Echoes of World War II
Cigarette lighter
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Reminders of the war were everywhere.
My father's table-top cigarette lighter, like the one in the picture, had been made from a chromed .50 caliber machine gun shell. As a young child, I had a sturdy gyroscope. It should have been part of an Army Air Force bombsight, but it had failed inspection at the defense plant. When I first was old enough to play with it, my father had to tell me what a bombsight was.
I doubt that anyone ever explained to me what a war was, but little by little, I had got the idea. It was only natural that we'd hear about it. Many of our relatives had served in the military or worked in defense plants during World War II, and American families had had to deal with rationing, shortages, and the pain of losing loved ones.
With my family, I watched uniformed veterans march in parades: Look, there's Dad's godson Joe - he was a Marine in the South Pacific. Even ordinary visits with relatives would bring up memories of the war: Cousin Harold has very bad hearing from firing all those artillery shells during the war. Or, Aunt Martha's son Bill died when his ship was sunk by a Kamikaze at Okinawa. I saw a framed photograph of my Uncle Gus, wearing a uniform and Stetson hat, stiffly seated on horseback: That's from the FIRST world war. And so I learned that there had been more than one war.
As far back as I can recall - before Hicksville - I'd see signs with a large black S and an arrow. That's from the war. It showed you where to go if the Nazis bombed us. Something new for me to think about.
NYC sign designating place to use as shelter during WW II Air Raids
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Civil Defense roundel
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Once when the streets got washed, I asked about the round signs on the Department of Sanitation tanker trucks that sprayed the pavement: CD stands for 'Civil Defense.' I vaguely got the idea, but I wasn't ready to find out more. Much later, my Fourth Grade teacher in Hicksville, Evelyn Storey, would tell our class about the Office of Civil Defense, and about her wartime experiences as an Air Raid Warden.
Understandably, our parents were never going to forget World War II.
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