WWII vet recalls old Alliance Air Base

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WWII vet recalls old Alliance Air Base




By Amber Ningen - Alliance Times-Herald
Posted : Sunday Jun 17, 2007 18:00:18 EDT

ALLIANCE, Neb. — “It was an interesting time and it was a sad time,” Erma Hawley said.
While looking at a photograph of the servicemen and a couple civilians standing in front of one of the barracks at the Alliance Air Base in 1942, Hawley sees a young 19-year-old woman staring back at her — herself.
Hawley was a civil service typist at the air base.
She worked at the air base all of 1942 and part of 1943.
“The work was interesting. I had a teletype and a TWX machine that I operated,” she said.
Her husband, Harold Kenneth “Red” Hawley, enlisted in the Navy on Feb. 28, 1942, and was shipped out on March 8 of the same year. The two had only been married for a little over two months before he left.
He served on the USS Regal for 32 months before returning to the United States.
When Erma Hawley recently heard about a recognition of the Alliance Air Base, she got to thinking.
“I was about 19 when I worked there, and I’m 83 now, and I thought, ‘I wonder how many people (who worked there) are still living ... that live here in Alliance?”’
As Hawley looks at the photograph in her hand and reminisces, she recalls a Lt. Osgood and a Lt. McKay. “[Lt. McKay] decoded the messages that we received which were very important because, as you know, we were training for D-Day. We didn’t know it ... the soldiers were all training for that big day,” she said.
Hawley became good friends with a telephone operator at the air base, Janet Warren. The two shared an apartment for a while.
“One day we were cleaning house and singing and laughing and a telegram came. Her oldest and her youngest brother had been killed in a plane crash,” Hawley said. “She left and went to California, and I missed her a lot.”
Loise Joris, who stands next to Hawley in the tattered picture, worked in the Communications Department with Hawley. The two women became friends.
Hawley and Joris received “plain” and confidential messages while working in the communications department.
It wasn’t a job to be taken lightly, and Hawley remembers one event that proved just how serious it was:
One particular morning she awoke in her apartment to a knock at the door.
“I went to the door, and there was a man there who said he wanted to visit with me for a little bit. And he started asking me a lot of questions,” she said. “I sat down and listened to him and finally I said, ‘I don’t think any of this is any of your business. I don’t know who you are.’
“And you know, if I had answered him, I would have lost my job immediately.”
Hawley’s friend Joris, however, did talk to the man and answered his questions. “We never saw her again because she did talk,” Hawley said. “It was serious business.”
Along with the seriousness of the job, however, came amity.
“We became close friends with the people we worked with there,” Hawley said. “Several of the young men that worked in that communications [department] were from New York City, and we shared, you know, as you do, a camaraderie of the times.”
Although Hawley has several fond memories of that time in her life, she also has recollections that still cause tears.
“As everyone that worked there knew, they jumped some of the paratroopers into one of the lakes out south of town ... and they drowned,” she said. “They had all of their jump equipment on them, and of course they couldn’t open their chutes and they drowned. And it was very sad.”
It was Hawley’s job to send the messages to the parents of the victims.
“As I sat there sending those messages, I remember tears just running down my cheeks because it was so sad,” she said. “It was so sad.”
Hawley’s objective right now is to find other people that worked at the Alliance Air Base during or around the time period she worked there.
“I thought it would be interesting to visit with some of those people who might have worked there also,” she said. “Many elderly people like to have memories and talk about those times.”
Sixty-five years ago as a civil service typist was a fascinating time for Hawley.
“I have had an interesting life,” she said. “And I am really grateful for it.”



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