University of Virginia Library

Preface

When I began the preparation of this record of the participation
of the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle County in all phases
of the Second World War, both at home and overseas, I hoped that
space would permit considerable analysis of national and international
developments and implications related to each narrative chapter
of this volume. It was my desire to correlate rather fully all local
transitions or incidents with corresponding changes or events on the
larger scale. So sweeping was the local story found to be, however,
that it has been incumbent to subordinate the overall view to the
local picture. Nevertheless, my collaborators and I have attempted
to retain a sufficient amount of pertinent materials on the national
and international levels to provide something of a framework for
local data. Purely local facts are not presented without a larger
perspective. In other words, the part which is local has been related
to the whole which is national.

I have attempted in Part I to show how residents of both city
and county worked together in such home front activities as Civilian
Defense, war bond drives, salvaging, rationing, and increased agricultural
and industrial production. At the same time I have pointed
out that the programs themselves were actuated by the needs of a
people engaged in war and that, though effectuated by local personnel
throughout the United States, they received their primary impetus
from the national crisis.

Though it may be inferred throughout the pages of this first section
of the volume that the nationwide programs submitted to the
civilian population were inspired in great part by President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, it is with deliberate intent that I have chosen this
Preface as the most fitting place in which to make a direct tribute to
him. No history of the Second World War, however fragmentary
or localized, can fail to include an expression of gratitude to the great
leader whom the United States was fortunate in having during a
most difficult and demanding period.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had unfailingly directed his efforts towards
furthering justice in one form or another for the working man prior

to the war. His efforts had won for him the trust of peoples in all
justice-loving countries of the world. When the Germans set forth
upon their conquest of Europe, when the Japanese extended their
invasions in the East, had it not been for Roosevelt's grasp of the
historical significance of the rebirth of Pan-Germanism allied with
militaristic Japan; had it not been for his recognition of the intrinsic
evil embodied in the methods employed by the enemy nations in
their concerted drive for world conquest; had it not been for his
discernment of the moral issues then at stake, many Americans would
not have been sufficiently aware of the poignant danger to which
they themselves were exposed. Roosevelt's clarity of vision prevailed
over his humanitarian desire to keep his country out of war.
He summoned his people to total cooperation in preparing the defeat
of the Axis powers. That the Americans responded wholeheartedly
is to their everlasting credit. But the wisdom that warned of the
peril threatening mankind as a whole; the discrimination that
appraised the true value of the allied nations; the foresight that
compassed the prodigious scope of the United States' responsibility;
the ingenuity that launched the towering strength of this country
into war, will always be associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, a
name which ever will be held in honor.

In Part II of this volume the story of local individuals' participation
in the military and naval operations of the war has been told.
Whenever possible, my collaborator and I have incorporated extracts
from their letters into the body of the text, letting them speak for
themselves and giving the reader insight into their observations and
reactions. Though general histories of the Second World War can
be bought at the corner book store for as little as twenty-five cents,
it is obviously desirable that a community possess a narrative record
of the wartime experiences of its own servicemen and servicewomen.

A word or two must be added regarding the factors which determined
the choice of biographical incidents. First let me say that
I make no pretense of having included them all. There must be and
undoubtedly are countless anecdotes deserving of mention which
have been left out merely because they were not recorded in accessible
sources. It was indeed difficult to acquire a great quantity of material
in a limited period of time. Moreover, an almost universal
modesty characterizes the average “G. I.” This, together with their
desire to forget the grimmest memories, makes it all but impossible
to obtain more than such official data as are included in the four
rosters at the end of the book. I appealed through The Daily Progress
to mothers and wives of servicemen for stories of their sons and
husbands; but, as I received only one reply, I confined my subsequent
efforts to recording what information was available within
practicable limitations.

If, however, in a confessedly incomplete chronicle of these men
and women who were “lately taken from the ways of peace,” I have
succeeded in preserving even a little of their absolute bravery, a
mere trace of their infinite forbearance, some faint notion of the
selflessness that was theirs, I shall feel rewarded.

The four rosters of service personnel which comprise Part III
should include, theoretically, the names of every man and woman of
this community who served in the armed forces of the United States
during the war years. However, some unavoidable, indeed inevitable,
omissions will doubtless be found after issuance of this volume.
The public should be assured that this compilation of the community's
collective military and naval Honor Roll has been made
as nearly complete and as free of error as painstaking work upon all
accessible and pertinent materials by several people extending over
many months could possibly make it. In the final analysis the
major portion of all deficiencies which may be discovered in the two
Blue Star Honor Rolls are attributable to the failure of many servicemen
and servicewomen to have their discharge certificates copied
into the public “Induction and Discharge Record, World War II”
which is maintained under state statute by the clerks of the city and
county courts.

In regard to the role of the University of Virginia in the war effort,
I must explain why no extended treatment of its wartime services
has been included in this book. When the Albemarle County
Historical Society began its local war history project in 1945, the
University was formulating a plan for the writing and publication
of a history of its fifth quarter-century, which would include the
war years. Naturally, therefore, it seemed proper to all concerned
with Pursuits of War that the University's internal wartime developments
should be left to its own chronicler. Consequently, the
various transitions and services on the Grounds—the uniformed
students in training, the curricular changes, and the research work
directly related to the war which numerous professors carried out
with distinction—will provide ample and significant scope for a
separate history of the University of Virginia in the Second World
War. Obviously, however, the University is so integral a part
of the community that some phases of its wartime story are necessarily
reflected in the following pages. From the first my associates
and I have been hopeful that our work will place some markers to
point out byways which the University's war historian might not
otherwise explore.

In addition to the acknowledgments which the editor has made
in his Foreword, I wish to express my personal gratitude to certain
persons who gave me especially helpful assistance during the period
of my work upon this study. Miss Isabella N. Burnet encouraged
me to use the clippings from The Daily Progress and the file of
this newspaper, covering most of the war years and the period of
postwar transition, which she assembled for the Albemarle County
Historical Society. Henry McComb Bush, Mrs. Milton L. Grigg,
and Miss Mary Stamps White (Mrs. W. Gerhard Suhling, Jr.)
were of real assistance to me in recalling the conditions under which
the local Civilian Defense organization developed. Access to the
annual reports of the County Agent, T. O. Scott, and of the successive
Home Demonstration Agents, Mrs. Bessie Dunn Miller and

Mrs. Ruth Burruss Huff, was given, always graciously and with patience,
by Miss Bessie Jones. I wish to express my indebtedness to
County Agent Scott and to Mrs. Huff for the cooperation and interest
they manifested during my efforts to understand the basic
explanation of agricultural accomplishments in the county. Mrs.
James Gordon Smith, President of the Albemarle County Chapter
of the American Red Cross, kindly consented to contribute her own
account of the war activities of the Chapter. This was a purely
voluntary labor of love on her part, and I have welcomed her interesting
and appreciated narrative.

In compiling the rosters of service personnel, I was assisted by
Mrs. John W. MacLeod, Miss Nancy B. Gordon, Miss Mary Stamps
White, and Mrs. Larned D. Randolph. It was, however, Mrs.
MacLeod who gave most liberally of her time, strength, interest,
and good humor to aid me in this phase of the work. Her thorough
acquaintance with county names enabled her to throw light on many
a problem which arose to perplex us. She shared my enthusiasm
for the fine records of many of the men, unknown to us both, and
I consider it my good fortune to have been able to work with her.

Finally, I am indebted to Dr. W. Edwin Hemphill for the remarkably
just attitude he has displayed during his work of editing
the volume. I am also sincerely grateful for his seemingly inexhaustible
supply of patience and understanding.

Since this volume contains quotations from many sources and is
a product of the collaboration of eight authors, its occasional expressions
of opinion and its inclusions and exclusions should not be
taken to be an accurate or complete representation of the personal
viewpoint of any one of them.