Young Boys and Girls Grew Up Quickly in Charlton During World War Two.
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By Jack Mays
When World War Two erupted in Europe in September 1939, America began mobilizing its manpower and equipment in the event the United States was drawn into it.
It didn't take long. On December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft borne bombers unleashed its sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. America was jolted into the War and Congress declared War the following day, December 8, 1941.
However, America had been busy preparing for a possible war months earlier. The draft was instituted and defense plants cranked up all through the nation building ships, tanks, airplanes and guns.
Those preparations, especially the military draft, began to siphon off America's young men. This was the case in Charlton County as busload after busload of conscripts headed for induction centers in Atlanta and Columbus.
John Harris, Charlton County's steel-minded School Superintendent was forced to change his way of hiring people to run the schools. Harris had adamantly refused to hire unmarried females as schoolteachers, and he was forced to turn to older high school students to help drive the county's school busses.
The student-drivers eagerly took on their new jobs. They got to leave classes early and to report late. The young student-drivers performed like veterans. The regularly hired adult drivers took a liking to the young drivers, inviting them into their near-sacred school bus barn near the school buildings, to hear their crusty stories of the early history of Charlton County.
The war brought lots of changes in
Charlton County as the young men of the county anxiously volunteered for military service. Women were forced into unfamiliar roles, many from Charlton County helping to build Victory Ships at the J. A. Jones Construction Company
Shipyard in Brunswick and at several Jacksonville, Florida shipyards.
The schools organized scrap and rubber drives with automobile dealer P. O. Stokes heading up the project. Tons of metal and rubber were scrounged from every section of the county, some new as the eager students competed for their respective classes for pounds raised. The stave mill of George Gowen, Sr. in Folkston near the railroad depot saw Gowen's metal barrel hoops disappear only to show up on the school scrap pile.
Among the very young, it was a time of unbridled excitement. Jobs began to pay a living wage and were plentiful. Young school students began to man jobs previously held by the older men. The railroad telegraph tower in Folkston saw some 15-year-olds handing up train orders to the steam locomotives and cabooses and then running upstairs in the tower to pound out a report on the telegraph key or railroad telephone.
Young volunteers manned the aircraft spotting post on top of the Charlton County Courthouse, reporting passing planes by telephone to centers in Jacksonville. Young male volunteer spotters approached the job with a feeling of monotony…. until Air Raid Warden Charlie Adkins decided to make the job co-ed, using young girls and young boys to fill the posts. Absenteeism among the spotters almost completely disappeared. The spotting center sometimes saw volunteers reporting hours before their shifts. It was almost a nightly party on top of the stately old courthouse. The founders of the county would have stared in disbelief had they seen the young girls and boy spotters dancing barefoot to Glenn Miller's swing blaring out of a portable radio.
Few youngsters had automobiles at their homes. Fewer could use them if they did. Rationed gasoline and tires cramped the styles of those that did. Almost exclusively the young used bicycles to get around the town.
In a few years, the youngsters had "gone to war". Many never to return, killed in battle action before they reached their 19th birthday. None were afraid of dying. That would only happen to someone else, they thought. Nineteen from Charlton County never returned alive; killed in battle action in Italy, France, and on a score of Pacific Islands. a More still returned with legs amputated and crippling injuries.
Charlton County during those war years was not without recreation spots. Doctor Adrian Dallas Williams, who had come to Folkston in 1906 and was a patriotic zealot, spearheaded a weekly dance on Thursday evenings in an abandoned CCC log cabin in Homeland Park. Square dances saw local couples, young and old alike, swinging their partners to the loud fiddle music of Sol Higginbotham and his musicians of Nassau County. There were no electric lights at the old clubhouse. A gasoline driven generator powered a string of light bulbs hanging from the ceiling of the building. The music was so loud it needed no loudspeakers.
A few taverns, or juke joints operated in the area, serving up Jax Beer for a dime and White Port Wine at 50 cents a half-pint to those who wanted it. One was Uptonville Camp in the Uptonville Community on the busy Dixie Highway. Another was Piney Breeze located between Folkston and the Florida line. They became favorite watering holes for some from the Folkston area.
Those changes swept in during the early 1940s as America prepared for war; a war that would come on December 7, 1941 and last until August of 1945. The youngsters that survived grew up, most returning home to re-start their lives. Today with those veterans of World War Two dying at around 40,000 each month, few care to think back to the bad days of that war. The better times of scrap drives and airplane watches atop the Charlton County Courthouse, and dances in Homeland Park, are remembered much more fondly. ~ End ~
