Part Two: Wartime Memories —

Growing Up At Fairfield Hills

By C. Douglas Moore

“Doug Moore’s Memories Revisited –– 1930s To 1940s” was submitted to The Newtown Bee along with photos from the period and has been published in two parts.  Part One appeared in the January 23 edition and featured Mr Moore’s recollections of growing up on the campus of what was then the State Hospital [later named Fairfield Hills] as the son of Medical Superintendent Dr Clifford D. Moore.

Part Two deals primarily with Mr Moore’s memories of wartime in Newtown. The author, now 72, has added his own historical interpretation of world events as seen from the perspective of more than half a century. Yet, his memories from age 9 to 14 are those of a child noticing certain changes in his community and to people he knew, brought on by a wartime economy and the threat of enemy invasion during World War II.

C. Douglas Moore lives now in the rural, agricultural community of Goochland, Va., where he retired after a long career in hotel management with the Marriott Hotel Corporation.  During a recent phone interview, he commented that he had “tried Florida, but it didn’t take,” and now he is glad to be living nearby his grown children, who live and work in the Richmond area.

 

Wartime Trains

 Transported Munitions

Developing war clouds in Europe burst open in the late 1930s with aggressive German invasion of neighboring countries. Soon World War II was under way and our country was in a shooting war with Germany, Italy, and Japan.

From our house [in the oval of five duplexes at Fairfield Hills] could be seen off in a distance, increased numbers of freight trains with open bed cars loaded with military supplies and equipment —tanks, vehicles, artillery guns, boats, etc, with armed guards headed toward port New York.

 [Long lines of] 100-car trains came by more frequently. The United States was now in a wartime economy.

At one point a German submarine was rumored to be in Long Island Sound — as was rumored during the First World War. Enemy ships were off the south shore of Long Island, and all along our Atlantic Coast. True or not, the United States had been drawn into the world conflict. It was real!

Dad’s favorite barber was arrested in nearby Bethel for being a German spy and communicating by short wave radio with enemy ships at sea.

Several Newtown women became Rosy-the-Riveters working in war production in Bridgeport, and they were proud when their factories, Sikorsky Aircraft and Bridgeport Brass, won monthly “E” Banner awards from the government for output and safety.

It was not unusual to see Army troop truck convoys passing through the town. Sometimes soldiers would whistle and toss used bullet shells with notes inside to the older schoolgirls walking to or from Hawley School. The Red Cross was scheduling volunteer sessions at the library, town hall, and churches, to knit sweaters and gloves and roll bandages for our troops.

 

English Children Sheltered Here

Three English children [also by the last name Moore, but no relation to the author] were sent as refugees to Newtown in the care of their aunt, Mrs Wetmore. The purpose of their coming was to protect them from the London blitz and threat of German invasion of their homeland.

Their names were Sylvia, and (twins) Pamela and Tom Moore. They arrived by ship in New York City with other children sent to escape the ravages of war.

The Wetmores were up in age so they were willing to share these refugee children with our family and several other families in town. At first they were shy and at the sound of any siren would run and get under a table, as a conditioned response to air raids at home in England.

They were nice, well-behaved children and good playmates. Sylvia grew up and married an American man and remained in Upper New York State. The twins returned home after the war when their parents made arrangements to transport them. They all spent a great deal of time at our house, and the Victrola (record player) played over and over again, “There Will Always Be An England.”

A patriotic day ceremony at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument up past the town hall featured the famous singer Kate Smith, who sang “God Bless America.” What an honor to have such a famous entertainer perform in our town! [Decades after attending the ceremony, Mr Moore still remembers being impressed by her deep, booming voice and large physical presence.]

Neighborhood Civil Defense wardens were organized and trained and were at the ready for emergencies that never developed. They were effective, though, in patrolling during nighttime blackouts.

Certain areas in public buildings and the school were designated safe zones during air raid drills. All homes and assembly places had to have blackout shades on the windows to conceal inside lighting. Outside lights were turned off. All car and truck headlights had to be black-taped on the top half for decreased visibility.

Over-Eager Boy Scout Spots

Aircraft, Sounds Alarm

Troop 70 Boy Scout fun included meetings in a second floor room of the fire station located behind [Edmond Town Hall] with Scout Master Paul Cullens, and later with Al Boyson when Mr Cullens went off to the Army.

Valuable learning experiences were taught and fun times were gained, including group bus trips to the Yale Bowl for football games and to Yankee Stadium for baseball games. District Boy Scout jamborees with overnight tenting and cook fires were always fun.

Additionally, troop 70 provided some patriotic and helpful civic activities around Newtown during World War II. It was a good feeling to wear the Boy Scout uniform.

There were two airplane tracking shacks hastily built to shelter civilian spotters who worked in shifts around the clock night and day to identify and report all aircraft. One was on the hill behind the Edmond Town Hall and the other at the State Hospital across from the tennis court.

My friend Denny [Ringers] was working a shift with his mother when she had to leave for a while to attend to something at home. Older Boy Scouts were allowed to work shifts with an adult. Jokingly, [my friend] called in to report a German bomber with silhouette identification and compass direction. The person at Civil Defense Headquarters realized that the report was false and tricked him into giving his name, age, and address for a reward for saving Newtown from an air attack.

[After this episode] Boy Scouts were no longer allowed to be spotters! Needless to say, our planes were not sent to intercept this [fictitious]bomber!!

 

Rationing Of Cars

And Butter

No new cars were available for civilian use during the war. Newtown’s first ambulance was ordered from the local Chevrolet dealer in the late 1930s but was not ready until 1940 or 1941. Joe Ringers in connection with a business trip for the Fabric Fire Hose Company volunteered to pick it up in Detroit and drive it back to town.

At age 10, I had to be rushed to Danbury Hospital for an appendix operation and had one of the first rides in the back of the new ambulance. It looked more like a Cadillac and had a variety of General Motors parts. Smooth ride!

Town doctor Waldo Desmond was badly injured in a pick-up softball game at the country club one day. As pitcher, he took a line drive ball in the face.

Gasoline, meat, coffee, sugar, and other staple items became scarce and soon were rationed with coupons audited with government controls. Automobile tires soon were not available and recaps and inferior synthetic rubber tires were used. They were not as good as real rubber tires for performance and mileage in spite of lower speed limits and less car use.

Toward war’s end in 1945, some new cars were seen. They all looked like the last prewar models but had heavy wooden bumpers until chrome metal was available again. You could now order a new car in any color so long as it was black!

Connecticut was trying out a new experimental vegetable dehydration system at the hospital. In the staff dining building, there was a large wall-sized quick heating oven that was to take the moisture out for storage and preserve the produce until hydrated again before use.

I don’t think it proved worthy for agricultural use!

I had a brand new pair of Sunday dress shoes that looked good, were shiny, but unknowingly had laminated pressed cardboard soles that fell apart in wet weather –– another war-imposed shortcut that didn’t work.

Local Enlistees’

Lives Change

Dad was invited to join the Yale Medical School faculty as a part-time lecturer and for a while, he  traveled to New Haven.

Paul Cullens, Congregational Church minister, Troop 70 Boy Scout Master, and skier, joined the Army as a chaplain. He expected to be assigned to Alaska or some other snowy area, [but] soon ended up in the North African Desert.

One day we noticed a new sign in the window at the Flagpole A&P grocery store that read “Oleomargarine Available.” We kids didn’t know what this was but thought it must be something adults drink. I soon learned what it was when it was one of my chores to mix the lardlike stuff with the coloring packet.

Dad joined the uniformed Public Health Service attached to the Navy as a Lieutenant Commander, and had an office in New York City. But he rail-traveled to all three coasts to board incoming ships to attend to sailors that had survived sinkings and other war trauma victims.

While he was on leave of absence as superintendent, we had to leave our State Hospital home and relocate to the Chamberlain house in town by the Hawley Pond.  This was neat for ice skating, hockey, and closer for bicycle riding to school and uptown.

My contribution to the war effort was saving tin foil in balls, collecting tin cans, assisting newspaper collections with the Boy Scouts, attending our family Victory Garden, and buying war saving stamps when possible.

Pearl Harbor Day

 In Newtown

It was a calm Sunday on December 7, 1941. [We were] listening to the New York Giants football game on the radio when the game was halted for the emergency public address announcement that our Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor was under attack by Japan. All active duty military personnel were to immediately report to their home camps and bases by order of the President.

Mother and Dad were sad, but not totally surprised because tension had been building from Japan. President Roosevelt shortly proclaimed we were at war with Japan in his famous “this day will live in infamy” speech.

Too young to grasp the seriousness of this, I wondered why the football game had to be interrupted for this message.

 Mr Moore closes his memoir with the following words:

“Thanks to Newtown for your historic past and sure-to-be-bright future as you remain nicely snuggled in the scenic rolling hills countryside of southwestern Connecticut. May you continue to grow gracefully!

My hats off to the golden rooster atop the Congregational Church as it looks all around to view picturesque Newtown –– the hometown that provided many lasting memories for two generations of the Clifford Douglas Moore family.”