Tag: stephen herman dew

When Marines rejected Japanese-Americans

“Beside refusing enlistment to Negroes [at the beginning of World War II], the Marines also refused enlistment to all non-Caucasians. At the end of December 1941, George Keshi, a Japanese-American juggler with the Wallace Brothers Circus, tried to enlist at the Charlotte recruiting station, but he was informed by Sgt. Homer E. Tinklepaugh, ‘So sorry — the Marines no acceptee any Japs for enlistee rightee now.’

“Undaunted, Keshi joined the Navy.”

— From “The Queen City at War” by Stephen Herman Dew (2001)

 

‘Murder, Inc.’ jacket fed Nazi propaganda mill

“The most famous (or infamous) Charlotte draftee in Germany [during World War II] was probably Lt. Kenneth D. Williams. Williams was the bombardier on a Flying Fortress named Murder, Inc. that was shot down over Bremen in December 1943. The Goebbels propaganda ministry photographed Williams in his flight jacket with ‘Murder, Inc.’ emblazoned across the back….

“One Nazi broadcaster in a ‘howling rage’ reportedly declared: ‘Gangster Williams is now in our hands…. He belongs to America’s secret weapon — a mass murder league — which has been set loose against us.’

“Williams’ mother, inspired no doubt by her son’s situation, would later win an award for selling the most bonds during a local War Bond campaign.”

— From “The Queen City at War” by Stephen Herman Dew (2001)

Actually, engine trouble had grounded Murder, Inc. that day, putting its crew in a backup B-17 nicknamed Aristocrap. Lt. Williams didn’t switch jackets, of course.

Williams returned home in 1945 after 17 months in a German POW camp. In 1956 he was named Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s civil defense director, and he retired in 1983 as county emergency management director. He died in 2003.

His “Murder, Inc.” jacket hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Here’s Williams’ first-person account of being shot down, captured and depicted by German officials as a gangster recruited from Alcatraz.

 

Move to the back of the bus (but not the airplane)

“In Charlotte and the rest of the Jim Crow South [during World War II], inter-city travelers (whether by bus, train or airplane) were always segregated by race. On trains Negroes were segregated into separate cars, and on buses they were segregated at the back.

“On airplanes, however, Negroes had to sit in the front seats: the back seats were reserved for whites because, at the time, the back of the airplane was considered the safest place.”

— From “The Queen City at War” by Stephen Herman Dew (2001)

 

Charlotte sends smoky best wishes to troops

“The particular goal of [two large dances in 1943 sponsored by American Legion and VFW posts] was to raise enough money to send a million cigarettes to soldiers overseas…. Both groups almost made it. Each sent more than 900,000 cigarettes, and on the back of each pack was the message, ‘The Citizens of Charlotte, N.C., Send Christmas Smokes for Our Overseas Fighting Folks’….

“[But] during 1944, with vast numbers of cigarettes earmarked for the military, cigarette rationing began…. Home-front smokers were more concerned with getting their own cigarettes, and no one sponsored programs that would send more cigarettes overseas.”

— From “The Queen City at War” by Stephen Herman Dew (2001)