University of Virginia Library

I
Introduction

The attention of a world already extensively engaged in warfare
or subjugated by invading forces was focussed upon Charlottesville
and Albemarle County on June 10, 1940, when President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, addressing the graduating class of the University
of Virginia, made a declaration of a new American foreign policy.
He pledged that “we will pursue two obvious and simultaneous
courses; we will extend to the opponents of force the material resources
of this nation; and, at the same time, we will harness and
speed up the use of those resources in order that we ourselves in the
Americas may have equipment and training equal to the task of any
emergency and every defense.”[1]

This speech was made on the afternoon of the day which had
seen the entrance of Italy as an active Axis belligerent, shortly after
the removal from Dunkirk of 335,000 men—all that remained of
the British Expeditionary Force in France. The darkest hour for
France was approaching—German troops would enter Paris without
opposition four days later.[2] Within the past nine weeks Norway,
Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxemburg had fallen
before the Nazi onslaught. Italy's declaration of war against the
Allies in the face of President Roosevelt's urging that she maintain
her neutrality served only to deepen the general gloom. The President
denounced Italy's action in terse and picturesque phraseology. “The
hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.”[3]

It is neither necessary nor appropriate that a recapitulation of the
causes and opening phases of the Second World War should be included
in this volume. Adequate coverage of prewar “incidents”
and the earlier offensives has been provided by a large number of
publications, ranging from day-by-day accounts of journalistic writers
to narratives compiled with greater scope and perspective by
participants in the action, by editors, and by historians.[4] It is sufficient
to point out that the stage was set for a supreme effort on the
part of the people of the United States of America and that in this
effort residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County played a
major role.

In 1940 Albemarle County comprised an area of 739 square miles
and a population of 24,652 persons, of whom 18,990 were white
and 5,662 were Negro. The city of Charlottesville had at that time
an area of six square miles and a population of 19,400 (15,246
whites and 4,154 Negroes). Nearly half the county's labor force
(48.6 per cent, or 3,839 persons) was employed in some form of
agriculture, with 1,068 individuals engaged in business or professional
services, 584 in manufacturing, 539 in wholesale and retail
trade, 427 in construction, and 92 in mining. Of those employed
in the city of Charlottesville, 2,432 were engaged in business and
professional services, 1,763 in wholesale and retail trade, 1,194 in
manufacturing, 618 in transporation, communication, and other
utilities, and 530 in construction. Of the 2,591 farms in Albemarle
County, 15.9 per cent were operated by tenants and fifty-five per
cent had productions valued that year at less than $400, although
the average value of all county farms was $8,165. The value of farm
products sold, traded, or used by farm households was $2,323,000,
of which 35.1 per cent derived from livestock and livestock products
and 33.8 per cent from crops.[5]

Charlottesville was governed in 1940 by a five-man council presided
over by Dr. W. D. Haden, who was elected mayor by members
of the council, with Seth Burnley as city manager. At that time Albemarle
County had been for seven years under the county executive
form of government, with Henry A. Haden as executive. The
county was, in fact, the first in the state of Virginia to adopt the
county executive form, which it inaugurated on May 3, 1933, shortly
after the General Assembly passed in 1932 the Optional Forms Act
permitting this type of county government.[6]

Neither city nor county was unaware in 1940 of the trend of
world events. Already the local chapter of the American Red Cross
was engaged in providing clothing for European war-sufferers, and
soon the chapter was to enter into a production program which
would place Charlottesville and Albemarle County in a position of
national leadership. The Monticello Guard was girding itself for
action, and plans for defense were an increasingly common topic of
local conversation.

The world had been troubled throughout the past nine years.
Japan invaded Manchuria in September, 1931, and established the
puppet state of Manchukuo the following year. Italy overran and
conquered Ethiopia in 1935–1936. Spain was torn in 1936 by a
civil war of international implications. Japan renewed her attacks
on China in 1937. Hitler's territorial aggrandizement and internal
terrorization policies on the European continent began in 1933 and
reached a climax with the German march into Poland on September
1, 1939. To the peoples of all nations had come an increasing
sense of insecurity and a foreboding of the approach of worldwide

conflict. To many residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle
County the fight seemed inevitable and near at hand in 1940.

In the light of Germany's overwhelming successes of the past two
months President Roosevelt stated to his University of Virginia
audience and to the world in lucid and forceful terms the position of
the nations of the Western Hemisphere, as yet unengaged in actual
hostilities. “Perception of danger to our institutions may come
slowly,” he said, “or it may come with a rush and a shock as it has
to the people of the United States in the past few months. This
perception of danger has come to us clearly and overwhelmingly; and
we perceive the peril in a world-wide arena—an arena that may become
so narrowed that only the Americas will retain the ancient
faiths.”[7]

In the course of the next five years more than 5,400 young men
and women from Albemarle County and Charlottesville were to
serve in the armed forces of their country, and of these nearly 200
would not return. Residents of both city and county were destined
to work harder than ever before, to do more with less, and to give
to the utmost of time, strength, materials, and money. In the
summer of 1940, more than a year before the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the nation's defense program
was launched and its citizens were beginning to prepare for the long
struggle toward ultimate victory. Until the surrender of Germany
(V-E Day, May 8, 1945) and the capitulation of Japan (V-J Day,
September 2, 1945) the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle
County were to remain among the nation's leaders, both in mobilization
at home and in theaters of battle.

Successive parts of this volume summarize in turn the participation
of civilians in the war activities of the home front and the
experiences of local residents who went forth in military and naval
uniforms to serve in every corner of the globe.

“I call for effort, courage, sacrifice, devotion. Granting the love
of freedom, all of these are possible,” President Roosevelt told the
American people on June 10, 1940. Charlottesville and Albemarle
County heard the call and gave what he asked. Throughout the
trying years ahead the county and city, together with the rest of the
country, justified the unfaltering faith which the President expressed
on the eve of total war: “And the love of freedom is still fierce and
steady in the nation today.”[8]