Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Phyllis Fechner
Narrator: Phyllis Fechner
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Visalia, California
Date: December 15, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-fphyllis-01-0010

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RP: We're gonna just step back a little bit. And talk a little about the wartime in Owens Valley that you experienced. Let's start a conversation by having you share with us your memories of December 7, 1941.

PF: Well, I remember FDR saying that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and then the only other words I remember are: "This date will live in infamy." (...) I can't even remember where I was. I was at, in school when he died. (...) And then during the war I sold savings stamps and savings bonds. When you got a book full of stamps you had a bond or something like that. And the bonds were, I believe like ten dollars or up. And I sold a lot, probably because my mother helped me. Well, and then school and my mother was P.T.A. president and she was involved in a lot of things with school. (...) And that started when I was in eighth grade.

RP: You started selling bonds?

PF: Uh-huh.

RP: And was it just for a short period of time or you did that for the entire duration of the war?

PF: Oh, you know, I don't remember. Probably the duration and I remember sending, what do you call 'em, care packages to the service men. Like, toothpaste and, oh and at that time cigarettes, and candy bars -- my husband can remember getting candy bars and cocoa and I'll let him tell you about that. And razors and shaving cream and soap, things like that. And we'd get a big box and it would be maybe a class project. And then it was mailed to certain place. And it was all secret, we didn't know where anybody was. We didn't even know where my dad was. And I remember getting, what do they call them, v-mails. V-mail. And they were little tiny envelope like this and they were photos of the actual letter. And I have quite a few of those to me and some to my mother from my dad. But, no, it was FPO so we had no idea where he was until he came home. So we had no idea where those packages were going. They were just going overseas.

RP: Did you dad, when did you say he went in to the military?

PF: He was in the Navy Seabees, the construction battalion. And he was building airfields, airstrips in the islands in the Pacific. He was in Bougainville and the Solomons and the Mariannas, anyway, in the Pacific. And he was gone for three years. Came home in '45.

RP: Do you remember the day that the war ended? V-J Day?

PF: Yeah, yeah. Everybody was whoopin' and hollerin' and horns honking and, oh yeah. Yeah. And I can't remember where I was at that time either. My friend in Bakersfield says she remembers exactly where she was. I guess I was non compos mentis or something. But, yeah, I remember it, I just don't remember where I was.

RP: Just to go back to your selling of war bonds, was there any type of a contest or competition that involved?

PF: Yes. And I sold the most if I remember, I got a certificate. I got a certificate for selling the most or the biggest or something or other. Anyway, it was a certificate and it was very nice.

RP: Do you still have it?

PF: Oh, probably not. If I did, (...) I don't know where it is. And it may be gone in all of my moving. So...

RP: You shared a great story about the gentleman, the neighbor who came over and wanted to set up a victory garden.

PF: Yes, yeah, that Mexican man.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.