10- Th Left-ha 14- Fro The evo 18- Pu Early fa 20- Wil Early a 22- On Binder 24- Per Delawa
HARVESTING HERITAGE
150 YEARS ON THE AMERICAN FARM
CHAPTER I: Equipment
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From hand hoes to tractors and wagons to farm trucks, equipment innovations pushed rural America into a new age.
4. Technology Eased the Load
42.
Making, loading hay made easier with hay rakes and loaders.
28.
6. Sound Strategies
Sowin’ seeds and threshing memories: Farming in the good old days was filled with backbreaking tasks.
Studebaker wagons pave way for buggies and cars.
31.
From the December 2002 issue.
10. The Great Plow Debate
The evolution of cultivating equipment.
From the October 2004 issue.
44. Corn: Born in the Americas
From the May 2004 issue.
From the December 2007 issue.
48. Sowin’ Seeds
From the January 1999 issue.
Planting corn sowed the seeds for farming innovations. From the December 2003 issue.
20. Wild Ride
Early automobile experiences were unpredictable.
34.
36.
From the November 2007 issue.
22. One Great Step Forward
Binder chores a breeze compared to previous methods. From the August 2009 issue.
CHAPTER II: Products
Delaware man’s designs pushed mill into a new era. From the May 2011 issue.
Farm Journal and Farmer’s Wife gives glimpse into the past.
Tilling the miniature acres of fireplace fields and carpet farms. From the December 2000 issue.
20.
34. Ending the Isolation Newfangled radio technology brought the world to the farm. From the September 2005 issue.
On the Cover: Artist Matthew Stallbaumer’s Community Thrashin’ painting depicts threshing at the turn of the century using a 16 hp Advance steam engine. See pg. 65 to order your print. Harvesting Heritage
Check-row planters put corn fields on the straight and narrow.
From the January 2004 issue.
Looking backward at harvest time. From the September 2009 issue.
70. At Home on the Bonanza
Life on bonanza wheat farms of the Red River Valley.
From the August 2010 issue.
80.
86.
90.
94.
From the November 2000 issue.
31. Carpet Farming 14.
52. The Check-row Revolution
66. Threshing Memories
It wasn’t all work: Radio memories, magazines, clothing styles and toys found on the pre-1950s farm.
28. Rural America’s Favorite Magazine
24. Perfecting the Grist Mill
Chicken operation the source of foul memories.
From the November 2005 issue.
Rural residents tackled drifts with chains and elbow grease.
From the November 2003 issue.
Early farm trucks drove farming into a new era.
60. Where’s the Beef? 62. Snow Days
Corn fueled farms and inspired equipment makers.
18. Pulling the Load
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Harvesting corn was a down-and-dirty business.
Axle-deep mud and standing water complicated mobility. From the May 2001 issue.
14. From Hand Hoes to Motor Cultivation
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Few yearn for “the good old days.”
42. Stuck in the Mud
From the April 2003 issue.
2
58. Aww Shucks!
40. Making Hay
From the July 1999 issue.
Left-handed or right-handed, that is the question.
6.
44.
CHAPTER III: Tasks
From the July 2006 issue.
66.
36. The Levi’s Legend Lowly jeans got their start in California’s gold camps. From the February 2007 issue.
38. Hats Off
Hats more varied – and wearers genteel – in bygone era. From the January 2008 issue.
CHAPTER IV: People It took a community of people to keep the farm moving.
78. The Fix-It Men
Mechanics kept farmers in business.
From the April 1999 issue.
80. “Neither Rain nor Snow nor Dark of Night …”
Early RFD drivers faced formidable task.
From the October 1999 issue.
82. Tribute to the Man with the Hoe
Motorized cultivation was never good enough for Nandad.
From the June 2000 issue.
84. Here’s to Good Taste
Farm wives knew that food fueled the farm.
From the February 2004 issue.
86. When Farmers Became Spotters
The civilian airplane spotters of early World War II.
From the June 2010 issue.
90. Women on the Farm
Women’s Land Army delivered a new breed of farm worker in war years. From the October 2010 issue.
94. Kickin ‘er Outta Gear
Young boys and tractors a potentially dangerous combination. From the September 1999 and November 2006 issues.
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farm equipment
Technolog y EASED THE LOAD ON FARMERS’ BACKS
W
hen I was a kid on the farm, dozens of everyday jobs required a strong back and a lot of muscle. This strenuous physical labor took a heavy toll on many farmers over the years. I remember a few of the old-timers around the neighborhood who were permanently bent almost double from a lifetime of punishing their bodies. Neither my father nor my uncle were large men, and probably never weighed as much as 150 pounds each, yet they, like so many others, did most of this hard work themselves, with the help of an occasional hired hand. I don’t know that they ever did permanent damage to their backs, but I do remember periodic bouts with what we then called “lumbago.”
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A Case push-bar hay loader, owned and restored by Herb Wessel of Hampstead, Md., behind a typical hay wagon. The hinged unloading gate of the loader is in the lowered position.
One of the many back-breaking jobs on almost every farm was the annual struggle to get enough hay cured and stored to carry the livestock through the next winter. Until after the start of World War II, my father and uncle still made hay the same way my grandfather and great-grandfather had. The grass was cut with a 5-foot McCormick-Deering mowing machine behind a team of horses. After curing in the swath for a day, the hay was raked into long windrows with a dump rake. Usually, these windrows were then formed into individual small cocks, or hand-stacks, as we called them, with a pitchfork. Finally, a hay wagon was driven through the field and the hand-stacks were heaved onto it, again with a pitchfork, before being hauled to the barn. At the barn, more hand and back work, as the loads of hay were thrown up into the haymows, pitched and packed into position. Sometime, probably during the late 1930s, Moore & Townsend (the partnership formed by my father and uncle) installed a barn hayfork track and carrier in our dairy barn. With that, a horse or a tractor on the end of a rope provided the power to lift the heavy hay from the wagon into the haymow. Then, during the early 1940s, the partners wangled a government permit and bought a brand new side-delivery rake and hay loader. When these shiny new orange-and-green implements were delivered, we were ready to put up hay the easy way. One of the earliest patents for a machine to load hay dates to 1848 (shown opposite page). It shows a large wagon with two wooden rakes out in front and a system of ropes and levers. As
the wagon was pulled across the mown hay, each rake was allowed to slide along the ground until full, when it was raised and dumped into the wagon by a rope and lever. This cumbersome outfit was never a success. In 1850, Benjamin Townsend of Quincy, Ill., patented a “hay raking and loading machine” that somewhat resembles the later slanted hay loaders with which most of us are familiar, except it’s pulled in front of the wagon instead of behind. Finally, in about 1875, Keystone Mfg. Co. of Sterling, Ill., perfected a successful hay loader in a design that was to be popular for many years. As the wagon and loader were pulled lengthwise along a windrow, the hay was gathered and lifted from the ground by a revolving cylinder with curved, spring teeth. The hay was deposited on a moving conveyor of ropes and wooden slats that carried it up an incline and dropped it onto the wagon. Later, a system of reciprocating rakes, or push bars, was substituted for the ropeand-slat conveyor. Upward angled teeth on the underside of those push bars carried the hay up a slanting deck. At the top of the deck, the hay was pushed off onto the wagon or hayrack, where a man with a pitchfork could build the load. Most later hay loaders featured a hinged, adjustable gate at the top of the deck that could be let down when starting the load so the hay didn’t have as far to fall onto the wagon. This was especially useful on windy days to prevent the hay from being blown off the side of the wagon. As the load got higher, the gate was raised to give more elevating height. There are many stories of the reaction of the man on the wagon when a rattlesnake happened to get caught up with the hay. I witnessed just such an event during what was probably the last year we put up loose hay. By that time we were pulling the loader behind an old flatbed Chevy truck that I was driving since I was too small to load much hay. My father was on top of the load when I suddenly heard a thud on the truck roof above my head. The next thing I saw was Dad bounding onto the truck hood and then leaping to the ground. He was in for a lot of teasing when we all discovered that it was only a harmless black snake that had spooked him so badly.
A load of hay heading for the barn. From the September 1926 Successful Farming.
Benjamin Townsend’s 1850 patent.
By the 1880s, most farm equipment manufacturers offered hay loaders, and they were widely used until pickup balers became popular after World War II. As the practice of putting up loose hay fell out of favor, unused hay loaders were usually abandoned in a fencerow, where the many
parts made of wood, rope and light sheet metal soon deteriorated. Even though these machines undoubtedly saved many a farmer’s back during their heyday, they have been pretty much forgotten, and it’s a rare sight to see a restored hay loader at a show today. FC
A CLOSER LOOK AT AN EARLY HAY LOADER One of the earliest patents for a hay raking and loading apparatus appeared in 1848. Thought up by M.W. Baldwin and A.S. Lyman of Philadelphia, it was made up of two rakes the width of the wagon that operated one inside of the other that worked in front of the horses. When the front rake was full of hay, the man behind grabbed the lever attached to its rope and hammered the pointed end into the ground. This caused that rake to lift the load of hay up over the horses and back over the front where the hay dropped onto the wagon. In the meantime, the second rake was gathering its load. When it was full, the operator lowered the first rake into position, dropped that lever and grabbed the other. This operation was repeated until the wagon was full. In heavy hay the operator would have been pretty busy, and I wonder what the horses thought of all the activity going on right in front of their noses.
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9/7/18 9:25 AM
m
products
LEFT: A postcard featuring the Levi Strauss exhibit at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition held on Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Hand-carved figures of famous rodeo stars of the day were dressed in miniature Levi’s. Called the “Electric Rodeo,” the creation was described by Strauss as “A 100-percent mechanical rodeo. It moves. It talks ... (It’s) the talk of Treasure Island.”
THE
LEVI’S LEGEND
LOWLY JEANS GOT THEIR START IN CALIFORNIA’S GOLD CAMPS
I
wore bib overalls to school and around the farm until I was probably 12 or 13 years old. Then, considering myself quite grown up, I insisted on Levi’s and wore them all through high school (Mom didn’t complain because Levi’s were cheap) and up until I left for the Army. When I went to work for the Ohio Bell Telephone Co., they frowned on overalls and I wore tan or gray work pants until I was given a job where I had to “dress up.” I usually wore blue jeans around the house and, although I’ve had Carhartt, Lee, Dickey, Wrangler, Rustler and even Penney’s Plain Pocket jeans over the years, the products of Levi Strauss & Co. (although maybe a little more expensive) always seemed to fit better and wear longer than the others.
ABOVE: The author in his Levi’s in 1953. The pants still had a button fly back in those dark ages. Photo by B.G. Moore, the author’s sister.
Levi’s got started in California a few years after the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1849. A man named Loeb Strauss, born in Bavaria in 1829, left Germany in 1847 and immigrated to New York where his older halfbrothers ran a wholesale dry goods store. Loeb worked in the business, changed his first name to Levi and became an American citizen. In 1853, Levi Strauss turned up in the boom town of San Francisco, bringing a large supply of canvas he figured the gold miners would need for tents and wagon covers. However, the miners needed trousers more than tents, and the pants had to be tough, so Strauss had his canvas cut and
of
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sewn into trousers, which the miners called Levi’s. The new pants wore like iron, but were stiff and chafed the miner’s tender bottoms. So, Strauss switched from canvas to a heavy cloth known as denim, which was (and still is) a twill cotton fabric woven with a white warp and an indigo-dyed woof. It is strong, long-wearing and ideal for work clothing. The word denim supposedly comes from a similar fabric developed in Nîmes, France, and called “Serge de Nîmes.” The story of how Levi’s acquired copper rivets at strain points goes like this: An old prospector known as “Alkali Ike,” who worked the hills around Virginia City, Nev., had his pants
ABOVE: J.W. Davis’ original 1873 patent drawing for what he called “ ... a pair of pantaloons having the pocket-openings secured at each edge by means of rivets.” LEFT: The Levi Strauss tag with its long-time logo of two horses trying unsuccessfully to pull apart a pair of Levi riveted pants. Photo by Sam Moore.
made by Reno tailor Jacob Davis. Ike must have been a pretty good prospector because his pants pockets usually bulged with nuggets. On infrequent visits to his tailor in Reno, Ike complained bitterly about the way the pockets of his trousers tore out under the weight of the gold. Davis, tiring of the complaints, got some copper wire and made rivets that he used to reinforce the pockets of Ike’s pants. The idea worked, Ike’s pockets stayed whole and Davis decided he should patent his idea. Lacking the $68 necessary to file for a patent, Davis contacted Strauss in San Francisco, from whom he had long bought bolts of the denim cloth from which he made his pants.
In 1853, Levi turned up in the boom town of San Francisco, bringing a large supply of canvas he figured the gold miners would need for tents and wagon covers. However, the miners needed trousers more than tents, and the pants had to be tough, so Strauss had his canvas cut and sewn into trousers, which the miners called Levi’s. Strauss, a good businessman, saw the potential of Davis’ rivet idea and financed the patent, which was issued on May 20, 1873. Davis let Strauss use the patent and the first riveted Levi denim pants were made in 1873, quickly becoming the most popular garb for ranchers, cowboys and miners in the Western states. The Strauss/Davis patent expired in about 1891 and other overall manufacturers began to make riveted pants. The Levi Strauss Co. marketed its “waist overalls,” as they were called (other manufacturers called them “band overalls,” “cowboy pants” and “band top pants”), only in the West until after World War II. By then, the popularity of Western movies had introduced the rest of the country to the denim pants adorning such stars as John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott and Alan Ladd, and the demand for Levi’s spread across the country. During the 1950s, teenagers (like me) adopted Levi’s almost as a uniform, partly to rebel against parental authority and the customs of the day requiring one to always be dressed up when out in public, and partly because they were comfortable and looked cool. A pair of Levi’s, bought long enough in the legs to allow them to be rolled twice into a 3-inch cuff, along with penny loafers, white socks and a colorful shirt, made me one of the many similarly dressed cool dudes strutting through the halls of good old Beaver Falls High School. Ragged denim overalls, by now called “blue jeans,” were worn by every self-respecting hippie and flower child during the protests, acid trips and rock concerts of the 1960s. By the 1970s and ‘80s, blue jeans had morphed into designer jeans, often adorned with embroidery and even rhinestones, and had become high fashion items with prices to match. That was probably about the time the old familiar fit and quality began to slide. Today blue jeans have become baggy and (in my opinion) ill fitting, and are pre-washed so much that they are half worn out when you buy them new. In fact, not long ago I saw a large display of blue jeans in the window of a trendy store in the mall. Not only did they wear ridiculously high price tags, they were faded, torn and frayed, and looked as though they came straight from someone’s ragbag. Times change and the last two pairs of Levi’s I bought don’t fit worth a hoot. So, no more high-priced Levi’s for me. In spite of the brand’s long and proud heritage as rugged work wear, I’ll stick to jeans from Lee, Wrangler or Dickey, that cost less, fit better and last just as long. FC www.FarmCollector.com
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9/7/18 9:29 AM
BILL PICKS & CORN JOBBERS
“Devising a successful mechanical corn planter was a tough nut for early inventors to
crack. The first problem early manufacturers faced was to construct a device that reliably measured the exact number of seeds required for each hill. The second problem was to
design a machine that dropped those seeds at the desired distance apart so the rows could be cross-cultivated. Many devices were tested, but most failed because of poor design.”
“ROTARY”
Keeney & Harrison Co.
“CHAMPION” Winship Mfg. Co.
Although corn began as a tiny grass-like plant with ears less than an inch long, it was selectively bred by Indians and eventually became America’s foremost crop because it out-yields just about any other grain. Modern hybrids commonly grow about two ears per stalk, while a healthy, mature ear contains about 1,000 corn kernels – quite a return from one seed. INDIAN LESSONS Early Americans were keen observers of native skills, and Thomas Harriot reported in 1588 that the American Indians first loosened the soil with wooden hoes. Then they used a wooden “pecker” or dibble to dig a hole in which the planter placed four seeds – not touching – and finally covered them with soil. These “hills” were planted in rows, “each row spaced half a fathom or a yard from the last, and the holes in each row are the same distance apart,” Harriot wrote. Thus, those Virginia Native Americans were the actual inventors of “checkrowed” corn. The term “check-row” is derived from the checkerboardlike appearance of a corn field when viewed from above, with each corn hill planted exactly at the intersection of imaginary lines that cross at right angles the same distance apart. The practice made cross-cultivation possible, which assured better weed control. For hundreds of years, Euro-American farmers planted corn using Indian techniques. Corn was planted by one person digging a hole with a hoe – or a dibble – followed by another farmer who dropped two, three, or four seeds into the hole before covering them with soil. About 1 acre of corn could be planted per day with this method. In 1856, a patent was granted 50
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“SUPERB”
Horton Mfg. Co.
“ARNOLD”
Arnold & Denton Co.
for a hoe equipped with a seed canister on its shank. One man dug the hole, pulled a string that released the seed and then covered the hole with soil in a couple of motions. Another 1856 patent was for a foot-operated, dibble-type planter. Seed corn was carried in a backpack connected to the dibble by a tube. The dibble was strapped to the side of the operator’s foot and, when the foot was stamped sharply on the ground, the point gouged a hole and the seeds were released. A quick kick or shuffle of the foot covered the seed, and the sower stepped forward to the next hill. BILL PICKS AND CORN JOBBERS Many styles of mechanical hand planters were introduced during the late 1800s and early 1900s and became very popular. Some of these devices enabled farmers to plant about 2 acres per day instead of the single acre possible with other hand-planting methods. Those early planting tools can still be found at flea markets and antique stores, but often fetch high prices. Farmers called these planters “bill picks” – probably because the point that penetrated the soil opened like a bird’s bill to release the seeds – as well as “corn jabbers,” or “corn jobbers.” One of these devices, patented in 1876, used an upright leg that supported the seed canister and a handle. A tube from the seed can connected to the two-piece point, which was hinged to a brace that extended to the front of the planter. The operator jammed the point into the ground and pushed forward on the handle. This forward-rocking motion caused the “bill” to open and the seed to drop. The operator then lifted the tool from the ground, threw it forward to the next hill and scratched dirt over the seed with his foot as he stepped forward.
The corn planter commonly seen in antique stores today has two upright, flat boards, hinged together at the bottom by metal nose-pieces. A seed can was attached to one board, and handles were set on the top of both. To use, the handles were held apart, the nose stuck into the ground, and the handles were pushed together to open the bill and released the seed. Other variations existed, but all designs operated on the same principle. Bill pick operators had to know where to stab the gadget in the ground to make nice, straight check-rows. Since most farmers took pride in arrow-straight furrows and rows, proper placement was an important consideration. As a result, row markers were patented to aid with the task. Some were the sled – or runner – type, while other row markers used wheels. Horses usually pulled markers across an entire field in one direction, and then again at right angles to the first pass. The sled’s runners – or wheels in some cases – left a checkerboard pattern of lines in the soil as the marker passed across the field. Then the farmer planted hills where each line intersected. Many farmers used a homemade wooden two-, three-, or fourrow frame that they pulled across the field by hand or behind a horse to mark hill location. MECHANICAL CORN PLANTERS Devising a successful mechanical corn planter was a tough nut for early inventors to crack. The first problem early manufacturers faced was to construct a device that reliably measured the exact number of seeds required for each hill. The second problem was to design a machine that dropped those seeds at the desired distance apart so the rows could be crosscultivated. Many devices were tested, but most failed because of poor design. During the 1850s, several horse-drawn, walk-behind planters were patented that required the operator to raise and lower the handles or to squeeze a hand lever to drop a hill of seeds. Unfortunately, the operator was forced to simultaneously juggle a number of planter tasks. The farmer had to drive the horse or team in a straight line, keep the planter in line as well, watch for the next marker groove in the dirt and jerk up on the planter handles at just the right time. Clearly, planting corn with an early mechanical planter was no easy task. Other planter inventors devised, with varying success, wheeldriven contraptions to drop the corn seeds at regular intervals, even though wheel slippage on loose or soft ground was always a problem. In 1864, George W. Brown introduced a planter with a second seat between the seed boxes where a small boy could
sit. Check-row lines were made with a marking sled in one direction only, and the planter was driven at right angles to these lines. The boy was responsible for pushing a lever whenever the planting shoes crossed one of these lines, which dropped the seeds. The method was very accurate, depending upon how carefully the marked lines were laid out, as well as the dropper boy’s attention to detail. After decades of experimentation, the well-known knottedwire, two-row check-row planter was introduced and remained a favorite throughout the Corn Belt until about 1950. As always, innovations led to bigger, more-successful harvests and further ensured that corn remained an American staple. FC
Patent 178,166: Corn planter. Patent granted to George Lambert, Hill Grove, Ohio, May 30, 1876.
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9/7/18 9:31 AM
farm tasks
Snow DAYS
A farmer’s son shovels snow out of a driveway near Putney, Vt., March 1940.
Rural residents tackled drifts with chains and elbow grease
T
ng
er he
I usually look forward to a good snowstorm so I can get out my Ford 2000 tractor and plow the lane, although I must admit some years, when we have snow after snow, the novelty pales just a little. Glen (the neighbor behind me) and I share a lane almost one-quarter of a mile long. My house is about 300 feet back from a state route, while my barns are another 300 feet or so beyond the house. The neighbor’s place is about 500 feet beyond that, so including the driveways off the lane to the various buildings, there can be a lot of snow to move. Glen has a Kubota tractor and a back blade, while my Ford has a front-mounted blade that can be angled in either direction. Since Glen works during the week, I try to plow things out on weekdays and he does the job on weekends. This way we both get to play in the snow, which works out really well. I’ve noticed that when a big snow comes along, all us old geezers feel compelled to tell about the terrible storms of our youth, so here are my tales. 62
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (3)
he month of December is often pretty wintry here in eastern Ohio, which, as most folks know, is part of the frozen north. Everyone talks about the weather, so that’s what I’m going to do (even though I’m writing this in sweltering August). The details are pretty sketchy in my memory, but in December 1944 we had a blizzard where we lived in western Pennsylvania that snowed us in for several days. The milk truck couldn’t get through Moore Road, the township road that ran past our place, so Dad and my uncle built a wooden platform on the drawbar of our Farmall F-30 tractor and hauled the milk cans the quarter-mile or so to the state road. This state road, paved with blacktop by the WPA during the late 1930s, was kept open only with great difficulty, and then just one lane was clear. I remember riding with Dad, after we finally got ourselves out, through narrow lanes cut into drifts that towered over the car. The great blizzard of 1950 is a little clearer in my memory, since I was 17 years old then, had my own car and was unpleasantly immobilized by the snow. I think the 1950 blizzard was probably the worst one in these parts, at least in my memory. I worked as a grease monkey for Marquis Motors, a Nash dealer in downtown Beaver Falls, Pa., and was at
work on the Friday after Thanksgiving when the snow really started to pile up. After work, I started on the 15-mile drive to our farm in my 1948 Nash 600 sedan. The Nash went pretty well on slippery roads (probably because it didn’t have enough power to spin the wheels) and I made it most of the way without too much trouble. Two miles from home there was a long winding hill that I couldn’t get up, but that was no problem. In those days, everyone who lived in the country carried a set of tire chains in the trunk or on the car floor, and most folks were quite adept at putting on and taking off these traction boosters. I put on my chains, got home okay and put the car in the garage, where it stayed for about four days. On Saturday, after we’d shoveled enough paths to do chores, I tried to get out with our Ford-Ferguson tractor, but no luck. We had no blade of any kind for it and it just sat in the snow, spun its wheels and hopped up and down. I was prepared to wait for a snowplow to rescue
The son of Clinton Gilbert, Woodstock, Vt., shovels snow away from a window of a barn to let in some light.
us, but Dad – knowing our township had no equipment even remotely capable of clearing the roads – insisted we shovel our way to the state road. I’ll tell you, one-quarter mile of road, clogged with 2- to 5-foot drifts, looked pretty daunting to two guys with shovels, or at least it did to me. Dad seemed to have no doubt that we could do it. About all I remember of the next couple of days is the unending thrust, lift and throw of shovel after shovel of snow, as well as the snail-like pace of our progress. Sometime on Monday, with us little more than halfway to our goal, down Moore Road came a Caterpillar D7 bulldozer, driven by one of the Watterson boys from nearby Darlington, Pa. The township trustees, bless ‘em, knowing they couldn’t deal with the snow hired the Wattersons (who owned a contracting business with lots of heavy equipment) to clear the township roads, saving us from having to shovel the rest of the way. At last! I was free – free to go to work, see my girl and drive to all the places a busy teenager found it necessary www.FarmCollector.com
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9/7/18 9:33 AM
people FAR LEFT: Barbara Mortensen, Gorham, N.H., acts as a fire and airplane lookout on Pine Mountain. She also serves the Interceptor Command as a spotter. Use of binoculars is restricted to identification of planes; actual spotting is done with the naked eyes. LEFT: An airplane spotter’s post in Dentsville, Md.
WHEN
Farmers Spotters BECAME
T
A collection of original aircraft spotter cards.
type; single or multiple engine; bomber, fighter or transport; friendly or enemy; and include direction of travel and altitude, if possible.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (4)
o borrow from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Hardly a man is now alive, who remembers ... the airplane spotters of early World War II.
During the early 1940s, U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) officers had seen how effective the British Aircraft Warning Service was against the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, and wanted to organize a similar program in this country. A volunteer civilian observer corps could not only save millions of dollars, but also free up military manpower for use on the battlefronts. A 1942 field manual states that “the A.A.F. Ground Observer Corps (GOC) is an essential part of air defense” and “the volunteer civilian observers who staff the (GOC) are appointees of the Fighter Command of the Army Air Forces, reporting directly to the Army and under Army supervision.” The mission of the GOC was to track all aircraft within a predetermined area so that the USAAF would have notice of enemy aircraft before substantial damage could be inflicted by bombing or strafing. Of course, it wasn’t enough to just spot aircraft: Each sighting needed to be identified as to number and
LEFT: Paul Ritz serving his weekly two-hour shift as an airplane spotter in the observation post on a hill near Lititz, Pa. There were two spotters there twenty-four hours a day. RIGHT: A woman at the Army Filter Center plotting confirmed sightings on her section of the map.
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MANNING THE OBSERVATION POST When I was a kid, my grandfather owned two adjoining farms south of Darlington in western Pennsylvania. My family shared the larger farmhouse (which was built by my great-grandfather in 1850 to replace a log cabin) with my grandfather and grandmother. The Townsend family lived in the smaller house on the other farm and included my aunt, uncle and older cousin, Peg. The GOC was organized by the USAAF before the Japanese attack on Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941. Peg Townsend recorded in her diary on Oct. 4, 1941: “We had a meeting about the observation post. They said it is a sure thing that we will have bombings soon.” The Townsends had volunteered to host an observation post (OP) and it was established in the front room of their home. The OP wasn’t elaborate, just a small table holding a telephone (on the party line, of course), a set of binoculars, a pad of “flash message forms” and a book full of instructions on identification of the various airplanes one might see overhead. This book contained both photographs and silhouette drawings of all known warplanes of U.S., British, German, Italian and Japanese air forces, and was fascinating to a small boy like myself. STANDARD PROCEDURE When an observer saw or heard an airplane, he recorded as much information as could be ascertained about the craft on
a flash message form. This included the number of planes, the model (if it could be determined), number of engines, altitude, whether actually seen or just heard, OP code name, direction of plane and distance from the OP, and direction the plane was headed. Thus, a typical message might read: 3 B-17s, high, seen, Code N, SW, 1, E. That information was immediately phoned to an Army Filter Center, where it was plotted on a big board containing a map of the area. The information was compared to other reports and the plotted flight path was checked against known Army, Navy and civilian flights. The officer in charge then determined if the flight was friendly or enemy and, if the latter, ordered a response in fighter planes or anti-aircraft fire. Filter centers were run by the Army Air Forces and staffed by both military personnel and civilian volunteers. The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) provided many of the military plotters. OPs and filter centers were known as the Aircraft Warning Service (AWS), a loose alliance of the local civil defense authorities and the military. www.FarmCollector.com
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