World War Two

April 16, 1943

Airport Is Carved Out of Wilderness

Vineyard Gazette
The airfield on the central plain of Martha’s Vineyard is beginning to shape up as something more than raw earth, mud, and the destination of building materials trucked over the roads from the st
World War Two
Naval Auxiliary Air Facility
Martha's Vineyard Airport
August 31, 1945

Experimental Base a Well-Kept Secret

Vineyard Gazette
The well-kept secret of the Army's experimental base at Katama during the fall and early winter of 1943 is disclosed at last, in this issue of the Gazette. Ten miles of heavy pipe were delivered, with other equipment, beginning in August, and during the following months five one-mile lengths of pipe were laid in the ocean with the aid of tugs, and welded together into an experimental pipeline under conditions similar to those which would be encountered in laying a gasoline supply line under the English Channel.
World War Two
South Beach

1941

December 12, 1941

Island Accepts Challenge of Air Alarm Quietly

Vineyard Gazette
World War Two
Civilian Defense organizations of the Island responded to their first real call to duty about 1:30 Tuesday afternoon, when air raid signals were sounded the length of the coast, following the report of hostile planes off New York city, a tip which proved unfounded and which some reports say was planned by the government as a test of the air raid facilities of the northeastern coast.
 
Be that as it may, the Vineyard accepted the challenge of the alarm with fortitude and calm on the part of almost all residents, many of whom believed it to be only a local test of Civili
December 12, 1941

Island Quota $4,250

Vineyard Gazette
World War Two
Martha’s Vineyard’s share in the $50,000,000 war fund asked by Norman H. Davis, national chairman of the American Red Cross, is $4,250. Mr. Davis’ appeal was broadcast Monday night and alluded to the destruction wrought at Hawaii and other points attacked by the Japanese.
 
December 12, 1941

Editorial: A Century Lies Between

Vineyard Gazette
World War Two
Pearl Harbor
One wonders what Nathaniel M. Jernegan would think if he were alive. Or his wife. They were together on the whaleship Eliza Mason in 1851 when Captain Jernegan sailed his vessel into Hakodate while Perry was still there. This was one of the first of the treaty ports when Japan was opened, reluctantly, to the world, and Mrs. Jernegan was the first white woman to sleep ashore in Japan for more than two hundred years.
 
That was the beginning.
October 17, 1941

Peaked Hill Contours Undergo Marked Change

Vineyard Gazette
World War Two
Peaked Hill
The contours of Peaked Hill, as viewed from the Middle Road, have changed almost beyond belief, due largely to the construction of the road which winds around its steep sides and has been carved deeply into them. The hill is topped by one of the skeleton towers so largely used for signaling purposes, and is now manned by a detachment of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The handful of men assigned here, presumably in connection with the tests now going on to prove or disprove the effectiveness of coastal defenses against invasion, is quartered in tents on the hill.
October 17, 1941

Vineyard Tests Its Strength in Mock Bombing Raids

Vineyard Gazette
World War Two

The Vineyard called out its civilian defense organizations on Friday and again on Tuesday to tackle actual problems such as might follow the dropping of bombs by hostile planes. The whole affair was a kind of sham battle hitherto unknown, in which men, women and children were summoned from peaceful occupations in civil life to show how they could defend their community against the demoralization and damage of bombing. No planes roared overhead, but the practice was none the less realistically carried out.

July 29, 1941

Mosquito Boat A Menacing Visitor To Harbor Craft

Vineyard Gazette
World War Two
PT Boats
A prim feature of the regatta was the visit of one of the new mosquito boats, or P.T. boats so called, to the historic port of Edgartown, where fighting ships of many a generation have put in for one reason or another, yet never presented such a sight as this. Commanded by Capt. A.

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