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Books By Larry Schnell |
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The
Year of the Gator |
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| St. Augustine Record Reviews The Year of the Gator. | The Dry Tortugas | |||||||
Instruments of War A dozen Coast Guard sailors arrived at their new station in Alameda, California, prepared to take up weapons of choice—musical instruments— against the Japanese. The Manhattan Beach Training Station musicians would soon board a ship destined for ports in the Pacific. Their new role in the war began with chaos and uncertainty on arrival at the Naval Air Base in Alameda in early March 1945. There was little to do at first other than muster twice a day, play cards, wait, wonder, worry. The band members hoped they would, in some capacity, function as a band, but they had no band leader. Surely, they were not assigned to the portal of the Pacific War to just play music. They passed the time and tried to thwart uncertainty with dinners in Oakland, second-rate movies, sightseeing, and card games. Several musicians spent a comfortable night as guests of the San Francisco band, one of ten regional Coast Guard bands formed during the war. Their gratitude to the San Francisco band was tempered by a nagging question: Why was the San Francisco band continuing its musical war role while the Manhattan Beach band was gutted and its leading musicians, shipped out? Was it the image of the white dress uniforms and polished shoes they wore as they marched and played in Manhattan streets while bloodied soldiers fought in grim conditions? Was it a sense of privilege they assumed and at times flaunted as they horsed around far from combat zones? Was it triggered by an inappropriate incident involving a drumstick that occurred while the band was being reviewed by an admiral a week or so before they were ordered to California? While band members speculated and differed over the causes of their transfer, they ignored the Coast Guard’s preeminent reason—the war. They left wives behind in New York with barely a goodbye. The wives quickly bonded as a support group to endure the absence and anxiety over their husbands’ new role in the war. The musician-sailors bonded over the confusion and anxiety of their new assignment. The Alameda Naval Air Station was created just in time for World War II and expanded throughout the war to accommodate air units, carrier groups, supplies, Naval personnel, and this new crew of Coast Guard musicians. The Manhattan Beach band musicians settled into the barracks while they awaited word of their new roles as the war dragged on. They learned they would serve on the U.S.S. General A.W. Greely, a new ship of which they knew little and even less about its destinations. What would band members do on the Greely, play music, fire guns, man landing vessels, attack Japanese ships? Rumors flourished amid news of the Coast Guard’s and Navy’s roles in the Battle of Iwo Jima, in progress as the musicians arrived in San Francisco. Some 7,000 Marines died taking the island. Was that a foreshadowing of their mission? Were they to play a role in taking Okinawa, the next teppingstone en route to the Japanese mainland? If the Greely were to serve as an attack transport—a rumor prompted by the 5-inch guns fore and aft—she could be a high-profile target for artillery on Japanese shores. As reliable information seeped in, band members learned the Greely was not an attack transport. She was a troop transport, a ship that delivered troops to staging areas, not beachheads. The musicians’ relief was brief. Where were the staging areas? Rumors flew furiously. Some said the destination was India, which involved sailing through hostile waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans. Others said Australia, a relatively safe location if the ship could evade torpedoes along the way. Musician Art Schnell, an optimist at this point, believed they were headed for Hawaii. Or maybe, if Germany surrendered, the Greely would sail the Atlantic, bringing troops home from Europe and docking in New York Harbor not far from wives of the Greely musicians. In a flurry of letters between San Francisco and New York, wives and musician-sailors exchanged hopes and fears while they sought reliable information amid the uncertainty of war. Finally, a band leader showed up and called a rehearsal, relieving musicians of idle time to churn the unknown into anxiety. Harold Brody had to get the band in shape quickly as the musicians would perform for the Greely commissioning, a formal event attended by officers of the Navy, Army, Coast Guard, and Marines as well as political dignitaries. The band sounded ragged during the first rehearsal, but the Manhattan Beach musicians were among the best and would get it together for the big event. After that, they would play for crew loading the ship. As they helped prepare the Greely for its maiden voyage, they observed and shared bits of good news—musical instruments were among the cargo. Band members did not know how they came to be known as the Greely Grenadiers, but after it was mentioned at a performance and published in the ship’s newsletter, it was official. Although some musicians did not like the name, they liked the implication that the band would play while the ship was at sea, that music had a role in war. They would soon learn that soldiers awaiting deployment could enjoy calming or inspirational music. That same music could sooth the minds of soldiers returning from years of battle. By the end of the Greely’s voyages, after destination rumors had been replaced by travelogue, after fresh troops had been delivered and war-weary troops returned to their families, the Greely would earn a reputation for distinguished voyages and service to veterans. By the war’s end, the Greely had completed a circumnavigation via India, three additional trips to India and other Pacific destinations, and two transatlantic crossings. A Greely newsletter proclaimed the ship’s first trip to Pacific destinations the longest maiden voyage for a warship—almost 13,000 miles—and the longest voyage for a troop transport. Many of more than 10,000 passengers on return voyages were among the longest serving troops in the war. Returning from France, she repatriated the 2nd Infantry 3rd Division (Red Diamond) after its troops helped drive the Nazi armies out of France and back to Germany. Returning from her second Pacific voyage, the Greely brought home Merrill’s Marauders after two years in the jungles of Burma, the Flying Tigers, after almost four years in China, the U.S. Army engineers who built the Ledo Road through Burma, the Kachin Rangers who fought the Japanese with help from indigenous people, and other service groups. These famed fighters debarked the Greely in New York to the cheers of thousands and to the music of the Greely Grenadiers, the band that earned her recognition as the only military ship to have its own band aboard from the day of commissioning. The Greely also delivered mail—ship to shore and shore to ship, thousands of pounds on each voyage. Letters were the only means for sailors and soldiers to keep in touch with loved ones. The Manhattan Beach musicians joined millions of Americans writing letters that were packed in mail sacks and transported throughout the world in the holds of ships like the Greely. Couples struggling to maintain a marriage in the uncertainty of war relied on letters to share their hopes for the future, for themselves, and for a nation. Letters from troops in war zones encouraged optimism for loved ones as they portrayed a lifestyle as remote from the reality they left behind as the distance separating them. Those in combat found comfort, encouragement, and hope in letters shipped to distant military bases and battlefields with the hope that the receiver would be alive to read them. Kimberly Guise, senior curator at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, studied thousands of letters to and from troops separated from families by World War II. Letters are primary sources that tell enduring stories of the personal side of the war. “These singular resources will survive far beyond the time when the last WWII veteran has passed,” she wrote. “The information they provide is immediate, requiring no instruction about how to interpret them. They speak for themselves. Each piece tells us something new, adding a unique personal vision to the immense story of World War II.” The exchange of letters between Arthur R. Schnell, Musician 3rd Class, and wife, Florence, reveals much more than the personal aspects of war. The couple was committed to a life of music, and the information they exchanged reflects the importance of music in the military and on the home front. Flo’s letters describe a woman taking charge of a range of issues from disentangling her 1933 Plymouth coupe from a fender-bender to managing a musical career in the absence of her husband. Art’s letters provide an intriguing inside look at the role of music in war, on a military base, and on a ship. His letters describe the personalities, talents, and temperaments of the musicians who turned passion into patriotism. Together with historical records, the Greely War Diaries and Deck Logs, newsletters, and news articles, these letters portray the importance of music in supporting the war, troops, and home-front families. While millions of war letters between loved ones were written, mailed, and shipped, Arthur Schnell received the first letter from his wife on March 14, 1945, more than a week after arriving in San Francisco. “This afternoon I received the first letter that anyone in the band has received since coming out here, and was I proud, which just proves that my darling is the best ‘Mousie’ (the couple’s term of endearment),” he replied. In early April, musicians were ordered to pack their bags, as they were leaving in twenty minutes for Treasure Island to train and prepare for an accelerated shakedown cruise. Letters would be censored, Art warned. “Naturally while we are on board, our mail will be censored so remember the code,” he wrote in a letter mailed from a Post Office in San Francisco beyond the eyes of censors. When I first read the letters, I had no idea what code my father was referring to. |
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A Sailor's Song on the air
217 Today: How a
hidden box of love letters became a historical memoir of WWII,
with Anna Koh.“In today’s deep dive, we’ll learn about a new
memoir from local author Larry Schnell that explores the
little-known role of music in war.”
When The Moon Sings
WRUU Savannah with host P.T. Bridgeport explores the importance of A Sailor’s Song: Lost Love
Letters of World War II is a welcome look at the 40s,
America in the world war,
one family’s separation and survival, and the Coast Guard. It is a
nostalgic
and poignant look that makes me proud to be an American. It was a
time when our
people put aside their political, social and economic issues, and
fought
together to lead the world to triumph over fascism. Based on his
father’s
correspondence with his mother while he served in the Coast Guard,
Schnell’s
readers are fortunate to have this story of life at sea and the
home front
during the war. A Sailor’s Song is solid cultural history
and, more
important, a very readable story that anyone interested in the
Greatest
Generation will enjoy.
This is a lovely gem of a story about band music and love letters exchanged in wartime between the author’s parents Arthur and Florence Schnell. Art, a music teacher and trombonist, enlisted to serve in the Manhattan Beach Coast Guard Band during WWII. He and an elite group of his fellow musicians travel to California for deployment on the USS A.W. Greely, a newly built personnel transport ship which served the China, Burma and India theatre of operations. Their primary role was to provide entertainment to troops and support staff on route to war arenas, and comfort to those headed home after enduring deprivation, injury and trauma. The author blends the love story between his parents, separated by Art’s wartime deployment, with the rigors of working on a naval transport ship that, from 1945-1946, sailed through the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, and circumnavigated the world to transport troops, supplies and mail. We are amused to read Art’s carefully coded letters, in which he secretly revealed his geographic locations to his wife, to evade the watchful eyes of the censors. Author Schnell explains the complexities of delivering mail to service members throughout the world. We also learn how Florence, affectionately called Flo, dealt with the absence of her husband, while sharing an apartment with another deployed musician’s wife. Flo was a working musician and teacher, and she gained an additional sense of independence and strength during Art’s absence, yet she devotedly maintains a steady correspondence with him. A blend of narrative nonfiction and
historical memoir,
A Sailor’s Song provides the reader with detailed
information of the
role of musicians in the US Coast Guard. It
is a glimpse into the love story of two people
separated by war yet determined to keep their romance alive. |
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The Year of the Gator: A Florida
Story about
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Country People: Stories from Rural New York
Read a synopsis of the stories
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| Copyright 2018 Larry Schnell |
