1943 Face Mask

Plastic Masks Protect Workers in War Plants

Eyes, throat, and lungs are shielded against flying particles of metal and dust by this mask fitted with clear plastic lenses and a plastic respirator that is packed with several different filters for as many types of fumes.  The masks are being turned out by mass-production methods to equip plants engaged in America's speeded up war work, and are a refinement of the familiar goggles long used in this country in counteracting industrial hazards.  As worn by the young woman in the photograph, it would seem also to be a  safeguard against disfigurement of the beauty of the hundred of thousands of women workers who are doing their full share of our country's war work.

Check out the Coffee Cup with this image!

This was in the January, 1943 issue of Popular Science.

1940 Patriotic Strip-tease sends pictures for Army recruits

From Time magazine, Oct 7, 1940


ARMY
From Margie, With Love
Redheaded Margie ("Poor Man's Garbo") Hart is a strip-teaser who plays Manhattan's theatres and the Midwest burlesque houses.  This week she gave 62-year-old Major General William N. Haskell, commander of the 27th Division, New York National Guard, a shock.  Sent to the 27th were 50 autographed copies of Margie's "most vivacious" photograph with the promise of 4,500 more as soon as prints were ready.  Margie sent her mementos out of practically pure patriotism.  She wanted them distributed among the 27th Division, which will soon go into training far from the Manhattan "girlie" houses, at Anniston, Ala.

Said Margie:  "A little romance and sentiment help to while away a man's lonely hours.  I only wish I could do more for our soldiers...I do hope the generals won't give my picture to married men.  I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea."

Asked West Pointer Haskell:  "Who is Margie Hart?"  Someone told him. Across the package he scrawled "Refused," ordered the photos returned.

1941 S.S. "America" ~ Navy Buys Cruise Ship

From Time Magazine, June 9, 1941

ECONOMICS OF THE AMERICA

When the Navy last week conscripted the luxury liner America, it left the venerable U.S. Lines without a single passenger ship.  But at the company's offices in lower Manhattan there was no mourning. The atmosphere was more like a carnival.  Everyone got a 10% bonus (based on last year's pay).  Passenger department clerks were told they would be kept on.  After work there was a rush to nearby bars.

The loss of its vessels has been a god-send to U.S Lines.  Over 80% of its $3,801,180 net income in 1940 came from sale if its ships.  The America, its No. 1 money-loser, was the climax.  She was built to replace the old Leviathan, whose owners patted her poop whenever she lost less than $75,000 a trip.  The America did a little better than that. But since her commissioning last summer she has lost something like $1,250,000.

Biggest boat ever built this side of the Atlantic, the America cost $17,586,478.  Of this, U.S. Lines put up $2,396,629 cash, the Leviathan (valued at around $2,000,000), and a mortgage for $7,328,140, the Maritime Commission the rest.  But even after throwing out the Government's ante, the America cost U.S. Lines $850,000 annually in depreciation ($600,000) and interest ($250,000).  And that was without even moving her from the dock.

Barred from the Atlantic run for which she was designed, the America spent her brief commercial life in the cruise business, mostly in the Caribbean.  She could carry 1,202 passengers, needed a crew of 643.  But she never was entirely full, an average $170 per passenger, each twelve-day cruise yielded about $76,500.  Against this were operating costs of $90,000 (wages, food, fuel, general overhead at $7,500 daily, plus depreciation and interest of $28,200 ($2,350 daily). Result:  net loss of $41,700 a trip.  The loss to U.S. Lines was less than that.  Under the Bailey-Bland (ship relief) Act of 1940, most of its losses will be paid by the Government.

This week not even U.S. Lines knew what the Navy would pay for their pet ship.  But one thing they did know:  in ships, bigness does not beget profits.


Another article about the Naval acquisition in the same magazine.

Requisition
West from the Virgin Islands toward Haiti stood S.S. America, a thwarted ship in a restricted ocean.  Biggest (27,000 gross tons) and fanciest merchantman ever to slide down a U.S. way, she had been conceived by the Maritime Commission for the blue-ribbon North Atlantic passenger trade.  But before her birth was complete, World War II and the Neutrality Act closed in her horizons.  Since she left her fitting-out dock ten months ago, her life has been a pleasant tedium of Caribbean cruises.  Last week adventure crooked an imperious finger to this immaculate loafer of the Antilles.  She was drafted into the U.S. Navy.

The summons came in a radiogram from the Navy to her master, young Captain Giles Chester Stedman of U.S. Lines, who is also commander in the Naval Reserve.  He was ordered to cut short the cruise, cancel the stop at Port-au-Prince, cut the stop at Havana from 48 hours to one (presumably to let former King Carol of Rumania and Playmate Lupescu disembark), put in at Newport News, Va. for refitting.  The spume under America's forefoot widened and whitened as she picked up her feet and shook herself out of her cruise pace.  On radio and telephone Giles Stedman and U.S. Lines got he Navy to agree to let him fropo his 250 passengers at New York, promised to have his beauty back in Newport News by Wednesday of this week.  There workmen will pull out her luxury trappings, install three- and four-decker bunks in her cabins, paint her Navy grey, perhaps arm her with 5-in. guns for her new life as a transport.  Built to carry 3,500 soldiers or marines.

In four days of the frist week of Franklin Roosevelt's unlimited emergency, 18 passenger liners and two modern freighters were drafted for Army and Navy.  Grossing better than 200,000 tons, they included American President Lines' brand-new President Jackson and President Adams, its older trans-Pacific liners President Taft, President Pierce, President Coolidge, and President Cleveland.  American Export Lines lost its new Explorer and Executor, just completed for the India trade.  Moore-McCormack, which now has 15 ships in the armed services, gave up Mormacpenn and Mormacwren from South American run.  Total of drafted passenger craft:  better than 45,000 tons.

1955 THANK YOU, AMERICA - One story of freedom from Russian COMMUNISTS and NAZIS

From August, 1955
The American Magazine

THANK YOU, AMERICA
by Alexander Washchenko
As told to Frederick G. Brownell

"Every day and night I am grateful for all you have done for me"  ...A moving epic of courage and faith told be a newcomer who survived both Nazi slavery and Red terror.

Six years now I am living in America.  People ask me:  "Do you like it here?"

How can I make them understand?  I love America.  And I never can stop being grateful for all this country has done for me and my family.

These things are hard to put into words. I think that perhaps only someone who, like myself, has tasted the bitterness of life under two totalitarian regimes can fully appreciate how wonderful it is to be free at last and to be living in America.

Six years ago I didn't even know that the kind of life I now lead existed.  Each night I ask God again to bless the United States of America.  And each night I beg Him to relieve the suffering of the people among whom I was born.

Sometimes I dream that I am back in the Nazi slave-labor camp at Augsburg.  Or that I am once more doing forced work for the Communists in the motor tractor center at Mlynow.  When this happens I wake up screaming.  Before I go back to sleep I thank America for permitting me and my loved ones to escape from inhuman bondage to the freedom of this blessed country.

I was born in the Ukraine, a country in southeastern Europe bordered by Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Rumania.  The Ukrainian people have a culture that is many centuries old.  Today there are 42,000,000 Ukrainians unhappily under Russian rule.  Kiev, the capital, was an important center of civilization and Christianity when Moscow was still the playground of four-footed wolves.  The Ukraine has always been rich farming country.  But today, by American standards, the people there are very poor, indeed.

My family have been farmers for as long as anybody can remember.  My father was a kurkul - a peasant who owned the land he farmed - what the Russians call a "kulak."  With 6 cows, 4 horses, and nearly 100 acres of good, black soil raising rye and corn and wheat, we were considered rich.

Our farm was in the part of the Ukraine handed over to Poland at the end of World War I.   The Polish government forced us to pay heavy taxes, it conscripted Ukrainian young men to serve in the Polish army, but in most other ways it allowed us to run own own affairs.  Like most Ukrainian patriots, my father hated and feared the Poles, but not nearly so much as he hated and feared the Russian Communists, who were murdering and starving our people the other side of the border.

As a boy I never dreamed that I would one day go to America; America was a far-off place, as remote and mysterious as China.  My one idea, when I grew up, was to become a farmer like my father. I hunted, fished, swam in the creek, attended classes at the village school, and worked long hours in my father's fields.  On our dinner table was always plenty to eat - borsch, beans, potatoes, black bread, and pyrohy or dumplings.  On feast days we had white bread and a special dessert made of honey and stewed cranberries.  For Christmas my mother would bake kutya, a traditional holiday dish made of honey, wheat, and poppy seed.

One afternoon late in September, 1939, my cousin Fedya came running from the village.  I was helping my father get in the last of the rye harvest.  I was 20 years old and expecting shortly to be called up for service in the Polish army.

"Soldiers in the square," he panted. "Russians!"

I went to see for myself.  In the square before the mayor's house there stood a monstrous tank, looking larger than the locomotive I once saw on the railroad.  On its flank was painted a red star.  Soldiers in Russian uniforms lounged about, smoking cigarets; they were dirty, their uniforms were shabby, and they needed shaves.

A man whom I took to be their officer climbed on top of the tank and started to harangue the villagers.  He spoke Ukrainian with a Russian accent.  "The men of the Red army are here as your brothers," he told them.  "We have come to liberate you from the wicked Polish capitalists!"

One or two cheered, but most of the villagers looked glum.  We found out soon enough what the Russians meant by "liberation."

First, they liberated our horses - needed for Red army transport.  Then, to pay the costs of occupation, they imposed ruinous new taxes that took everything we had.  To save our land we had to sell our cows, our wagons, and even our farm machinery.  Finally, since we could no longer work it efficiently, they took the land itself.  All of the farms belonging to our village were lumped in one collective farm, in the same way they had already done with most of the farms in the part of the Ukraine that the Soviets had ruled for the past 20 years.

There was no work for me on the collective farm.  They said:  "You must go to the new motor tractor center at Mlynow."

This wa a new state-owned factory, in a town of 5,000 people about 60 miles away, where the Russians had started to recondition machinery and tractors used on the collective farms.  I stayed there 6 months, working as much as 18 hours a day, with only one day off in 10.  Then I ran away and secretly went home.  I don't know whether the factory management was so careless that they failed to report my desertion, or whether the local Communist authorities had more important matters on their mind, but nobody questioned my right to be at home.

In our village, I discovered, conditions had become much worse.  There had been a good harvest, but the Soviet authorities had requisitioned most of the grain, were shipping it to Russia.  Already, I found, our neighbors were tightenng their belts and thinking black thoughts about the coming winter.

After promising us religious freedom and an end of persection, the Communists had arrested our village priest on a trumped-up charge of treason, and had closed our village church.

"No one dares to grumble," my father told me.  "The Communists can hear everything we say!"

My cousin Fedya was dead.  People weren't supposed to be abroad after 9 o'clock at night.  One morning before it was light Fedya had slipped out of my uncle's house on some business of this own.  A Russian soldier, who was passing, raised his gun and shot him dead.

Most of the young men of my village joined the underground resistance rather than be drafted into the Red army  I did, too.  For many months I never slept under the same roof two nights running.  

One morning, while I was away from home, two Russian secret police officers came to our house and demanded to see my father.  "Michael Petrovych," they told him, "we arrest you as an enemy of the Soviet Union."  They put him in a truck with four other prisoners.  As it was leaving the village, one of our neighbors heard my father cry out: "They are taking us to Siberia!"

We never heard of him again...

My father was arrested in April, 1941.  In June of that year Hitler attacked Russia, and a powerful German army invaded the Ukraine.  Our village was only a short distance from the new border that the Nazis and the Soviets had established when they carved up Poland two years earlier.

The Germans attacked suddenly and moved ahead fast.  The Soviet troops in our area had to run for it to keep from being captured.  They didn't have time to burn our village or deport its inhabitants - the way they did with many villages a little farther from the frontier.  Almost before we knew it, the Nazis were among us.

When the Germans came to our village, everybody jumped up and down with joy.  My sisters pelted their army trucks with flowers as they rolled past our house.  My uncle unearthed a buried jug of brandy and toasted the German officers.

The Nazis said they had come to free us from "Communist Oppression" by the Russians - just the way the Russians had said they were freeing us from the "capitalist oppression" by the Poles.  We believed them at the time.

The Germans announced that the Ukrainians would be permitted to have their own government and make their own laws.  They reopened our village church.  And they promised to give me back my father's farm.

Now seemed like a good time to get married.  Katryna and I had been sweethearts since we were children; we thought that at last we could look forward to a peaceful married life.  But we soon discovered that the Nazis' promises meant no more than the Russians' had.  They kept the collective farm, putting German managers in charge.  Within two months Ukrainian self-government was abolished, and most of our Ukrainian leaders had been jailed.

Nearly all of Germany's able-bodied men were in uniform by 1943.  Hitler's war factories were desperately short of labor.  They tried to recruit Ukrainians for work in the Reich, but no one would volunteer.  So they started conscripting people by force.

One Sunday they sent soldiers to surround our village church.  Then the recruiting officer for the German labor force went through the congregation picking out the most likely-looking men.  They took ten boys from our village that day.  After that only the women, children, and old people dared to go to church.  But even this didn't satisfy the Nazis;  pretty soon they started kidnapping whole families from their homes.

Our turn came in October of that year. I was awakened early one morning by a bright light shining in my eyes.  A squad of Germans had invaded the room where Katryna and I and our baby daughter, not yet one year old, were sleeping.

"Ger up at once!" the soldier with the flashlight barked.  "We're taking you to Germany!"  He pointed the light at Katryna. "You, too," he said.

"But what about our baby?" I protested.

"You must bring her also."

They allowed us five minutes to get dressed.

Outside it was dark.  A farm wagon was standing near our door.  In it five persons - four men and one woman - were sitting silent on a pile of straw.  We got in beside them.  The Germans drove us to the railroad, four hours from our village.  Nobody spoke, but Raisa, our baby, cried a little because she was cold and hungry.

At the railroad we found a train waiting.  It was made up of baggage cars with straw on the floor.  They herded us into the car with 20 other people and locked the door.  We waited there all day with nothing to eat or drink.  It was dark again by the time the train started.

I don't remember much about the journey except that it lasted for weeks.  Raisa caught a fever, and for a time I feared she would die.  Twice a day the train would stop and the Nazi guards would come along with loaves of black, sour bread and washtubs filled with a thin vegetable soup that was always cold by the time it reached us.

At Przemysl in Poland they took us off the train for medical checkups and inoculations.  We waited there two days.  At Vienna we had another wait.  At Dachau in Bavaria, where the notorious concentration camp was located, we waited a third time.  Finally, some time in December, we arrived at Augsburg in Bavaria.

The train stopped and we were ordered off.  We found we were in an enclosure about the size of a football field, with barbed-wire fencing all around.  Inside the barbed wire were a number of unpainted wooden shacks or barracks about 80 feet long by 40 feet wide.  Each consisted of a single room. Katryna, Raisa, and I were assigned to one of them.

For the next 18 months that one room was to be our home.  We shared it with 46 other men, women, and children.  All 49 of us ate, slept, and washed in that one room.  It had no heat, no light, no toilet facilities.  Our only privacy consisted of a single blanket draped over the front of our two-story bunk.

We learned what our work was to be.  Katryna was assigned to a hospital; she was to be permitted to take Raisa with her when she went to work.  I was to work in the machine shop of the railway repair shops to which our slave-labor camp belonged.  They gave me a pair of wooden shoes and a course gray uniform with "Oesterbeiter" ("Eastern Worker") printed in big letters.

One day in my life as a slave laborer for the Nazis was very like another.  Each morning at 5:30 I would be awakened by the guard.   "Raus!" he shouted.  "Everybody out!"  I would stumble out of bed and line up with the other men for the two-mile march to the railway shops.  Armed guards walked with us to make sure we did not escape.

From 6 to 6, I operated a lathe, turning out hundreds of identical steel parts.  Nobody ever told me what they were used for.  We were fed just twice a day - at 9 and 4 o'clock.  It was always the same thing - black bread and watery vegetable soup from a rolling kitchen.  At 6 o'clock we would line up again for the march back to camp.

In our camp there was nothing to read - nothing to look at- nothing to occupy our minds. There were no books, no movies, no radio, not even any place to play games.  During the week it didn't matter; after 12 hours' labor in the machine shop I was too tired for anything but sleep.  But on Sundays it was bad.

The guards would not allow us to hold church services in camp.  And even if we had been permitted to go outside, the Germans would not tolerate slave laborers entering their churches.  To leave camp at all we had to have a special pass.

These passes were hard to get and were good for just two hours.  Any slave laborer who overstayed his leave, or was caught outside the camp without a pass, was liable to be shot.

One night I helped some of the men from my shack dig a hole beneath the barbed-wire fence. We concealed it with a pile of branches.  After that, during the hours of darkness we came and went pretty much at will.  It was risky business, but I was never caught.

In Augsburg, I discovered, there were many other slave-labor camps.  Every important factory doing war work - and there were dozens - had its own battalion of slave laborers. 

We heard little news about the war.  Augsburg had been bombed earlier, but there had been no raids since we arrived.  Most of the Germans in the city knew only what was broadcast by the official radio or printed in the Nazi newspapers.  Even this they didn't bother to pass on to us.  We did hear enough to realize that the war was going against Hitler.  By the late summer of 1944 we knew that the Red army had reconquered all of the Ukraine and that the Communists were shooting everyone whom they suspected of having worked for or with the Germans...

America first entered my life on the morning of April 28, 1945, in the form of a tall young tank commander in a helmet with one silver bar.  I don't remember his name.

For weeks we had been hearing rumors that the Amerikanski were coming, but we scarcely dared believe it.  We considered it much more likely that the Red army would get to Augsburg first.  That morning I was awakened by a crash that shook our shack.  I rushed to the door.  In the dark I could make out that an enormous tank had ripped the barbed-wire fence and was almost on top of us.  On its side I could see a painted star.

My heart was in my mouth.  I thought:  "The Russians have arrived!"  Then I took another look.  The star, instead of red, was white!

As I watched, the turret of the tank unbuckled and this American lieutenant stepped out.  His uniform was wrinkled and his face was streaked with sweat and grime, but to me he looked like an angel of deliverance.

Seeing me, he waved and shouted:  "You're free!  Tell everybody they're free!"

The Americans had heard we were starving, so they brought food with them.  Right away they opened up their army rations and their tins of meat and we had a feast.  It was the first real food that many of us had tasted in nearly five years.

Then they moved us out of that filthy, crowded slave-labor camp in a clean new barracks, built but never occupied by the German army.  There we Washchenkos at first shared a room with one other family.  Later, at the refugee center at Dillingen, we were given a whole room all to ourselves.

Life at the refugee center was quite different from the German slave-labor camp.  Now for the first time we could hold church services.  The Americans helped us organize a school.  We had plenty of good food - so much, I started to get fat.

For a time I even had a car of my own.  It was a Peugeot - one of the many stolen French cars that the German soldiers had abandoned on the streets of Augsburg during their retreat.  By borrowing parts from other cars similarly abandoned I managed to get it running again.  I worked in the motor pool at Dillingen, driving one of the U.S. Army trucks that had been loaned to the relief authorities.  With it I carried food, clothing, and medical suppplies from Munich to Augsburg and Dillingen, and returned to Munich with loads of firewood.

Since the war was over, the Americans expected that all the Ukrainians who had been kidnapped by the Nazis would want to go home.  The Russians, for their part, were eager to get us back.  They sent a "repatriation officer" to Dillingen to try to persuade us to return.  But there wasn't a man or woman at the center who hadn't had some relative either killed or deported to Siberia by the Communists.  We set fire to that Russian's car and chased him out of camp.  Then we went to the American authorities and explained that it would not be safe to let him return. 

One day somebody started the foolish rumor that the Americans were about to turn over all the able-bodied men in our refugee center to the Communists, for repatriation to the Ukraine.  It wasn't true, of course.  But I didn't wait to find out.  That night I slipped out of camp and made my way to Belgium.  For two months I worked in the Belgian coal mines.  I hated it, but it wasn't nearly so bas as again becoming a slave of the Communists.  Then Katryna wrote me that things were quiet, and I returned to Dillingen and my family.

About this time little Nicky was born.  Having a son made me all the more resolved to raise my family in a free country.  From the Russians and the Germans I had never known anything but cruel exploitation and abuse.  But the Americans with whom I came in contact were all kind and helpful.  If their countrymen were like them, I decided, America must be a truly wonderful place to live.  If only I could take my family to America!

I had no idea how I was going to accomplish this, but I dreamed about it night and day.  To be prepared, I started learning English.  I could already drive a truck and operate a lathe, but to have still another occupation I went to the camp school to take a course in welding.

Three years we waited and hoped.  Then in 1948, our camp loud-speakers broke the silence with some exciting news!  A limited number of refugees were to be admitted to the United States outside the immigration quota;  anyone interested should register at once.  I ran all the way to the office to be first in line.

For months nothing happened.  It was not until May 9, 1949, that we finally boarded the S.S. Marine Marlin at Bremerhaven for our Columbus-voyage to the New World...

It was after nightfall when our ship entered New York Harbor, and Manhattan's skyscrapers were lit up like gigantic Christmas trees.  I never saw so many lights!  To me they held out the promise of a radiant future in this happy land. We stood on the deck for hours drinking in the scene. 
I took Katryna's hand in mine. "Now we are in America," I told her.  "Now you and I and our children will never be frightened any more."

In the morning, we landed.  On the pier we were met by three ladies from the Ukrainian-American Relief Committee who were acting for our sponsors.  "You were supposed to go to Detroit," one of them explained.  "But there is a strike there and many people out of work.  We are sending you to Baltimore, instead."

I was agreeable, but a "strike" was a new idea to me.  In Germany and the Ukraine any man who refused to work when and where he was told to was simply stood against a wall and shot.

In Baltimore my family and I spent the night at a hotel, the first that any of us had been in.  After breakfast the next morning a man with gray hair and a friendly smile came up and shook my hand.

"I am Edward Burling Jr.," he told me.  "I have a farm in Maryland.  How would you like to come and work for me?"

Mr. Burling is an important lawyer, I found out, in Washington, D.C.  His farm at Claiborne, Md., is called Rich Neck Manor.  At Rich Neck Manor even the cows live better than most people do in Europe!

On the farm were 48 pedigreed cows of a breed I had never seen before.  They were light-brown in color and give milk with much, much cream.  I think you call them Guernseys.  Everything in their barn was electrical.  The milking, the feeding, even the cleaning was done by machine.  Twice a day, before I attached the milking machine, I was supposed to wash my hands and put on a white coat like a doctor.  When we were in the slave-labor camp at Augsburg, the Nazis never bothered to send a doctor to examine Katryna, or Raisa, or me, even when we were sick, but Mr. Burling sent a doctor all the way from Washington twice a month to check on those cows and keep them in good health.

At the farm there are also 6 riding horses and a man to take care of them.

Mr. Burling gave me and my family a 7-room house, rent free.  He gave Katryna 100 baby chicks, so she could raise chickens and we could have plenty of fresh eggs.  Every day we got two quarts of milk for the children, free of charge.  And besides this, Mr. Burling was paying me $85 a month cash wages.

Rich Neck Manor is on Chesapeake Bay, with water all around.  Mr. Burling gave me the use of a rowboat for fishing and a gun for shooting ducks.  Also, Mrs. Burling, whenever she went to Washington with her husband, would leave her car behind for me to use.  But pretty soon I had saved enough money to buy a car of my own.

Alex Jr. was born at Rich Neck Manor - the first Washchenko to be American from birth.  To celebrate, I sent a contribution, not much money but all I could afford, to the local Infantile Paralysis Committee which was holding a drive for funds.  I signed my letter, "I am a Ukrainian - Is New the Immigrant."  It turned out to be the first contribution they received.

It was a fine life at Rich Neck Manor.  Mr. and Mrs. Burling were very kind to us.  So were all their neighbors.  Still, something was missing.  In the Ukraine many families live together in farm villages, with their farms spread out all around them.  Here in America each farm family lives on its own land, many miles away from every other family.  In the refugee center, even in the Nazi slave-labor camp, we had had companionship, but in Maryland Katryna and I were lonely.

Then, too, it was hard not to be able to attend our own church.  Ever since our deliverance from the Nazis, religion has played an important part in our lives.  The nearest Ukrainian church was in Chester, Pa., nearly 70 miles away.  I went alone sometimes;  it was too far to drive and take the children, and there was no one with whom Katryna could leave them.

When I told Mr. Burling I wanted to quit, he seemed disappointed.  He offered me more money.

"No," I told him,  "you are paying me too much already. I want to go to Scranton, where there are living more of my people."

"Scranton is mostly coal mines - like Belgium," he warned me.  "You won't like it."

I knew he was right, but we went, anyhow.  I worked there for 6 months as a garage mechanic but I was not happy...

It was the Reverent Harbuziuk who suggested we come to Chicago.  Olexa Harbuziuk is a young man like myself.  He was born in my part of the Ukraine, escaped to Germany one jump ahead of the Red army.  A brother of Olexa's was murdered by the Communists; another was taken by the Nazis for slave labor and never heard from again.

For a time Olexa was also a displaced person; now he is a citizen of the United States.  To support his wife and children he works each weekday as a production clerk with the Automatic Electric Co., maker of telephone equipment.  Evenings and on Sundays he serves as pastor of the First Ukrainian Baptist Church.  And once a week he broadcasts on behalf of Ukrainian freedom from the Soviets; his short-wave program is beamed to South America, where many Ukrainians are living.

I had met the Reverend Harbuziuk once in Germany.  I wrote to him, explaining our predicament.

"Come to Chicago," he replied at once.  "I will help you find a job here."

In Scranton I had sold my car, so we went by train.  It was a long journey. I had expected Chicago to be a small place, about the size of Claiborne.  Was I surprised to find myself in a big city, many times as big as Baltimore!

We rented an apartment in Chicago.  Alexa sent me to see the employment manager at the Garden City Plating Manufacturing Company, where many other Ukrainians already were working.  They liked me.  Right away they gave me a good job as an apprentice welder.  I have been there ever since.

In our factory we have both native Americans and many foreign-born - Puerto Ricans, Poles, Jewish refugees from Germany, and Ukrainians like myself.  We all get along fine together.  And we all agree on how lucky we are to be here in America.

Every noon during our lunch hour Stanley Dmytrenko, another Ukrainian who is a punch-press operator, and I hold short devotional services, thanking God for our deliverance.  We take turns reading from the Bible.  Sometimes we are joined by other men from his department.

I have had nine pay raises during the 4 1/2 years that I have worked for Garden City.  I am now rated as a Class A spot welder; as such I make $1.75 an hour, plus overtime and incentive bonuses.  My take-home pay averages $340 a month.  This has enabled me to buy a late-model car for cash and make a substantial down-payment on a good home for my family.

I am a member of the Steel Workers Union.  Here in America that doesn't mean you have to be the enemy of the people you work for.  George Majej, the president of our steelworkers' local, is my friend, but so are my bosses.  Mr. Creutz, my foreman;  Mr. Tantillo, the general foreman of our factory; Mr. Martin, the personnel manager; and Mr. Kurtzon, the president of the company, all have been good to me.

In November, 1954, I asked my friend Olexa how I could show my appreciation for everything these fine Americans have done.

He said: "Why don't you place a classified advertisement in one of the daily newspapers, where it can be ready by many people?"

That seemed like a good idea.  With his help I composed the following notice for the "Personal" column of the Chicago Sun-Times:

A GRATEFUL AMERICAN

"When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which He hath given thee." - Deut., Chap. 8, v. 10.  Having lived through two unforgettable totalitarian regimes in Europe, where I have suffered untold cruel abuse, through the hand of Providence five years have gone since I came to this free and blessed U.S.A.  I have worked for the past four years at the Garden City Plating Mfg. Co.  Through this time there has been extended to me and my fellow workers a warm and pleasant welcome feeling through our foreman, mr. jW. Creutz, and especially from the foreman general, Mr. A. Tantillo.  That is why I highly appreciate this warm and pleasant welcome, and I thank God for such sympathetic human beings in this wonderful God-Blessed America.  -A. WASHCHENKO

I took what I had written to the Sun-Times office and paid them $23.28 to print it on the day before Thanksgiving...

We have five children now. Vera, 4, and Peter, 2, were born since we moved to Chicago.  The three older children go to public school.  Raisa, 12, blond and blue-eyed like her mother, will be in seventh grade this autumn; Nicholas, a sturdy 9, will be in fourth grade; and Alex Jr., going-on-6, who has just finished kindergarten, will be entering first grade.  All three speak English far more fluently than I do.  I am very proud of them.

We moved into our new home shortly before Christmas.  It is a big, brick 2 1/2 story building in a good neighborhood on the northwest side.  It stands on its own 150-foot lot, with plenty of lawn and trees, and even a 2-car garage.

Mike Mahalas found it.  Mike is also a welder at Garden City and a former Ukrainian like myself.  The Mahalases have two boys, 4 and 8, so our families have a lot in common.  They too wanted to get out of their crowded apartment into a house with some ground of its own.  This house, valued at $25,000 was going for much less, but Mike didn't have enough money to swing the deal alone.  We decided to buy it together, and each family take half the house.  So far it has worked out fine.

Each morning I drive to work in my own car.  From our house to the factory takes me just 20 minutes.  I get to work at 7:30, stop for coffee at 9, and for lunch at 12.  At 4 o'clock I am through for the day - quite a difference from the Nazi slave-labor camp at Augsburg, or the Soviet motor tractor center at Mlynow!

Afternoons, when I get home from work, I usually spend several hours working in the garden, doing carpentry jobs around the house, or polishing my car.  On Wednesday evenings Katryna and I attend midweek services at the Baptist Church.  Other evenings, if the weather is right, I am apt to take my family for a drive out along Chicago's beautiful lake shore or to one of many woodland parks.

This summer, though, I am reserving Tuesday and Thursday evenings for my class in citizenship, which meets in the same school that Raisa, Nicky, and Alex attend.  I realize that becoming a naturalized American is a very serious matter.  And I know that the proudest day of my entire life will be the one on which I at last can say:  "I am a citizen of the United States!"  That is why I want to make very certain that I shall be able to pass my examination.

What has America cone for me?

It has given me an my family a home and friends, and the means to earn a living.  More than that, it has given us peace and freedom.

When Katryna and I, with two small children, stepped off the Marine Marlin in New York City on May 18, 1949, we had no money - no resources - no possessions except the clothes we wore.  Today, by American standards, we are hardly rich in material possessions.  But I make good money and I have a job I like, with people I respect and enjoy working for.  We have a good home, wear good clothes, eat the best food.  We have a radio, a telephone, an automobile, a bank account - things which, as a boy in the Ukraine, I never even imagined my possessing.  our children are getting a good education in a fine public school. 

When we first came to this country six years ago, we were friendless grangers in a foreign land.  As foreigners, all we had ever known in Europe was cruelty and abuse.  In America, we discovered, it is the custom to be kind to strangers, not kick them in the face!  In every place where we have lived, our American neighbors have gone out of their way to lend us a helping hand.  Today, we are rich in friends.  And as new Americans we have discovered that we have hundreds of well-wishers whom we have never met.

Before we came to America we were slaves.  Today we are free.

These are some of the reasons why I thank God every night for making it possible for us to come to the United States - why I ask Him with all my heart to bless this country, its people, and its government - and why I pray to Him to help us and our children to become good Americans, worthy citizens of our wonderful new country.

1944 Greenville, SC Local Soldiers serving during WWII

I am hand transcribing this information in the hopes of getting this one page of newspaper into the hands of a family member of one of the people mentioned in this article.  This is the second of four columns.  Time only allows so much typing per day.

It was published June 6, 1944 in THE GREENVILLE PIEDMONT newspaper (Greenville, SC).  These are soldiers that served during WWII.  Thank you for your service.

My end goal is to get this page of the paper into the hands of a relative of someone mentioned OR maybe if a business still exists that is advertised....get it to the owners.  It's only 1 page, so I can only get it to one person.  But my wish is that the paper will be treasured and preserved.

The page in which all this information is included is also the front page of the paper.

This is a small scan of part of the front page

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Invasion today found many Greenville area soldiers stationed in England and probably taking part in either active or supporting roles.

In response to radio invitation that names of such men be reported, the following had been given The Piedmont at press time:

Cpl. Samuel B. Evans, son of Mr. and Mrs. SamEvans of 2 Central Ave, Greenville

Pvt. Samuel G. Reese, whose wife, Mrs. Vivia Wiggins Reese, lives at Greer

Sgt. Jackson T. Ramsy, son of Oscar H. Ramsy of 419 North Main St.

Pfc. Frankie Fosco, Mrs. Stella Fosco, wife, 53 Second St., Woodside.

Cpl. William Long, Jr., Mrs. Louise Long, wife, Mauldin.

Cpl. James Nelson West, son of Mrs. M.L. West, Rt. 3, Simpsonville

Maj. Waldon F. Woodward, son of Walter F. Woodward, 614 E. Washington St

Tech. 5th Grade Harry C. Pearson, Mrs. Martha Pearson, wife, 409 West Ave

Pfc. Henry Earle Alewine, son of Mr. and Mrs. G.W. Alewine, Taylors

Cpl. Couglas Owen, son of Mrs. C. E. Owen, 4 Blake St. Dunean Mill

Pfc. Clarence M. Traynham, Jr.  Mrs. Eileen Traynham, 37 Moody St.  Monaghan.

Pvt. Rolly J. Hall, Mrs. Gladys Hall, wife, Syle St. Dunean Mill

Cpl. Charles Hallman, Mrs. B.I. Hallman, mother, 6 Waccamaw Ave

Pfc. John C. Beck, Mrs. Ruth Ann Beck, 7 Elizabeth St.

Cpl. Goerge Parker, son of George S. Parker, 5 Rutherford St.

Pvt. Harry Bridges, son of C.D. Bridges, 114 Ware St.

Sgt. Herbert Henderson, son of J.N. Henderson, Rt. 6

Staff Sgt. Guy N. Keisler, son of Mrs. O.W. Sutton, 8 Morningdale Dr.

Seaman Second Class Jack Muriel Harden, son of W.T. Harden, Rt. 3, Easley

Capt. M.D. Harden, Mrs. Bula Harden, Central.

Pfc. James C. Goodwin, Mrs. Louise Goodwin, wife, 6 Hampton Ave

Sgt. W.H. Griffin, Jr., son of W.H. Griffin, Sr., 6 Hampton Ave

Capt. Richard V. Magill, Mrs. Kathryn Magill, wife, 103 W. Stone Ave

Staff Sgt. Haskell Goodwin, Mrs. Evelyn Goodwin, wife, 210 Webster St.

Sgt. R.W. Trotter, Mrs. Mildred Trotter, wife, 105 Lois St

First Lt. Samuel D. Norris, son of Samuel M. Norris of Piedmont

Sgt. John A. Sherrill, son of Mrs. Louise Sherrill of 6 Howe St

Master Sgt. Edward O. Chambers of 6 Howe St

Pvt. Chesely L. Griffin, Jr., son of Chesely L. Griffin of Dunean

Pfc. Ralph W. Hester, son of Mr. and Mrs. Maude Ginn, 9 11th St., Judson

St. Sgt. Claude Leach, son of Mr. and Mrs. D.E. Leach, 29 11th St, Judson

Lt. William B. Timmerman, son of Mr. and Mrs. E.Y. Timmerman, 211 W. Croft St

Cpl Alvin J. Harper, 233 N. Laurens St

Sgt. Robert E. Brown, son of Mr. and Mrs. W.L. Brown of Easley, Rt. 2

Sgt. Stephen L. Kondwros, son of Mr. and Mrs. L.P. Kondwros of 10 Jones St

St. Sgt. Jack McDonald, whose parents live at 13 Jones St.

Pfc. Hillard E. Adams, son of Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Adams of 54 Seventh St. Woodside

Master Sgt. Edwin E. Crenshaw, son of the Re. and Mrs. G.E. Crenshaw of 837 W. Washington St

Cpl. Robert L. Flynn, whose wife lives at 110 Lavinia Ave

Sgt. James C. Apkinson, son of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Apkinson, Sr., of 121 Ware St

Pvt. Everett James Hester, son of Mr. and Mrs. O.A. Hester of 1 Seyle St. Dunean

Pvt. John B. Hicks, son of Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Hicks of 45 Seventh St. Woodside

Pfc. John C. Dill, Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Dill of 18 Wright St, American Spinning

Cpl. C. J. Scott and Pfc. Heyward P. Scott of 17 Sullivan St.

Cpl. H.D. Hutchens, whose wife, Mrs. Ouida Hutchens, lives at 341 Jones Ave

Cpl. Charles Davis, whose wife, Mrs. Thelma Davis, lives at 610 Petigru St

Pfc. Ed. G. Henderson, whose wife, Mrs. Terry Henderson, lives at 610 Petigru St.

St. Sgt. Marion G. Clardy, son of Mrs. Hattie Clardy of 19 Townes St.

Cpl. James Ernest Bishop, Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Bishop, Sr. of Route 1, Piedmont

Coxswaim William Joseph Brown, son of Mrs. W.A. Brown of 314 Arlington Ave

Pvt. Willis Pepper, whose wife, Mrs. Edna Pepper, lives at 46 Fourth Ave, Judson

Tech. Cpl. Robert B. Hellams, Jr, whose wife, Mrs. Edith Earle Hellams, lives at 15 Whitsett St, Greenville

Cpl. William J. Long, Jr. whose wife, Mrs. Louise Shealey Long, lives at Mauldin

Pfc. Robert L. Simpson, Jr. Whose wife, Mrs. Esther Phillips Simpson, lives at Piedmont but is now employed in Greenville

1st Sgt. Joseph A. Henderson, whose wife, Mrs. Janie Viola Webb Henderson lives at Travelers Rest, Route 1

Sgt. Pete J. Pleicones, whose wife, Mrs. Grace Pleicones, lives at 518 West Washington St

Pvt. Charles Ozell Purvines, whose sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Green, lives at 119 Church St. Ext, Sans Souci

T. Sgt. Sam A. Hunt, Jr, son of Mr. and Mrs. Sam A. Hunt, Sr., 102 Augusta Place

Pvt. Marcus I Hester, son of Mrs. O.W. Hester  55 Sirrine St.

Cpl. Andrew A. Anastos, son of Mrs. Elex Anastos, 1005 West Washington St.

Cpl. George L. Zalants, son of Mrs. Zalants, 1005 West Washington St

Cpl. Paul Turner, son of Mrs. W.E. Turner of Rt 5 Buncombe Rd

St. Sgt. Wilton L. Rodgers, whose wife lives at 24 Beattie St

Pfc. James H. Alexander, son of Mr. and Mrs. H.L. Alexander of 15 Woodside Circle

First Sgt. William O. Bosworth, whose wife lives at 401 Pinckney St

Cpl. Henry H. Taylor, son of Mr and Mrs H.V. Taylor of Slater

Tech. Sgt. William M. Hackney, Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. W.N. Hackney of 422 Pendleton St

Sgt. William Riley Taylor, son of Mr. and Mrs. D.F. Taylor of a500 Washington Ave

Staff Sgt Ashley E. Butler, son of Mrs. Ashley A. Butler, 3 Parkwood Dr.

Julian Ira Fowler, WWII, USS Donaldson Autograph Book NAVY

Julian Ira Fowler

To honor my daddy and all those sailors that served with him aboard the USS Donaldson

My daddy was a gunnars mate aboard the USS Donaldson during WWII.

What I have learned through research and some kind relatives of shipmates is that this destroyer escort was spared as it encountered one of the worst typhoons in maritime history.  Halsey's Typhoon or better known as Typhoon Cobra.

I have scanned his autograph book in hopes that some of the sons, daughters, grandchildren, or other relatives might have pictures of their kinfolk when they served with daddy.  PLEASE post the pictures here.  If you have a link to sites or would share this on discussion boards so perhaps we can reach some of these people or their relatives.

I hope to hear from some sailors or their relatives.

 This is the only picture that was in the album of shipmates. The one on the left had no name anywhere.  The one on the right is obviously Jasper and his cousin.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE !!!!