My uncle Frank Ebner Gartz was drafted into World War II on January 23, 1943. The next day he wrote from his new home at Camp Grant, near Rockford, Illinois. Until I found the letter below, I hadn't know where he had started his training. Here's how the first day in training was reported by a new inductee on his first day in camp.
Seventy years ago today, my grandparents and newly married parents faced a foreboding task, one that was shared by just about everyone in America with a young man of draft age in the family.
North Ave. Beach 8/27/1941 Fred (my dad) sent this amusing “scientific analysis” of two “aquatic species,” probably based on a photo (he says “illustration” but I think that’s part of the joke) that was enclosed with the letter. [...]
Der Prozess, The Trial by Franz Kafka The last two posts have detailed the anti-German bigotry my father faced in his work at the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant in La Porte, Indiana, where he had begun work on March [...]
Munitions are processed at Kingsbury Ordnance Plant during World War II. Photocourtesy of LaPorte County Historical Society Museum In last week’s post, “War and Bigotry” I shared a letter from Fred Gartz (my dad) to his mother detailing [...]