World War II Interview
11 October 2000
By: Kimsey M. “Mac” Fowler
Typed By: Jimmie B. Fowler
Sarah Austin Frost
228 Brookwwod Drive
Dublin, GA 31021
On December 7, 1941, I heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio in the bus
station at Winston Salem, North Carolina. I had been to my home in Monroe, North
Carolina for the weekend and was returning to Pine Hall, (a small community north of
Winston Salem) where I taught school. On the speaker system, I heard “All service
personnel report to their bases immediately, the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor.”
That was quite a shock.
Of course, I had to change buses to go thirty miles up the road to the community where I
taught. From there on, the next thing I remember about it, the teachers had to register all
the men for selective service. I don’t remember whether we did it on Saturday or if we
closed school for a day, but I remember that all the men of the community had to come and
register for the draft.
I don’t remember when rationing started, I wish I did.
The Marine Corps Women Reserves was formed February 13th of 1943. The Army had
WACS, the Navy had WAVES. In September, I went to Boot Camp at Camp Lejeune in New
River, North Carolina which was a boot camp for men and women. There were two on the
East Coast but that was the one for women. New River is at Jacksonville, North Carolina.
The men could be trained there or at Parris Island, South Carolina.
Camp Lejeune looked like a University Campus, the buildings were beautiful, similar to our
V. A. buildings here. I was there for six weeks.
We had people from all over; some were college graduates, some not. They tested us, we
marched. We marched to our meals, to our classes. We’d practice marching; we’d go to
classes and we always had lessons to study at night. We took History of the Marine Corps,
traditions, how to behave, how to dress, how to tell rank and everything that had to do with
service.
At the end of six weeks, we finished there; we didn’t know where we were going. We knew
where we had asked to go. I had asked to go into Aviation. Cherry Point was right across the
river but fifty miles by bus (you couldn’t go across the river there). If you were sent to
Cherry Point, you knew you were going to be on an Air Station somewhere. The first thing
I got was mess duty. I had two full weeks of mess duty there, then I did get assigned to
Cherry Point.
As soon as I got there, guess what I got….mess duty! Working in the kitchen. We had to do
turkeys for Thanksgiving and turkeys for Christmas and whatever we had for New Years.
There was lots of cooking going on during that time. I have recorded in my book that I got
off mess duty after supper on December 31st.
On the fourth of January, we left on a slow troop train to go to Oxford, Ohio. Oxford is the
home of Miami University. I had never heard of it, but now they have their football scores
in the paper every week. It was a small University but the Navy had a training school there
for both men and women. The Marines were trained there along with the WAVES. We were
in dormitories and learned how to be radio operators. We studied Morse code and typing.
We marched to class every day just as we had done in boot camp. We had the weekends
free. Every Saturday we had to get out on what was probably their athletic field before the
military moved in, for a parade. There would be this great big platoon of women Marines,
along with the WAVES, and the men and we marched for the parade. That was a weekly
thing that we did. I don’t recall our marching much after we left Ohio.
On weekends we could go into Dayton, Cincinnati, and Chicago. I met one of my old
students in Chicago for a weekend once.
We all had to march in a parade on “I Am an American Day” in our wool winter uniforms.
It was a hot day! I will never forget that parade.
We graduated from the Radio School at Miami University on the 27th of May. I was
promoted to Corporal when we finished in Ohio and reported to Omaha, Nebraska on the
7th day of June for Radio Materiel School. That’s where we learned to build radios and repair
them.
There were three of us who went to both of those schools together, we were not in the same
platoon at boot camp together but we went on mess duty together, we went to Ohio
together, Omaha together and Santa Barbara together. It was so nice to have someone who
was your friend with you. One was from Columbus, Nebraska, an English teacher, one from
Boston who had never been to college and me, a math teacher. In Omaha we stayed at the
Fontenelle Hotel. We had an entire floor; in our room we had eight women. The WAVES
were there too on a different floor. We had bunk beds.
We did not have a chapel there so we could go to a church of our choice. I went to the First
Baptist Church of Omaha, had a good time and met some people there with whom I stayed
in touch for a long time. I finished in October of 1944.
The three of us went to Santa Barbara, California. None of us had ever been that far away.
The train ride was boring, packed; we were lucky to get a seat. We got there the 24th day
of October and were there until we were discharged on December 12, 1945.
I was promoted to Sgt. in August about the time the War was over. I wouldn’t take anything
in the world for the time I had in the Marines.
When we were in Santa Barbara, we would hitchhike to Los Angeles, or to San Francisco for
a weekend. We could go to the USO. Hitchhiking then was not dangerous. There would
always be at least two of us. I was not afraid. The Base was right on the highway. You could
go right out the gate and hitchhike. Trains and buses were always too packed to ride.
I worked in the Radio shop with three men. We had to take turns being on duty all night.
We had a bunk back in the corner. I never worried about being by myself out there.
Sometimes someone would come in and most of the time we didn’t have anything to do, so
we would play bridge. We just had to be there in case. We were responsible for the radios
in a couple of boats. We had a little target boat and planes would practice bombing. The Air
Base was in Goleta, about six miles north of Santa Barbara.
The coast guard was right in town in Santa Barbara. We would love to go down and work
on their radios in their boats because they always had the best meals you ever saw. They ate
“high on the hog”!
One day I was so sick down there working in the hold of the target boat. I had to come up.
You talk about seasick! The three men I worked with were very nice. I remember one of
them was a great big, muscular man, he got a lot of sun, he exercised and had his muscles
in good shape, and he wanted to be “Mr. America”. In fact, he entered the competition and
came in third, I think. So you can imagine what kind of looking man he was. But I
remember when we needed something moved or lifted, we would ask him to help and he
was afraid of straining his muscles. So we had to get somebody else.
We drove from Santa Barbara after getting our discharge. Avis (one of the three) had been
home that summer and drove her car back. She had a nephew about nine or ten years old
who wanted to go back to his grandmother’s house. His mother lived in San Francisco. He
also wanted to bring his dog. Well, Avis went up there on the weekend before we got
discharged and picked them up. They lived in the car and the barracks until we got our
discharge. Avis, Ann and I got our discharge together about noon on the December 12, 1945.
We changed into civilian clothes, Santa Barbara was always warm in the daytime and cool
and damp at night. So we got in her car. Avis, Ann, the boy, the dog and I all got in the car.
I think it was a ’39 Plymouth. We started on Route 66 (the song was popular back then). We
went to LA and then across the mountains to Arizona. It got cold, all three of us could drive
and we were going to take turns that first night. The heater was not working because it had
not been used in a long time. We ran into snow in Arizona and it got so cold that it iced
inside the car. We put on our trench coats. We absolutely froze. We didn’t have slacks;
women weren’t wearing slacks then like they do today. We were fortunate to get the heater
repaired. The next night we stopped in New Mexico. The third night we were in Enid,
Oklahoma. We didn’t realize that all the motels would be full there because of its being a
military town. The motels were so different then; they had individual cabins. We stopped
and paid the man at the motel $3.00 for the night, we didn’t look at the cabin first, but
when we got inside there were no shades or blinds on the windows, the bed had bare springs
and the sheets looked dirty.
I said, “I’m going to sleep in the car.” Ann and Avis said, “I am, too”. We got in the car and
left and drove all night and got to Ann’s house in Columbus, Nebraska the next day and
stayed there a day and night. Avis was taking everybody home. So we headed toward St.
Louis and North Carolina. We didn’t expect snow. Snow had been in front of us all the way.
Of course, I told them we would not have snow in North Carolina. But would you believe
there was snow on the ground in Asheville. We got to Monroe where it had never snowed
in December, but it was snowing in Monroe. Avis had to stay two days because of snow in
the roads. At least we were in my parent’s home and we were comfortable. Avis left there
and went through Washington to pick up her sister and go on to Boston. We all three made
it home for Christmas!
I taught Math in Dublin twenty-one years and Winston Salem about seventeen years.
When you are in service you have the GI Bill. I did go to Columbia University in New York
City one year. By that time I was not afraid to travel by myself. It was a real good year.
My parents were John and Winnie Porter Austin, both from North Carolina. Daddy was
born in Monroe and mother in Lilesville about thirty miles from Monroe. I had one sister,
Elizabeth, a nurse in the Nurse Cadet Corps, a brother, Richard in the Air Force, killed in
a plane crash in 1977 (a private plane after he was out of the service), and William, drafted
in the Army and served over a year in Korea.
My husband was William Perry “Bill” Frost, Jr. from Jefferson, Georgia. His parents were
William Perry, Sr. and Alice Guest Frost.
Our children are Betsy in Roanoke, Virginia. She has three children, Tori, Abby and
Michael. She graduated from the University of Georgia and the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and is the Baptist Campus Minister at
Roanoke College. Our son, Billy graduated from Georgia College in Milledgeville and is
employed with Bell South Yellow Pages. He has one son, Austin.
Note: Among memorabilia, Mrs. Frost has pictures of her discharge certificate, pictures of
her various platoons and various other pictures of interest.
