WWII: Wartime YMCA keeps daddy busy

Dec. 7 was a bright and sunny morning in Southern California. It was Sunday and we were getting ready for Sunday School and Church when the news came over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

I was 10 years old. We had recently come back from China and the Philippines, where my Father was associated with the Army and Navy YMCA.

In 1941 he left the "Y" to pioneer work overseas and opened the first USO branches in British Columbia, Bermuda and Alaska. We rarely saw my Father, maybe one brief visit a year until 1943 when he was once again assigned to the very busy and important Navy Y in Norfolk, Va.

Norfolk was a whole new world to me. We drove from the West Coast all the way to Virginia in our old Chevy with gas rationed stamps and rationed tires. There were no modern motels, no air conditioning, only roadside cabins. It was July, we had left the cool breezes of the Pacific Ocean for the hot humid days of summer.

My two sisters, Mother and Father and I all packed into our car for the long trip East. For entertainment we took turns reading books out loud.

There were no available houses in Norfolk. We lived in the guest quarters of the Navy YMCA until a suitable house was available.

All around us were sailors, sailors and more sailors. I was fascinated by the noise and crowds of servicemen. Across from the Y were honky tonk bars where I would see English and French sailors dancing with each other (all of these smoke filled, dimly lighted places including the YMCA are gone now).

The Y was always filled to capacity and sailors were given large sheets of butcher paper to spread on the marble floors to use when no beds were available for them to sleep.

Barbara Hall Woodruff lives in New Bern. Send your WWII diaries submissions to rfoster@freedomenc.com.