Photograph courtesy of Saratoga Historical Museum
Brothers Vince (left) and Richard Garrod sign up for war bonds in 1943. This photo is one of many in the Saratoga Historical Museum's World War II exhibit.
Local museum recalls WWII
By Shari Kaplan
No matter how small a town was, its chances of surviving World War II without being affected were practically nil. Saratoga--just a map dot in the early 1940s, nestled at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains--was no exception.
The Saratoga Historical Museum reminds its visitors of this with a small but engaging exhibit titled Remembering Saratoga and World War II. From troops stationed on local streets to residents sent to internment camps, the exhibit offers a generous slice of life from wartime Saratoga.
"I'm a historian and I'm always amazed when I find a story like this [of Saratoga]. To me, history always seems like something that happened somewhere else to someone else. But important things happened here," says museum curator April Halberstadt.
The idea for the exhibit came from Lynn Johnston, museum chairwoman of archives and exhibits. Johnston was inspired by Memorial Day. She recalled that the museum hadn't done anything like this during the seven years she's been there, so she got the ball rolling. Some memorabilia is gleaned from the museum's collection, while other items are on loan from various citizens.
Writer Mamoru Inouye's book, The Heart Mountain Story, is on display, along with photos of Santa Clara County's many Japanese-Americans being relocated to wartime internment camps. Saratogan Louise Cooper contributed many old photographs snapped by her mother, the late Emma Garrod, during the brief military occupation of Saratoga, which began in December 1941 and lasted about 10 weeks. Some of these troops set up 155 mm. Howitzers along Skyline Boulevard. Fortunately, no invasions came over the mountains from the coast, as the guns were only stocked with a token amount of ammunition.
Other battalions encamped at Congress Springs and along Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road. Truck convoys were also a common sight on Big Basin Way and Saratoga Avenue. Ready to be dispatched to Mills Field (now San Francisco International Airport) or Moffett Field in case of invasion, the troops eventually left for a Palo Alto assignment, then shipped out to the Pacific.
Longtime Saratogan Willys Peck also shared photos, newspaper clippings and other wartime souvenirs. One of his most moving images is that of three German prisoners of war standing in the middle of a bleak road, hands on heads in surrender. In a completely different vein, he's also included a shot of himself as a handsome young G.I., stepping out with a pretty young woman during a dance at Camp Cooke.
The family of the late Corporal Gordon Topping of Saratoga contributed much memorabilia, including photos, ration books and stamps, and a variety of excellently preserved military literature, including The Scrapbook of Army-Navy Humor and Going Back to Civilian Life.
"Everyone likes the exhibit, especially those who remember the second World War, wherever they were," Johnston says. For those visitors who were not yet alive during WWII, Johnston says the exhibit is equally significant.
"War changes lives, and people don't realize how, overnight, they can lose their security, or their lives, or their family."
The Saratoga Historical Museum is open Friday through Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m. For more information, call 408.867.4311.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
