Henderson history: Local World War II draft board tussled with its superiors
Two local attorneys helped keep Henderson County farmers in the fields during World War II. But it wasn’t because they lacked patriotism.
F.J. “Boss” Pentecost and later Odie Duncan were what were then called “government appeal agents” under the Selective Service act of 1940, according to a history of Henderson County’s first draft board, which operated from Oct. 21, 1940, to March 31, 1947. That history was written by T.B. Stevenson, clerk of the local draft board, and was printed in The Gleaner May 9, 1947.
The job of Pentecost and Duncan – for which they received no pay – was to handle appeals filed by those who thought the local draft board had made a mistake.
Probably most of the time the appeal was filed by the man who didn’t want to become a soldier -- and the attorney thought he had a good case. But sometimes the appeal was filed by the Selective Service Administration, either by the appeal draft board in Louisville or by the state director of Selective Service. The appeal agent represented Local Board No. 63 in those cases.
The Selective Service Act of 1940 was the first peacetime conscription law ever passed in the United States. It came a year after Germany invaded Poland. That law was modified Nov. 12, 1942, by something popularly known as the Tydings Amendment. It required local draft boards to grant deferments to agricultural and defense workers. The criteria a person had to demonstrate was that he was “necessary to and regularly engaged in an agricultural occupation or endeavor essential to the war effort.”
Farming has long been a mainstay to the Henderson County economy, and during World War II we also had multiple defense industries within easy driving distance. That kept the local board very busy.
“Interpretation and application of this amendment caused much difference of opinion between local boards, appeal boards and state directors,” Stevenson wrote.
“The members of Local Board No. 63 were convinced that a shortage of skilled farmers existed in Henderson County and that there were no satisfactory replacements available for experienced farmers and farm hands.
“Due to the difference in opinion on this subject,” many of the farm deferments granted by the local draft board were appealed by the state Selective Service director. “Government Appeal Agent F.J. Pentecost and later Government Appeal Agent Odie Duncan went to bat to keep Henderson County farmers at home as provided, in their opinion, by the Tydings Amendment.”
The situation became worse after Jan. 3, 1945, when the national director of Selective Service notified all 6,443 of the nation’s draft boards to take a harder look at young farmers who had received agricultural exemptions. That resulted in many farmers across the country losing their deferments.
But not in Henderson County. “In 1946 Odie Duncan fought their cases individually with the state director and the Louisville appeal board,” Stevenson wrote. Of the many cases appealed from the local board by the state director, not a single local farmer was inducted into the armed forces. “All of these men, largely because of Mr. Duncan’s effort, remained on their Henderson County farms.”
The local draft board initially was composed of attorney Sol Heilbronner, wholesale grocer Frank G. Schmitt, and Rev. D. Mode Spears. The latter resigned Oct. 1, 1942, because he had been transferred to a Methodist church in Louisville. He was replaced by William G. Hodge, vice president of Hodge Tobacco Co. They met anywhere from one to four times a week.
The office kept busy, sometimes late into the night, because Stevenson met with everyone who came – whether he thought they had a good case or not.
Stevenson said many people misunderstood the power of the draft board; its hands were bound by law and regulations. “Many parents, wives and employers are under the erroneous impression that deferments or inductions depend entirely upon the opinion and decision of the board members and may be determined by their personal feeling.”
Men who were inducted at first had to serve only one year; it was lengthened to 18 months on Aug. 18, 1941. Once the United States entered the war in December 1941 men were inducted for the duration of the war plus six months.
The board’s first office was a single room in City Hall, where Stevenson operated with several volunteer assistants. On June 1, 1942, the offices were moved to three rooms on the fifth floor of what is now Field & Main Bank.
By 1944 the board was so busy it required five clerks. Local boards were ordered to discontinue inductions in October 1946, by which time there again was only one clerk.
From Oct. 21, 1940, to March 31, 1947, the board registered 10,113 men. That breaks down into 7,157 men under age 45, of which 1,007 were Black. Men ages 45 up to 65 were required to register beginning April 27, 1942. The local board registered 2,956 of them by early 1947, of which 481 were Black.
Stevenson’s figures don’t specify how many of the older men were inducted; I doubt there were any. But the grand total of men sent off to World War II by the local draft board was 2,112. Another 822 Henderson County men enlisted.
By March 1947, when the draft board closed shop, 592 of those who enlisted were still in the armed forces, while only 160 draftees were still serving.
Stevenson reported 118 local men died in service during World War II, but he doesn’t specify whether that includes both draftees and enlistees.
The National Archives has a U.S. Army report dated June 1946 that lists most of those deaths, but obviously it includes only those serving in the U.S. Army or the U.S. Army Air Force. Seventy local Army men died during the war, although one, 1st Lt. William L. Chase, was still listed as missing at that point.
Thirty-nine were killed in action and four died of wounds. For three no body was recovered but there was a finding of death because they had been missing more than a year or had disappeared under circumstances where they could not have survived.
Another 23 men died in the line of duty, but not in a combat zone. The cause of death could have been anything from sickness, homicide or suicide to accidents during training or maneuvers. Eight of those “died non-battle” casualties were local draftees.
In fact, well over half of the local Army deaths during World War II were draftees: 43 out of the 70 men who died.
100 YEARS AGO
Henderson County’s newly organized strawberry association elected a slate of officers and selected Robert Alves as manager, according to The Gleaner of May 10, 1922.
J.L. Nicholson was president, H.R. Niswonger vice president and Ben E. Niles was secretary.
“The berry growers this year have decided to pay 10 cents per gallon to pickers this season, with a bonus of two cents per gallon for pickers who work through the season.”
50 YEARS AGO
Henderson Fiscal Court passed a resolution asking U.S. Rep. Frank Stubblefield to lend his support to legislation that would create what later became known as federal revenue sharing, according to The Gleaner of May 9, 1972.
Henderson County was expected to receive $134,113 the first year of the program.
Henderson Fiscal Court received its first federal revenue sharing check of $116,000 and announced Dec. 19, 1972, it would spend the money to implement a county-wide solid waste collection system. The green box system began operating in the fall of 1973 and was discontinued March 15, 2004.
The city of Henderson, meanwhile, received its first federal revenue sharing check on Dec. 13, 1972, which totaled $247,873 for the first half of that year. By 1985, as the program was nearing its end, the city had received a total of nearly $6.5 million in federal revenue sharing.
25 YEARS AGO
Reynolds Metals Co., which began acquiring land here in the mid-1950s, sold approximately 16,000 acres to a newly formed Louisville company for $30 million, according to Gleaner stories dated May 6 and May 10, 1997.
The purchase also included coal rights to additional properties totaling about 30,000 acres. The purchaser was Kentucky Emerald Land Co. LLC, which was owned by Henderson Farm & Coal Property LLC. Both firms were newly organized for the purpose of the purchase.
The new companies represented a group of investors led by R. Gene Smith of Louisville and Larry Addington of Ashland.
Nearly all of the coal that could be recovered by strip mining was already under lease to Centennial Resources, which held leases formerly controlled by bankrupt Green Coal Co., or to Peabody Coal Co., which held leased land being mined by Patriot Coal Co.
Patriot Coal Co. announced plans Nov. 3, 2012, to close its 89-employee surface mine near Hebbardsville after earlier closing its underground Freedom mine, which cost 196 jobs.
Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.
This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: Henderson history: Local World War II draft board tussled with its superiors
