Uncle Sam Wants YOU!
Until 1940, the U.S. was one of the few countries without a compulsory military training program. Then, in September of that year, Congress approved of the Selective Training and Service Act, the first peacetime draft in American history.
The new law required all men between the ages of 21 and 35 to register with their local draft boards on October 16, 1940. On that day, at 6,175 draft boards across the country, 16,316,908 men registered. Every man who registered received a draft number. Two weeks after the registration, President Roosevelt, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and other officials met in Washington to determine which registrants would be drafted. A glass bowl, used for the same purpose in World War I, was filled with 9,000 blue capsules, each containing a numbered slip of paper. The numbers, from 1 to 9,000, corresponded to the ones assigned registrants by their local draft boards.
When it came time to pick the numbers, Secretary Stimson was blindfolded with a swatch of upholstery taken from a chair used over 160 years before by the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Stimson drew out the first capsule from the bowl and handed it to Roosevelt, who retrieved the slip of paper. He called out the number 158. Among the 6,175 registrants of that number was Alden C. Flagg, Jr. of Boston, whose father had held the first number drawn from the same glass bowl during World War I.
Registrants whose numbers were picked were sent questionnaires. Those who appeared to be qualified for service were then asked to come in for a physical examination, where the men were classified according to their fitness for the draft. These classifications ranged from 1-A (“available for military service”) to 4-F (physically, mentally or morally unfit for service”). Men classified 1-A were sent a letter that read as follows: “Greetings, Having submitted yourself to a local board composed of your neighbors for the purpose of determining your availability for training and service in the armed forces of the Untied States, you are hereby notified that you have been selected for training and service in the Army.” The letter would then tell the draftee when and where to report for duty. They were usually allowed ten days to get their affairs in order before having to report in.
Because of the earlier draft, the U. S. was better prepared to go to war than it would have been otherwise. Still, men wanting to know how they could immediately volunteer for service swamped Dayton draft boards with calls the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Two days after the attack retired Master Sgt. Jerry B. Machle, who lived on Broadview Boulevard, wrote a letter to Major General Daniel Van Voorhis of the Fifth Corps, offering his services. Machle was 84 years old at the time.
He began the letter by telling of his army service with the First Calvary during the Indian wars in the west, the time he served during the Sioux and Bannock wars in the Dakotas in the 1880s and 1890s, the time he spent doing his part in the Spanish-American war and the active service he was involved in during World War I. He then pointed out that a recent physical examination revealed he was in fair physical condition.
“I believe that I could do work of an administrative capacity, which would release a younger and more robust man for field and active war duty. So if you want me, just say the word,” Machle wrote at the conclusion of his letter.
General Voorhis wrote back saying that he fully appreciated Mechle’s patriotic sentiment.
“Your record of service, which has special appeal to me because I commanded the First Calvary, together with your letter, is irrefutable evidence of the high ideals and unselfish devotion to duty which marks you as an outstanding member of the army,” the general wrote.
Machle reminisced about his active long life in the military.
“Back in my time we either were killed or cured of anything we might be weak in. And if these youngsters of today didn’t have the autos and trucks to carry them about, I don’t know what they would do.”
Another determined fellow was Claude Woodward. At the age of 53, Woodward tried to enlist in both the Army and Navy, both of whom turned him down because of his age. Woodward explained to the naval officer that he was determined not to be left out of the war, as he had been during World War I. He had tried to get into the Marines during the First World War and was finally ordered to report for duty on November 13, 1918. But armistice was declared on November 11, halting Woodward’s military duty before it had even began.
The Navy recruiting officer suggested that he write the commandant of the Ninth Naval District in Chicago to find out whether the obstacle about his age could be waved. Woodward took him at his word and wrote a letter setting forth his physical condition and qualifications. It didn’t take long for Chicago to authorize the Dayton naval office to grant the waver. However, at the time the could find no classification into which Woodward could be place.
Not satisfied with the results of his attempt, Woodward decided to write President Roosevelt himself. In it, he asked Roosevelt to set aside the age limit in his case so that he could join in the fighting. It read, in part:
“Just think, Mr. President,” he wrote, “in the peaceful days to come you can tell your grandchildren that you were the commander in chief of all the armed forces during the world’s most horrible war. But as for me, I won’t even be able to tell mine that I was a private in the rear ranks.
“I’m not looking for a soft job. I want action and I know that I can take it. When I get back, I want to be able to say that I have been “somewhere”. If I don’t get back, that’s all right, too. Thousands of men, far better than I, have given their lives in defense of that ‘old flag’.
“When the end comes I want to take my place alongside my great-grandfather, Sam Woodward, who has an iron marker at the head of his grave indicating that he fought in the Revolutionary War. That’s all the monument I’ll ever need or care for. I ask you, sir, is that too much to ask for?”
The letter was received by the President and then referred to the Bureau of Naval Personnel under Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs. Jacobs replied back: “Your patriotic offer of services under war conditions is deeply appreciated, and the possibility of your enlistment has been fully considered in the various divisions of this bureau. We regret that there is no available billet for a man of your particular qualifications.”
Undaunted, Woodward finally decided that he could entertain troops at the USO and other service men’s clubs as a way to at least help keep up moral.
“If I can’t serve in the Army or Navy with the boys, I want to work for them.” he replied.
Anxious to join in the fray, 14 year-old John W. Wray of Dayton ran away from home and traveled to Atlanta, GA where he registered for selective service there. He gave his age as 18 and his name as John L. Crawford. Wray was stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia and before long had made the five parachute jumps necessary to win the silver wings of a paratrooper. Shortly afterward he was made a sergeant and sent to Drew Field, Tampa, Florida, with the rest of his outfit for overseas duty, which turned out to be the Sicilian and Italian invasions.
Meanwhile, the young sergeant’s family had received no word of his whereabouts. Realizing that if he were killed in action under his assumed name of Crawford, his family would never know what had happened to him. Wray went to his commanding officer, two days after his fifteenth birthday, and revealed the truth about his age and identity.
He was given an honorable discharge and was sent home, after being told to wait two more years before he reentered the service.
Not everyone was anxious to enlist. Of the over 10 million men ordered to report for induction before Pearl Harbor, nearly forty-three thousand were officially classified under the Selective Service Act as conscientious objectors “by reason of religious training and belief.” About twenty-five thousand of these men agreed to enter the service as medics or in other lines of duty that didn't require them to bear arms. Another twelve thousand worked at alternative nonmilitary service in Civilian Public Service Camps. The remaining six thousand or so who refused to serve under any circumstances were sent to federal prison. Many of these men changed their minds after the events at Pearl Harbor.
Two conscientious objectors, one man from Brookville, the other from Dayton, were arrested on February 13, 1942 by federal authorities in Dayton and held on charges of having failed to report for induction into military service. Both men said they objected to military service on religious grounds and asked draft boards to place them in the 4-E classification, which would have permitted them to serve in public service, or conscientious objectors camps. The draft boards declined to place them in that classification, giving them 1-A ratings instead, which called for military service.
One of the men charged was a member of the Church of the Brethren. He had declined to work on defense orders at a Dayton industrial plant where he was employed at the time. He eventually surrendered himself at the office of the US Marshall in the federal building in Dayton. The man claimed that he was “not trying to get out of anything” and added he only wanted his proper classification that would allow him to work in an objector’s camp.
Conscientious objectors were welcomed at the Dayton State hospital, where they helped fill vacancies in the working staff. Selective service had given hospital authorities the privilege of interviewing conscientious objector applicants at two camps in Ohio and two in Indiana, for selecting those best fitted for hospital assignment. The State Welfare Department made arrangements to employ, at their established camp rate of $2.50 per month, objectors in state hospitals located in Dayton, Cleveland, Lima and Columbus. The men were necessary due to a shortage of more than 550 workers in twenty-two state welfare institutions.
It was thought that the war would be over quickly, a year or two at the most. Although Italy would surrender on September 8, 1943 it was soon realized that World War II would cost America more money, manpower and lives than the first World War.
Men were not the only ones who were anxious to join in the war effort. On May 27, 1942, more than 13,000 women across the country began registering for the armed forces. The first recruits served in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, or WAAC. This existed until 1943 when it was shortened to WAC, or the Women’s Army Corps. Mary L. Durr, the first Dayton woman accepted for officer’s training in the WAAC, reported for duty at Ft. Des Moines, Iowa on July 20, 1942. For the past eighteen months before her enlistment she had worked as the women’s employment manager at Delco Products.
Soon the U. S. Navy opened a branch for women called the WAVES, which stood for “Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service”. Helen Jane Sorensen, staff member of the Journal Herald at the time, was the first Dayton woman to become a member of the WAVES. She was sworn in September 10, 1942 at the 9th Naval district headquarters in Chicago. She had become interested in joining the WAVES when she received a letter from the Navy saying that the dean of women at the University of Cincinnati where she had graduated had recommended her.
Spars were the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve. WAFS were the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadrons. WASPS stood for Women’s Air Force Service Pilots. The Assistant Secretary of the Air Force didn’t officially recognize this branch until 1979, at which time they were given official discharges and veterans benefits.
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