Christmas, 1941, Charlton County Changed to A War Mode !

Theodore Dinkins, pictured here,
was a stabilizing influence in Charlton
County during the war years, 1941-1945.

 By Jack Mays

            The United States had declared War just weeks earlier after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Suddenly boys grew into men. Teen-agers dropped out of high school to join up.

            That December in 1941 in Charlton County was not as cold as usual. Rains had soaked the sandy earth for weeks and Folkston merchants were worried about their Christmas sales. Suppliers had already told the storekeepers that new inventory would be hard to come by. The war effort had first claim on everything produced. The Home Front would have to wait.

            Folkston had only a single policeman then, white-haired Will Johnson, a stern looking, but big-hearted man who at one time operated the Whip-O-Will Café, next door to W. W. Pickren's Gulf Auto Garage and bus station on Folkston's Main Street. "Uncle Will" as Johnson was affectionately called, would dutifully walk the town's streets after dark, checking door locks on the stores, and brandishing his flashlight into the town's dark alleys. Somehow, just knowing that "Uncle Will" was on duty gave the residents a feeling of security.

            President Franklin Roosevelt's declaration of war, passed by the congress, put the nation in a state of emergency. Military law became the law of the land, and the war effort got priority on everything.

            World War One veterans, many aging, were called upon to organize the Home Guard, to protect Charlton County in the event of an enemy invasion; something many thought would become a certainty. The rag-tag Home Guard, shouldering shotguns and wearing ill-fitting khaki work clothes, drilled along Folkston's Main Street, usually on Sunday afternoons.

            Locals, O. C. Mizell, Gene Aldridge, Oscar Raynor, E. B. Stapleton, and a couple of R.O.T.C. Graduates, Alva Hopkins and Robert Harrison, made up the leadership of that Charlton County Home Guard. Others included Everett (Snooks) Jones, Alton (Shorty) Mizell, John Cook, and others that can't be recalled from memory.  The organization of the Home Guard took but days following the Pearl Harbor attack. America was being threatened and even the very young were aware of that fact.

            Military conscription had been in effect for months as young boys were inducted into service. Now orders came to double, even quadruple the number being called up for military service. The Charlton County Draft Board met in the Sinclair Gasoline Service Station of its owner, R. B. (Dick) Stroup, the board's clerk. Wilbur L. Thomas was the Chairman during the early years of the war.

            The draft, at the beginning of the war was almost unnecessary in Charlton County. Most young men and boys were eager to get into the action. Many feared the war would be over before they got into the action. How wrong they were. The number of volunteers entering from the county reduced the draft quota. On several occasions, no draftees at all were needed to meet the monthly quota.

            There was one particularly steadying hand during those early months of World War Two: Theodore Dinkins, a Folkston businessman who did everything within his power to help the war effort, and to add a calming influence to those left at home. He had run his James Grocery Company store at the corner of Folkston's Main and First Street through most of the depression years. People, without exception, trusted Theodore Dinkins. He never let them down.

Supplies quickly dwindled on store shelves and in merchant's storerooms. Cigarettes became scarce. Many servicemen, buying cigarettes at military canteens, mailed cigarettes to their friends and relatives back home. Ladies hosiery was an early casualty. Women began painting their legs with leg makeup; some drawing a dark seam down the back of their legs to simulate hosiery.

Washington, D. C. was calling the shots all over the nation. Orders came down from the War Department instructing the makeup of ration boards, draft boards, information offices in towns all across America. The directives were immediately put into action without a murmur of dissent.

Folkston had its Ritz Theater for entertainment, although the fare was usually a Grade B movie on Friday and Saturday and Grade A on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays. Thursday the theater was dark. That didn't keep the youngsters out. They would gather up inside the theater lobby, talking and passing time. The Ritz was sort of a local community room, especially for the young.

Another favorite gathering place for the young was the Main Street garage of Passieu Chevrolet Company. A young mechanic, L. D. Majors, was a favorite of the young, helping to keep them out of mischief and generally being of help to those who would allow it. Majors organized what he called "The Fan belt Club". When he would hear a youngster using vulgar language, he would grab him up and apply the fan belt liberally to his backside. The youngsters soon learned not to use profanity in the presence of L. D. Majors.

Folkston funeral director, Charlie Adkins was named the town's Air Raid Warden. His duties were to see that blackouts were complete at night: curtains drawn and no lights showing during blackout drills. Headlights of automobile had their upper half painted with dark paint to keep the cars from being seen from the air by enemy aircraft.

Adkins organized an aircraft spotting team that would operate from the county courthouse roof. Spotters would telephone reports of all planes flying over, giving the direction headed, and whether it was a fighter or a bomber. Adkins had trouble at first staffing the post, until he decided to make spotters coed, using young boys and young girls to fill the shifts. He experienced no more absentee trouble.

            That Christmas season, December 1941, saw closeness not seen in years by locals. They were fighting a common enemy. Local partisanship and bickering ceased. The war effort came first. There would be plenty time to choose up sides and fight again after the war.

            Many Charlton County boys had been in military service for years, following the implementation of the draft after Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Europe's war had been going on for two years before the United States entered on the side of the Allies. Mothers and wives of those servicemen, although apprehensive from the start, became more worried after Pearl Harbor was bombed and Congress declared World War Two.

            Area churches were filled on that Christmas week in Charlton County as locals turned to God for help, and to pray for the safety of their loved ones. In those same churches, many memorial services were held for those killed in battle action during the four-year war. That Christmas, 1941, the town's Christmas lights were dark. The Manger Scene at Folkston's Methodist Church was unlighted, as it had been for years. The war effort came first.

Nineteen from Charlton County lost their lives in combat in that war. Many more veterans returned home wounded and maimed. Donald Roddenberry, who lost a leg in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, returned home to a living of making photographs with a Polaroid Camera of couples getting married in the Charlton County Courthouse. Another, Ira (Cracker) Rogers, Jr., wounded by shrapnel from Japanese guns on a Pacific Island, tried to return to as normal a life as possible among his friends and relatives.

It was a sad December 1941. A December that will be long remembered by those alive at the time.