THEY JUST S A I D Good War or not, thousands of Men not willing to kill but Americans refused wanting to help the war effort voluntarily starve to fight in it themselves for a nutrition study (opposite). At Leyte, By Rachel S. Cox in the Philippines, actor and conscientious objector Lew Ayres tends to wounded NO Japanese prisoners.

58 WORLD WAR II EUGENE SMITH/LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; OPPOSITE, MARCH/APRIL 2015 59 WALLACE KIRKLAND/ LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES APAN’S ATTACK on Pearl Harbor and America’s barred conscientious objectors from teaching in their schools. you offer me…for service in the Armed OME 27,000 MEN who were entry into the war galvanized the nation. Officially, Even sports heroes and matinee idols faced derision when Force,” Lowell’s letter began. “You will prepared to resist induction domestic conflict over whether to fight resolved into they did not head for the barracks. Boston Red Sox star Ted understand how painful such a decision is didn’t have to: they washed the tempered elation of common purpose. “We are Williams, wanting to see the 1942 season through, justified his for an American whose family traditions, out after the physical. Of the all in it—all the way,” FDR declared on December 9, 3A draft deferment by claiming to be his mother’s sole sup- like your own, have always found their ful- rest, 25,000 opted for mili- 1941.J “Every single man, woman, and child is a partner in the port. Skeptics sneered that Mrs. Williams and her notoriously fillment in maintaining, through respon- Stary duty as uniformed noncombatants, most tremendous undertaking of our American history.” peckish boy, 25, had not seen one another in two years. Wil- sible participation in both the civil and mostly in the Medical Corps. Desmond But not every American was a liams joined the navy reserve and military services, our country’s freedom T. Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist from partner. Even when bright lines later became a flight instructor. and honor.” Lowell believed that what Lynchburg, Virginia, received the Con- POET defined good and evil, freedom When in 1942 actor Lew Ayres, had originated as a war for survival had gressional Medal of Honor for rescuing ROBERT LOWELL and repression, individuality and star of the 1930 antiwar epic All devolved into a campaign to obliterate the scores of wounded under fire on Okinawa The New England enslavement, some men refused to Quiet on the Western Front and the people of Germany and Japan. while serving as a medic with the 77th aristocrat chronicled fight. By August 1945, nearly 70,000 boffo Dr. Kildare franchise, declared Dixon, imprisoned as a youth for Infantry Division. his wartime prison Americans had declared that they himself a philosophical objector, “jumping trains”—hoboing—outside Others wanted to work with the system term for draft resis- tance in a 1959 poem, “by reason of religious training and the industry booed. Raged mogul his native Vicksburg, was 21 when he but rejected noncombatant service on the “Memories of West belief”—as the Selective Training Louis B. Mayer, “You’re through in migrated to Chicago to box—he was grounds that filling a rear-echelon slot Street and Lepke.” and Service Act of 1940 put it— Hollywood!” Theater owners boy- 6’6”, weighed 250 pounds, and sparred simply freed another man to kill. These He later emerged as an early critic of opposed war in any form. Although cotted Ayres’s films. The actor, who with Joe Louis—but quit the ring to sing objectors could serve in the Civilian Public American involvement fully half these men still chose to said bearing arms would cause him the blues. Upon receiving an induction Service, an alternative to military service in Vietnam. He refused to ally formally with serve their country through alter- “to live in a nightmare of hypoc- notice, Dixon declared that he felt no that gave patriotic COs a chance to help antiwar groups, but in native service, that did not stop risy,” briefly worked at a camp for black man owed racist America national their country outside of the armed forces. 1967 joined writer fellow Americans from damning objectors in Oregon, then enlisted service. “Why should I go to work to fight Civilian Public Service arose from the Norman Mailer in protesting the war conscientious objectors (COs) as as an unarmed medic. “The most to save somebody that’s killing me and my country’s World War I experience with at the Pentagon. draft dodgers or worse. Even FDR publicized CO in the country,” people?” he wrote in an autobiography. absolute draft resisters, who numbered A Plymouth, New seemed to equate pacifism with Hampshire, barber in historian Paul Fussell’s words, Police arrested him onstage mid-show. fewer than 2,000 and who, according to cowardice. “There are some timid gave COs a piece Ayres won three battle stars caring Both landed behind bars—Lowell for Selective Service System director Clarence

ones among us who say that we of his mind—until for soldiers and civilians under fire a year and a day in New York City and Dykstra, “presented difficulties…far out must preserve peace at any price,” neighbors shamed in New Guinea and the Philippines. in Danbury, Connecticut; Dixon, for 10 of proportion to the numbers involved.” he said in May 1941. him into tolerance. Hollywood rehabilitated the actor, months in a Chicago jail—and they were Lacking an option during 1917 to 1918, “What is the view that permits a who donated his army pay to the not alone. Some 6,000 men did time for the military posted objectors to army man to accept safety instead of ser- American Red Cross. Selective Service Act violations; during the camps, presumably in hopes that in the vice in the midst of a war for survival?” asked New York Times To avoid derision, many men who had identified as paci- war, one man in six in an American prison company of other draftees men disin- writer Robert Van Gelder in a May 1942 magazine article. Van fists in the 1920s and 1930s simply joined up. Others didn’t see was a draft resister. Roughly 1,600 “abso- clined to combat might make themselves Gelder distinguished derisively between nonconformist reli- themselves as having a choice. “To a real degree in 1941,” said lute resisters” refused to cooperate at all. useful somehow or take up the gun after gious pacifists and intellectuals opposing war on political and Steve Cary, a World War II CO who went on to become the The other 4,400 inmates were Jehovah’s all. When “conchies” refused to follow BLUESMAN philosophical grounds. “In the one instance, some of the men president of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, “you were a Witnesses seeking exemption from mili- orders, camp staff cut the men’s rations WILLIE DIXON can’t see the world as it is because their eyes are not sufficiently CO knowing that you didn’t have another answer.” tary service not as COs but as ministers, and stuck them in solitary, sometimes The 6’6” Dixon didn’t open,” Van Gelder wrote. “In the second instance a man can’t As an Amish objector told a filmmaker decades later, requests the government denied. inflicting abuse tantamount to torture. mind fighting—at 22 see the world as it is because he himself is in the way.” “World War II was a hard war to be a CO in.” Thousands more refused to fight but With this harsh history in mind, in the he won the Illinois Golden Gloves title for Once the United States was at war, those unwilling to fight worked with the system. Dutiful resisters 1930s the Peace Churches—an umbrella novice heavyweights often bore the blame for the preceding years of vacillation. BJECTORS’ ranks were nearly as diverse filed under Selective Service and Training term for the Society of Friends, Men- and later sparred with “The preachment and the practice of pacifists in Britain and as the army’s. Consider Robert Lowell, a Act Section 5(g), completing DSS 47, “Spe- nonites, and Church of the Brethren— Joe Louis—but refused to fight for a country America were a cause of the World War,” New York Herald Boston poet whose forebears arrived on the cial Form for Conscientious Objectors.” collaborated with the American Civil he thought racist. A Tribune columnist and World War I veteran Walter Lip- Mayflower and included a signer of the U.S. Petitioners had to satisfy draft boards and Liberties Union, the War Resisters League, lifelong singer, he took pmann wrote in August 1943. “They were the cause of the Constitution, and Willie Dixon, a slave’s sometimes appeals panels of their serious- and the Fellowship of Reconciliation to up the bass and was gaining traction as a failure to keep pace with the growth of German and Japanese Ograndson, ex-con, and former pugilist from Mississippi carv- ness by answering 10 requests, starting seek reforms. About 58 percent of objec- member of the Five armaments. They led to the policy of…appeasement.” ing a career as a bassist and songwriter in Chicago. with “Describe the nature of your belief tors had ties with the Peace Churches, and Breezes when he refused induction. Professing conscientious objection could cost a man his job. Having withdrawn from Harvard at his psychiatrist’s urging which is the basis of your claim.” A man found in the commandment “Thou shalt After the war, Dixon Louisiana barred state agencies from employing either COs and finished his degree at Kenyon College, Lowell was 26 when had to explain how he acquired his beliefs, not kill” a statement of purpose. was among the god- or enemy aliens. New York Attorney General Thomas Dewey he received a draft notice in August 1943. As if declining a give evidence and references, and answer “No one could make me kill someone fathers of Chicago- style electric blues. ruled that state workers registering as objectors had to enlist as party invitation, he responded directly to President Roos- the query, “Under what circumstances, if else,” William Anderson, who as a consci- noncombatants or be fired. Kentucky, Florida, and Ohio towns evelt. “I very much regret that I must refuse the opportunity any, do you believe in the use of force?” entious objector participated in a grueling

60 WORLD WAR II AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE/SWARTHMORE COLLEGE PEACE COLLECTION TOP, ARCHIVE PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES; BOTTOM, MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES MARCH/APRIL 2015 61 starvation study, told a historian. idents planted trees and built campsites. More camps opened shouted at. Some were shot at. Disgust for isfying projects. Hearing that the Forest The Peace Churches wanted a civilian-run system, and in response to Soil Conservation Service, Forest Service, and objectors turned self-destructive. A fire Service was short of wilderness firefight- would administer camps and support the resisters. Work- National Park Service requests for men to build firebreaks, broke out in Plymouth, New Hampshire, ers, Philip Stanley started Civilian Public ing with Congress, the War Department, and even President roads, and trails, install and repair phone lines, and watch near Civilian Public Service Camp 32, Service Camp 103 in Missoula, Montana. Roosevelt, they helped incorporate alternative service into the for forest fires. Crews of objectors worked for the Bureau of whose residents were trained firefighters. Volunteers learned to parachute into wil- Selective Service and Training Act taking shape on Capitol Reclamation building dams and fences, digging ditches, plant- Townspeople let a third of Plymouth burn derness blazes and, beginning in 1943, Hill. The United States would not pay resisters for their ser- ing, and building irrigation systems. Wartime labor short- rather than ask COs to help. some 220 CO smokejumpers who spurned vice. (That last touch came to gall COs, espe- ages broadened resisters’ options. By June the front lines went onto the fire line. “It

cially since Uncle Sam paid German POWs 1943, 500 COs were working in agriculture as ET OBJECTORS ALSO took a lot of gumption,” says historian FIELDER held stateside 80 cents a day.) unpaid laborers. Others served as dairy testers encountered kindness or Robert Cottrell. “No one should have TED WILLIAMS Alternative service gained a key supporter and manned experiment stations. won over critics. In that accused them of being cowards.” Drafted in January when Brigadier General Lewis B. Hershey Dispersing objectors reduced chances of same New England town, Beginning in March 1942, COs could 1942, the “Splendid Splinter” successfully became Selective Service System director on conflict and made it harder for COs to publi- shaggy COs seeking a trim satisfy the alternative service requirement appealed his Selective July 31, 1941. A World War I veteran of Swiss cize their views, but complaints still arose. “So Yfaced the notice, “No skunks allowed! So by volunteering at hospitals and public Service status, which Mennonite ancestry, Hershey had seen how why are these conscientious objectors with the you conscientious objecters [sic] Keep to health clinics. In Crestview, Florida, objec- enabled him to finish the 1942 season, as forcing objectors into uniform did more harm jitterbug complex allowed to go out, drink, and H--- out of this Shop!” Vandals also tore tors screened windows in residents’ houses he hoped. But after wthan good. He believed in national service CO AND HERO publicly flount [sic] their draft status in front down the camp sign. But rather than shy to fight malaria and improved sanitation fans booed and for all men but sympathized with the demands of hundreds of people who have dear ones in away, the COs attended church, sang in to fight hookworm. In Puerto Rico, COs sponsor Quaker Oats DESMOND T. DOSS dropped him, he of conscience and the need to protect dissi- VIEW A VIDEO the Uniform of These United States?” the Lin- choirs, and worked with youth groups. rebuilt a hospital surgery and prepared a joined the U.S. Navy OF THE MEDAL Reserve, served as a dent minorities. Through the war he defended CEREMONY coln County Times in Oregon editorialized. The barber backed off, a replacement camp medical index that identified parasites as IN OUR IPAD flight instructor, and alternative service, which he called an exper- EDITION COs encountered threats veiled and overt, sign went undisturbed, and locals began the leading cause of disease. resumed his playing iment “to find out whether our democracy is were refused service at shops and restaurants, inviting objectors into their homes. Participants could join “guinea pig career after the war. big enough to preserve minority rights in a and got booted from vehicles by drivers who Servicemen often showed more sympa- units” generating medical data useful to During the Korean War, Williams flew time of national emergency.” picked them up hitchhiking, asked why they were out of uni- thy than civilians. Freedom of expression the war effort. At Indiana University, COs fighters in combat. The Civilian Public Service program dispersed COs among form, and bridled at the answer, sometimes turning around to was, after all, one of the ideals for which slept in cold rooms beneath wet sheets 152 work camps set in rural areas. In a variation on draftees’ try to run over the offending objector. “When I looked for jobs, men in uniform were fighting and dying. to illuminate the physiological effects of progression once sworn in, program participants packed, bid they’d ask what my husband did,” said a woman whose spouse Objector Warren Sawyer’s most steadfast clothing in differing climates. A dehy- loved ones farewell, and traveled far to live regimented lives was serving at a camp in Southern California. “I was literally supporter was his brother, a Marine who dration study volunteer drinking sea- cheek-by-jowl with fellow Americans of all kinds. cursed and kicked out the door. I learned to say my husband enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor. And water lost 16 pounds in less than a week. The first camp opened on May 15, 1941, at a disused Civil- worked for the Forest Service.” Vandals wrecked Peace Church the hard time some public service men To study typhus, public service men ian Conservation Corps site outside Baltimore, Maryland. Res- offices. Objectors working on road crews got used to being got may not have represented American in Campton, New Hampshire, donned sympathies at large. In a 1945 survey, lice-infested undershorts and tested insec- four-fifths of respondents endorsed alter- ticides by going weeks without changing Pacifists in 1940 native service for conscientious objectors, their clothes or bedding. When research- stage a mock hearing while three-fourths believed COs deserved ers sought more lice fodder, most first- ACTOR in New York City to wages and dependency allowances. round volunteers re-upped. LEW AYRES demonstrate types COs took risks now outlawed, volun- of questions resisters Famed for portraying BJECTORS expecting to tarily undergoing infection with jaundice, might encounter. doomed soldier Paul do something meaningful malaria, atypical pneumonia, influenza, Bäumer in 1930’s All sometimes felt thwarted. typhus, and hepatitis C. Some died. “I Quiet on the Western Front, Ayres had a hit Objector John H. Abbott wanted to show that I was not a coward,” franchise with the Dr. told Studs Terkel in The CO Neil Hartman, survivor of intentional Kildare films—until his Good War that the “work of national hepatitis, said. “It fit right in with my refusal to carry a gun O sank his career. Ayres importance” the government promised scheme of things proving that I was will- enlisted as a medic objectors participating in the system felt ing to take risks on my own body, but I and resurfaced after the war, amassing four more like “work of national impotence.” just did not want to kill someone else.” decades’ worth of Men at some units organized work slow- With malnourished refugees and lib- credits including roles downs and hunger strikes to support erated POWs expected to number in the in Johnny Belinda, The Carpetbaggers, Battle demands for pay, dependency allotments, many thousands, University of Minnesota for the Planet of the and insurance coverage. Some men simply nutritionist Ancel Keys, father of the K Apes, and Battlestar went absent without leave. ration, needed to learn how to feed them. Galactica. Other frustrated COs sought more sat- The 36 participants he picked for his Min-

62 WORLD WAR II TOP, AP/US SIGNAL CORPS, WALLACE KIRKLAND; BOTTOM, AP PHOTO/ANTHONY CAMERANO TOP, MARK RUCKER/TRANSCENDENTAL GRAPHICS, GETTY IMAGES; BOTTOM, PHOTOFEST MARCH/APRIL 2015 63 Objectors enrolled in alternative service programs wrangle logs in Maryland (left) and fight forest fires in Montana.

nesota Starvation Experiment from among 200 CO volunteers which featured them in an article after the war. In “Bedlam lived on about 1,500 calories a day and walked 45 miles a week. 1946,” writer Albert Q. Maisel called American asylums “little Once a man shed a quarter of his weight, he began to receive more than concentration camps on the Belsen pattern.” The calibrated nutrition. A newspaper reported, “Army medical resulting outrage spurred reforms, and a new national orga- authorities who visited their barracks said their shrunken mus- nization launched by COs at Byberry, the National Mental cles and swollen joints give the men a striking resemblance to Health Foundation, continued to obtain improvements in the prisoners freed from German concentration camps.” Study institutional mental health care after the war’s end. subject Max Kampelman, who went from 161 pounds to below 120, dreamed of candy bars and read cookbooks. “It is amaz- ANY OBJECTORS hoped to do relief ing what hunger can do,” he wrote in a memoir. “I never see a work overseas, but Congress forbade it. picture of famine victims without empathizing with the dehu- Mennonite Robert Kreider traveled to manizing effects on the quality of their lives.” China expecting an assignment there only COs profoundly affected care of mental patients. After six to have to turn back when the ban kicked lonely months felling trees in North Carolina, objector Warren Min. Still, objectors’ efforts had a far-reaching influence. “The Sawyer wanted to work with people. He transferred to Penn- relief training units in several Civilian Public Service camps sylvania State Hospital, a 6,000-patient facility for the mentally and hospital units encouraged many to consider postwar relief and physically impaired in Philadelphia that, like many asy- service,” said Kreider, who in February 1946 began what would lums, needed staff. Byberry, the facility where Sawyer worked, be three years of relief work in Europe alongside fellow former was a cluster of firetraps. At each, brutal attendants herded COs. In 1947 the American Friends Service Committee won 400 patients, many naked and incontinent, straitjacketed or the Nobel Peace Prize for its aid programs. strapped to beds, and given to fighting whoever was at hand. In time, some ex-COs recanted. “I don’t think there was There and at 62 institutions nationwide, more than 3,000 CO any other way to defeat Hitler,” said David Lyttle, a CO who volunteers strove to make life more peaceful. “We improved worked at Byberry and later became a literature professor. things just by the fact that we weren’t beating the patients,” Hiroshima and Nagasaki persuaded Max Kampelman that Sawyer said. “Fighting lessened because the patients knew we passive resistance was no alternative to war. He went on to would stop them without getting involved [in the violence].” negotiate arms control treaties with the Soviet Union. Objectors working at snake pits compared notes and doc- Others, like Warren Sawyer, never looked back. After V-J umented what they saw. After objector Charles Lord sur- Day, Sawyer turned in his draft card to President Truman, reptitiously took a camera into Byberry, his nightmarish determined never to go to war. black-and-white images found their way to Life magazine, “I’ve never had a day’s regret,” Sawyer, 93, said. ✯

64 WORLD WAR II LEFT, WALLACE KIRKLAND/LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT, AP PHOTO