War cries heard in Saugus

Saugus residents were gearing up for what was to be the inevitable entry of hometown boys into the Second World War

(Editor’s Note: Saugus native and longtime local historian and writer Janice K. Jarosz reached into her extensive collection of articles and research on Saugus veterans who answered the call of duty in World War II to write the following article for The Saugus Advocate.)

By Janice K. Jarosz

On October 31, 1940, 1,322 men from the town registered for the draft. Norman Yeo, #158, of 23 Acadia Avenue, was the first man registered. He received a questionnaire as a first step to a one-year service in Uncle Sam’s Army. The second one to register was Edwin Westerndarp, 25 Highland Avenue; then Joseph Sciaon, Robert Craham and Robert Culbert. Twenty more young men signed up and they left on the 8:16 a.m. train to the Irvington State Armory, and then on to Fort Devens.

On January 9, 1941, a delegation of high school students, parents and friends crowded the Saugus Center Station on a cold Tuesday morning to see the second quota of draftees leaving for Fort Devens. In this group there were Arthur Rand Jr., Walter H. Fuller, both volunteers, Angelo Calcagno, Edmund Torrance, Russell Smith and Norman R. Yeo.

According to several newspaper articles, at 7:48 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy Service conducted a surprise military strike on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii, with 353 Imperial Japanese aircraft, including fighters, dive bombers and torpedo bombers, in two waves, destroying eight U.S. Navy battleships and sinking four, and approximately 130 U.S. aircraft were destroyed. A total of 2,403 Americans were killed, and 1, 178 others were wounded. The United States was a neutral country at that time, and the attack led to the United States launching its formal entry into World War II on the side of the Allies the next day. Joseph W. Pace, a 24-year-old seaman from East Saugus, was wounded in the first Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and later died of his wounds.

On December 8, 1941, at 12:30 p.m. EST, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the Congress of the United States: “Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate, and the House of Representatives: On December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

More than 150 veterans of the World War Yankee Division from a score of cities and towns, assembled in Lynn, on receiving word that Japan attacked American ships in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, voted unanimously in support of President Roosevelt’s foreign policies.

On December 9, 1941, four young men from Saugus were attending a Boston Bruins hockey game against the Chicago Blackhawks. The game was delayed for over a half hour as President Franklin Deleno Roosevelt took to the microphone and declared that America was at war with Japan. Those four young men left the game and went down to the Salem Recruitment office and signed up. Two of them were only 17 but fibbed about their age.

After suffering through the Depression of the late thirties, the Saugus High School graduating Class of 1941 now found themselves in the beginning of World War II. Many classmates left in their senior year to join the Armed Forces, and despite the loss of so many student athletes, the SHS Football team kept the town’s spirit alive with games held at Stackpole Field. Neighborhood stores closed down and the wooden bleachers were filled with over 10,000 proud fans.

It was not long before food rationing of sugar, meat, butter and nylon stockings went into effect. Residents were also asked to turn in any metal they had to be melted down to make bullets. One World War I veteran donated all of his medals to the cause.

Housewives were asked to save their kitchens fats and greases and turn them into the meat market men. They were told that the Army uses these items for the following implements of war: munitions of all kinds, signal rockets, recoil mechanisms, demolition charges, propellants and gunpowder. In other words, no matter what branch of the service your son or neighbor was in, he wants and needs the explosives that will come from the kitchen fats you save and sell to your meat market man.