Veterans Day--When America Went to War, Wauwatosa Was In Step

Veterans Day reminds us that it takes more than trained soldiers to assure the freedoms we take for granted. When America went to war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, Wauwatosa was in step.

The Wauwatosa High School building was often the central gathering place for citizens who trained for the war effort. One of the most colorful and spectacular uses of the high school building was its “send-off” of draftees heading for the induction centers. On “send off” day, the inductees were met at City Hall by the Wauwatosa High School marching band which then marched with them up the street to the school and into the auditorium.

There they were met by family, relatives and friends and ushered to seat in the auditorium where they were entertained by Miss Gladys Garness and her a’capella choir.

Following a short invocation and a speech by the mayor, the inductees were given an “army kit” of toothpaste, shaving cream, darning cotton, candy bars, cigarettes, playing cards, writing papers, a paperback booklet called “Fall In” explaining the early days of basic training. w

In late 1943, an all-school bond drive and rally to buy a Navy Corsair aircraft was announced. The school needed $137,000 in bond sales to rate the privilege of an aircraft being christened off the assembly line with the name “Spirit of Tosa” painted on its cowl.

Admission was through the purchase of savings and stamps. The front row seats were reserved for purchasers of $1,000 bonds with seats leading to the back for less and less purchases. The rally produced about $120,000, and there probably never was a “Spirit of Tosa” Navy aircraft. However, the 1943 yearbook, The Pennant, featured a colorful photograph of a Navy Corsair on its inside front pages.

Not only did its students rally for the cause with more than 2,000 eventually enlisted into the ranks–57 of them never to return–but teachers answered the call by teaching new and unusual wartime curriculum, young ladies entertained at USO parties in the various churches, mothers and wives worked to fill “army kits’ for inductees, even the halls, basement and auditorium of the proud, new Wauwatosa High School building at 76th Street and Milwaukee Avenue were pressed into service.

Within only weeks of the Dec. 7th, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, Wauwatosa High’s auditorium was the location two nights each week, as neighborhood air raid wardens trained in the defense of their hometown. Volunteers learned not only the basics of first aid, but became skilled in techniques of firefighting, gas warfare and ways to handle the mysteriously dangerous incendiary bombs.

More than 1,200 volunteers wardens would eventually attend the twice-weekly sessions..

School principal Ivan Swancutt’s office was the location for the sugar rationing books that went not only to households, but to bakers, candy makers and others whose use of sugar was sharply controlled by the war-time government early in the stages of the war.

In the course of the war, Wauwatosa High School had been so successful in selling war bonds and stamps not only to students but to community citizens as well, that the U.S. Treasury Department designated the high school as a bonafide “government agency.”

Following guidelines sent out by the wartime government, Wauwatosa High School quickly altered much of its advanced curriculum to prepare its students for war. Courses in army and navy math as well as army and navy aviation physics, were offered, at first as non-credit that could be taken in the students’ free time or on Saturday.