation, grades seven and up, for a school classroom, homeschool group, or youth group, you may contact her at beckyvanvleet9@gmail.com. She donates her time and is available in person or by zoom.

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About Unintended Hero

When the first bomb drops on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941, Walter Troyan is a skinny seventeen-year-old California kid chock full of fear. But down deep he knows he must join the fight, so he drops out of high school and enlists.

Almost overnight, Walter is submerged into a brutal training regime and schedule. He’s homesick. Outmatched by all the other newbies. Knows he’ll never live up to his heroic brothers. And his soul shudders every time an officer shouts, “What are you made of!” Because Walter knows.

But then? Hope. He performs well on an aptitude test which sends him to Gunner’s Mate School. Upon graduation, Walter is sent to the USS Denver, docked in Philadelphia. He makes friends, gains a shred of courage.

Then his ship enters the Pacific Theater and Walter enters the crucible of his life. His body, spirit, and soul are forced to fight against emotions and circumstances he’s never encountered, and he’s faced with choices that will bring life or death to men he’s come to love as brothers.

Don’t miss this epic tale—inspired by a true story—of a boy facing head on, the courage it takes to become a man.

Purchase link: https://amzn.to/3HxiA1s

Social Media Links
Website: https://www.beckyvanvleet.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorbeckyvanvleet/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/becky_van_vleet_author/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-van-vleet-0388982a6/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/125841473-becky-van-vleet
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/becky-van-vleet
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/beckyvanvleet/

Photo credits:

Author and book image: Becky VanVleet

Ship: Pexels/John Wolf

San Diego Training Center: Courtesy of https://www.bracpmo.navy.mil/

Wartime Wednesday: VJ Day

Wartime Wednesday: VJ Day

(An Encore Post from Heroes, Heroines, and History)

“This day is a new beginning in the history of freedom on this earth. Our global victory has come from the courage and stamina and spirit of free men and women united in the determination to fight.”

President Harry S. Truman

By August 1945, America had been at war for almost four years, Poland and England for six. Victory in Europe day was declared in May 1945, but conflict still raged with the Japanese, whom it seemed would never give up. In fact, no Japanese military unit had surrendered during World War II. Despite being victorious for the Allies, the battles on Iwo Jima and Okinawa were devastating with heavy losses.

Plans were made to invade the Japanese home islands, however, prior to execution of the operation, on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the atomic bomb, the first of its kind, on Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. On August 10, Japan notified the Allies of its intent to surrender on August 14, 1945.

 
As soon as the news was released on August 14, celebrations began across the globe. The United

Kingdom announced its official V-J Day would be the following day, August 15, 1945. September 2nd, the date the surrender documents were signed is the official US commemoration. In Japan, August 15 is known as “memorial day for the end of the war.”

In London, people took to the streets, civilians and members of the armed forces alike. One article reported soldiers dancing in a conga line on Regent Street. In Paris, Frenchmen paraded on the Champs-Elysees singing “Don’t Fence Me In.” In Berlin American soldiers reportedly shouted, “It’s over in the Pacific.” The Chinese set off fireworks, and in Manila residents were said to sing “God Bless America.” In Washington, DC, a crowd yelling, “We want Harry,” tried to break into the White House. They were unsuccessful.

New York’s Times Square filled with the largest crowd it had ever seen, with kissing, dancing, and singing. One of the most famous photographs, a soldier kissing a woman who appears to be a nurse, was taken in Times Square and published in Life Magazine. Life also reported that news of the war’s end “sparked a coast-to-coast frenzy of {servicemen} kissing…everyone in skirts that happened along."

Tragically, some celebrations, such as the one in San Franciso, was categorized as a “three-night orgy of vandalism, looting, assault, robbery, rape, and murder.” Another article called it the “deadliest riots in the city’s history.” Additionally, Japanese soldiers murdered POWs, then committed suicide. Fortunately, these incidents were few.

V-J Day was bittersweet in light of the worldwide destruction and death. As historian Donald L. Miller, Ph.D wrote, “For those who had seen the face of battle and been in the camps and under the bombs—and had lived—there was a sense of immense relief.”

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A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Her friend talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, blonde leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Photo Credits:
VJ Day in Times Square: By New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: DeMarsico, Dick, photographer. - Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c19650, Public Domain.
Civilians and Soldiers in London: By Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer. From the collections of the Imperial War Museums. Public Domain.
Soldier in Times Square: By Victor Jorgensen - US archives, Public Domain.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_over_Japan_Day
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/VJ-Day/
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/v-j-day
Legacy of VJ Day: A Modern Sailor’s Tribute to Inspirational Grandfather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dlZKR2h0-A
https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Experience/VJ-Day/

Traveling Tuesday: Connecticut During WWII

Traveling Tuesday: 

Connecticut During WWII

With a production volume worth over $8 billion, Connecticut manufactured 4.1% of the United States’ military armaments and associated items during World War II, ranking ninth among the forty-eight states. The state also provided more than 300,000 men to the armed forces with 4,500 making the ultimate sacrifice. Another one thousand died from disease or accidents.

From one end of the state to the other factories converted from commercial products to war materiél. Founded in 1925 by Frederick B. Rentschlar, creator of the air-cooled radial engine design, Pratt & Whitney manufactured more than 300,000 engines. Pioneer Parachutes, a division of The Cheney Brothers silk manufacturer, sewed parachutes, and Electric Boat built submarines. Hamilton Propellers made, well, propellers. Waterbury Clock constructed a new plant to manufacture mechanical time fuses and other equipment. E. Ingraham Company also converted from clocks to time fuses as well as anti-aircraft artillery. Producer of hand tools and household goods, New Britain company turned to making uniforms, guns, and equipment. North & Judd manufactured uniform buckles, clasps, and other fasteners. Many of these companies earned the coveted Army-Navy E award for excellence in manufacturing.

In addition to manufacturing, Connecticut had six air bases, the Coast Guard Academy, and several

naval stations, including one submarine base. Bradley Army Air Force Base in Windsor Locks was also home to a POW camp when hundreds of German prisoners arrived in October 1944. According to multiple sources, the prisoners were enlisted men and many “reportedly preferred being anywhere, even snowy Connecticut, to being shot at.” Whether it was because they were well-guarded or well-cared for, none of the prisoners ever attempt an escape.

Connecticuters served in every theater of the war, with approximately 4,500 making the ultimate sacrifice. Everett Rossen of West Hartford found himself in the Philippines during its surrender, being forced into the Bataan Death March. He remained a POW for four years until the end of the war, then remained in the military for another two decades before retiring. Ward Chamberlin was an ambulance driver with the American Field Service and served in North Africa, Italy, and India. Artist Deane Keller was a Monuments Man “rescuing Italian masterworks from the threat of combat and looting,” and was “part of the team that returned the Florentine Museum treasures to the city in 1945.”

Even colleges contributed to the war effort. Assigned to the Manhattan Project, Yale University Physics department, led by physicist Ernest O. Lawrence, worked on the development of the magnetic separation process which “allowed for the extraction and purification of Uranium-235 from natural uranium.” The chemistry department was led by chemical engineer John H. Reilly and “focused on the production of heavy water which was used as a neutron moderator in nuclear reactors.”

Last but certainly not least is Norwich native and attorney, Thomas Joseph Dodd, who served on the US prosecutorial team at the Nuremburg trials during which he was the second-ranking lawyer. In addition to shaping strategies and polices, he prepared indictments, presented evidence, and cross-examined defendants.

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The American World War II Home Front in 29 Objects:

Unlike Europe the American mainland escaped physical devastation during World War II as it was not subjected to full-scale invasions. However, that didn’t mean the United States wasn’t impacted by the war. The ramifications of large economic, cultural, and societal changes forced Americans to reconsider entrenched beliefs and traditions.

Artifacts collected from across the nation tell the stories of the American people whose lives were shaped by this second “war to end all wars,” World War II.

Pre-order Link: https://books2read.com/u/47pLxR



Sources:
https://www.ctmq.org/pow-camp/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Connecticut
https://connecticuthistory.org/topics-page/world-war-ii/
https://yankeeinstitute.org/2024/05/24/connecticut-and-the-second-world-war/
https://centerprode.com/ojsh/ojsh0602/coas.ojsh.0602.03057m.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_World_War_II_Army_Airfields
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-war/waterbury

Photo Credits:
Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major Engine: Courtesy Air Force Museum
POWs: Courtesy Hartford History Center
Thomas Dodd: By http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=D000390, Public Domain.

Movie Monday: The Story of GI Joe

Movie Monday: The Story of GI Joe

A tribute to the American infantryman in World War II, The Story of GI Joe released eighty years ago last month and is based on the compiled columns of journalist Ernie Pyle. Pyle was best known for his stories about “ordinary soldiers.”

Born August 3, 1900, on a farm in Dana, Indiana, Pyle was an only child who had no interest in following in his parent’s footsteps and running a farm. He opted for, as one source put it, a more adventurous life. Upon his high school graduation, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War I, but the war ended before he finished his training. He then entered college where he was editor of the school newspaper. Bitten by the journalistic bug, he headed to Washington, DC where he was hired at the Washington Daily News, part of the Scripps-Howard newspaper syndicate for whom he would work his whole career.

He generally penned “human interest type stories,” and when he headed overseas as a war correspondent, he continued in the same vein with his reports from the European and Pacific theaters. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his accounts of infantry soldiers – often referred to as dogface – from the first-person perspective.

The movie stars the up-and-coming actor, Burgess Meredith, as Pyle, who helped with the casting and

insisted, “For God’s sake, don’t let them make me look like a fool.” Other actors were considered for the part, including Leslie Howard, but director William Wellman wanted a physically smaller man to better portray the middle-aged journalist. It took quite a bit of finagling before Meredith, a captain the army, was given an honorable discharge to star in the movie. It was one of his earliest film credits.

Much of the dialogue and narration came the 1943 publication of collected columns called Here is Your War. Nine war correspondents are listed as technical advisers in the film’s credits. The plot follows the untried infantrymen of C Company, 18th Infantry. Lt. Bill Walker (played by Robert Mitchum) allows Pyle to accompany all the way to the front lines of Tunisia and Italy through rain and mud. They take part in the Battle of Kasserine Pass, a “bloody chaotic defeat,” the eventually advance to Monte Cassino where they are stopped and end up hiding out in caves eating cold rations on Christmas day. Some of the men Pyle gets to know are killed, including the lieutenant, and the film ends on a somber note with a fade to black and Pyle narrating the conclusion: “For those beneath the wooden crosses, there is nothing we can do, except perhaps to pause and murmur, ‘Thanks pal, thanks.’”

Two years later, Pyle was killed by enemy fire during the Battle of Okinawa. At the time of his death, his column was published in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers nationwide. President Truman later said, “No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen.”

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Mitchum’s only career nomination. In 2009, The Story of GI Joe was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically” significant.

Have you seen this classic?

_____________________

A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Her friend talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Photo credits:

Movie Poster: By Illustrator unknown. "©1945 by the United Artists Corporation" - Public Domain

Still from The Story of GI Joe:  United Artists Corporation - Public Domain

Ernie Pyle: By Milton J. Pike - United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3b08817. Public Domain

Wartime Wednesday: The Potsdam Conference

Wartime Wednesday: 

The Potsdam Conference

Who knew there was so much administration involved in a war? The Potsdam Conference, so named because it took place in the city of Potsdam outside of Berlin, Germany, was held between July 17 and August 2, 1945. The “Big Three:” the leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union and their entourages met to with three main agenda items:

• How to handle Germany’s defeat;
• To determine Poland fate;
• To pressure Japan to end the war.

In attendance were US President Harry S. Truman, in place for only three months since President Roosevelt’s death; Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who as one source put it, “was abruptly replaced on July 26 by his successor Clement Attlee after result of the British election were announced.”

Tensions were high and gave a hint of the Cold War to come.

Prior to the conference Truman toured the conquered city of Berlin where he witnessed thousands of

homeless civilians, many of them children, living among the bombed-out ruins. He would later describe the city as a “ghost city” during a radio address.

During the sixteen day forum, details that were encapsulated in the Potsdam Agreement, and included plans to disarm and demilitarized German; divide the country into four Allied occupation zones controlled by the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union; an edict for Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary to expel the ethnic German population within their borders in “an orderly and humane manner;” and the non-negotiable terms for peace with Japan (unconditional surrender). A major part of the discussions involved the heavy postwar reparations demanded by Stalin and agreed to by Roosevelt.

Additionally, the group repealed laws passed by the Nazi regime, removed Nazis from the German education and court systems, and made arrangements for the arrest and trying of Germans who had committed war crimes. Borders were redrawn, and the Council of Foreign Ministers was formed to draft peace treaties with Germany’s former allies.

An intriguing aside is that before the conference Truman received news that the Trinity test of the atomic bomb by the Manhattan Project scientists was successful, and he hoped to use the information as a bargaining chip with Stalin. However, the Soviet leader didn’t seem interested, and Truman would later recall, “He was glad to hear it, and ‘hoped we would make good use of it against the Japanese.’” Unbeknownst to the president the project had at least two Soviet spies within its ranks.

__________________________

A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Her friend talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, blonde leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Photo credits:
Table of Delegates: “Scene of Potsdam Conference,” July 19, 1945, National Archives and Records Administration, Office of Presidential Libraries, Harry S. Truman Library.
Trio: “The new Big Three meet for the first time at the Potsdam Conference,” July 29, 1945, National Archives and Records Administration, Office of Presidential Libraries, Harry S. Truman Library.
Map: Google maps, accessed July 7, 2025

Release Day: A Lesson in Love

Release Day: A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. 

Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Her friend talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. 

Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Purchase link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Wartime Wednesday: British Stars Who Served

Wartime Wednesday: 

British Stars Who Served

More than 3.5 million men and women serviced in Britain’s armed forces during World War II. As in America, some of those individuals were film or stage stars and put their careers on hold to enlist. Others were young enough their careers hadn’t yet begun.

Alec Guiness, perhaps most well-known by current generations as the original Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films, was twenty-seven years old and a successful stage actor when he decided to take a sabbatical and join the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in 1941. His initial assignment was that as seaman, but he quickly rose in ranks, first as a sub-lieutenant, then as lieutenant. He eventually commanded a landing craft of 200 soldiers during Operation Husky, which was the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943. The campaign lasted until August 17, 1943, and drove the Axis powers from the island opening up sea lanes in the Mediterranean for Allied merchant ships.

Guiness also participated in other amphibious operations as well as transported troops and supplies

across the English Channel in the months leading up to D-Day, then later helped deliver arms and agents to partisans fighting in Yugoslavia. At one point during the war, he was granted a leave to appear as the lead role in the Broadway production of Flare Path, a play about RAF Bomber Command and loosely based on playwright Terence Rattigan’s wartime experiences in 1941. A couple of sources claim that a Royal Navy commander told Guiness that, as an actor, he would be unsuited to naval work, and Guiness is said to have replied, “And if you will allow me to point out, Sir, as an actor, that in the West End of London, if the curtain is advertised as going up at 8 PM, it goes up at 8 PM, and not an hour later, something that the Royal Navy might learn from.”

Our second British star who served is Peter Ustinov, actor, director, and writer. Born on April 16, 1921, he was eighteen years old when England declare war on Germany in September 1939. I was unable to determine when Ustinov joined the British Army – he was an age to be immediately drafted.

Intriguingly, his father Jona (or Iona) von Ustinov worked for a press officer at the German embassy in London during the 1930s and was a reporter for a German news agency. In 1935, Jona became a British subject and began to work for MI5. One of his responsibilities was to “handle” spy Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz. In his autobiography Peter Ustinov comments that his father hosted secret meetings in their home with senior British and German officials.

Peter served as a private during the war spending most of his service in the Army Cinema Unit where he made recruitment films, wrote plays, and appeared in three films as an actor, including the propaganda film One of Our Aircraft is Missing. At one point he was writing the David Niven film The Way Ahead, but the difference in their ranks (Niven was a Lt. Colonel) didn’t allow for “regular military association,” so Ustinov was appointed as Niven’s batman, basically his personal servant. In 1944, under the Entertainments National Service Association, he performed the role of Sir Anthony Absolute in the play The Rivals at the Larkhill Camp, a military garrison in Wiltshire. He later spoke about his service in an interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S60wU7Y19EA

__________________

A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after most of the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Then her friend Margery talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Pre-order Link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Photo credit: 

Alec Guiness: Getty Images

Normandy: By Chief Photographer's Mate (CPHoM) Robert F. Sargent - Public Domain, 

Peter Ustinov: Public Domain

Movie Monday: The Clock

Movie Monday: The Clock

Released on May 25, 1945, The Clock was actress Judy Garland’s first starring role in which she didn’t sing. It was also her last black and white film. Fred Zinneman was the initial director when production began in August 1944, but he was soon replaced by Vincente Minnelli, after both Zinneman and Judy went to producer Arthur Freed and indicated they couldn’t work together. By the end of the film, Minnelli and Judy were in love and would head to the altar on June 15, 1945. The movie had a production cost of just over one million dollars, and more than recouped the investment with initial box office earnings of $2.8 million.

Reportedly, Judy approached the executives at MGM and asked that she be cast in a straight dramatic role. Once source commented that “musical stars of the era were not considered to be on the same par as dramatic stars because most musicals made were light, fluffy entertainment.” Did Judy decide it was time to be taken seriously, or did she want to see if she had what it took to be a dramatic actress? No matter the reason, the studio agreed, and she was given the script for The Clock by Freed who had purchased the rights to the short unpublished story written by Paulione and Paul Gallico.

Robert Walker tried his hand in Hollywood in 1939 and managed to get a contract with MGM, securing

a few bit parts. He finally got his chance at stardom in 1944 when he was given the main role in Since You Went Away, one of the most financially successful films that year. His next movie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, was also box-office hit, and he was quickly cast in The Clock.

The plot is simplistic (from IMDB): Joe Allen (Robert Walker) is on a two-day leave in New York City and meets secretary, Alice Mayberry (Judy Garland) when she trips over him and breaks the heel on her shoe. They hit it off, and she decides to show him around the city. As they tour the sights, they begin to fall in love. The pair meet a milk deliveryman whom they befriend and help finish his route. The next morning, Joe and Alice decide to marry before he must return to duty.

Interestingly, all the scenes with Judy and Robert were filmed on MGM soundstages and backlots, not on the actual streets of New York. The most famous set in the film is the meticulous recreation of Penn Station including escalators. Despite the relative success of the movie and Judy playing a dramatic role, it would be sixteen years before she would make another non-musical drama with Judgment at Nuremburg (1961).

_____________________________

A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after most of the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Then her friend Margery talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Pre-order Link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Traveling Tuesday: New York City's Penn Station

Traveling Tuesday: 

New York City’s Penn Station

Next week’s Movie Monday will feature the 1945 film The Clock in which New York City’s Penn Station plays an integral role. Named for the Pennsylvania Railroad, the station’s builder and original owner, the structure was designed by McKim, Mead, and White, an architectural firm founded in 1879 that quickly rose in prominence. The design was (and still is) considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style. The Beaux-Arts style is characterized by heavily ornamented surfaces and the use of elements from Greek and Roman architecture, such as columns, combined with French and Italian Renaissance and Baroque influences (also highly ornamental). The style is known for its symmetry, elaborate decorations and use of stone, iron, and glass.

Completed in 1910, the station occupied an 8-acre plot, had eighty-four Doric columns, eleven

platforms serving twenty-one tracks, and the central waiting room measured a block and a half long – the largest indoor space in the city. For the first time there was direct rail access to the city from the south. Before then the Pennsylvania Railroad’s network ended on the western side of the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey, requiring passengers to board ferries to cross the river. New York Central Railroad was a rival, and their line ran from the north under Park Avenue and ended at Grand Central at 42nd Street. Proposals for a cross-Hudson connection were presented in the late 1800s, but the financial panics of the 1890s made potential investors gun shy about providing funds. Proposals for a bridge was also considered but ultimately rejected.

Then came Pennsylvania Railroad’s president Alexander Cassatt who announced in 1901, the company’s plans to tunnel under the river and build a “grand station” on the west side of Manhattan south of 34th Street, at that time a red-light district known for corruption and prostitution. Construction began in June 1903 and was completed in 1908. Unfortunately, having died in 1906, Cassatt did not live to see his dream fulfilled. Instead, his son, Edward, became president and finished the task.

Penn Station opened to the public on November 27, 1910, and by 1945, at its peak saw more than 100 million passengers pass through its doors. Tragically and despite “vociferous dissent,” the aboveground portions of the building were demolished between 1963 and 1966 to make way for a new building. More than one source indicated that the controversial demolition was the impetus for the 1965 New York Landmarks Law which saved Grand Central station and approximately 30,000 other historic buildings throughout New York City.

While growing up in New Jersey, my family and I traveled through Penn Station on numerous occasions. I wish I’d seen the original building.

Photo Credits:
By Bain News Service - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ggbain.09705. Public Domain

William J. Roege, Pennsylvania Station on Seventh Avenue, New York City, 1923. New-York Historical Society, Photographs from New York City and Beyond.

Penn Station, Train Concourse, ca. 1910, photograph, MMW Architectural Record Collection, NYHS Image #50718.

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A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after most of the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Then her friend Margery talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Pre-order Link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Wartime Wednesday: The British Home Front During WWII

Wartime Wednesday: 

Life on the British Home Front

Britain went to war on September 3, 1939, but the first six to eight months was referred to as the “Phoney War.” Not much happened, leading people to believe the conflict would be over quickly and painlessly. The government is said to have “muddled through” during that time. Then came the defeat at Dunkirk and the fall of France. British citizens realize their optimism had been misplaced, and they were in for a long, hard struggle.

Beginning in September 1940, England was bombed by the Luftwaffe relentlessly for nine months. Known as the Blitz (short for Blitzkrieg), the attacks killed 60,595 civilians and injured an additional 86,182. St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, and Parliament were just a few of the buildings that were hit. After the bombing of Buckingham Palace, the queen mother, Queen Elizabeth, remarked, “I’m glad we have been bombed. Now we can look the East End in the eye.”

Food rationing began in January 1940, and clothes in June 1941. According to more than a few sources, by 1943, almost every necessary household item was difficult to get, many unobtainable.

The war was also a time of great upheaval for children. Over one million were evacuated from towns

and cities during Operation Pied Piper. The idea was that they were safer in rural areas that had less chance of being bombed. I met a woman several years ago who had been evacuated from London as a young girl. She commented that she had a positive experience. The family treated her as one of their own, but she went on to say that her relationship with her biological family was never as close after the war. They’d been separated for five years.

Those children who did remain in the cities dealt with threats of gas attacks, bombings, rationing, and the disruption of school. Male teachers were called up leaving a void, and school buildings were damaged. Some schools moved to requisitioned country homes miles from the city, so children boarded keeping them away from their families for the duration.

Blackout restrictions were just that – restrictive – and penalties were harsh for those who broke the rules. Air Raid Precaution wardens patrolled the streets and were quick to point out if a light could be seen. Blackout curtains were heavy, unwieldy fabric and as the war progressed became unavailable, so blackout paper became a replacement. Vehicle headlights were fitted with covers to reduce the glare, making it difficult to drive. Numerous accidents were reported. Walking in the dark was also a dangerous proposition, so most folks stayed home at night if possible.

Rationing continued until 1954 – nine years after the war began!

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A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after most of the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Then her friend Margery talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Amazon link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Movie Monday: Brewster's Millions

Movie Monday: Brewsters Millions

Based on the 1902 novel by George Barr McCutcheon (pen name Richard Greaves), and the adapted 1906 stage production, the United Artists film Brewster’s Millions is a lighthearted comedy that released eighty years ago this month. The movie features Dennis O’Keefe, Helen Walker, and June Havoc, three actors you probably never heard of despite their extensive filmography.

Penniless WWII soldier, Montgomery Brewster returns home to discover that he has inherited seven million dollars from his uncle in Bolivia. However, the bequest has a caveat: he must give away one million of it before his 30th birthday which is two months away. Because a wife would be considered an asset, he has to put off his wedding to fiancee, Peggy Gray who struggles to understand the changes in him.

The task of getting rid of the money proves more difficult than anticipated as there are strict conditions about how he can spend it such as demonstrating good business sense by obtaining good value for the money he spends, limiting his donations to charity, losses to gambling, and value of tips (Wikipedia). Because he can’t tell anyone about the will, his friends don’t understand the situation and try to help mitigate his losses even though they are enjoying the fruits of his luxurious lifestyle.

He throws parties, plays roulette, and charters a months-long cruise to Europe and Egypt for his friends

and employees. As a result, he is lambasted as a spendthrift by the press. Throughout the movie, his friends and associates invest the monies, sell stocks and properties for profit, and conduct all kinds of business that increases his earnings. When Peggy breaks the engagement, he nearly folds, but the lawyer talks him into continuing with the project. It comes down to the last seconds, but he finally succeeds and is able to marry Peggy.

The movie met with mixed reviews, with some critics enjoying it’s “unadorned style,” while others found it too farcical. Memphis, Tennessee banned the film because Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson’s servant character had “too familiar a way about him,” and the movie depicted “too much social equality and racial mixture.”

In 1937, Jack Benny performed a one-hour version of the play on the Lux Radio Theater, and in the mid-1980s, the animated version of Punky Brewster produced an episode on television. The novel and play have been adapted to film thirteen times, the most recent in 2024 starring China Anne McClain, Romeo Miller, and Rain Pryor.

Have you seen this flick?

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Ivy's Inheritance

Has she fled one untrustworthy man only to be stuck with another?

Ivy Cregg’s father is a gambler, but this time he’s gone too far. He loses his mining fortune and her along with it in a high-stakes poker game. Unwilling to go along with the deal, she hides out with a friend who tells her about Ms. Crenshaw, owner of the Westward Home & Hearts Mail-Order Bride Agency who is in town. The prospective groom is a wealthy man which seems like an answer to prayer until Ivy discovers he made his fortune in mining. Is he as untrustworthy as her father?

After emigrating to America to fight for the Union during their Civil War, Slade Pendleton moved West while working on the railroad, then headed to the plains of Nebraska to seek his fortune. He was one of the lucky ones and now has everything he could ever want. Except a wife. With the few women in the town already married, he sends for a mail-order bride. The woman arrives carrying the telegram that explains her need to flee, but now that she’s safe, she seems to have no interest in going through with the ceremony. Should he send her packing or try to convince her to stay?

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Traveling Tuesday: The Role of the Mt. Washington Hotel During WWII

Traveling Tuesday: 

The Role of the Mt. Washington Hotel During WWII

Last week, I shared about the four grand hotels that are still operating in New Hampshire. One of those, the Mt. Washington played a critical role at the end of World War II. Located deep in the White Mountains above Crawford Notch in Bretton Woods, the hotel was completed in 1902 and offered luxurious accommodations to anyone who could afford to stay. Sadly, the owner, Joseph Stickney, died of a heart attack the following year.

Over the next decade his wife continued to improve the property, but Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the implementation of income tax put a damper on business. Mrs. Stickney’s nephew inherited the hotel in 1936, but six years later, shuttered the doors because of the war. He sold to a Boston syndicate in 1944 for $450,000 (a huge amount of money back then).

On July 1 of that year, the Bretton Woods Conference commenced with 730 delegates from all forty-

four Allied nations. Years of work preceded the conference, with a preliminary conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey held in mid-June 1944. No where in my research could I unearth who decided that a remote, luxury hotel in the mountains of New Hampshire was the perfect location for the conference, and I can’t imagine the logistics of getting everyone to the facility. Located more than 150 miles from the Boston airport, the hotel is accessed by one hilly, winding road (and it’s not an interstate) that passes through Crawford Notch, elevation 1,923 feet. There is nothing for miles around – no restaurants, no other hotels…nothing.

The conference adjourned three weeks after it started with the delegates signing the Final Act of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference that established the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD – later part of the World Bank Group) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and implementing the “Bretton Woods system,” a system of economic order and international cooperation that would help countries recover from the war’s devastation and foster long-term global growth.

Some of the features of the system were an “adjustably pegged foreign exchange market tied to gold, that could only be altered to correct a fundamental disequilibrium,” pledges by member countries to make their currency convertible for trade-related and other current account transactions, and a requirement of member countries to subscribe to IMF’s capital.

The system ended in 1971.

__________________

Ivy's Inheritance

Has she fled one untrustworthy man only to be stuck with another?

Ivy Cregg’s father is a gambler, but this time he’s gone too far. He loses his mining fortune and her along with it in a high-stakes poker game. Unwilling to go along with the deal, she hides out with a friend who tells her about Ms. Crenshaw, owner of the Westward Home & Hearts Mail-Order Bride Agency who is in town. The prospective groom is a wealthy man which seems like an answer to prayer until Ivy discovers he made his fortune in mining. Is he as untrustworthy as her father?

After emigrating to America to fight for the Union during their Civil War, Slade Pendleton moved West while working on the railroad, then headed to the plains of Nebraska to seek his fortune. He was one of the lucky ones and now has everything he could ever want. Except a wife. With the few women in the town already married, he sends for a mail-order bride. The woman arrives carrying the telegram that explains her need to flee, but now that she’s safe, she seems to have no interest in going through with the ceremony. Should he send her packing or try to convince her to stay?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Ca3xI6

Photo Credits:

Mt. Washington Hotel: By rickpilot_2000 from Hooksett, USA - Mt. Washington HotelUploaded by jbarta, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26447136 

Delegation: U.N. Monetary Conference (Photo: Associated Press; Photographer: Abe Fox)

New Zealand Report of the conference: By Archives New Zealand from New Zealand - International Monetary Fund formed 1945, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51249801

Wartime Wednesday: Factory Conversions

Wartime Wednesday: Factory Conversions

Much is said about the level of production that America achieved during World War II. However, few people realize that industrial manufacturing decreased during the early years of the war. Two prime issues were the cause: 1) plants had to be converted to handle potentially different sized items and new manufacturing processes; and 2) the availability of raw materials was challenging because multiple companies were competing for the same components.

Factories in the 1940s were not automated like today. Most had conveyor belts that moved parts along, with cranes for heavy pieces and stations along the way for manual labor. Seems simple enough to convert. However, every plant had some sort of supply chain, each with a potential for bottlenecks and delays. Material shortages were a common problem, and as manufacturers implemented new processes, efficiencies had to be worked out. Workers, many of whom had never worked in a factory, had to be trained; a time-consuming task for products such as complex aircraft or radar components.

One source indicated that the steel industry was one of the main supply issues. In 1941, production was

projected to fall short unless mills received thirty-two million tons of scrap, but the scrap was not making it was to mills because brokers had hoarded two million tons to force a rice in the price ceiling. Additionally, scrap metal was also being used in other industries. The government stepped in to “iron out a system for managing allocations strategically.” Import of raw materials such as oil, steel, and other metals from other countries also helped ease the burden.

Smaller manufacturers often converted to producing ammunition components. Cosmetic companies whose peacetime products were often small, sealed containers (lipstick, compacts, etc.) could be converted to manufacture similar products for holding ointments or ampules. In addition, their existing expertise in mixing chemicals allowed them to easily produce medical supplies like antiseptic creams and ointments.

Maytag, famous for its clothes washing machines turned to making aircraft parts. Chrysler made fuselages. General Motors made airplane engines, guns, trucks, and tanks. Packard produced Rolls-Royce engines for the British air force. Ford Motor Company manufactured B-24 Liberator long-range bombers. Mattatuck Manufacturing in Waterbury, CT switched from upholstery nails to cartridge clips for Springfield rifles. The American Brass Company produced cartridge cases and mortar shells, billions of small caliber bullets, and toward the end of the war components for the atomic bomb.

One source indicated that Scovill Manufacturing “produced so many different military items, the Waterbury Republican reports that “there wasn’t an American or British fighting man…who wasn’t’ dependent on [the company] for some part of the food, clothing, shelter, and equipment that sustained [him] through the…struggle.””

Despite the time it took to ramp up production; production that didn’t peak until 1943, America out produced the enemy and provided almost two-thirds of the Allied military equipment during the war:

• 297,000 aircraft 
• 193,000 artillery pieces 
• 86,000 tanks 
• 2 million army truck

In four years, American industrial production, already the world’s largest, doubled in size.

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The American WWII Home Front Told in 29 Objects

Unlike Europe the American mainland escaped physical devastation during World War II as it was not subjected to full-scale invasions. However, that didn’t mean the United States wasn’t impacted by the war. The ramifications of large economic, cultural, and societal changes forced Americans to reconsider entrenched beliefs and traditions.

Artifacts collected from across the nation tell the stories of the American people whose lives were shaped by this second “war to end all wars,” World War II.

Pre-Launch page (be sure to click “Notify me on launch”): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lindashentonmatchett/the-world-war-ii-home-front-in-29-objects-illustrated-book

Photo Credits:

Steel manufacturing: Pixabay

Assembly Line: Deposit Photos

Scovill Building: Library of Congress