Barbara Ketterer 5, December, 2001
History 297W Quotes-Hilda Crow Interview
“All right, I told you earlier, that my husband left ten days before our child was born and sent to an unknown destination. I later found that he was in Cuba. Not Havana, but in the tip on Cuba in Pinar Del Rio which was an advanced base set up for the purpose of flying over the Caribbean looking for subs. They were allowed to come to Havana; we were not permitted to go to their base. We could stay only as a guest in Havana. So I took my daughter down when she was two months old, and lived in a model British boarding house there, and he would come to Havana for a few days R & R, and that was how I got to Cuba!” ~ page 11.
“The Houston, and the captain gave orders to abandon ship because he was sure that it would sink .He drifted around in a life raft for a couple of days before being picked up by a destroyer later. I can’t say that he was inured during that time. I was more grateful that he rescued. There was that part of his life where his ship was hit, and he did have to abandon ship.” ~ pages 14-15.
“In fact after the children were put to bed we had to
dinner and what not, the loneliest time of day for me was at dusk. Because nightfall came the children were in
bed, and you could read or do all the other actives you had to do, but at dusk,
it was just very lonely, and I would try to sit down and get a letter a written
shortly after the children were in bed. Now, not every night certainly, because
you weren’t getting your mail very frequently, but you tried to keep the men
overseas appraised of what was going on in your family.” ~ page 21.
“The family from Germany that I know, she was a very dear friend of mine in South Carolina, and yes her family was against Hitler’s treatment of Germans. Yet they had no choice but to leave the country. Eventually they were able to get out of Germany. They did not approve Hitler’s rulings.” ~ page 42.
“It was supposed to be remembered, as a war to end all wars, obviously was not true. I think that we should view it as a great victory; certainly we did the war over the evils of Hitler and his philosophies, and the same with the Japanese. If they had defeated us, it’s frightening to think what life might have been like today, as opposed to the fact that we were victorious. *So certainly, we did our country and the world a big favor.” ~ pages 38-39.