Honoring Women Who Served--Lena Mae O'Neal--WAVE

Lena Mae O'Neal in a close-up from a group photo. (Courtesy of Nancy Hart, O'Neal's niece)

A photograph of Peggy O'Neal stands in front of her US Navy WAVE uniform. The immaculate and complete uniform, with cap and leather purse, was donated to me by a colleague Nancy Hart. Peggy was Nancy's aunt.

Peggy's WAVE uniform, looking as new as the day she got it, stands in a place of honor in my small museum. Note her name "L.M. ONEAL" stenciled on the WAVE-issued purse.

The WAVES were the women's arm of the United States Navy during World War Two. Many women served in jobs that would otherwise have been done by men, thus freeing the men to fight in the war effort.

A colleague of mine at work, Nancy Hart, had an aunt named Lena Mae O'Neal. Ms. O'Neal went by Peggy. Peggy served in the WAVES in World War Two as a cook. She was stationed in San Diego, California and in New York. A few years ago, her niece Nancy gave me Peggy's entire WAVE uniform, complete with purse and cap. This set is a priceless artifact and one of the crown jewels of my collection.

Peggy O'Neal was born in 1917 in Springfield, Missouri. In 1939, she went to California. Her brothers and sisters were all involved once the United States entered the war. Her oldest brother, James O'Neal, taught pilots to fly in Oklahoma. Her older sister Betty was a secretary on several different bases. Her brother Frank O'Neal, was injured in the Phillipines. While being transported on a hospital ship, the ship was bombed by the Japanese and Frank was killed. Her brother William O'Neal was in the Marines, and brother Emmitt was in the Coast Guard. Another sister, Dorothy, worked as a 'Rosie the Riveter' for McDonnell Douglas, building aircraft. Of the eight children in the O'Neal family, seven were involved in the war effort in some way.

Peggy passed away a few years ago. Today we honor her service and that of her siblings.

A wartime recruiting poster shows a young WAVE prepared to serve her country.

The United States Navy's history website has the following information on the WAVES:

"After a twenty-three-year absence, women returned to general Navy service in early August 1942, when Mildred McAfee was sworn in as a Naval Reserve Lieutenant Commander, the first female commissioned officer in U.S. Navy history, and the first Director of the WAVES, or "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service". In the decades since the last of the Yeomen (F) left active duty, only a relatively small corps of Navy Nurses represented their gender in the Naval service, and they had never had formal officer status. Now, the Navy was preparing to accept not just a large number of enlisted women, as it had done during World War I, but female Commissioned Officers to supervise them. It was a development of lasting significance, notwithstanding the WAVES' name, which indicated that they would only be around during the wartime "Emergency".

Recruiting had to be undertaken (or at least managed, as the number of interested women was vast), training establishments set up, an administrative structure put in place and uniforms designed. The latter effort produced a classic design that still has many elements in use nearly six decades later. Difficulties were overcome with energy and indispensable good humor, and within a year 27,000 women wore the WAVES uniform.

These women served in a far wider range of occupations than had the Yeomen (F). While traditionally female secretarial and clerical jobs took an expected large portion, thousands of WAVES performed previously atypical duties in the aviation community, Judge Advocate General Corps, medical professions, communications, intelligence, science and technology. The wartime Navy's demand for them was intense as it struggled to defeat Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific.

At the end of the conflict, there were well over 8,000 female officers and some ten times that many enlisted WAVES, about 2 ½ percent of the Navy's total strength. In some places WAVES constituted a majority of the uniformed Naval personnel. And many remained in uniform to help get the Navy into, and through, the post-war era.

Airplanes Over Boston

Maurice Rockett sent this great shot of my favorite city, Boston, Massachusetts, as seen from the air. The USS Constitution(Old Ironsides) is sailing below in the harbor. When in Boston, I took a tour of that historic old ship. I generally dislike large cities, but my stay in Boston was outstanding. The city has an excellent public transportation system, is packed with history, has many lovely parks, and more museums than a person could visit in a year.

And Speaking of Great Women.....

In a photo taken about 1893, my great grandmother, Aloisia Knaus Schupfer, holds her son Otto's hand. My grandpa, Herman C. Schupfer, sits on my great-grandfather Mathias Schupfer's lap. Matthias would desert the family, leaving Aloisia alone to raise her family in the New World.

I spent all day today writing up the story of my great-grandmother. With the help of my mother, Beverly, and the memoirs of my late grandpa, Herman C. Schupfer, I put together a tribute to Aloisia Knaus Schupfer, who started life as a semmerin, living high in the Austrian Alps each summer with only the cows for company, and who ended her life as a pioneer farm wife, abandoned by an alcoholic husband, raising three brilliant young kids and making friends with the Nez Perce Indians in Idaho.

Aloisia began her life as a semmerin, a person who goes up into the mountains with the cattle and takes care of them during the summer. She lived each summer at the Riesachsee, in the rugged Alps of Austrian Steiermark, and carried the family's beehive on her back up and down each year. This is a similar summer hut on the Riesachsee.

In the 1880s, Aloisia, an old maid in her thirties, agreed to marry fellow Austrian Mathias Schupfer and accompany him back to his homestead in northern Idaho. Above is their homestead in 1907. The family homestead is still there, but derelict and empty, above Juliaetta, Idaho.
On the homestead, Aloisia feeds chickens around 1900.

Aloisia traded with the Nez Perce Indians regularly. She liked them, enjoyed their visits, and said they were honest and good. Here is a Nez Perce family who lived just down the valley at Spalding, Idaho.

Aloisia Schupfer passed away in 1937 and is buried in Juliaetta, Idaho. But her memory lives on. An old maid, she married my great-grandfather who had already homesteaded 160 acres in northern Idaho in the 1870s, and followed him to America. What courage that must have taken! In 1910, my great-grandfather left to see the World's Fair in Portland and never came back, ending up in San Francisco, where his skill as a carpenter assured him of work rebuilding a city devastated by the recent earthquake. He left behind a farm, three children, and his wife, who instead of giving up, redoubled her efforts and raised three children alone. In addition to the other early settlers in the area, she befriended and traded with many of the Nez Perce Indians, and her tolerance of those different from herself was handed down to future generations.

Aloisa Schupfer with my mom, Beverly Schupfer, in Kendrick Idaho, around 1932. My mom loved visiting her Grandmother, a kind woman who spoke limited English with a thick German accent and always told her when she left to "be a goot geerl".

Aloisia never spoke more than a smattering of English, but she was a rock, and upon her a family was built. She instilled her strong Christian faith in her children, and many years later, her son, my grandpa, instilled it in me. What greater gift is there than salvation?

In a week when I am saluting strong women, I cannot leave out my own great-grandma, one of the greatest women, next to my own mom, in my life.

Saluting Rosie the Riveter

My friend Maurice says I'm long overdue for a story about the role of women in the war effort. He is right. This week I am going to devote all my blog articles to the role of women in World War Two.

Maurice sent my an article that appeared in yesterday's online edition of Army Times. I quote it here:

Real-life Rosies set to fly on WWII planes

The Associated PressPosted : Friday Aug 31, 2007 11:46:58 EDT

NEW YORK — Anne King was 19 and earning $12 a week in a dime store when she was recruited in 1942 to learn how to make airplane parts. She worked at Republic Aviation on Long Island as a mechanic and riveter on P-47 Thunderbolt fighters and other aircraft.
King and five other women who performed wartime factory work were set to gather Friday at what is now Republic Airport in Farmingdale and take rides in a B-17 Flying Fortress and a B-24 Liberator "as a tribute to their war efforts," said Hope Kaplan, a spokeswoman for the American Airpower Museum on the grounds of the airport.

Exhibitions by vintage aircraft are holiday fixtures at the museum, but this is the first time any of the women, the "Rosie the Riveters" who helped build World War II aircraft, have had a chance to fly in them, Kaplan said.

King, who turns 85 Saturday, said she was "not the least bit nervous" about her first flight in a vintage bomber.

"I'd like to ride in the B-24," said Josephine Rachiele, 82, who was also scheduled to take a tribute flight. "My friend Bernadette's father was a waist gunner on a B-24 and I would like to tell her what it's like."

Rachiele recalled that when she first went to work as a riveter at Republic in 1943, "I didn't know a rivet from a nail, and it was so noisy that I was really frightened. The rivet guns shooting rivets and the drill press stomping on metal — it was pandemonium."

At war's end, she said, the women were given the choice of staying or leaving so that returning service members could have the jobs. Rachiele quit but returned in later years to Republic, where she was known both as "Josie the Riveter" and "Rosie the Riveter."

Georgette Feller, 86, said she was "already one step ahead" when she joined Republic Aviation as a riveter.

"My father was an excellent mechanic, and I already knew how to use a rivet gun, and I could tell aluminum from steel," she said.

"It was a great job, but I had trouble with the man who was my first partner — he said he wasn't happy working with a dizzy broad."

Feller knows Friday's flight is a great opportunity.

"I'm at the end of my days and I want every good experience I can have," she said. "That sounds like a good one for me."

While the actual number of women employed in defense plants is uncertain, historians say the war brought about 6 million women into the work force for the first time. They almost always made less money than men working at the same tasks.

In 1943, a promotional film using an actual riveter named Rose at Michigan's Willow Run bomber plant as its model popularized the "Rosie the Riveter" image. A song furthered the cause, as did a Saturday Evening Post cover by illustrator Norman Rockwell, depicting Rosie with her feet resting on a copy of Adolf Hitler's book, "Mein Kampf."

During World War II the United States government sought increased domestic production to supply the war effort while at the same time sending a percentage of the male work force into military service. To help meet the need for a larger labor force, the government created Rosie the Riveter, shown here. The publicity campaign focusing on the fictional poster girl, which ran from 1942 to 1945, encouraged women to support the war by working outside the home. More than 6 million women joined the U.S. domestic work force during World War II.

One of the Most Important Books You've Never Read

As a writer, I often feel guilty that my book sells so well when there is a book out there that is so much more important that hasn't gotten the readership it deserves. 'Surviving the Americans' makes 99% of all books written about World War Two look pretty insignificant. Author Robert Hilliard is alive and well, still teaching at Emerson College and also living part-time in Florida, and his World War Two friend E. Edward Herman lives in Florida. These two great men, as young Army Air Corps privates, changed United States policy towards Displaced Persons in American-Occupied Germany after World War Two. In the process, they saved the lives of thousands of liberated concentration camp survivors--Jewish and Gentile. If ever there were heroes of World War Two, Bob and Ed are the epitome.

I got to know them when researching my book, Untold Valor, and was honored to attend the international premiere of a movie about them entitled 'Miracle at St. Ottilien', which has since shown on PBS, in many film festivals around the world, and is on its way to becoming a classic war documentary.

What's amazing is that this ground-breaking work, on a topic of great historical importance, is available on Amazon.us for just over a dollar. There is even a copy, inscribed by the author, Bob Hilliard, for sale for around twelve dollars. One of the ironies of modern American culture, when a man who was responsible for saving thousands of Jews after the war, and who stood up to no one less powerful than Dwight D. Eisenhower--and won--is a relative unknown while useless athletes and talentless actors rake in the accolades and the glory.

Following is my review of the book from Amazon:

This is an extremely important work, one that should be read by everyone who has any interest whatsoever in World War II in general, in the Holocaust and its aftermath, or in how the liberating American forces dealt with the 'problem' of what to do with the Jewish survivors of Hitler's death camps. It will make the reader reassess the accepted historical view of Americans as the saviors of Europe after World War II. Author Robert Hilliard was a young enlisted man stationed in Germany at the end of the war. Hilliard takes up the cause of helping the freed concentration camp survivors after attending a 'liberation concert' staged by Jews and hearing the speech of a Jewish doctor who has set up a hospital to care for the freed Jews. He learns that though the Jews are free, in most cases they have nowhere to go, no food, no medical care,and no clothing. Many are still wearing their concentration camp clothes months after the war ends, and some are even wearing the clothes of the hated SS guards because they have nothing else. In addition, Jews are dying with startling regularity at the hospital due to lack of food and medical supplies. To make matters worse, they must watch the 'former' Nazis who ran the country under Hitler resume their old lives, despite the evils they have perpetrated. Hilliard finds that American policy in Germany is little better than that of the Germans. Many Jews are kept in barbed wire installations, under MP guard, and have to try to live on 700 calories a day. They watch the former Nazis ingratiate themselves with the US brass through bribery, lies, and sexual favors. Hilliard and his friend Ed Herman decide to do what they can for the hospital, and this book chronicles their efforts. By the end of the book, they take their plea all the way to the top, and are instrumental in changing US occupation policy towards the freed Jews in Germany. Because of the actions of these two enlisted men, President Truman in effect reprimanded Gen. Eisenhower for his laissez-faire attitude in dealing with former Nazis and treatment of freed concentration camp survivors. The book is well-written, and could easily have run hundreds of pages. Hilliard has crafted a lean and powerful book. I hope that it will be read by many students of history, and I recommend it to any person who is not content to accept the sanitized, for-the-masses packaging of complicated historical periods.

This is one of those books that changes you if you read it. You will never look at the history of World War Two the same again. It is, literally, a must-read.

Order it from Amazon.us here http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Americans-Continued-Struggle-Liberation/dp/1888363320/ref=sr_1_1/103-0080273-1490215?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188607020&sr=1-1

The following is a review of the important documentary about Bob and Ed entitled 'Miracle at St. Otillien':

LOCAL JEWISH FILM FEST 2007

'Displaced' tells true story of survival

BY CATE MARQUIS, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHT

"Displaced: Miracle At St. Ottilien" is a little-known "Greatest Generation" true story, about a couple of ordinary American G.I.s who showed extraordinary courage, persistence and intelligence to save some concentration camp survivors — after the war had ended.
This short documentary is narrated by writer Studs Terkel, and features interviews with the former American soldiers, two army privates named Robert Hilliard and Edward Herman, and a group of Buchenwald survivors in a displaced persons camp.

Everyone has an image of the Allied troops defeating the Nazis and setting the inmates of concentration camps free.

But what happened next to those survivors?

The Allied Commander was too busy, with mopping up after the war, hunting down the Nazi stragglers and putting the broken countries back in order, to really pay much attention to the barely-living concentration camp survivors who had been liberated. Those well enough could make their way home could but the sickly and weak, some far from home, or with no home left, were herded into displaced persons camps, often to be neglected or forgotten.
St. Ottilien was one such little camp, a former monastery, where a group of survivors huddled on the brink of starvation.

Army privates Robert Hilliard and Edward Herman were disturbed by this treatment and began smuggling food to the refugees.

When sickness broke out among the neglected survivors, the commanders thought of fencing them in, lest disease spread to the general population.

This was too much at last for Hilliard and Herman. They set out to do something about it, using their wits to circumvent the system, with a letter writing campaign. Eventually, their efforts got the attention of President Harry Truman.

The documentary's story is told through interviews with documents and archival stills.
The story is told step by step as it unfolded, leading up to the clever twist that did the trick. Survivors are interviewed along with the soldiers themselves.

The combination of cleverness, resourcefulness and determination to do the right thing, to save these strangers, makes this short documentary a heart-warming, inspiring winner.
I am continually amazed at the remarkable moral character and sense of right and wrong coupled with the brainiest and creative wit in being able to circumvent obstacles that marked this generation that grew up in the hardships of the Great Depression.

Maybe it was FDR's message of "we are all in this together" that cemented this determination to rescue the weakest and leave no one behind.

Displaced: Miracle At St. Ottilien is a wonderful little tribute, a bit belated, to some ordinary guys who did something extraordinary, just because it was the right thing to do."

Order the movie 'Displaced: Miracle at St. Ottilien here: http://www2.bc.edu/~michalcj/displaced.html

E. Edward Herman, Left, and Robert Hilliard, Right, were two American privates who changed US policy and saved the lives of thousands of liberated concentration camp survivors after World War Two. Never heard of them? Shame on you. Time to find out.

Bob and Ed are not only my friends, I am unashamed to say they are my heroes.

Thank you, both of you, for your courageous efforts on behalf of those who were powerless, voiceless, and alone in the year immediately after World War Two.

B-17 'Bit o' Lace' Flies Again---as an RC Model

During World War Two, a B-17 named 'Bit o' Lace' flew with the 447th Bomb Group out of England. She flew 83 missions, and after the war, ended up in Kingman, Arizona, where she was scrapped. A talented RC modeler and RC pilot by the name of Rod Pagel built an RC replica honoring her and flew her for the first time in 2006. The model has a six-foot wingspan, weighs 7.7 pounds, and is powered by brushless electric motors. Rod Pagel lives in Marina del Ray, California. This and photos below from his website at http://www.bates-r-us.org/abitolace/PagelLace/index.htm Well worth a visit. Great photos.

Incredible detail on the RC model by Mr. Pagel.

Bit o' Lace fired up and ready for take-off.

How many B-17s can you fit in the back of a station wagon? One, if it's Bit o' Lace!

This model is absolutely amazing!

The real Bit o' Lace. She flew with the 447th Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force, and completed 83 missions. Visit her home page here: http://www.bates-r-us.org/abitolace/

An outstanding movie of Mr. Pagel's RC B-17 being flown is found at this URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=topydKCULBQ

I believe the film footage at the beginning is from 'The Best Days of Our Lives'. Am I right?

The Great Escape--Movie Vs. Reality--Pretty Close!

One of my favorite movies is 'The Great Escape', which is a fairly accurate rendering of the actual event at Stalag Luft III. The characters are all based on real people, and the events, other than the fanciful motorcycle jump into Switzerland, are real.

The best site about the Great Escape, for further reading, is run by b24.net at http://www.b24.net/pow/greatescape.htm.

The best book source on the Great Escape is The Great Escape, by Paul Brickhill.

Another good book is called The Wooden Horse.

My personal favorite is written by Jerry Sage, who was the basis of Steve McQueen's character in the movie. His book is called simply, SAGE, and can be found on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Sage-Jerry/dp/0440075807

Sage remains one of the most fascinating characters of World War Two. Here is his biography on the Air Force Website:

"Major Jerry M. Sage was an Army Special Operations paratrooper who was wounded and captured in February 1943 while blowing bridges behind General Erwin Rommel's lines in North Africa. He posed successfully as a shot-down airman (and thus avoided being shot) and was brought into Stalag Luft III in April 1943. He was a great leader and was very active in organizing and executing escape attempts. After escaping from South Camp twice, the Germans got tired of his trouble-making and sent him to the U.S. Army officers camp, Oflag 64. He again escaped when this camp was evacuated in January 1945 and got home early through the Russian lines."

For more on the movie and reality, I am quoting below from the outstanding website article written by Rob Davis at the following web address: http://www.historyinfilm.com/escape/real1.htm

"Background on the Film

The feature film of the Great Escape was made by the Mirish Company and released in 1963. The director, John Sturges, had bought the rights to Paul Brickhill's book and was well known for films such as Gunfight At The OK Corrall, Bad Day at Black Rock, and The Magnificent Seven. Filming on The Great Escape began in the summer of 1962.

The screenwriter was James Clavell (of SHOGUN and KING RAT fame) who was himself a PoW of the Japanese during WW2.

The prisoner-of-war camp was renamed Stalag Luft Nord and was built amongst pine forests near Munich in Bavaria, with interiors shot at local studios. One of the technical advisors was former F/Lt Wally Floody, a Canadian mining engineer and wartime Spitfire pilot, who had been responsible for the tunnel traps and their camouflage.

Nearly all of the incidences, both serious and humorous, which are shown in the film are completely true, although there is some inevitable telescoping of events, and many characters are rolled into one. In particular, the method of "stooging" (keeping watch for German guards and ferrets) is well demonstrated, and the method of constructing the tunnels is extremely accurate.

There was indeed Christmas Carol singing taking place to mask the sound of "manufacturing" and "building" whilst escape materials, air piping, and compasses were made, and concrete plinths pierced. (The Germans did not seem to notice that, at the time, it was nowhere near Christmas.) The trap for "Dick" in the wash-room floor is particularly well shown - the Germans never found it, because 'Dick' had a perfect disguise. In the film, whilst the escape takes place through the tunnel called 'Harry' the trap is portrayed as being in the wash-room floor, and is definitely that of 'Dick' in real life.

The camouflage of the traps used for 'Tom' and 'Harry' is again extremely accurate and reflect the advice given by Wally Floody. Manners of the guards and ferrets, and even the way some of them were suborned, is again quite true to life. "S/Ldr Roger Bartlett" gives a good impression of the driving power behind Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, but his sister said that Dickie Attenborough, who played the part, looked nothing like him. Dickie even had the facial scar of Bushell, incurred in a prewar-skiing accident (he was an Olympic skier) which often caused him discomfort."

My note---Attenborough was himself a POW during the war--RM

"Group Captain Ramsey", the SBO or Senior British Officer, has the severe leg injury suffered by his real counterpart, G/C Herbert Massey, who in real life was repatriated shortly after the escape, and who was instrumental in bringing the atrocity to the attention of H.M. Government.
The sequence where several prisoners hide in an outgoing lorry loaded with cut tree branches actually happened, almost exactly as shown; also, the piece where Bronson and Coburn try to escape masquerading as Russian prisoners is remarkably close to an actual escape attempt. True, too, is the scene where McQueen, having removed numerous bedboards, watches helplessly as a fellow prisoner crashes through his fatally weakened bunk and lands on the man below.

Steve McQueen (Hilts, the Cooler King). Likely to be an amalgamation of several characters, he has no direct counterpart, although one likely candidate is Jerry Sage. The sequence where McQueen sees a blind spot in the guards' coverage of the perimeter wire is true; this escape was by Toft and Nichols, who cut through the wire but were soon recaptured. The motorcycle sequences are pure Hollywood and were put in at McQueen's request; he did nearly all the stunt riding himself, as the long shots show. The single motorcycle was in fact a pair of 1961 British 650cc Triumphs, mocked up in German colours; the final leap is believed to have been done by the American rider Bud Elkins, as it proved impossible for the film company to obtain insurance cover for McQueen to do it himself. For the final leap, there is obviously a ramp just out of camera frame, over which the rider launches the motorcycle to get the necessary height for the jump over the barbed wire fence.

There was indeed a group of prisoners (headed by Jerry Sage and Davey Jones) who manufactured raisin wine and distilled raw liquor from vegetables and virtually any ingredient. The party on the 4th July actually happened, although 'Tom' was not discovered on this particular day."