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A voice from the past: My father's war
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Published: September 6, 2009
I recently received a telephone call from Phyllis Witherspoon, who lives in Mooresville. Phyllis said she regularly reads my column in the R&L and had something she thought I might be interested in.
She said that several years ago, her son brought home a bunch of old 78 rpm records he had gotten at a yard sale and that in the bunch was a record, about the size of an old 45 rpm record, but with a small center hole, such as was found on a 33 rpm disc.
"I started to throw it away several times, but never did," Phyllis said.
She went on to say that the record had some writing on the center circular label and the stamped date, Oct. 2, 1943.
In October of 1943, hundreds of American in military service were dying every week. Who would ultimately win the war was far from decided and the war would go on for almost two more years.
I asked Phyllis if she had listened to the record, and she said that she had, but that it had been years ago and she had forgotten what was on it.
She said I could have the record if I wanted it, and I told her I would like to have it. I got the record last week.
It was, as I had suspected, a phonographic "letter." It was sent from Sterling Jordan, a 3rd Class Yeoman in the U. S. Navy, stationed at Great Lakes, Ill., to his family who lived in Charlotte.
A Navy yeoman, by the way, is an enlisted sailor who handles secretarial and clerical duties ashore or aboard a ship.
The record was an artifact of World War II, a means by which a person in the service could communicate, vocally, with the folks back home.
I think of World War II as my father's war. He was an infantryman in the Army's 29th (Blue and Gray) Division, and he waded ashore on the beach at Normandy as a replacement several days after D-Day. My brother, born in 1946, and myself, born in 1947, are walking proof that he survived the war.
Dad was born in 1922, and his generation has been called "The Greatest Generation" with deserved justification. Journalist Tom Brokow coined that title for his popular 1998 book about this extraordinary group of Americans.
My father and my mother, as well as my father-in-law and mother-in-law, were raised during the Great Depression, and if you think we are in an economic depression now, I challenge you to read about America in the period 1930 to 1939.
Then there was World War II to be fought. Either one, the War or the Depression, would have been a severe test to any group of Americans, but to have faced both ordeals and to have emerged stronger is a testament to my parent's generation's true grit.
Dad fought in France and Germany, while my father-in-law, Cecil Newton, was an infantryman in the Army in the Pacific Theatre, on Okinawa. He would have taken part in the invasion of Japan had President Truman not given the go-ahead to drop the two atomic bombs. Cecil has no moral qualms with Truman's decision authorizing the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He says that by dropping the bombs, President Harry Truman saved his life.
I believe him.
I invite you to talk to older Americans who remember how things were during World War II and they will tell you of a nation that pulled together in the face of adversity. But don't wait too long to talk to a World War II veteran; they're dying at the rate of more than a thousand a day. Disease and old age are doing what Axis bullets and bombs were unable to do.
Artifacts from World War II, including items from the "home front," like this record, are fairly easy to come by these days. Go to any yard sale or flea market, and with a little searching on your part, you are likely to find ration books, V-mail, photos of veterans in uniform, military insignia, parts of uniforms and souvenirs that the veterans brought back.
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Getting back to the phonograph record, Petty Officer Jordan made the recording at the Chicago Servicemen's Center, probably while on a liberty pass. There is about 2 minutes worth of play time on each side. Sterling talks about the Navy's food, lots of pork and beans and potatoes, and getting up at 5:30 a.m. and of having recently pulled redeye guard duty from midnight until 4 a.m. Like most men and women in service, Sterling asks that the folks back home keep those letters coming.
Although he mentions his father, he talks more specifically to his mother, who evidently now works outside the home.
"I know you work hard," he says to her. He also mentions "Sis," whom he tells to keep making those [artillery?] shells, " 'cause we need 'em." He talks about his brother George, too, whom he has not heard from recently.
While in Chicago, he is thinking about going to a big free dance for servicemen, but confesses that he is no dancer. He also tells folks to say hey to his girlfriend, Marcene.
"When this war's over, I'm coming back to her."
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I can't help but wonder what became of the Jordan family of 500 N. Smith St., Charlotte, and specifically what happened to YN3 Jordan. Did he survive the war and marry Marcene, or was he killed in some battle in the vast Pacific?
YN3 Jordan's name is not among the Gold Star Veterans Exhibit listed in the excellent Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story Web site (www.cmstory.org/ww2), but surely there are Charlotte-Mecklenburg veterans who died during World War II who, for one reason or another, were not listed. There are, however, 830 records of the "Gold Star Boys" listed.
Did his family realize what they were throwing away when this record was discarded — the voice of a son, a brother, perhaps never to be heard again?
I'm donating the 6½-inch diameter disc to the North Carolina State Museum of History in Raleigh. The folks there know how to preserve it. It would be an excellent addition to a "War on the Home Front" exhibit.
Thank you, Phyllis Witherspoon, for saving and sharing this artifact of the war that ended 64 years and four days ago.
O.C. Stonestreet is a retired Iredell County history teacher and works in the newsroom at the R&L. He can be reached at ostonestreet@statesville.com.
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