WWII: the great coming together
On Veterans Day, Connellsville is the place to turn for the inspiration and the heartbreak of war. During the Big One – World War II – Connellsville modeled both.
Of course, there was plenty of grousing during the war years, 1941-45, especially about conscription – the draft. But we’ll leave that for another time maybe.
First, the inspirational side of the war with regard to Connellsville. Maybe foremost is the Connellsville Canteen, founded by the intrepid Rose Brady and fueled by the energies of hundreds of volunteers, all women.
Established in April 1944, the Canteen was run out of a former foundry building on Water Street, just feet away from the Baltimore and Ohio railroad tracks and station.
During its 24-month life span, the Canteen handed out a half-million sandwiches, and an equivalent amount of coffee. In addition, it dispensed, free of charge, better than 28,000 dozen doughnuts, over 100,000 cartons of cigarettes (people were like chimneys in those days), 28,309 quarts of milk, and assorted other items, including hard-boiled eggs and magazines.
“I haven’t been treated this well since I left Sardinia (Italy) where I was treated so well by the Red Cross,” wrote a Navy ensign.
Another serviceman, writing his thanks, said, “Our watchword is ‘Remember Connellsville.'”
Every troop train and every soldier on every passenger train stopping in Connellsville was feted, even those arriving late at night and in the wee hours of the morning.
With Brady, a mother of seven and volunteer extraordinaire, in the lead, the 500 women volunteers of the Connellsville Canteen were a remarkable bunch. They embodied the unity and vitality of the war years, during which Americans pitched in, imagining they could perform any feat, and they did, practically.
“You did something” in those days to be of service to the country, one of the volunteers, Dorothy Keagy, told me years later.
Another Canteen volunteer, Anastasia McCarthy, said, “We did all kinds of things. … There was enough around to keep everyone busy.”
Exurberance came in many forms. One of the most extraordinary characters of the war was surely William Bergin, proclaimed by the Courier newspaper as “Connellsville’s first war hero.”
A machine-gunner in a dive bomber squadron, Bergin was where the action was in the earliest phases of the war: at Pearl Harbor, aboard the USS Enterprise from whose flight deck the first raid on Tokyo took off, at the Battle of Midway, where the U.S. gave the Japanese their first good licking.
Back home on leave, Bergin told a reporter he hoped to be around for the invasion of the Japanese homeland. “It’s going to be a tough job,” he said.
It’s not clear where Bergin was in August 1945, when the U.S. brought the war to an end by obliterating two Japanese cities with atomic weapons. The invasion was canceled, thank goodness. One million American casualties had been anticipated.
The U.S. fought on two fronts in World War II. The Pacific was one. The other was Europe, against Nazi Germany. Before the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, there was fighting in North Africa. Jack Richter of Connellsville fell there.
Before leaving for war, Jack spoke to his family about possibly dying in battle. He told his mother not to worry. His fate, he said, was up to God.
Bobby Burns, 19, of Connellsville, died as well, in Italy. Wally Schroyer, a standout high school football player and college prospect, was taken prisoner. He survived and came home.
Robert L. “Bob” Albine went down in his B-24 Liberator bomber.
It is barely imaginable the grief and worry of families back home as they opened Western Union telegrams and learned of their loved ones’ fate.
Reading the Courier from back in those days is like sticking your nose into a charnel house. Every day someone died, was missing, or had been taken prisoner.
This should be reason enough to observe Veterans Day 2021 with all due solemnity. It’s also important to recall a time when Americans pulled together in a great enterprise, not apart.
Come to think of it, the “little city by the Yough” probably wasn’t that much different from thousands of communities, large and small, stretching across this broad land during World War II; their common lot was equal parts tragedy and triumph.
If that war teaches us anything, it is this: We are one country. At least we were then.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.