Editor’s note: Mark Bushnell is a Vermont journalist and historian. He is the author of “Hidden History of Vermont” and “It Happened in Vermont.”
The country was at war, but only people in Vermont seemed to notice.
On Sept. 16, 1941, the state Legislature voted to give a monthly bonus, a sort of hazard pay, to Vermonters in the military. President Franklin Roosevelt had recently given orders to American sailors protecting merchant ships to fire on any approaching German or Italian planes or ships. Since Vermonters had permission to shoot, and could therefore be shot at, legislators believed the bonus pay was merited. Elsewhere, however, Vermont’s action was seen as presumptuous, and perhaps a little alarmist. People began joking about the “Vermont-German war.”
Hearst newspapers even dispatched columnist Henry McLemore to explore the “war zone.” Of his trip north to Vermont, McLemore wrote with mock trepidation: “For a moment I was tempted to jump off the train and run back to New York. Then I noticed that we were making all of 60 miles an hour and thought better of it. The train roared through the night. ‘You’re going to war–you’re going to war–you’re going to war,’ the wheels seemed to say.”
When he arrived, he found to his supposed surprise that dachshunds were safe walking the streets of Montpelier, sauerkraut was still being served in Burlington and people still said “gesundheit” in Rutland.
“Just why did Vermont, without conferring with any of the other 47 states or the folk at Washington, throw down the gauntlet to the Nazis and the Fascists? Did Vermont feel that Hitler, with his chief supply of maple sugar cut off and forced to use jam and preserves on his waffles and pancakes, would be driven to his knees?”
Or, McLemore asked, did Vermonters figure the Germans would lose their resolve when they learned they were up against a state that had never lost a fight?
Then, through his jokes, you can see that McLemore understood what Vermonters were doing. “Their hard, common New England sense makes them question the effort of a country to go about its business with an olive branch in its left (or non-pitching) hand and a cocked shotgun in its right hand. They argue that when President Roosevelt (whom they never voted for) issued the ‘shoot on sight orders’ to the Navy, we got in the war right there. So, out of honesty if nothing else, they declared war. They don’t like hypocrisy up in these parts.”
The war came to the rest of the country later that year, of course, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. Vermont had already been preparing for the worst for three months. On Sept. 13, three days before authorizing the military bonus, legislators had created an agency to oversee volunteer efforts in the state, which encompassed everything from plane spotting, to rationing, to patrols for saboteurs and smugglers on Lake Champlain.
In the midst of that somber year, Vermont was celebrating its 150th anniversary. To honor the state’s past, and to highlight the importance of this new war-preparedness organization to its future, legislators named the agency the Council of Safety. The name was first used here for the government that ruled Vermont during its 14 turbulent years as an independent republic in the late 1700s.
Things seemed no less uncertain in 1941. Vermonters responded by trying to bring order to chaos. Two days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, they participated in a New England air raid drill. Using a telephone tree, every community in the state received the warning within 10 minutes. As part of the air warning system, plane spotters across the state kept a lonely watch on the skies. Police and fire departments improved their cooperation and created the mutual aid system still used today.
Vermonters were asked to sacrifice for the war. The Vermont Council of Safety asked them to take this pledge: “As a consumer in the total defense of democracy, I will do my part to make my home, my community, my country ready, efficient and strong! I will buy carefully. I will take good care of the things I have. I will waste nothing.”
With nationwide rationing limiting Vermonters to three gallons of gasoline a week, walking, bicycling and carpooling became patriotic acts. Of course, not everyone behaved. In 1943, a couple of Bennington men lost their rationing stamps when they were caught wasting gasoline by speeding. Seven Vermonters pleaded guilty in a Brattleboro court in 1944 to using illegal gas coupons. Their defense was that they had sold the coupons mostly to defense industry workers in Springfield.
Vermonters weren’t just expected not to waste; they were expected to contribute. Those with enough cash were asked to buy war bonds, and everybody was supposed to live with less and gather what scraps they could for the war effort. An old bucket could be melted and recast as three bayonets, Vermonters were told. An old plow contains enough steel to make one hundred 75mm armor-piercing shells. They were even asked to save their kitchen fat; after all, two pounds of the stuff would make enough glycerin to fire five anti-tank shells.
Schoolchildren were also expected to do their part. In one drive, Vermont children collected waste paper for recycling. The president of the Ames Safety Envelope Company of Boston wrote Gov. William Wills, informing him on the Herculean efforts of one group of students. “May I suggest that you send a congratulatory message to the 16 pupils in the Georgia Center School at Georgia, Vermont who collected 7,770 pounds of paper, representing 486 pounds per pupil,” he wrote. “I am sure they would like to hear from you, and a word of encouragement will go a long way in inspiring them to carry on future work of this kind.”
Men of fighting age were called into the military while others took jobs alongside many women working at defense industry factories in Vermont. That left precious few hands to do farm work. Victory Farm volunteers filled the void. But even in those days of scarcity, prejudices meant that not all farm workers were necessarily wanted. In the questionnaire farmers had to fill out, they were asked if they were willing to accept black, Jewish or female workers. Despite the labor shortage, Vermont farms managed to increase their food production during the war years.
When the war ended in 1945, Vermont began to return to its pre-war self. Many women who had taken jobs returned home, as did children who had spent time in state-organized daycares while their mothers worked. Salvage drives became a thing of the past and increased prosperity did away with rationing.
The war experience taught Vermonters what was possible. Living with less and state-sponsored daycares didn’t catch on, but we were reminded of the value of volunteers and of preparedness. That’s a legacy of World War II we often forget.