World War II in Fernandina – A remembrance

May 10, 2017 8:00 a.m.

Editor’s Note: My mother, the late Suzanne Davis Hardee, wrote the following  for Gary Mormino retired historian from the University of South Florida who was compiling information about Florida during war times. I hope you enjoy.

By Suzanne Davis Hardee
1922-2004

“1940-41 was a happy time for me.  As a teenager, I never stopped thinking how lucky I was to live on beautiful Amelia Island.  I was happy with my family, and devoted, fun-loving friends.  We seemed to own every square inch of the beach and river, and we knew we were the luckiest young people in all the word.

A trip to Europe in 1939 with my mother and sisters gave me a glimpse of the tensions that were prompting obvious European preparations for war.  In Germany, we saw the hateful signs in restaurants and shops that said, “Jews Forbidden.”  We saw uniformed children of all ages marching in public squares and shouting, “Heil Hitler!”  Before we returned home, we saw the London blackout and a balloon barrage surrounding the city.

We returned to the U.S. on a blacked out ocean liner.  Home seemed safe, secure, and far removed from the European march toward war.  In 1940, I graduated from high school and was off to college.

On December 7, 1941, I remember college friends crowded into our dorm room listening, incredulously, to the radio announcing the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  My college roommate remembers that in my outrage at the tragic news, I threw an orange at the wall where it smashed and left a sticky memento of that fateful day.

Brothers and friends went into the service.  We wrote them faithfully, and if they were overseas, their replies, sometimes came on little V-mail stationery, a specially designed single sheet that also served as an envelope.  V-mail was used to lessen the weight and bulk of regular writing paper.  Once in a rare while, a letter came with a word, or line, blacked out by a censor.

In summer during wartime years, our beach was covered with thick oil from tankers torpedoed by German Submarines off shore.  The flow of a burning tanker could sometimes be seen at night.  Our beach towels and shoes bore the stains of this oil and tar until they wore out.

I was a war bride in 1944, the year of my graduation from college.  I married a soldier boy who had been drafted.  Typical of his generation without question he served his country efficiently and well in the Pacific theater of the war.  He was gone over a year stationed on Leyte in the Philippines. I think he counted every day until he could come home and begin a peaceful and productive life with his family and business.

At home with fellow war brides, I rolled bandages, volunteered to work at the draft board, and accepted an assignment spotting airplanes from a little station on the beach.  Upon seeing aircraft, we phoned its location into unknown headquarters.  Although I had not been trained as a teacher, I was drafted to fill a vacant spot left by a biology teacher who had followed her soldier husband to his army base.

I remember the happiness of V.J. Day [August 14, 1945].  A beloved brother and husband might soon be home!  My mother and I went together to the celebration at Central Park in Fernandina.  I remember the deep feeling of thanksgiving and patriotic pride.  A bird sang so loudly in a tree nearby, we could hardly hear the speaker.

There was great rejoicing when the war was finally over.  My young husband lunged into his work and his life was full of opportunities, family, and friends.  He seemed to put his few years of military service far behind.  He had brought back a few photographs of his army buddies and scenes on Leyte and I made a scrapbook for him of these pictures.  I don’t think he ever looked at it but once.  For him, the wonderful present, with all its opportunities for prosperity and service in his own hometown was what it was all about.

As I look back, I marvel that when my husband was called, going into the service was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, but he went cheerfully, and served his country well.”