By Rev. Elizabeth Boyd Stevens, 1986

Darkness – Fort those who lived in Duxbury during the period of the Second World War (1941-1945), the experience of a town in darkness governs their memories.

Duxbury’s wartime life was primarily influenced by the fact that the town faced directly into the Atlantic Ocean and that Germany lay across that ocean. Civil Defense regulations were much more stringent for coastal locations than for areas somewhat inland. The fears of air raids, lurking submarines or spies landing upon the beaches were ever present.

To move about Duxbury after sundown was an adventure. The town was very dark and a moonlit evening was greatly appreciated. While the Civil Defense rules varied depending on the perceived danger and battle successes in Europe, reduced light was the rule. Blackout curtains covered the windows. Car lights were painted or taped so that tiny slivers of light lit the roads. Street lights were shielded with metal guards and provided only minimal clues to the road below. To drive the town’s streets after dark was to embark on a risky trip. However, because cars and bicycles had to feel their way along the streets, speeds were generally prudently low and gasoline rationing greatly reduced the number of automobiles. Occasionally, a total blackout was signaled. Families reached for flashlights, feared they might step on family pets in the pitch darkness. and went to bed early.

In other ways, wartime life in Duxbury was similar to the way it was all across America. Gasoline rationing meant great reliance on the trains, whose steam boilers were fired by coal. Bicycles were the best mode of local transportation and, in most families, every person had a bike. Although they were hard to obtain, 3 speed English Raleighs with thin tires were much desired. Foods that were rationed were supplemented with produce from family Victory Gardens, local seafood, and squab from the St. George Street farm. Civil Defense airplane watches were maintained at several locations including the Butler’s pier at the end of Linden Lane. Bandages were folded at Hall’s Corner in the building now occupied by The Deli. In a barn that stood at what is now the intersection of Depot Street and Prior Farm Road, scrap paper and metals were collected for bailing and shipment to regional collection centers. Water and sand were stockpiled in attics against the possibility of air raids. (Many years after the war, one local family located a heavy trunk in their attic. What treasure did they find? Silver, valuable books – what? Imagine their disappointment when the lock was broken and they discovered a trunk full of sand!)

It was on the water and at the beach that the war seemed closest. Most large boats and yachts had been loaned to the Coast Guard or Navy. For lack of fuel, others were laid up in boat yards, “for the duration.” Those who used the water regularly, such as fishermen, were required to be finger-printed and to have registration papers. While small sailboats still dotted the bay and the Duxbury Yacht Club races continued, fuel for small outboards did not exist. Without the noise of boat engines, seals were frequent visitors along the shoreline.

Parents still took their children to Duxbury Beach during daylight hours, but the area was, essentially, a war zone. It was off-limits to all civilians from sunset to sunrise. Patrols walked its length. At various times, these were Army, Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxilliary. Gun emplacements (though no guns) and foxholes dotted its length. Overhead, blimps and yellow biplanes (known locally as “yellow perils”) from the Weymouth Naval Station maintained submarine watches. Occasionally, one saw the pillar so smoke from a damaged ship, miles at sea. The shoreline was cluttered with flotsam and jetsam of naval engagements – life jackets and life rings, and broken and burned pieces of ships. It is presumed that the area was used for the testing of military flares for casings and small bright yellow silk parachutes were regularly found by children playing along the beach. Occasionally, wartime activities came even closer. Imagine the surprise of two small boys, Dunkin and Faneuil Adams, when they heard the crash and clatter of giant chains across the roof of their home on Abrams Hill. Rushing to their bedroom window and peering into the thick fog, they could just make out the faces of crew members of a blimp just above the house. Off-course in the fog, the shattering noise was the mooring chains of the blimp which had only just avoided a more serious collision with their house. Understandably, it is a memory the boys never forgot.

Duxbury was not immune from visible signs of war. Active military units were billeted in town. Army and Coast Guard barracks were Sprague Hall on Washington Street (now Queeny – Vena house on Beaverbrook Rd.) and a small group of Quonset huts in the parking lot on the west side of the Duxbury Beach Bridge. Military uniforms and southern accents brought the wartime atmosphere to rural Duxbury.

The units had various responsibilities. Both services were, at various times, responsible for the night patrols with dogs along the beach. The fear of submarine landings was ever-present, though in fact never materialized. In addition, the historic Atlantic Cable with its U.S. terminus at the Cable House (corner of St. George and Washington Streets) was reactivated to be ready in case of emergency need. Army troops were used to protect the building and Dorothy Wentworth recalls that “it was an extraordinary sight to see an armed uniformed guard pacing the street sides, turning the corner smartly. The changing of the palace guard in London never impressed us…more than the changing of the guard of the Cable Office.”

Duxbury also had its own local armed services unit. In early 1942, it became obvious that the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard did not have the resources to maintain coastal patrols along the eastern seaboard. The Coast Guard set out to get volunteers and the loan of civilian boats as a means of solving this major defense problem. Duxbury Flotialla #600 USCGR (United States Coast Guard Reserve) was born.

The Flotilla was founded May 17, 1942, and was commanded by Graham T. Winslow of Standish Street. Approximately 125 men and one woman from Duxbury and neighboring towns made up the unit. Many men were businessmen who worked in Boston and normally lived in Duxbury only in the summer months, so some of the weekly training sessions took place in Newton and Boston. The usual arrangement was for these volunteers to take one 12 or 24 hour shift of coastal guard duty per week.

Initially (June 1942-December 1943), the unit was responsible for boat patrols. Using locally loaned vessels, the crews patrolled the Green Harbor to Manomet area. All sighted shipping activities were reported to Coast Guard headquarters in Boston. Patrols are remembered as being rough, choppy, very dark and boring. However, the men on these patrols did have a real sense of guarding the beach and entrances to Duxbury, Kingston and Plymouth Harbors. The patrols slept at Gurnet in Coast Guard barracks and drew, so they felt, more than their share of latrine cleaning and floor waxing!

From June 1943-January 1944, beach patrols were added to the duties. Two men and a dog would set out from Gurnet headed north to a telephone shack just south of the beach parking lot. There, they would phone back to headquarters at Gurnet and then resume the hike back. Again, it was frequently bitter cold and incredibly dark and Flotilla members were glad to reach their barracks where a hot cup of coffee and warm bed awaited them. Later in the war, their barracks were located in the Army Quonset huts at the end of the bridge.

As 1944 progressed and the outcome of the war in Europe became clearer, the need for the Flotilla was reduced. For a brief period of time, the watch was kept in the Winslow’s living room. Some members were assigned to the base at Constitution Wharf in Boston on special duty, guarding the pier and liners, like the Queen Mary, which were being used as troop transports.

By the war’s end, Flotilla #600 was a closely knit group who had shared adventure and tedium together. In the post-war years, the group met semiannually in Duxbury to keep friendships alive. The war had built something good.

But that was not the case in all Duxbury families. Telegrams which began, “The President of the United States regrets to inform you…” arrived on all too many Duxbury doorsteps and yet another local family had lost a brother, husband or son. Losses like these were felt by all in a town as small as Duxbury was then. Those Duxbury men who lost their lives in World War II were:

Abbot, John R. Jr.
Clark, Raymond C.
Dubileski, Bronsislaw P.
Estes, Charles K.
Floyd, William D.
Green, Merrill M.
Herman, Robert A.
Martin, William M.
Mendes, Louis P.
Raymond, Nathaniel M. Jr.

Then, finally, on August 14, 1945, the Japanese surrendered and the war was over. Alison Arnold reflects on that day:

“…the church bells rang wildly and whistles blew joyfully to announce the official end of World War II. In these days of continuous strife it’s difficult to realize how relieved we all were and how hopeful of better things to come.
It seemed like a dream from which we were soon must awaken, but the tremendous fact that the war was over dwarfed everything else. For many families there would be happy reunions as sons and husbands came home to carry on normal lives again. For others, there would be no homecoming and to those meant the real meaning of war.
It was of those mothers and wives I was thinking as I drove to Duxbury in the early evening. Boston had been quiet through the long hot afternoon, but there was a feeling of impatience everywhere.
I turned on the radio…a news broadcast warned listeners to stand by for an important announcement from Washington in just 20 minutes at 7 o’clock.
While a cool breeze swept over the meadow, bright with goldenrod, and the red August sun sank slowly, the long-awaited news that the Japanese had accepted full and unconditional surrender, came clearly over the air.
There were no cheering crowds, but instantly out of every Cape Cod cottage and shingled saltbox, tumbled excited children crying: “the war is over!” Some of them wore pajamas and some waved flags. Others were lined up in pig-tailed platoons beating on tin pans and blowing horns.
Then the church bells in all the tall white spires began to ring out the glad news. Flags were quickly unfurled along the elm-shaded streets. Fire engines shrieked and automobile horns added to the tumult. Radios blared and dogs barked.
Lights burned brightly behind the tiny-paned windows as friends joined friends in sharing the joyful tidings. And all through the evening, grateful people knelt with bowed heads in the quiet village churches where their ancestors had sought comfort in other crises in our nation’s history.
Finally, the lights blinked out, one by one. The children went reluctantly to bed with memories to thrill their grandchildren in the years to come. The night wind whispered over the fields where crickets chanted rhythmically. Overhead, stars burned brightly in the dark sky. Peace had come once again to a New England town.

After four years of darkness, light had returned to Duxbury.

Sources:
Arnold, Alison, “Alison Arnold Writes,” Duxbury Clipper, Aug. 14, 1986
American Legion Honor Roll, Duxbury, Post 223
The Log of Duxbury Flotilla #600, privately published
Interviews with Dunkin Adams, Alison Arnold, Alice & Jim Hoyt, Tony Loring.
Merry, the Rev. Cannon Robert, “If These Walls Could Speak,” Duxbury Clipper, Oct. 31, 1985