CENSORED!
If you merely mention the word “censorship” you can upset a great many people.
We have all been subjected to it in one form or another, too. It is not restricted to foreign shores or wartime only.
What really concerns most people is “official” censorship, by which we mean control of our lives by government. We seldom think of other forms of control over out social lives as being censorship at all, but the elements are there and are abused at times, I'm sure you will agree. At any time you see one man, or a clique of some sort, domineering a group of people in a dictatorial manner, you will find censorship goes right along with it.
Just about anyone who served in the armed forces during World War II, particularly overseas in any theater, will remember that all of our mail was censored. We were aware of that fact; knew about it and saw a good reason for it - to keep the enemy in the dark. In many outfits, once it was discovered who was doing the actual censoring, it tended to loosen up a bit; even falter in its intended purpose. It became a game of a sort between enlisted men and officers. It was difficult at times, to see why and how officers who attended the same schools we did and had the same jobs we had at home, we suddenly designated to read and censor our mail home. I have yet to find an officer who liked doing the job.
I recall how I, unintentionally, let my wife know - within four miles of where I was stationed when shipped to England. I did it by being honest. I told my wife in one of my first letters home that I had been to the grave of Edith Louise Cavell the famed World War I nurse, who was executed by the Germans. I wrote of standing there and wondering what she might be thinking about finding us back again doing he same things Americans had done in l917-18. All my wife had to do was to pickup the nearest encyclopedia., turn to the “C” pages, and read a moment, to discover that I was standing to the rear of the Cathedral in at Norwich, England. She could not have known, of course, however, that I was four miles from my base at Rackheath which, in time, proved to be one of nineteen American air bases in Norfolk County around the city. By and large we respected the need for such a program, but in looking over mail received from us here at home I found to have been a hit-or-miss scheme with, perhaps only one out of twenty or more letters being razored and the rest untouched by censoring hands.
Prior to that, after being rushed to Florida, the small base as a municipal airport was suddenly clamped down tight! No phone calls for any purpose whatever! No letters, post cards! No communication whatsoever, because we were shipping out for a Port of Embarkation.We were not told where that port might be either.
On the train moving north we, in some mysterious way, came to know without being told we were going to Camp Shanks, NY. We arrived at night, I remember, and the next morning after an early breakfast and before too long the telephone calls came flooding from New York City from wives and fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers They had all sent neatly printed post cards informing them that we were leaving Florida on such and date and that we would be a Camp Shanks.
We arrived at night, I recall, and the next morning after an early breakfast, phone calls flooded in from where wives, friends and relatives were waiting to see us. No leaves! No passes! A few days later, when they had all gone home - my wife included – we were given passes “do the town”.
A whole group of censors shot themselves in themselves in their collective feet with that mess, I'd say. Good. Never liked 'em anyway.
A.L.M. November 3, 2002 [c690wds]
