Interview with John and Virginia Galbraith by Jaclyn M. Gerhard for the Voices of the Second World War Project, Center for Oral History, University of Connecticut,
April 8, 2001
John
and Virginia Galbraith Full Interview
GERHARD: The first question would be where and when were you born?
J. GALBRAITH: Philadelphia, 1928
JMG: Can you tell me a little about your early life, growing up?
JG: Went to public school about a block and half away. Block and half walk
to school walked home for lunch, walked back to school.
JMG: What did your parents do?
JG: Mother was a housewife and my father was out of work till 1937 he was
out of work from the time I was born to 1937 for what I can remember.
JMG: Before the war started, you were a student? How old were you?
JG: When the war started I was 13 years old. 1941 I was 13 years old. I was in
junior high school
JMG: What were the first things you remember about when the war first started?
JG: It was Sunday morning and I walking with my aunt, we went to get the
newspaper, they was no television. She found out, I don’t where she found
out, somebody told her or she heard from the store-keeper. And she was
down the street running, hollering “there was a war with the Japs.” And
that’s when I knew it, cause I was with her.
JMG: Overall, do you think the people in the community were supportive of the
war?
JG: Oh yeah, definitely. It was a sneak attack that’s why. The Japanese were
talking peace in Washington, they were talking peace and they attacked
Pearl Harbor that what upset everybody.
JMG: How did the neighborhood change once the war started?
JG: Oh yeah, the blackouts. Every once in awhile you had a blackout. You
had them at night. The air raid warden would come around when the siren
went off. You had to have dark shades or dark curtains or turn the lights
out. If you didn’t he could turn you in.
JMG: It was something kids made fun of at school?
JG: Yeah, we did. We’d run and knock on the door, they couldn’t see you, no
lights.
JMG: How did the war effect people’s jobs?
JG: My father got a job in 1939 permanent. ‘37 he got a job driving a truck
off and on but in 1939 he got hired in the Navy Yard. And when the war
came he was really good because he had a couple years there and they
were hiring everybody and he had seniority. He stayed there till the day
he died.
JMG: Was that commonplace amongst other people?
JG: A lot people went the Navy Yard. A lot of defense work. Almost
everybody.
JMG: So it really helped the area?
JG: It helped? When I was a kid, we had no rugs we had linoleum on the floor
in the pallor, no furniture because my dad didn’t work. I would come
home from school, in the 30s, lay in the floor, do the homework, listen to
the radio. You used to have Jack Armstrong, All-American come on at
4:30 something like that and I would listen to the radio and do the
homework. Suppertime would come you went to kitchen, you had a
kitchen table and chairs, and ate. You had no furniture in the pallor. Then
the war came, my father had a steady job, then we got rug on the floor,
furniture in the pallor. We got lamps…we did had no lamps.
JMG: Do you remember what you were doing or how you feel when the war was
over?
JG: V-E was that big. Victor in Europe when they defeated the Germans I
don’t remember that being that big. I remember V-J Day. I don’t
remember V-E Day. V-J Day was in August. And it was everyone was
out and everyone was drinking and drunk. Celebrating and everything.
that all I remember dancing in the streets and all that.
JMG: So V-E wasn’t a big day?
JG: No, I don’t remember V-E Day when was that? V-J Day all hell broke
lose. People hanging out the windows and drinking. Everybody was
drinking and you couldn’t buy liquor but everybody had liquor. That was
rationed too couldn’t buy liquor but everybody had liquor.
JMG: Tell me about games?
VG: Girls didn’t play boys games.
JG: We played Americans and Japanese the boys did, but I don’t remember
the girls. They were always sitting on the step playing jacks or something
like that.
VG: We played jacks or jump rope.
JG: We’d be playing in the street playing dead man’s bluff or something like
that.
JMG: But you’d play Americans and Japanese?
JG: Oh yeah. Definitely.
JMG: Who was the kid that was always the Japanese?
JG: We used to choose up sides. In fact, we had one Italian kid he used to
wear real thick glasses. And we used to call him Jap. He was Italian but
that’s what we used to call him. His name was Sammy Guchafella never
forget his name. That was his name. He was Italian. And we called him
Jap because he had the coke bottle glasses. Real thick glasses. And when
he looked through those glasses they looked like his eyes wasn’t open they
were slanted. And he used to look like a Jap so we called him Jap that was
his nickname. He hated that. I guess I moved out of the neighborhood he
was 20 something and we’d still call ‘hey Jap what are you doing’ Way
after the war.
JMG: We read a lot about the lack of supplies. In fact, the army used the phrase,
hurry up and wait.
JG: Well that happened when I went into army. I went into the army in 1951.
It was hurry up and wait then. Wasn’t the idea that we didn’t have it then.
We had it in 1951. It just the way they opperated. They’d say ‘we’re
gonna eat a six o’ clock okay’, so you line up at six o’ clock and they
wouldn’t open the door till 6:30. I don’t know why they did it. You
understand? ‘We’re going to the rifle range we’re gonna start out
tomorrow morning at 5:30 and we’re going be out there first light. We’d
march out to the rifle in an hour, it was 6:30. The light would come up,
everybody’s sitting down. Okay you can smoke. 8 o’ clock we still ain’t
fired a rifle. We don’t know, its just the way they operated.
JMG: Was there a lot of sarcasm about the army?
JG: There was a lot of sarcasm between the guys that joined and the guys that
got drafted. I got drafted, right? We got drafted and they always said that
draftees did better than the guys that enlisted. The guys that enlisted was
trying to get away from home. We didn’t want to go away from home we
got drafted we wanted to get back home. So we wanted to get it over with
and done. RA guys, what they called regular army guys, they didn’t care.
They wanted to get away from home.
JMG: How do you think people now view that time? What about my generation?
JG: Well I really. Your generation, what are you 20 years old? They really
don’t care what happened then. You’s really don’t care cause its history.
30-year-olds they don’t care cause its history, its ancient history.
JG: Well what’s the Fourth of July to you? That’s a day off! Everybody’s
working out there making money, Memorial Day—oh go the seashore go
boozing, barbecue this. They didn’t think about the guys that got killed to
make this like that.
VG: Well I think Tom Hanks did a lot for the veterans in World War II. He
wants them remembered because if it wasn’t really for them giving up
their lives and giving up their family life to fight for us. Maybe we would
be under different rule now and we wouldn’t have the freedoms that we
have now. But see everyone takes the freedoms for granted. “Hey we live
in America we have freedom.” But at a cost. We have it at a cost.
JMG: So life after WWII improved?
JG: Definitely, it improved. I was a kid, during the war, playing football on
the street. Their was two cars on the whole street. The street was our
football field. The sidewalk was out, the street was the playing field.
Okay, if the one car was here and the one was car was there, we’d go
knock on the door and ask the guys to move his car a little so we could
have the certain distance. As the time went on after the war, there was
less asphalt more cars you didn’t have the space you did. By the 50s,
there was cars from one end of the street to another. That’s what made the
suburbs.