Bayview’s link to world at war
Editor’s note: This is the third in a four-part series of articles exploring the history of Bayview, Idaho, and its environs as the community celebrates its centennial.
“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
– President Franklin D. Roosevelt
With these words from the president, the United States was plunged into war, and the small town of Bayview, was changed forever.
The U.S., isolated by two huge oceans had not experienced an attack on our own soil since the War of 1812. People were shocked. Many ran out into the streets looking up, expecting Japanese bombers to suddenly appear. Civilian and military leaders were not immune to this panic. War had been raging in Europe for two years already.
Although the U.S. government knew of the possibility of being drawn directly into the fracas, the country had become pacifist in the years following World War I. The U.S. Army and naval forces had been cut back. Available weapons were in short supply and were obsolete, left over from World War I. The country was faced with an industrial challenge that was unprecedented, as was the need to mobilize the puny armed forces into a million-man military. Ships had to be built in a hurry. Sailors had to be trained.
Navy picks training site
Fearing the coastal areas of Washington, Oregon and California were subject to attack by Japanese carrier aircraft, military leaders looked inland for training facilities. A group of high-ranking Navy officers surveyed the western interior and found the perfect spot. The south end of Lake Pend Oreille had a large area that was semi-flat and bordered by water. It was also eight miles from the Northern Pacific Railroad running through Athol.
Condemning all of the property that consisted of what is now Farragut State Park, and about half of what is now Bayview, civilians were forcibly removed from – in many cases – family homesteads. In all, 79 parcels were seized by the Navy.
The naval base’s northern border ran from the waterfront up the middle of Fifth Street to the park boundary on the west. This isolated many homes from the town and while some lost them to the Navy, others were lucky to be on the other side of the boundary.
Unfortunately, the Wigwam Hotel was right on the border (where the public boat launch is now) but on the wrong side. Frances “Mickey” Mulrooney George, daughter of the hotel’s original owner, was ordered to move. She refused, so Navy shore patrolmen picked up the chair she was sitting on in the lobby and carried it out with her as a passenger, setting her in the middle of the street. Her father spent an alleged $30,000 to build the hotel, but was only offered $18,000.
Construction of the station started April 23, 1942. With the Walter Butler Co. holding the contract. Massive bulldozers were brought in to level out the hills and valleys. Trees were cut down and processed as green lumber which went into the buildings on base. There wasn’t time to cure the boards.
The training station was built on 4,050 acres. The station had six training camps which held 5,000 recruits each, resulting in about 30,000 in training at any one time. Each camp was self sufficient with an indoor drill hall, 20 barracks, mess hall, administration building, dispensary, a recreation building and a swimming pool.
By war’s end, 293,381 recruits passed through the base. It was in fact the second-largest naval training base in the country.
Some profit from the base
To Bayview, the facility was both a blessing and a curse. Having half of your town taken away was tough but the jobs in support fields ran the Bayview economy. From the 1930s until construction of the base were tough times. The lime kilns had shut down, the railroad was gone and so were the tourists.
When the Navy condemned the properties necessary for establishing the training base, some residents moved away, but others found ways to profit from the Navy’s presence.
Alice Hammond Eaton, now 85, remembers selling smoked kokanee with her mother at a small stand just outside the gate. Eaton now works at Silverwood Theme Park.
Dick Compton, former Kootenai County commissioner and state legislator, talked about his childhood during the war years in Bayview. This is his story:
“Harry Eagles owned two bars in Bayview. One was the Buttonhook, and the other was in what used to be the train station. My mother and father ran the one in the train station during the war years. Part of the training base was used for returning wounded. These sailors were not restricted to the base as the “boots” were and could come and go as thy pleased, injuries permitting.
“On one occasion, several guys came down to the bar where burgers were also sold. They ordered 450 hamburgers to go for their buddies on base. The grill was about the size of an average kitchen stove. My parents, Stewart and Zora Compton, were running the place and used to have sailors lined up four deep at the bar. My recollection was that most people that were left in Bayview after the Navy presence did very well during the war.
“I estimate that there were about 5,000 people living in and around Bayview during construction of the naval training center. Many lived in tents, trailers and any other cover available. In many cases, local residents were afraid of their children passing through these tent encampments. My family remodeled a woodshed which we lived in during that time. After the war, Dad built a nice home which we lived in for several years. I was off to college then and didn’t get back to Bayview much after that.”
Some join the service
Slim Dossey, retired country singer, remembers his service which started at Farragut with boot camp. He was assigned to the repair ship, USS Prometheus. “The ship was reputed to be at the time the oldest in the fleet,” he said. “It started life in 1910 as a collier.” For those born after ships stopped burning coal, a collier hauls coal and would be the equivalent of a fleet oiler these days. Dossey, 91, resides in an assisted-living facility.
Charles Lish, residing in Athol, went through training at Farragut and was assigned to USS Pruitt. “The Pruitt was an old four-stack destroyer built in 1920 but was converted prior to WWII to a mine-laying vessel. While undergoing overhaul at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked, but the ship was undamaged,” Lish said. “I spent 28 months on board the old ship.”
Bob Peck, a member of a pioneering Bayview family, served his Navy training at Farragut. His fate was much different than most recruits. “The chief petty officer found out that I was from neighboring Bayview. The chief petty officer called me into the office. He asked me if I had a car. I did. “I spent the remainder of my stay driving around the countryside showing the CPO the sights. At about the halfway point, (boot camp was six weeks) I was again called in. Noting that I was trained as a heavy-equipment operator, they quickly assigned me to the Seabees which are naval construction battalions. I was sent to Rhode Island, where instead of being shipped to the Pacific, I was put to work as a stevedore loading ships, where I stayed until the war was over.”
Other Bayview residents who served but with little detailed information, included Gene Hammond, Army, served in England; and Clyde Napier, son of Elijah Napier, Army.
The Puckett clan was well represented, too. Robert “Sonny” Puckett served in the Air Corps; Raymond “Babe” Puckett, Army; and Jesse Puckett, Jr., Navy. Sgt. Irvan Puckett served in the Army, Company L, 345th Infantry. He participated in campaigns in northern France, The Rhineland and central Europe. Irvan Puckett survived the war and returned to his career as a hard rock miner. He died in the Sunshine Mine on May 2, 1972, along with 91 others.
Veteran Robert “Max” Landes is still alive, alert and full of stories. During the 1930s, he and his parents lived above the store they operated in the Wigwam Hotel. “My mother, enraged after finding out there were neighboring residents plying the world’s oldest profession, bailed out indignantly, moving to a cabin near the shore from Gassman’s resort,” he said.
“I later joined the Army Air Corps and became a tail gunner on a B-17G,” he said. His 17th mission was his last “as anti-aircraft flak shot us down. We didn’t worry about German fighters that late in the war. We had P-51s and P47s keeping the fighters off of us.”
After being captured, he said “we spent four months in captivity which wasn’t long compared to others, but it was the worst time as they were force-marched on foot in mid-winter, sleeping in the forest on the ground or snow, or a barn when we could find one. Fortunately the war ended and we were repatriated at a place very near an infamous camp: Dachau.”
Landes now resides in Coeur d’Alene and winters in Arizona.
This truly was the “greatest generation.” Bayview and its neighbor, Farragut Naval Training Facility played a large part in ending the war. The base closed down May 1, 1945, just one week before the German surrender in Europe.