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Oregon Stories of World War II Conscientous Objectors

More than 60 years ago, as the United States chose to enter World War II, a minority of men made a different, difficult decision. These men became conscientious objectors (COs). They fought, not the enemy, but their own nation in order to do what they felt was right.

The stories of COs are rarely told in the annals of World War II. That’s why, when the Siuslaw National Forest began a program of collecting oral histories from World War II objectors who had worked for the Forest Service, history professor Katrine Barber and her class joined in.

From October 1942 to April 1946, men who were documented conscientious objectors spent time in conscripted service at a base camp near Waldport on the Oregon coast. The U.S. government sent them there to fell snags and plant trees for the Forest Service instead of military service.

Many of these men told their stories to volunteers for the Siuslaw National Forest in 45 interviews conducted between 2001 and 2003. Barber and her students collected and transcribed 15 additional interviews during the summer of 2003. She and two students, Jo Ogden and Eliza Jones, are now putting together a book of excerpts for the Forest Service. Barber is also planning to write a more traditional book to be published by the Oregon Historical Society.

There was a fairly strong pacifist movement between the world wars, says Barber. The death and horror of World War I was strongly felt in Europe, and that antiwar sentiment spread to the U.S. Paul Foster, whose narrative appears here, tells of gaining a graphic understanding of the first war’s death and destruction from reading All Quiet on the Western Front and seeing returning veterans.

It was during World War I that conscientious objection was first granted political consideration. The 1917 conscription law acknowledged the right of objectors to refuse military service, but only if they were members of one of three recognized historic peace churches: Quakers (also known as Friends), Mennonites, and Church of the Brethren. The men were offered non-combatant service in the military; if they refused, they were sent to prison. As Ford Sexton reveals in his narrative, treatment of World War I objectors could be cruel.

The U.S. approved broader conscription laws in 1940, when it enacted its first-ever peacetime draft with the Selective Training and Service Act. Objectors were no longer required to prove religious training and belief based on historic peace church membership. The law also provided an alternative to prison for those objectors who refused non-combatant military service. These men were expected to perform “work of national importance under civilian direction” through the Civilian Public Service program (CPS). This program was created by the U.S. Selective Service Agency and the National Service Board for Religious Objectors, a private organization of representatives from the historic peace churches. Because the government was reluctant to support the program, the churches agreed to take responsibility for all costs except transporting draftees to the camps.

In 1936, an estimated 12 million Americans were considered pacifists, and Congress passed the 1940 draft only after a long and traumatic debate. However, everything changed with the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Millions of men enlisted, including many former pacifists.

“The country was transformed into a land of victory gardens, war bonds, and ticker tape parades for those wearing the military uniform,” says Barber.

Once the country was involved in the war, objectors represented less than one percent of the number of people enlisted in the armed services. Of the estimated 43,000 World War II objectors, 25,000 served in the military as non-combatants, 12,000 were inducted into the CPS, and 6,000 went to prison.

Even within the historic peace churches, most young men chose active military combat service.

For COs, “making the choice to act on their pacifist beliefs speaks volumes about the strength of conviction demonstrated by the narrators of these interviews,” says Barber.

CPS consisted of small camps throughout the county, many of which were decommissioned Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) centers, that provided work for jobless youth during the Great Depression. CPS assigned men to work without pay for federal agencies such as the Forest Service and the Soil Conservation Service.

The COs were given leave to go into Portland, surrounding towns, and even go home once a year to help with harvest.

The camp at Waldport, named Camp Angell, was the 56th CPS camp. Most of the men there came to it from other camps and many did not stay long, as transfers were a frequent occurrence. Some men worked at Camp Angell’s satellite camps and others left the area to volunteer for “detached service.” Richard Mundy tells in his narrative of volunteering to become a subject in a medical experiment. Other COs filled vacancies in mental hospitals or labored on private dairy farms.

Camp Angell was set in a muddy forest clearing with four dorm buildings, a kitchen, and a dining area. The complex was a relatively new CCC camp. Residency averaged 120 men at any given time. Most of the objectors interviewed came from religious farming communities in the Midwest.

A unique feature of Camp Angell was its fine arts program in which the men staged plays and music for public audiences; spent time painting, drawing, sculpting, and weaving; and printed collections of plays, short stories, and poetry, which were distributed to other camps and bookstores across the country. The camp was best known for this aspect of its history, says Barber. However, few men actually participated in it, and when interviewed, some former camp residents said they had never known of the program’s existence.

Members of the fine arts program at Waldport were later credited for contributing to the postwar San Francisco Renaissance, which included the founding of City Lights bookstore, poet Allen Ginsburg’s famous “Howl” reading, the city’s thriving independent theater community, and its general culture of war resistance that continued into the Vietnam era.

In fact, one of the most important contributions of all World War II conscientious objectors, says Barber, “were the models and tools of resistance they offered to Korean- and Vietnam-era draftees.”

In almost every interview of a former Camp Angell resident, the subject explains why he became a conscientious objector. Barber and her students found that “most rejected military service due to religious beliefs, but several became objectors because conscription offended their secular understanding of the rights of individuals.”

At the time, churches themselves experienced internal splits over the tenets of pacifism and held widely different views towards CPS. Some saw the churches as forging a new alternative for pacifists, while others felt the effort was a compromise that ended up isolating war resisters.

“Despite their differences in philosophies and level of satisfaction with CPS,” says Barber, “several narrators express that their experience was one of significant personal growth—and most are proud of their decision to refuse to participate in war.”

Personal Stories of Conscientious Objectors

• Walked out - Paul Foster

Strived for meaning - Richard Mundy Followed his father - Ford Sexton Found an education - William Shank