Central Illinois World War II Stories - Oral History Interview: George Boyd of Urbana
Channel: Illinois Public Media
Date: 2013-06-07

George Boyd was 7 years old and living in Urbana when Pearl Harbor was attacked. His homefront memories of the war years are sharp and reflect much of what children living in this country experienced. He did the things children did, playing and going to movies and helping with liberty gardens. He gives a good picture of life in middle America where everyone was involved in some way in the war effort. At the same time he heard adults talk and radio reports and knew when neighbors or family members were hurt or had died in battles. Children of this period in our history were changed by what was happening and in some ways were adults well before they might have been if the war had not happened.