Obituary of a Three-Century Man, Chapter 14
Ben Joins the Navy; Audra and Chanelle Build Bombers
When Ben Calloway joined the Navy on turning 18 in 1942, his goal was to become an aviator. He wanted to be based on an aircraft carrier and take off from and land on those floating runways. That’s what he told some people—that he would enjoy the challenge of it. And it was true; but there was another reason Ben chose the Navy as the branch of service to join: the bombing of the naval base at Pearl Harbor had instilled in him a desire to shore up that particular branch of the service by becoming part of it. Also, as do many sons, he wanted to accomplish the same things his father had, but not exactly the same things. Jackson had enlisted in the Army in World War 1, so joining the Navy instead during the second global conflict was a way for Ben to express his individuality and not have it look as if he were trying to exactly replicate his father’s deeds.
Ben did get his wish, and ended up flying many missions in the South Pacific, from early 1943 through the end of the war in the summer of 1945.
The other boys were too young, even at the end of the war in 1945, to enlist in the military (or be drafted). Dan, having been born in 1928, had just turned 17 when Japan surrendered, a few months after Germany already had unfurled its Nazi flags. Italy had switched sides by 1943, from supporting the Axis powers to championing the Allies, and executed Mussolini in 1945, shortly before Germany’s surrender. For his part, Frank was only 13 when the war ended.
The whole Calloway family, of course, worried about Ben, and supported him as they could: by supporting the war effort from afar and by writing him frequent letters and sending him occasional packages from home.
Both Audra (born 1922) and Chanelle (born 1926) worked in jobs that directly supported Ben, America, and the Allies. After Ben’s enlistment, Audra took a job in Long Beach for the Douglas Aircraft Company, helping to build bombers to be used in the war effort. When Chanelle turned 18 in 1944, she joined Audra there, the two sharing an apartment.
When the war ended and Ben returned home to Fort Bragg, Audra and Chanelle quit their jobs at Douglas and returned home, also. Anxious as they were to be finally reunited with the whole family, the sixteen-hour, six hundred-mile bus trip from Long Beach to Fort Bragg seemed interminable to the two eldest Calloway girls.
All of the Calloways, especially the parents and the self-appointed guardian of her siblings, Audra, were overwhelmed with relief and gratitude that Ben had survived the dangers of his duties.
As the hot war was ending, though, the cold one was beginning. As had Italy, the Soviet Union began the war aligned with the Axis powers, but when Germany attacked them, Russia quit that band of cutthroats and formed an uneasy (and temporary) coalition with the Allies. As World War 2 was ending, the Soviet Union and the United States were maneuvering themselves into positions of power for the post-war world. This cold war would manifest itself, among other ways, in proxy wars waged in the backyards of others, such as the “Police Action” in Korea, spearheaded by U.S. forces in the early 1950s under the auspices of the newly-formed United Nations—which had replaced the League of Nations in 1946—and another quagmire a decade later in Vietnam.
The Calloways would contribute combatants to both of these conflicts.
Chapter 1 can be read here.
Chapter 15 can be read here.