Broward County Defenses in WWII: of rationing and volunteering

By Jane Feehan

The focus of  Broward County war relief efforts for England shifted to defense activities after Pearl Harbor. Three weeks after that attack the Broward County Defense Council, comprised of councils in Dania, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Hallandale, Hollywood and Oakland Park, reported its efforts.

An air raid warden system neared completion with issuing more than 350 warden identification cards to volunteers.

Broward County residents were advised not to be alarmed by sudden power shut downs. Warnings of practice blackouts would be announced by newspapers and radio.

Avenger aircraft WWII
State of Florida Archives

Students in their last semester would be eligible for diplomas if they entered the armed services and their work deemed meeting set standards.

A resolution to pay expenses for architect Clinton Gamble to attend a course on building protection at the University of Florida was passed by the county.  Gamble would then return to Broward and supervise air precaution work on school buildings.

Taxi and truck owners in the county were urged to register their vehicles with the council. Also, all private car owners were asked to register their vehicles if they volunteered to support the war effort with their cars.

Ex-service men and former police officers formed an auxiliary unit under direction of Sheriff Walter Clark. His office was  "crowded to capacity with patriots offering their time and resources to observe and track down illegal activities when paid officers were occupied with other duties."

The Broward Defense Council was also involved in rationing of products and supplies during WWII. A national ban on the sale of tires went into effect December 11, 1941. Soon after safety boards were established in Broward County and throughout the country to handle rationing of tires. Rubber for tires was imported from areas in the Pacific occupied by or in conflict with Japan and its allies. Rubber was needed to manufacture truck tires for military vehicles.

Other rationed items included gasoline, canned goods, sugar, meat, dairy products--and a list expanded so frequently that some asked "when are they going to ration the rationing?" Rationing was necessary to feed and support US troops and to help produce military goods. 

Tags: Broward County in WWII, Fort Lauderdale in WWII, Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, Fort Lauderdale history, Broward County history

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Sources:

Fort Lauderdale Daily News Dec. 19, 1941

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Dec. 28, 1941

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Jan 8, 1943

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Jan. 21, 1943

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Feb. 17, 1943

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, WWII in Broward County, Fort Lauderdale during World War II, film research. Rationing, Fort Lauderdale history, Broward County history, Fort Lauderdale in WWII

Fort Lauderdale in WWII: Molasses at port's modern tank farm, training at Bahia Mar, Birch State Park and ...

Port Everglades and molasses tanks
Florida State Archives

 By Jane Feehan

Like elsewhere throughout the nation, Fort Lauderdale was deeply affected by World War II. Many of its experiences were unique to a coastal area with a deep sea port.

The city and neighboring towns were blacked out at night; German submarines conducted operations off the coast. U.S. military bases, such as the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station, and Foreman Field in Davie were established to train Navy pilots, including Lieutenant George H.W. Bush, 41^st president of the United States. 

The U.S Army set up artillery units along the coast, including at Bahia Mar and Hugh Taylor Birch State Park. Training schools were set up at hotels along the beach, rendering them no-civilian zones. Air crewmen practiced at machine-gun target areas set up near Sea Ranch Lakes.

Port Everglades was home to a U.S. Navy Section Base that chased subs and recovered torpedoes. It housed highly strategic materials, including fuel for Caribbean operations, and molasses. 

Molasses was important to war efforts. It was converted into industrial alcohol to make explosives. It was stored in large tanks at the port during the Lend-Lease days for assistance to Britain and other countries 1941-1945. Port Everglades was touted in 1946 as having the largest and most modern "tank farm" in the U.S. Molassses was sold after the war to be processed into syrup for American tables. The tanks at the port remained for decades.

Though many of Fort Lauderdale’s World War II experiences were singular, its reaction to the end of the war was one the entire nation shared. The end began midnight June 5/6, 1944 as the U.S. invaded France. The conflict ended when the Japanese surrendered Sept. 2, 1945.

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Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, March 4, 1946

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 28, 1946 

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004).

Weidling, Philip J., Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in WWII, Fort Lauderdale in WW2, Fort Lauderdale history, Port Everglades history, Jane Feehan, History of Fort Lauderdale

WWII German ship crew finds refuge, cigars and a few beers in Port Everglades

 

SS Arauca from NavSource.org

By Jane Feehan

Port Everglades once played host to German cargo ship, Arauca, as a result of World War II hostilities. The ship set sail on its maiden voyage before England (and France) declared war on Germany Sept. 3, 1939.

After leaving Mexico, Arauca was sighted and chased by British cruiser Orion off Florida’s coast December 19, 1939. One shot was fired over the bow of Arauca in a maneuver meant to drive it beyond the neutral sea limit. Instead, the German ship, in a pursuit witnessed by many on Fort Lauderdale’s shores, found refuge in neutral Port Everglades.

The crew was confined primarily to Arauca until shortly after the U.S. entered the war in December, 1941; their stay in Fort Lauderdale was not entirely gloomy. One newspaper reported the Rotary Club sent cigars and magazines to the German sailors for their first Christmas in Port Everglades. Another account reports the German crew met the crew of British Merchant Marine vessel, the Harburton, at a “small tavern just off the docks” for a few beers.

Pleasantries ended after Dec. 7, 1941. President Roosevelt, who sailed into Port Everglades aboard his yacht Potomac in March, 1941, ordered German, Italian and Danish ships in U.S. ports to be seized. The crew of the Arauca was sent to Fort Lincoln in North Dakota and then Ellis Island for confinement until war’s end.

But what of the Arauca? Seized by the U.S. government, it was commissioned by the U.S. Navy as a cargo ship, the USS Saturn, to deliver supplies along the east coast. Soon after, it was reclassified and participated in the European theater. The USS Saturn received one battle star for service during the invasion of France. It was turned over to the Maritime Administration in 1946 and remained in its reserve fleet until 1972 when it was sold to a Spanish company and then scrapped.

For more on Port Everglades, see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2021/02/bay-mabel-harbor-now-port-everglades.html

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Sources:
Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2005

Miami News, Dec. 23, 1939

Palm Beach Post, Feb. 23, 1940

www.navsource.org

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 40s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, Fort Lauderdale during WWII, Fort Lauderdale history, history of Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale draft in World War II

By Jane Feehan

A notice posted in the Fort Lauderdale Times (Apr. 22, 1942) about where men ages 45-65 would --not could--register for noncombatant service reveals much about those times. Men 18-45 were eligible for immediate induction.

Many who winced about the draft during the Vietnam era were not aware of draftee ages during World War II. It’s also interesting to note the separation of races for registration; the armed forces were not integrated until 1948 under President Harry Truman.

A notice of the day reads:

For District 1: Central High School in Fort Lauderdale  – white [Fort Lauderdale High]; Pompano High School in Pompano – white; City Hall in Deerfield – white

Negroes will register at the Pompano colored school and at the Fort Lauderdale colored school.

U.S. military ages over the years have varied: average age of a soldier during World War II was 26.5;  the average age during the Vietnam era was 19. The average age of today’s soldier has been reported anywhere from 19-30.  Since many are more educated, hold more college degrees than those of the past, they are, most likely, older than 19. The average age today may not yet be officially published. 

Tags: South Florida during WWII,  WWII draft in Florida, U.S soldier's ages, Fort Lauderdale during World War II, film researcher, history of Fort Lauderdale

Lauderdale Beach Hotel: 1930s, in WWII ... and what remains today

Lauderdale Beach Hotel circa 1937
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Built in 1937, the Lauderdale Beach Hotel was one of the two largest hotels in Broward County when the U.S. entered World War II (the other was the Tradewinds Hotel).  The 500-room Lauderdale Beach Hotel, the Tradewinds, the Edmar apartments and adjacent beach were taken over by the U.S. Navy August 1, 1943. They were used as a navy radar training school until the winter of 1945 when they were released to civilian trade.

Fusion of old/new

Today, only the front part of the Lauderdale Beach Hotel remains, occupied by the H2O Cafe and attached via a garage to the upscale Las Olas Club condominium. The hotel with its distinct architecture, a vestige of the 1930s art deco or art moderne style was partially rescued by preservationists when condo developers bought the property. A condition of development was to leave the distinctive facade of the old structure intact.

The Las Olas Club was built behind and attached to the old Lauderdale Beach Hotel in 2007. Condos there range from $799,000 to $3.9 million (about $540 a square foot) – quite a change for the old Fort Lauderdale landmark, site of so many special occasions, conventions and vacations since 1937.

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Sources:

Miami News, Aug. 19, 1945

Miami News, May 18, 1943

http://blogsouthflorida.com/south-florida-oceanfront-condos/Las-Olas-Beach-Club

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale hotel history, Fort Lauderdale in WWII, Fort Lauderdale in the 1930s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s

First WWII Medal of Honor awarded Fort Lauderdale grad who made the most of his opportunities.

By Jane Feehan

 Lt. Alexander (Sandy) Nininger, Jr., a graduate of Fort Lauderdale High School (1937) and West Point (1941), was killed in action January 12, 1942 on Bataan, a little more than six weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack. 

For his valor in attempting to thwart a Japanese assault, Nininger was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the  first of World War II. Nininger was laid to rest in a church cemetery at Abucai, Province of Bataan, the Philippines.

Nininger had been an honor student and star football player at Fort Lauderdale High. His father, Alexander R. Nininger, Sr., a manager at a Lake Worth theater, said Sandy decided when he was 11 years old that he wanted to attend West Point.

"He never quit anything he started," said Nininger, Sr. while  awaiting the medal to be posthumously awarded in 1942. It was an honor recommended by Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Sandy was invited to a Rotary Club meeting in Fort Lauderdale months before he died. There, he explained he volunteered for service in the Philippines because it offered "the best opportunity for an officer eager for action and hard work."

He also volunteered for the battle that ended his life. His body was found well within Japanese lines with those of a Japanese officer and two enemy soldiers. He had been wounded three times.

Among many tributes was the naming of a drive off Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale to the War Memorial Auditorium as “Sandy Nininger Drive,” and the establishment by the Kiwanis Club of the "Sandy Nininger Medal" to honor high school students who have made the most of their opportunities. 

Official site of the Congressional Medal of Honor: www.cmohs.org

Read these links about his burial controversy:

 http://bataanmissing.com/2020/05/05/medal-of-honor-goes-mia/

https://www.stripes.com/news/family-suing-for-dna-testing-of-possible-remains-of-wwii-medal-of-honor-recipient-1.470367

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 29, 1942

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan 30, 1942

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004).

Weidling, Philip J. , Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, history of Fort Lauderdale,  Medal of Honor, WWII in Florida, WW2 history, Fort Lauderdale World War II