Harold Papineau

May 7, 2001

Helen Carolinas was about 16 when the United States entered World War II. She lived in Norwich, Connecticut then and still does to this day. In this following excerpt, she explains to us her feelings as a teenager in regards to the terrifying air raid drills along with how the war was portrayed to her through movies.

HP: How did you become aware that there was a war?

HC: We had drills in school. I was in the 7th grade at St. Joseph’s. It was three stories high and every month we would have a bombing drill and we would all have to run downstairs when the bell rang. There were bowling allys in the basement of our school and we would run downstairs to the bowling allys and learn how to crouch down and stay that way until the all-clear sounded. And that was my first awareness, really of the war. Of course there were rations too. We had rationing for meat and for butter and for sugar and for nylons. But it never seemed to really, we lived, it never seemed to touch us. When we had the blackouts, those were very scary, again I was young, and I was more scared then if I were a few years older. We never knew when there was going to be a blackout and we'd hear the sirens and myself, I think that maybe I was about 13, and my young brother, we didn't know that it was a test. Maybe nobody knew it was a test except the people that were ringing the bells, I don't know. But I remember sitting in the living room with my mother and my brother, frightened, everything pitch black out like you wouldn't believe, and praying. And hearing planes go over and not knowing that they were only regular planes. We thought maybe they were the Germans or somebody. And after it would be all over, my mother would say, "Dziekuje Bogu", which means thank God in Polish, that nothing happened to us during this. It was scary.

HP: Do you remember how the war was portrayed in any films, or on the radio or through music?

HC: Oh sure. All the music was sad, like "Cliffs of Dover", "Don't sit under the Apple Tree". That was about a boy who went away and didn't want his girlfriend to go out with anybody until he came back. All the songs were sad, melancholy. The movies, of course we didn't go to that many movies, but the movies were about the war and of course the good guy always came out fine. John Wayne, I mean he won the whole war almost, that's what we saw in the movies. We had no Television.

HP: So do you think that you got your perception of the war through the eyes of Hollywood?

HC: I don't know. Yes, yes I did in this sense, it was very glamorous when you saw the John Waynes' and the Patricia O'Neils' all dressed up in their uniforms, looking spic and span all the time, even when the bombs are falling. And being in love. Yea, I think I did. I never thought of it before, but yes.