WW II Remembered

By Jere Hough Meteorologist / Feature Reporter

A conservative estimate is that over 35 million soldiers and civilians died in World War II. A major documentary series about the war features the stories of some of your neighbors on the Gulf Coast. Meteorologist Jere Hough introduces you to two of them. WW II Remembered

Published: Fri, September 21, 2007 - 3:59 pm Last Updated: Fri, September 21, 2007 - 8:09 pm

Jere Hough

This is a picture from World War II of the 60th Platoon, Company B., U.S. Marine Corps. Private John Gray is in the back row. He is a Black man like everyone else in the photograph. He was a young marine when he served in the Pacific...very young.
He explains, "I set my age up two years in order to work in the war industry in Mobile. They were building houses...The draft is going on, and when they got back down to nineteen, and I was really seventeen, boom, I was drafted for the Army."
He was assigned to the segregated Marine Corps. Why fight for a country which treats you as a second class citizen?
Gray responds emphatically, "No whippersnapper can stop me from loving my country. I got a thrill when I was going overseas. On the ship, with San Francisco gradually receding in the background...This is MY country."
In uniform or not, all Americans participated in the war. Katherine Singer recalls the restrictions of rationing...certain foods, car tires, and gasoline.
"There was no travel, she recalls. "You did not take your car beyond the city limits....Shoes...You could only get one pair of shoes a year...All forms of clothing. The clothing was being made and used for the boys...everything was for the boys. And we really didn't mind. It was our way of contributing to it."
She thinks the Documentary might be an important lesson to the American public.
She explains, "That wonderful unity that we had. That's why they need to watch it. They need to see what we can do."
Jere Hough is standing by an old flag hanging from the porch of the Singer home. "During World War II there were only 48 states. I can show you that. This flag has only 48 stars...and it flew from this house during the entire war. On County Road 5, I'm Jere Hough, News 5."