I like eleanorigby’s spelling: ‘Wawh’. It sounded to me more like ‘wohwuh’ or ‘wahwuh’, but hers is pretty good. Definitely a ‘w’ sound at the end.
So far what I recollect from her is relating the cake story (to have a cake was very special due to the rationing of butter and sugar)-much laughter from her; and the one beau who told her that he never asked her to marry him because her she was too taken up worrying about Sid to listen, upon which she giggled into the camera. I also recall her telling about a woman who left her children all day to work in a munitions factory-no laughter that time, just amazement that a woman would do such a thing. That’s about it.
I’m sure it’s her on camera demeanor that is giving me the impression of her as a shallow, sheltered person–I’d feel the same way if she were from California, New York or Oklahoma. Her accent doesn’t bug me (I have extended family in the south), but her pronunciation of the word war and her attitude do.
General comment: Why must we laud all of the people shown in this documentary? Just because someone suffered losses in any time of life doesn’t change them–if you’re shallow and sheltered, it’s up to you to grow beyond. There is a chance that she’s taking this line because she was reared to not “air her dirty laundry” in public–and if so, that’s commendable, but given the content of the other contributors, she comes off as insensitive and superficial, and ignorant as well. Her ignorance may not be her own fault–Sid perhaps did not share the worst with her. KB said on The Daily Show that in many of the interviews, the families would turn and say, “Pop, you never told us that.”
I’d like to think that these type of folks are fewer, but since I live in upper middle class suburbia, I see shallow and sheltered women quite a bit. So, yes, her manner irks me, but it does provide quite a counterpoint to some of the more grisly bits KB relates.
The rationing bit was in the context of a segment on rationing, including several other people talking about rationing. It was not at all incongruous.
I understood her to say she handled daycare for several factory women. That was her contribution to the war effort, I gathered. (Though I think she also talked about scrap drives in an earlier episode.)
Who has said we must? I’m certainly not insisting that we laud the lady; just trying to understand why she’s being attacked. Some of the dislike of Auburn lady just seems irrational. You keep calling her “shallow” and “sheltered” but that seems to be based entirely on some vibe you’re getting from her. The actual information presented in the documentary just doesn’t support that. She was fully aware of the horrors of war, and wept over them at the time. (Unless you are saying she’s lying about that.)
There actually was a mistake in the first episode- The five Sullivan brothers were stated to have hailed from Fredericksburg, Iowa. They actually came from Waterloo. The city of Waterloo, which has many buildings named after them, is surprised at the error.
I didn’t say it was incongruous. I said she laughed.
I don’t recall her saying that she worked there at all. Perhaps there is somewhere a list of the people interviewed which states what each did–I don’t see one on the PBS site, but there’s sure to be one somewhere. I could certainly be wrong, and I have no problem with being found to be so. The scrap drives she was not a part of–she mentioned that there were collection bins on every corner, IMS.
Vibe? I’ve delineated the reasons I tend to be dismissive of her repeatedly. Where did she say she wept? I am certain she must have at some point–it is not my intent to invalidate her experience in the least. I’m sure the war was difficult for her. Forgive me if I think her version of “difficult” is somewhat alien to the woman who spent her childhood in the internment camp in the Philiipines. Or the black soldiers who had to prove themselves at least twice over, only to go home to Jim Crow laws, or the mother in Luverne who, upon dropping her younger son off at the Navy recruitment center, came home to find The Telegram relating her older son’s death.
My position is this: it is hard to take her seriously when she laughs on camera about various wartime experiences–her actions and demeanor do not match her words. To me, she made a lousy first impression-and I have yet to hear anything that she has said that changes my opinion. I have tended (after the first night) to not listen to her because I don’t see her as adding value to the doc, so I may well have missed the bit about her uncle. On camera she is always happy, almost giddy.
You see it differently. Ok by me. I’d like to see her add some real value–I’d like to know she did more than just attend Auburn and date men and worry about Sid. I’m watching tonight at 7, so we’ll see.
Just curious – how are the buildings named, since it’s five brothers? Unless you’re saying individual buildings are named after 1 or 2 brothers at a time.
They’re named after all of them- Sullivan Brothers Auto Mall, Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center, and a few others.
She definitely talked about that. Perhaps in a different segment than the one you’re remembering. I just rewatched today, and she talked about it.
She mentioned how everyone pulled out their old iron beds. Sounded to me like she was an active participant.
She wept at the images from Tarawa. The bodies floating in the surf.
She also wept at the news of Pearl Harbor.
She lost an uncle. I’m sure she wept then, too, though she didn’t say so specifically. (I believe I recall her simply saying that the family was “devastated.”
She talked, glumly, about the neighborhood boys who were killed, though she didn’t cry for the camera.
Did anyone say her experiences compared to those? Not that I’ve read. But neither was she “sheltered” as you continue to insist without evidence.
She is quite grim in several segments. Moreover, several of the other interviewees talk about social activities during the war, or about how rationing affected them. But you are focusing only on the Auburn lady.
You seem intent on ignoring or forgetting everything else she said.
Look, I’m no fan of the lady. She is obviously from a privileged background. She did seem oblivious to racial issues. She also seemed quite patronizing toward the unsophisticated factory women who came from small towns to worrk in Mobile. I don’t much like snobs or elitists, so that left me with a bad impression, too. There are plenty of fair criticisms of the lady.
But to criticize her as being “sheltered” with respect to the war, well, that particular criticism just doesn’t fly, given the experiences she has detailed for us.
Since your assessment of her pretty much meets mine, I’ll drop it.
Unrelated to the above:
I do feel rather stupid though-I just realized that Philllips–the man (I only caught his last name) IS Sid. It wasn’t until he talked about his best friend showing up and the next shot was of Katherine (the Auburn lady) that the penny dropped.
Is anyone else having trouble keeping the “cast” straight? I felt bad for the young couple (Soden?) when he was blown up in his first aid station.
I can’t believe the presumption of the Allies that the Wawh would be over by Christmas, so no need for holiday packages OR warm clothes.
Right now I’m watching the horror that was the Pacific theater.
I share your annoyance at her pronunciation, too. Note that none of the other Mobilians pronounce “war” in her oddly exaggerated moonlight-and-magnolias fashion. Which is why I call her sort of accent an affectation.
I find I have all sorts of questions about the wawh now. I may ask some of them in GQ, if I don’t get answers here.
- what happened to the war dead? I don’t actually mean that–what I mean is how were the bodies collected and then buried? There’s a field in France with thousands of white markers (crosses?)–can’t recall the name of it. But is that just for those killed in France (no matter their nationality)? How were the bodies picked up–if, as was stated, the front line was confused and haphazard, how did the teams go in to get the bodies–why weren’t they just outright killed by the enemy? I am especially thinking of that forest (I am so bad at names, can’t think of it) where the pines grew 4 feet apart. Not the forest where the Lost Battallion was, the next one. How to get bodies out? (how to get equipment in for that matter) How to know you weren’t blowing up/shooting your own men?
And then, the bodies had to be transported back to where? and how did the Nazis handle this, as they had to retreat? They took the bodies with them?
It never occurred to me before. There was a war, people were killed, and then we have memorial gravestones etc. But how to complete that picture…
2. how did Europe ever heal? I don’t just mean people and shell shock etc. I mean that every village/town seen on the footage is essentially rubble. When that monastery was blown up (Maisson? Mendisino? It was Italian)–it had been there since the 6th century, a dwelling for peaceful monks. Gone. How did Europe rebuild? (I know a very little about the Marshall plan, but seeing the utter devastation–it’s like there were hundreds of General Shermans, leaving ruin in their wake).
- How did the civilan population not starve? How did any of them survive? I am amazed to see the laughter and the people in the streets, hailing the Allies through France and Holland.
I don’t know all the details, but in the episode covering D-Day, they talked about the units responsible for gathering the dead. Those units advanced with the front line. Unfortunately, the Channel kept washing up corpses on the beaches, days and weeks after the invasion. The units on the beaches ultimately had to do the cleanup themselves, building ad hoc funeral pyres to dispose of the bodies.
But what would stop the enemy from just firing on those clean up crews? God knows there is little honor in war, so what is to stop the enemy from decimating the ambulance crews etc? (the story of the soldiers being blown up during their turkey dinner–given despite their CO’s pleas-was particularly harrowing). But that dinner made me think as well. When do these guys eat? What chow line? Where? Did they carry beef jerky or rations in their packs?
Also, how does one know when the skirmish/battle is over? How do you decide that you have successfully taken this hill or that village? By killing all the enemy or by not being able to be killed yourself?
Good question! Is there a mutual understanding about when it’s okay to stop? When both sides are exhausted?
On that one island – the one that we didn’t need to take – the Japanese kept fighting for several months after they lost. It sounds like that was an unusual situation though.
I think it’s accepted on both sides that crews who are carrying off the wounded or collecting bodies are off limits, as long as the real fighting is over.
I liked the story about the Native American soldier who became, not entirely by design, a designated war chief of his Plains tribe, after he returned home. In the “old days” you had to lead men into battle, touch a living enemy, steal his weapon, and also steal some horses. In the course of 24 hours he did all that, by leading his platoon, bumping into and then wrestling with the German soldier, taking his rifle, and then running off the horses of a German unit. On camera this old gentleman repeated the praise song he sang as he rode off with the stampeding horses. It may be the last time that song is ever sung.
I think (totally talking through my hat) that in a traditional war over territory like WWII, it’s pretty clear when the battle’s over: everybody has either surrendered, been killed, or withdrawn (and it’s pretty evident when a modern mechanized army withdraws).
Then the graves detail moves in; presumably, they deal with the dead from both sides. The Red Cross may be involved in some way.
I don’t know enough to give any more than sketchy answers, but here’s what I remember. There were Graves Registrations units that handled the bodies. They would come in when it was safer to do so; meanwhile, bodies just lay there. As was previously mentioned in this thread, there were times that a frozen corpse was the best thing around to sit on. If you don’t have access or the manpower to deal with your dead. you leave them. Look at pictures of the German columns routed in the Falaise Gap. Dead guys everywhere.
Anyway, some were buried in Europe. I think there’s close to 100,000 Americans buried in about a dozen cemetaries in Europe. IIRC, some are all US, even from a single campaign; others are shared with other nations. Some were transported back to the US for burial (I believe the family of the deceased chose), but I don’t know the details of how they were shipped back.
The monastery was Monte Cassino. It was built anew after the war (I think some of the precious manuscripts there were evacuated at the outset of the battle by German officers).
Yeah, Europe was devastated. There was starvation after the war. Fuel shortages and really bad winters led to people freezing to death. There was at least one UN organization that ran Displaced Persons camps; there were refugees all over. (This UN organization predates the United Nations we think of today; the Allies in the war called themselves the “United Nations”.) By some estimates, people were getting maybe 1000-1200 calories a day.
The Marshall Plan started in 1947; maybe a bad memory, but I think one of the planners said “Europe is slowly starving to death”. Partly humanitarian, partly ‘enlightened self-interest’…a healthy, economically sound Europe was better for the US, too. They needed to get industry and trade restarted; get their infrastruction repaired and rebuilt.
Anyway, that’s my tiny smattering of information on this.
Just curious, why were you surprised by the happy people in the streets, hailing the Allied soldiers?
Children of my (baby boomer) generation were raised by mothers who said “finish your dinner. People are starving in Europe.”
Which reminds me of the Flannery O’Connor short story from the post-War era, “The Displaced Person,” in which European refugees have come to work on a Georgia farm.
About the score:
Wynton Marsalis was in charge, and a lot of what you hear was composed by him. However, like many movie and TV scores, he has drawn in other talent. As you’ve noticed, some of the music is recordings from the time. “V-discs” were records made especially to be played over the radio to the troops, and many of them were not heard in the US until recently. The song sung by Norah Jones is, IIRC, American Anthem. And, yes, that was the Les Paul Trio backing up Bing Crosby.
Several segments were written by bassist Edgar Meyer, and performed by him and Mark O’Connor. Some pieces are done by Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.
I have no secret sources. I simply did a little rev-pause-play-pause-play as the credits scrolled past. If you need a more complete list, do your own button work.