Chief’s Letters Book Review
Volunteer submission.
World War II involved the most rapid and most massive ballooning of the United States Army in U.S. history. From 140,000 men (and no women) in 1930, the Army expanded to 8.5 million by the time the Japanese surrendered in August 1945. The war also involved a more complete revolution of civilian life on the home front than has ever occurred before or since. Prices and wages became federally controlled, rationing became widespread, and a myriad of other governmental restrictions were put in place. For a fascinating view of these changes and their effect on Rockingham County, there is no better source than Chief’s Letters: A World War II Memoir by David Wood.
Harold Wood, known as “Chief” to his friends, was 21 and living in Broadway in 1942 when he was drafted. After training, he spent the war installing radio equipment on airplanes in Hawaii. His son David Wood has transcribed over 100 letters to and from Harold and his family and friends. His friends were spread throughout the world, in Europe, the Pacific theatre, and over the U.S., serving in a panoply of military jobs, places, and dangers. Harold was quite aware that he had a safe, cushy job and had no desire to go any closer to combat.
Harold’s mother Lena was his primary correspondent. Her depression and anxiety permeated her letters but she filled them with the little details of life in Broadway, Virginia.
News of her garden, housework, and neighbors were poured out with bad grammar and inventive spelling, all of which must have warmed the heart of her son. Harold’s father “CC ” ran a filling station and a trucking business, both of which suffered from wartime scarcity of gasoline, tires, and parts.
The letters of Harold’s parents reveal the full support of the war by Rockingham County. There is sadness over deaths of sons in Europe and the Pacific but no whisper of complaint. His parents were quite interested in the POW camp for Germans which was established west of nearby Timberville. POW camps appeared all over the rural East Coast following the successful campaigns in Africa and Sicily. Many of the prisoners were farmed out to labor on American farms hampered by the loss of labor to the war effort.
This was indeed a popular war, fully accepted by Virginians, marked only by sadness at the news of death as sons were lost. There were no anti-war protestors, significant grumbling, or humanitarian concerns. This unfamiliar flavor can be sampled with Chief’s Letters.
Chief’s Letters: A World War II Memoir, by David Wood. Available in the Rocktown History bookstore in Dayton and online.
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