Oak Valley Township is a rural agricultural area, found four miles west of Hewitt. The people here are honest and hardworking, and in 1941, almost all were family farmers.
Courtesy: Geology.com
On Saturdays, these farming families would travel to Hewitt to replenish supplies, catch up on the latest news over a cold beer, and maybe even kick up their heels at a local barn dance. On the Sabbath, and it was customary to have a large Sunday dinner with family, friends and neighbors; but come Monday, the hard work started once again.
In 1941, Howard Branstner was a strapping 26 year-old bachelor, living on his family farm in Oak Valley Township. He had piercing blue eyes, stood six feet tall, and weighed a solid 167 pounds. Having completed the tenth grade, he was considered well-educated for a farmer.
Howard Branstner before the war.
It is evident, however, that Howard was not content to be a farmer his entire life.Four years earlier, on February 6, 1937, a 22 year-old Howard paid for a correspondence course from the National Radio Institute, based in Washington, D.C.
Howard's receipt for his correspondence course from the National Radio Institute.
Howard's diploma from the National Radio Institute.
Clearly, Howard was making plans for the future. But one day in early December 1941, all of those plans changed. News of a Japanese surprise attack on a little-known naval base crackled and hissed over the radio airwaves some time in the afternoon, perhaps just as the Branstner family finished their Sunday dinner.
Years later, when asked of his thoughts after learning that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, Howard simply said, “I thought, ‘Boy, here we go.’ I knew it was bad.”
The next day, December 8, 1941, a shocked and angry nation listened to President Roosevelt's radio address:
Like so many other young men of his generation, Howard knew his life would never be the same.
4 comments:
Thanks so much Sam for this! I was not very good at all in History at school, although, nowadays I crave it, I love it!
Keep the info coming, I am eagerly watching this blog!
Good Stuff!
This is great! We will be looking forward to reading and seeing more.
It is perfect for the younger generation also to be able to read and see pictures about this.
Thanks Sam,
Bob and Kathy
I am so looking forward to this blog. My parents (Marlowe & Diane Marsh) read the booklet you made up for your brothers and just raved about it. They are both big WWII buffs and it has rubbed off on me and my sister.
I'm with Stacy, I wasn't much for history in school, but now I just can't get enough. And although you're not "family", I feel a sort of connection since my Dad's family and your family lived less than a mile apart "back in the day."
I will be eagerly awaiting future posts.
I am so delighted to have found this blog while researching my own grandfather's part in the invasion of Italy during WW2.
My grandfather, William Harling Hart, was an adjutant in the South African Sixth Armoured Division, and I'm hoping to go to Italy to trace his route and find the owner (or heirs of) a picture that he found in a bombed school house near Florence. He carefully kept it and it has travelled from Italy to South Africa and now to England, where I live. If only I could fully decipher the girl's name...and understand Italian.
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