World War II: causes, course, and consequences

World War II - Life and Times of Bill Haak

Bill Haak was raised in a family that was very much involved in many ways (economically, socially, and morally) with the Great Depression and involved militarily with WWI. As time went on WWII would have a major effect on the family as well. Haak was born in 1923, the son of farmers, in the western part of Wisconsin. His parents told him often about how lucky their family was to have avoided the Dust Bowl miseries. And it was also true, they reminded Bill and his sisters, that living in western Wisconsin, on 160 acres of prime farmland, the Haak family was blessed to be quite self-sufficient. They never went hungry. The family even donated extra corn and potatoes to homeless programs around the Midwest. Each evening at the supper table, Haak's father Elmo thanked God for the blessings his family had, for plenty of food, good health, and for all the oak and elm trees on the farm that made the house warm in the bitter cold winters.

The family raised potatoes, carrots, rutabaga, turnips, onions and other crops that were kept in the root cellar deep beneath the farmhouse. The corn and tomatoes the family grew in the fields were harvested and then canned in glass mason jars for use during the long cold winters. Mrs. Haak had her own garden with lots of cabbage for making sauerkraut; she had other vegetables and kept the family well nourished with home made soups, cheese and dairy products thanks to the.

His uncle Erlo was one of the twenty million soldiers wounded in WWI, but at least he came home alive, even though he lost his left leg from the knee on down. Later Erlo was employed in the Civilian Conversation Corps as a bookkeeper, one of the many positive parts of the New Deal. Paid thirty dollars a month, Erlo was happy to be part of the restoration of the country's economy and of its collective self-esteem.

Elmo was a minister who also had a herd of 24 dairy cows, 18 Holsteins and 6 Jerseys. Elmo enlisted in WWI as a chaplain for Protestant soldiers. He came home with stories that would cause tears to run down his children's faces, stories about young men so shell-shocked by the brutality and bloodshed of the war that they cried off and on constantly and turned to Jesus Christ out of desperation. He heard stories about men frozen to death along the frozen roadsides of France and Germany, about refugees begging for food and children with frostbite on their fingers and toes.

Haak was only a year out of high school in Eau Claire Wisconsin when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was working in the barn of his dad's small dairy farm in the afternoon that fateful December 7th in 1941, cleaning up after having milked the cows. The radio in the barn gave the news that nobody wanted to hear - that the Japanese had destroyed many battleships, cruisers and aircraft, and that many navy personnel drowned in the sunken battleships - but that everybody now clearly understood. America was at war. Within a short period of time the U.S. would also be at war against Germany.

Within three days, Haak had made up his mind to join the military. He had the support of his family and friends; some of his friends would join him at the recruiting station in Eau Claire. The Haak family had never been very gung-ho to get involved in the military, but like his uncle before him, Haak felt that the world was out of control and it was America's job to try and straighten things out.

Moreover, Haak had been reading fiction books since Kindergarten; his grandfather on his dad's side, a retied school teacher from West Virginia, had moved in with his family and taught him to read. In high school, Haak delivered newspapers to neighboring farms on his bicycle. He loved newspapers. H spent time every day reading newspapers and magazines very closely, and he was well aware of the menace that Hitler was becoming in Europe. His father had urged him to be "an informed citizen" so he stayed up-to-date on the bitter relations between the Japanese and the U.S. He knew that Japan was an aggressor in Asia, seeking to take over the Philippines and Malaysia; he knew that Japan had been hurt by oil embargos that the Americans had launched against Japan, and that war was a very real possibility. Even though Haak also knew that America was trying to stay out of the war in Europe, it angered him to read about the German people giving in to a fanatical bully like Hitler.

Because Haak had Mr. French, a very good social studies teacher at Eau Claire High School, he was able to pretty much keep up-to-date with all that was going on in Germany during his late teens. At 17, in 1939, Haak was aware that Hitler had issued orders suppressing free speech in Germany in 1933, and that by July 14 of that year Hitler had basically declared himself dictator of Germany. Haak was also aware of the persecution of the Jewish community in Germany, but nobody in Wisconsin at that time knew of the concentration camps and the horrific slaughter of so many innocents in Germany. Germany seemed so far away, but radio broadcasts from Europe brought much of the news from Europe into the Haak household.

Closer to home, in Milwaukee, and in fact all over the country, the unions were making a stand, trying to get the best deal for their workers following the lean years of the Depression. But by showing their newfound muscle, the unions were coming into conflict with the government's war buildup. The winter of Haak's senior year in high school, 1940-41, workers shut down the Allis-Chalmers plant in Milwaukee. That action briefly had a negative effect on the navy's contract with Allis-Chalmers to build massive turbines for destroyers. But those workers soon went back to their jobs due to pressure from the federal government. The very fact that a big plant that was gearing up for defense purposes well before Pearl Harbor - and was in Haak's home state - was crippled by a work stoppage gave Haak even more incentive to become a member of the Navy.

And so even though the Selective Service Act allowed deferments for those working on farms, and Haak could have stayed out of the war, Haak wanted to go and serve his country, whether in the Pacific or in Europe. The Navy's motto was "Choose while you can," and Haak's mind was made up; he wanted to attack the "Japs" from the high seas, if possible. His training was in Fort Benning Georgia; he and about a hundred thousand other trainers toiled under the thumb of screaming, antagonistic drill sergeants. The troops were awakened at 6:05 A.M., fed breakfast and given physical training, marching in ranks drills and rifle training until about 5:30. Those not in good shape were miserable, but Haak was in terrific physical condition, and was very familiar with hard work, and basic training was a snap for him.

Following naval basic training Haak was sent to New Jersey for additional training along side hundreds of farm boys, city boys, enlisted men and draftees. He was taught to use small arms and to use all the latest radio and communications technologies.

While Haak was involved in training for the war, his sister and two of his cousins joined "Rosie the riveter" and began working in war plants. The women had seen posters in Eau Claire and Madison, Wisconsin, with Rosie in her denim overalls and with that smile of satisfaction on her face. Rosie had a tool pouch and was urging American women to get to work building the war machine that would be needed. One of Haak's aunts, Lydia, on his mother's side became a volunteer for the Red Cross. She worked 10 hours a day in a warehouse near Chicago packing surgical dressings, sewing warm inner lines for soldiers' coats, packing blankets, gloves, insulated headgear and goggles in boxes for shipping overseas to combat areas.

The Red Cross (along with the USO) also put on dances and social receptions for troops on their way to the war or coming home on leave. Lydia actually met her future husband at a dance in Skokie, Illinois, outside of Chicago. The second lieutenant had been stationed in Hawaii during the air strikes that caused such tragic damage on December 7, 1941, but he was fortunate to avoid the carnage that took over 2,000 lives. Lydia had a good heart, loved her country and was generous with her time, but she probably would not have volunteered for the Red Cross if she hadn't heard that the U.S. Government was being urged to draft women. In fact, Fortune magazine and other publications including some newspapers had been pushing for the government to conscript American women who were at home taking care of their families in the absence of their husbands.

By the end of the war, over 19 million American women had left the kitchen and gone to work in factories, but Haak's mother was not among them. She did help coordinate a campaign to send letters and cookies to soldiers from the farmhouse in Wisconsin, but the farm required both Haak's father and mother to stay and work the land. A fair percentage of the food (potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and cabbage) raised on the Haak farm was donated by the Haak family to charities and other organization that were assisting injured soldiers and war widows.

Meanwhile, Bill Haak wanted to be in the Pacific theater where the fighting was, but he was ordered to work in England during most of 1942 and 1943, as part of the air effort; naval enlistees found themselves engaged in everything from supply efforts to ship maintenance. It made Haak a bit frustrated, but the colonel in charge of his company used patriotic speeches to keep the troops believing that they were as important to the war effort as the Marines charging up the beaches of Guam, Saipan, and the other islands in that chain of Japanese-held territories. There was never a question of re-upping his enlistment; Haak had long ago decided that he was in this war for the long haul, as long as he was fit and able to participate, he was going to be fighting against the Nazis and the Japs. One good thing that happened to Haak while in England was that he met an intellectually gifted and attractive member of the Women's Army Corps (WAC). Her name was Carol and she was stationed near Haak outside of London.

They met at a dance hall and after a couple draft beers, Haak got up the nerve to ask her to dance. She was the daughter of a well-known physician in New York City, a woman of culture and society who was not as down-to-earth as the farm girls Haak had known in Wisconsin, but was honest, and committed to her duties. She found Haak a refreshing change from some of the more pretentious males she had known in New York; his strong hands, made tough through a lifetime of farm work, his knowledge of world history and of the background reasons for this war, made him an attractive mate for a well-heeled woman.

Carol was particularly intrigued that what on the surface appeared to be a simple yet handsome farm boy from Wisconsin actually was a very well-informed and knowledgeable person who knew all the intricacies of the Treaty of Versailles, and understood the way in which Hitler had used that treaty to stir up passions in his country and eventually seize dictatorial control. They fell in love; and even though Carol's parents had warned her not to get involved with any "flyboy" or "ground soldier," she gave her heart to Bill Haak. Being in love with Carol added a reason to the long list of reasons that Haak was committed to this war to the end; he now had someone to look forward to spending his life with once the bloody war was over.

In June 1944, the day Haak had been waiting for was just around the corner. The Army, Marines, Army Air Corps and the Navy and its various divisions began rehearsing for the D-Day assault on Hitler's forces in France. Haak would not be among the troops slogging through the surf against heavy enemy fire on Omaha Beach (Normandy, France); but he would be a support person aboard one of the ships that would carry hundreds of thousands of highly trained troops into battle.

Haak was proud of the fact that he was part of a massive force of men and equipment training in England to take the fight to the Nazis, and take back Europe for the free world. About two million ground troops and two million Army Air Force personnel were preparing to board six thousand ships and cross the English Channel in a wave of force never before seen in the face of the earth or at sea.