The Ozarks During the Depression

Recession, downturn or depression - it’s what happens when the big shots on Wall Street call in their speculations.  It’s like a high stakes card game, only it’s one played with people’s lives.  Someday it’ll happen to nearly every American except the Wall Street crowd who are the card sharks.  My first recession was in 1971 caused by a national trucking strike.  The Recession of 1982 came next and the most recent occurred with the Sub Prime Crash of 2008.  Ozark boys went through the same thing in the 1930s only it was more severe, but they were young, hardworking, and resilient because they followed the harvests of the Great Plains where the work was.  Dad and his best friend, Mott Davis, are shown packed up and ready to leave in a photo taken on our place during the Depression.   Key overalls, a good suitcase, and a jug possibly filled with an adult beverage are all you needed.  The car is a Model A.

John Steinbeck and his Grapes of Wrath got all the attention.  Okies lost their farms and fled to California.  Grandma Joad died along the way and “We’re the people” Ma Joad held the family together.  When they reached the Land of Milk and Honey, they picked fruit.  Our family planted corn and picked it for farmers hurting for labor near Sioux Falls.  (One photo was stamped “Luvern, Minn.”).  After WWII many from the Ozarks went to the Great Lakes (Michigan) where the industrial might of America took off.  In 1936 Missouri had its drought but it wasn’t as serious as the “Dust Bowl” further west in Oklahoma.  Ma always said if it wasn’t for turnips, people here in West Plains would have starved to death.  More on Michigan in Journal of the Silent Majority.

Mott Davis and Henry Cherry (right) are shown in a field of snow.  Henry was partial to what I call “depression caps” popular at the time.  Others form a road crew shoveling near major power lines.  Boys from West Plains, Missouri had never seen snow like that.  Notice one farm’s substitute for a corn silo.  Woven fence wire holds thousands of ears of corn in three layers.  Old plank lumber forms the roof supported by old telephone poles connected by a ridge pole like a tent.  I also have a picture of Dad with a team of huge draft horses that pulled corn wagons. It’s another interesting story worthy of a dedicated posting some other time.  He loved animals and earned the nick name “Doc Cherry.”

WWII Oran: More Clues

In Intelligence School we used to call this Photo Interpretation.  The photo of Dad’s driver and guard is possibly my most valuable clue as to what unit he was with early in WWII.  It took me a long time to realize what bumper markings were – much less what they meant.  As you look at the front of the truck from left to right is the unit hierarchy sometimes down to the truck number in the platoon on the far right.  MBS, the Mediterranean Base Section of Services of Supply appears to be the parent command.  “2 SV?” I believe stands for 2nd Bn Services Command.  (There’s probably a “C” after V.)  The Black driver is a good clue.  Necessity drove integration long before it became policy.  On the back of the photo is its identification: “My driver and gard (sic) in Oran”.  By that time Dad had been promoted from “T” to SSgt and truck platoon sergeant. Whether or not he was training an all-black Transportation Corps truck platoon (16 trucks) is questionable.  The online The Employment of Negro Troops was no help.

The second photo shows Dad in his summer Khakis and tie as a Technical Sergeant posing in one of Oran’s many truck loading sheds.  The “T” usually meant the GI was a technical specialist such as a mechanic, someone not yet in command of others.  In the background is an Army forklift – one of just ten at the port if I remember correctly and an unusually low number for the requirements of Operation Torch.  Note the triangular span of wooden gables under the shed’s ridge.  Judging from the shadows, the sheds are on an east-west axis.  When Services of Supply (Signal Corps, Engineers, Quartermaster, Ordnance, Medical, Chemical, Transportation Corps) landed at Mers El Kibir six miles away on November 11, 1942, Oran was beginning to get wet and cold.  I speculate his wearing of his summer service uniform might have been unavoidably late.  Just eight weeks before he’d been on the RMS Queen Mary with a large contingent of B-17 ground crews coming to England.  I’m still working on the “units aboard” puzzle.

Operations in Africa are overlooked.  All you see on TV is Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Bulge, and D-Day.  There was dive bombing in Oran and ships blown up at sea off the coast like the Arthur Middleton which I believe Dad saw blown up on January 1, 1943 and night convoys to the east to capture Bizerte and evacuate Tunis where 250,000 Africa Corps Germans surrendered.  I think he was involved in that too.  Germans marched all night beside his resting drivers and trucks. There were bodies floating in Oran harbor when SOS arrived.  Ordnance men removed them.   Isn’t there anything out there besides Lee Marvin and the Big Red One?  The stories of the average GI are more interesting to me, especially when there’s a puzzle involved and it’s personal and some of those pieces are rare.

Spring Update

We dodged the heavy snowfalls that made a mess of the Southeast.  Rain is on the way and hopefully our Ozark ponds will soon be overrunning.  I saw my first robin and bluebird yesterday.  The sun occasionally breaks through; I'm tired of the gloom of February and this time of year.  If I had a bucket list I'd like to visit more places where the sun isn't hidden so much.  Winter's hay is almost gone.

 

Cable television gets boring too except for Wheeler Dealers which had its last seasons' show last night.  O'Reiley will probably talk about Ferguson tonight which is more interesting than talking without end about Hillary's E-mails.  I enjoy watching the Five, but what happened to Bob?  Has he been replaced?  Fox is right about their leftist competitors:  people get tired of being lectured.  Note to them:  "School's out!" We're free to watch what we want to.

 

I watched Rick Steve's European exploits the other day on PBS.  Does he actually get paid to have that much fun?  If I had a Bucket List I'd fill it up fast with some of his destinations like Berlin and Italy. I've written all this without glasses believe it or not, so I must be getting better.  I'm thinking about future blog posts with less politics, but WWII still has my personal interest.  I can't help it, I'm a Baby Boomer.