Plot Twist

Johnny receives some unwelcome news.

Links:

1.  Evelina by Bing Crosby - Note: This song is not available on Spotify
2. Desertion and Unauthorized Absence

Spotify songs:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/02U2OAJJSiouQAEzmy4EqW?si=C6ut7UWXTxuzYn6iMIW_3g&pi=rSW-kgCWR1mMr

Please send comments and suggestions to dogtagspaperhearts@gmail.com

Spotify playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/02U2OAJJSiouQAEzmy4EqW?si=Jg8CANxwRVCD6smIny0C4Q&pi=dmQkyBg9Rrqiq

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The adolescent begins to have a lot of juices squirting into his tissues.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Welcome to Dog Tags and Paper Hearts, a chronicle of my grandfather's letters home during his time in the service. I'm your host, Donan Frega, and in each episode we'll travel back to a time when swing bands ruled the airwaves, ration books shaped the dinner table, and handwritten letters carried love across oceans. Join me as we uncover the stories, sounds, and surprises of an era defined by courage, change, and a touch of romance. From the battlefront to the home front. On today's episode, Bringing Medicine to the Masses, a Hardship Discharge Request Effect on Furlough, and AWOL. Now, rest assured, Johnny does not go AWOL. So, pull up a chair, stop that doom scrolling, and let's rewind the clock together. Because the 1940s weren't just about war and worry, they were about hope, humor, and heart. This is Dog Tags and Paper Hearts. A couple of news items from the front on the day this letter was written, February 3, 1945. The biggest news comes from the Philippines as the battle for Manila intensifies. American forces under General Douglas MacArthur have reached the outskirts of Manila. Fierce fighting has erupted as Japanese defenders refused to surrender the capital. What many had hoped would be a quick liberation is rapidly becoming a brutal street-by-street battle. Japanese naval troops have fortified government buildings, churches, schools, and ancient stone walls throughout the city, and rather than withdraw, they're preparing to fight to the last man. For civilians trapped inside Manila, the situation is becoming desperate. Food is scarce, water systems are damaged, and many families are hiding in basements as artillery echoes through the streets. No one yet realizes just how devastating the Battle of Manila will become. In Europe, the Red Army continues pushing toward Germany. After crossing Poland in January, Soviet armies are now pressing towards the Oder River, barely forty miles from Berlin. German commanders are scrambling to establish defensive lines, but exhausted divisions and a lack of fuel make organized resistance increasingly difficult. The race toward the German capital has clearly begun. Also in Europe, American and British forces continue pressing against Germany's Western defenses. Following the collapse of the Battle of the Bulge only weeks earlier, Allied armies are steadily advancing despite bitter winter weather. German resistance remains fierce in places, but military analysts increasingly believe Germany no longer has the reserves needed to stop the Allied advance for long. Meanwhile, the Allied air campaign shows no signs of slowing. Heavy bombers from Britain and Italy continue striking transportation centers, oil refineries, rail yards, and factories throughout Germany. The goal is straightforward, deny Germany the fuel and transportation needed to continue fighting. Every locomotive destroyed and every refinery damaged makes it harder for German forces to reinforce the front. And finally, the Yalta Conference is about to begin. Although few newspaper readers know the details, one of the most important meetings of the entire war is about to begin. Within days, President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin will gather in the Crimean resort city of Yalta. There they will discuss not only how to finish the war in Europe, but how the world will look afterward. Questions about Germany's occupation, the future of Poland, and the creation of a new international peacekeeping organization will all be on the agenda. The decisions made at this conference will shape global politics for decades. And in other news. Perusing the February 3rd, 1945 local newspaper from Johnny's hometown, I found an interesting article written by a Dr. Logan Clendenning. I'll bring you that article, but first a little bit about Dr. Clendenning. Logan Clendenning, born in 1884, was one of the most influential physician authors in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. A professor of clinical medicine and medical history at the University of Kansas, he believed that medicine should be understandable not only to doctors, but also to the general public. His greatest contribution to medical writing was his ability to translate complex medical science into clear, engaging prose, reaching millions through syndicated newspaper columns and best-selling books. His 1927 book, The Human Body, sold well over a million copies, making it one of the most widely read health books of its era. He wrote with a conversational style, as you'll see in this article, that helped Americans better understand anatomy, disease, nutrition, and preventative medicine. Clendenning also made lasting contributions to the history of medicine. His source book of medical history, published in 1942, compiled and introduced many of the foundational writings of physicians from ancient Greece through the modern era. The book became a standard reference for students and historians, preserving important medical texts and placing them in historical context. His influence extended beyond his own publications. By demonstrating that rigorous medical information could also be compelling reading, Clendenning helped establish the model for modern medical journalism and public health communication. The University of Kansas Medical Center has described him as the greatest populizer of medicine in America in the first half of the 20th century, a reflection of his success in bringing scientific medicine to everyday readers. So here's the article. I'll let you be the judge of whether it brings scientific medicine to everyday readers. And to read this article for you, I've recruited my good friend Ryan Johnson. Take it away, Ryan.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

You have to get used to old age, my friend Dr. Adrian Gibbs admonished me. Just as you had to get used to childhood and adolescence. The child emerging from the stage of infancy begins to walk and run and talk and satisfy curiosity, and he runs into plenty of grief. The adolescent begins to have a lot of juices squirting into his tissues, and he has all sorts of new feelings and begins to notice girls from a new angle. It often makes him very mournful. You are beginning to have just the opposite. All your juices are drying up. You are having fewer feelings all the time, and the new angle you have on women is you wish all of them would go jump in the lake and quit ordering you around. Well, all that is what makes you mournful. You have to get used to it, and in the course of time you will get used to it, so don't try to rush the progress of the procedure. Take it easy, and in the course of time you will be the same old kind of fuddy duddy all the rest of us are. Just now you are rebellious and belligerent. I know it hasn't got quite as much future as getting used to being adolescent, but there is a good deal of satisfaction in it just the same. One of the things you have to get used to is that you have done about everything. The adolescent has still before him the pleasure of reading Pickwick Papers and Mark Twain and Sherlock Holmes. Now you have read all those and Plato and Aristotle too. Is that so? I said. Yes, and Descartes and Hume and JS Mill. Is that so? I said. The adolescent is just getting steamed up about ballroom dancing. Now you know all about ballroom dancing. Is that so? I said. You gave up or quit doing all those things you used to do so well. That is probably the toughest thing to face, except that you have so much time on your hands. You now play nine holes of golf on Saturday afternoon, whereas you used to play eighteen in the morning and eighteen in the afternoon. That leaves a good deal of time to be consumed. Another great difference between the change from adolescence to manhood and the change from manhood to old age is that the adolescent is making new friends all the time, while you are losing them or getting indifferent to them. This you have to combat actively. You have all the money you need. Is that so? I said. So you are indifferent about work and people naturally turn to your younger associates for advice. With all this time on your hands, you probably are thinking of doing a lot of reading or writing your memoirs, but I think you would be happier learning to do something with your hands, like whittling little toy boats for the children. Whittle little boats. Is that so? I said. Oh, you'll make adjustments some way. I'm not afraid about that. And come out on the happiest period of life. You'll have to, because, my friend, if you don't, they'll probably take you to some sanitarium and turn the key on you, and a long-nosed guy will find out you have the Oedipus complex. And that means your troubles are due to the fact that you were in love with your own mother, and were jealous of your father. Is that so? I said.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

And now the letter. Saturday, february third, nineteen forty five. My dearest Mary, hello, sweetheart, how are you tonight, dear? I hope you're feeling better than I am right now, but probably by the time you read this I will have been able to tell you and explain over the phone just what the situation is. This has been the hardest and worst day I've ever had since I left you to come into the army. To make it short, sweetheart, I don't know when I'll be coming home. Right up to ten o'clock this morning I had no other thought than that today was the day that I would start my trip home to you. And then came the blow. My papers have been held up for clearance. Just what that means, I don't know. But anyway, my furlough has been postponed until my records and all other papers are cleared up. From all that I can get from the officers of the company is the fact that because I've applied for a discharge, my record was pulled from the files while my case is being worked on, and as yet they have not been returned. I know that doesn't mean that I am going to be discharged, so I can't for the life of me understand just how it should affect my furlough. I thought the case could be argued out while I was at home and while I was at my POE camp, which incidentally would have been Fort Meade, Maryland. But now I have to continue here in this godforsaken hole. How long will it be? Nobody knows. Everybody tells me that all I can do is just sit tight and wait till my orders come through. You must know how I feel tonight, Mary. Just as all my dreams about being with you were about to come true, they had to be smashed against an army brick wall, and I know that you will feel the same way. After four long months away from you, to almost feel you in my arms and then have that taken away from us, it's almost more than I can take. If there wasn't so much at stake, I would take a chance and pull out of here on my own, but to do that would throw away any chance I have of getting an honorable discharge. And more than anything else, I want to come home to you to stay. And the sooner I can do that, the sooner we will be able to really live again. It may be just a week's delay before I leave, darling, so maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on the bad side. Maybe this will make the picture a little brighter. I gotta look at the shipping order I was to go on, and I was scheduled for ten days at home. Does that make you feel any better, dear? I sincerely hope so, because I know you must feel the way I do, and if there is anything I want, it is to have you happy, my darling. Possibly something might work out before I leave, and I can get home in a big hurry and be with you again. I'll have to sign off now, Miss Mutt. They're turning the lights out on us again. Keep your chin up, darling, and I'll be home before you know it. I'm going to try and call you by Monday night. Until you hear from me again, Mary, please remember that all my love in my life belongs to you and you alone. Kiss the kids good night for me, and here's a great big one for you. I love you. Johnny. A few notes from today's letter. The effect of a hardship discharge application on a potential furlough. In past episodes of Dog Tags and Paper Hearts, I've mentioned that Johnny had applied for a hardship discharge. As a reminder, a hardship discharge is an administrative separation from the U.S. military granted to a service member when they face severe, non-temporary, personal or family hardships that make it impossible to continue serving and where discharge is the only viable solution. With three toddlers at home being cared for by an unemployed wife with nobody around to provide support, you can understand why Johnny would apply. Unfortunately, applying for a hardship discharge could affect a soldier's chances of receiving a furlough. Not because there was any regulation stating that it would, merely due to timing, command discretion, and administrative reality. Once a hardship discharge application was submitted, the soldier's chain of command received the request, the local chapter of the American Red Cross often investigated the family's claims and verified the situation, and then the application moved through multiple headquarters before a final decision, and this process could take weeks, if not months. Here's how it could affect a furlough. First, commanders often preferred to wait. If a hardship discharge was under consideration, a commander might decide there was little point in granting a furlough. From the commander's perspective, if the discharge was approved, the soldier would be going home permanently, and if they granted a furlough first, they risked having the soldier absent while paperwork was being processed. Many commanders therefore delayed leave until the case was resolved. And secondly, the soldier might be considered administratively pending. While awaiting a decision, some soldiers were kept close to their unit rather than being sent to schools, transferred, or granted lengthy leaves. This wasn't universal, but it was common enough that veterans occasionally mentioned spending weeks performing routine duties while their paperwork worked its way through headquarters. Again, there was no policy stating that if you apply for a hardship discharge, you lose furlough privileges. However, commanders were expected to ensure the request was legitimate. If they believed a soldier was exaggerating his family's circumstances simply to avoid service, that could certainly sour their opinion and make discretionary leave less likely. Luckily, most officers understood that genuine hardship cases were exactly what the program was designed for. For soldiers still in basic training, the chances of a furlough after submitting a hardship request were often even lower. Training schedules were tightly structured and recruits rarely received leave except under special circumstances. A pending hardship discharge might result in the recruit being retained at the training center until the case was decided rather than interrupting training with a furlough. And then we get to the question of timing. By early 1945, the Army had become increasingly cautious about hardship discharges because of manpower shortages following the heavy casualties in campaigns such as the Battle of the Bulge. Requests received closer scrutiny, approvals became less common, and processing times often lengthened. As a result, some soldiers found themselves waiting considerably longer before learning whether they would be discharged or remain on active duty, which in turn could delay decisions about furloughs. Will Johnny's furlough be granted? I honestly don't know, since I have not read ahead in the letters. Stay tuned and we'll find out together. Also in today's letter, Going AWOL. At one point, Johnny states, quote, If there wasn't so much at stake, I would take a chance and pull out of here on my own. What Johnny is referring to is going absent without leave, or AWOL. During World War II, this was one of the most common military offenses, but the consequences varied enormously depending on why the soldier was absent, how long he was gone, and whether he returned voluntarily. Most AWOL cases did not end with dramatic court martials or firing squads, despite what movies might suggest. So, what counted as AWOL? Well, a soldier was considered AWOL if, for example, he failed to report for duty on time, if he returned late from a furlough or pass, if he left his unit without permission, missed movement when his unit relocated, or failed to return after being hospitalized or transferred. And the offense began the moment he was absent without authorization. Within the first few hours, the company clerk would note the soldier's absence at roll call, and then the chain of command would begin to ask questions. Was he at the dispensary? Did he miss the train? Was he arrested by civilian police, or was there a paperwork error? These types of AWOL cases were usually cleared up within a day. If it became clear the soldier was genuinely absent, paperwork was started and military police were notified. Depending on circumstances, the soldier might be listed as AWOL, searched for by military police, or even reported to civilian law enforcement. If found, he was usually returned to military custody. And what were the typical punishments? Well, for a first offense of only a day or two, punishment might be relatively mild. The company commander would impose punishments such as extra duty, restriction to barracks, loss of privileges, reduction in rank, and or forfeiture of pay. A soldier gone for several weeks faced much more serious consequences. These offenses more often resulted in some type of court martial, with sentences that could include months of confinement, hard labor, loss of pay, dishonorable or bad conduct discharge, or reduction to private. It's important here to recognize the difference between going AWOL and desertion, and that key difference was intent. A soldier who missed his train, got drunk, or overstayed his furlough was generally considered AWOL. On the other hand, a soldier who fled overseas deployment, hid under assumed name, or crossed the country intending never to return could be charged with desertion. And during wartime, desertion was an extremely serious offense. And if this occurred during a military operation, it was even more serious, since leaving a combat position endangered fellow soldiers. Legally, desertion during wartime could carry the death penalty. However, in practice, only one American soldier was executed for desertion during World War II. That soldier was Eddie Slavik. Slavic repeatedly stated that he would not return to combat even after being given multiple opportunities to do so. His execution in January 1945 was highly unusual and intended as a deterrent at a time when the Army was dealing with severe manpower shortages during intense fighting in Europe. By contrast, AWOL was relatively common. Millions served during World War II, and hundreds of thousands of AWOL incidents occurred over the course of the war. Many involved homesickness, family emergencies, alcohol, missing transportation, emotional exhaustion, or combat fatigue. Most involved soldiers eventually returned voluntarily or were apprehended. Letters and memoirs from the war show that many AWOL soldiers weren't hardened criminals, they were often young men overwhelmed by fear, grief, homesickness, or family crisis. Commanders recognized this, and first-time or short-term offenses frequently resulted in discipline aimed at returning the soldier to duty rather than ending his military career. Repeat offenders, long absences, or evidence of deliberate desertion, however, could lead to severe punishment and, in some cases, imprisonment for the remainder of the war. So, you can understand Johnny's follow-up comment. To do that would be to throw away any chance I have of getting an honorable discharge. The top song in the US on this date, February 3rd, 1945, remains Don't Fence Me In by Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters. Since I've shifted to counting down the 100 most popular songs of 1945, now we arrive at number 91, and that song is Evelina by Bing Crosby. Evelina was written by the legendary songwriting team of Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg for the Broadway musical Bloomer Girl, which opened in October 1944. Set during the years before the American Civil War, the show combines romance with themes of abolition and social justice. Evelina serves as a heartfelt love song, expressing longing for a woman who resents both home and hope. It was regarded as one of the musical's standout numbers alongside The Eagle and Me. Bing Crosby recorded Evelina on October 13, 1944, accompanied by Toots Camarada and his orchestra. His recording was released by Decca as a single backed with The Eagle and Me, and while it never reached the iconic status of White Christmas or Swinging on a Star, it was considered one of Bing Crosby's finest Broadway recordings of the war years. Evelina is timeless and pastoral. Crosby sings with his trademark conversational ease, making the song feel intimate rather than theatrical. The arrangement is evocative of the American South with light strings and pizzicato figures similar to that of a banjo. The melody creates a feeling of comfort, while the lyrics express quiet affection and yearning. This creates a nostalgia so important to wartime audiences and consistent with Crosby's persona. Evelina was warmly received, though again it was never one of Crosby's biggest career-defining hits. Billboard Magazine praised the recording in its October 30, 1944 review, saying Crosby sells it like a million. The review highlighted the Magnolias and Honeysuckle Juice atmosphere created by the arrangement and predicted that both sides of the record would become popular jukebox selections. This proved largely accurate. The record received heavier play on network radio, and it became a popular jukebox selection during late 1944 and early 1945. It did reach the popular records chart, though, again, it did not become one of Crosby's blockbuster number one hits. In April 1945, Tune In magazine listed Evelina among the country's ten leading popular songs, placing it along enduring wartime favorites like Don't Fence Me In and Accentuate the Positive. As with many of the songs that hit big in 1944 and 45, Evelina found its appeal through the escape into an idealized America of porches, summer evenings, and loved ones waiting at home. Crosby's relaxed delivery made listeners feel as though he was singing directly to them rather than performing on a stage. That ability to create an intimate connection was one of the defining reasons he remained America's most popular male vocalist throughout the 1940s. Thank you for listening to Dog Tags and Paper Hearts. You can find links to information contained within this episode in the show notes, and I've provided a link to my Spotify playlist of number one songs during the course of this correspondence. That playlist is also titled Dog Tags and Paper Hearts. Please keep the feedback coming by emailing me at Dog Tagspaperhearts at gmail.com. And most importantly, if you have a story from World War II and you're willing to share it on this podcast, please drop me a line and let's make that happen. Until next time,