1923 nickel and birth-year

[villa66]

One of the many occasions—great and small—that coins get linked with are birth-years. I got to thinking about Buffalo nickels and birth-years while I was thinking about the “nickel-squeezer” and his son, the WWII infantryman. (https://www.lamoneta.it/topic/171691-until-the-buffaloscreams/ ) That, and something I’d read, got me to thinking about 1923 nickels like this one…

 

 

American nickels were kid’s coins through and through, and 1923 nickels like this one worked hard during the ‘20s and ‘30s helping to entertain the kids born that particular year.

 

But 1923 was an unlucky birth-year for a lot of young men—not only for Americans, but around the world. Buffalo nickels, though, were the coins that American boys were spending when Pearl Harbor was attacked in December, 1941. By New Year’s Day, 1942, the American boys born in 1923 were all 18-year-olds.

 

It’s a great age, 18. Well, usually. But in wartime? For folks caught up in the shitty arithmetic of total war, 18 can be pretty tough.

 

Author Phil Nordyke wrote a 2006 book about the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne called The All Americans in World War II. Something he wrote really stuck in my mind. Right after the close of the war in Europe, in the Spring of 1945, while the troops were still in place, and still unsure whether they would be going to the Pacific to fight more, came this, from an interview—

 

 “Staff sergeant Ross Carter, with Company C, 504th [Parachute Infantry], was one of the very lucky men who served in a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division from North Africa to Germany. ‘My friends call me a refugee from the law of averages. My regiment still exists as a name, but the regiment in which I trained, fought, and almost died, now lies buried in obscure army cemeteries in ten countries.’”

 

The boys born in 1923? The 18-year-olds of 1942? For too many of them, by 1945 it was something like “Now…buried in obscure army cemeteries in ten countries.”

 

The lucky ones got home, and probably had reason to put a nickel into a payphone to call ahead to their wives, or their folks, or maybe to phone a taxi from the airport, dock, or train station….

 

 

But the unlucky ones? The paratroopers of the 82nd who lay “buried in obscure army cemeteries in ten countries,” what had been in their pockets? What coins of theirs went to Kansas City?

 

(During WWII Kansas City, Missouri, was the collection point for the personal effects of the American soldiers, sailors and airmen who were killed or missing. Into the middle of the country would come the train-cars, in from the coasts, in from the war in the Pacific, in from the war in Europe.)

  

The ten countries spoken of by Staff-sergeant Ross Carter of Charlie Company? The possibilities, I think, are these: the U.S., Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy (Sicily), Italy (mainland), U.K., France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany.

 

So here’s one candidate for the trip through Kansa City, and then home to a family with a Gold Star in their window. An aluminum-bronze 5-franc piece coined in Paris in 1939 for use in Algeria, found in the U.S. and hardly touched. But touched, nevertheless.

 

 

v.

[luke_idk]

I saw German and US  war cemeteries in Luxemburg (where Patton decided to be buried) and Russian ones in Germany. Reading dates and places of birth was really sad. Young boys dead thousand miles far from home and their families.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg_American_Cemetery_and_Memorial

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandweiler_German_war_cemetery

 

 

[villa66]

I'm sorry it took me so long to reply--your post really hit home. I too had an important day in these same two cemeteries. I wrote in my coin-notebook about it, tied to a Belgian 5-franc coin I got...

 

...from pocket change in Luxembourg City...the twelve‑klick walk in the general direction of the sunrise because I’d read the American military cemetery was east of the city. But I did finally arrive. Blue sky, green grass, gold leaf and white crosses. Five thousand is a larger number than I thought. Difficult to withstand the onslaught. And a kilometer down the road there was the gray cold shade and embarrassed sorrow of the German cemetery. Easier because they are not my countrymen? Which helps explain why they are there at all. (86)

 

A tough, eye-opening day.

 

v.

 

 

[luke_idk]

It was the first time I saw crosses and David's stars together.

While we always see US war memorial on tv, German one looked quite strange to a young Italian boy. Tombstones among trees, in a typical Lutheran's way 

[villa66]

 

It was the first time I saw crosses and David's stars together.

...to a young Italian boy.... 

Sometimes in American military cemeteries one can also see the Star-and-Crescent. Seeing all three at once, together, can bring a person very close to tears.

 

I have an entry in my coin-notebook that came to mind when you mentioned "a young Italian boy." So from someone who was once a young American boy....

 

x: I pulled this 1967 dieci from circulation myself. It was minted the year Dad let me tag along with him to Rimini. On the way back we stopped for a night in an off-the-beaten-path town called Popoli, and we also visited the German military cemetery at Monte Cassino. I had never been in a place like that and I clearly remember watching Dad for clues on how to behave amongst all the dead “enemies.” I was struck to my heart by Pop’s manner, and his talk, which was exactly as serious and exactly as respectful as if they had been American dead. That, along with my own shock at finding them buried up to seven deep—and so, so many Unknowns—weaned me away from my comic‑book conception of German soldiers. (67)

 

v.