Blackout

 

Haskin Flagg's post for the blackout drill was a fire alarm box across from the Isolation Hospital, on the same side as the Massachusetts Mutual Insurance Company. It was a short ways from St. Michael's Cemetery and not all that far from the intersection of Boston Road and Berkshire Avenue that defined the start of Pine Point. The purpose of the blackout was for the whole City of Springfield to practice what to do should the war reach a point where Springfield was under air attack. Turning off all the lights would make it more difficult for the Nazis or the Japanese or whomever was attacking to spot the locations of their intended targets. Of course, at no point, aside from Pearl Harbor, did World War II ever result in the United States being bombed.

Certainly Pine Point was never bombed. But when Haskin Flagg was in his early teens, with World War II raging at its peak, no one could be sure of that, and thus the need for this precautionary blackout drill. As a member of Boy Scout Troop 53, affiliated with Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church, Haskin and his fellow scouts were participating by guarding and helping to protect Springfield's public safety infrastructure such as alarm boxes.

When Haskin arrived at his State Street post, there was only a dull glow of light in the west from the recently set sun, and the street lights had already come on. Haskin's scout leader was telling him what to do. "Remember, just stand at your post. Nothing to worry about, I'll pick you up after the all clear." As the scout master drove off to check on other sites manned by the scouts, Haskin felt a bit apprehensive. Would a Nazi or a Japanese plane actually try to bomb a fire alarm box? If they did, what good would it do to have him standing by it when it got hit? It occurred to Haskin that the whole blackout exercise seemed sort of a waste of time, and perhaps even a dangerous one.

Haskin Flagg looked at the stars which had newly appeared in the sky. He knew they had names, but he had never learned them. There were few cars on the road, everyone having been told not to drive during the blackout except for a few vehicles that had a "B" on their windshield indicating that they were a priority vehicle. 

Suddenly there was the wail of the air raid sirens going off citywide! Haskin was not startled by it, having been informed in advance that the sirens would be part of the exercise. At the sound of the sirens, everyone was supposed to begin turning off their lights.

First the street lights went off. Next the clock in the Mass Mutual tower went dark, quickly followed by the lights on each floor of the insurance building, thereby casting the entire structure into darkness. Across the street, the new Trade High School remained fully lighted by the janitorial staff. However, the hospital next door was already going dark, one floor at a time, including the section everyone called "The Poor Farm." The darkness closed in from all directions, until only the high school remained fully lit. Then, a few moments later, the entire school went dark all at once. Haskin guessed a maintenance worker must have turned off the main electrical switch.

 

 

Now all was in darkness. Everywhere was very quiet, as if along with the electricity, all human activity had ceased. Beads of perspiration broke out on Haskin's forehead as a little breeze came up. Closing his eyes, Haskin felt strangely moved by experiencing this unique moment, with the city seeming to stand perfectly still, almost as if the Earth itself had stopped in its orbit.

With his eyes still closed, Haskin let his mind wander. He imagined the World War that was then raging over most of the planet. He felt almost as if he could see it all, the individual soldiers in battle, the bombers in flight, great warships at sea. The enormity of this great conflagration, this epic struggle, seemed real to him in a personal way it had never really felt before. In the dark the reality of war seemed alive in a way no newspaper or radio account of the conflict could ever make him feel, not even the death of George Cudjour, a young Hood Street resident who had died in battle earlier that year.

The cosmic clock ticks in the eternity of time.

The all clear sounded. The lights started coming back on. Mass Mutual was last to light up and Trade High the first. Normalcy had returned. The scoutmaster soon arrived and drove Haskin back to Hood Street. As he lay in bed that night, Haskin felt as if he had contributed to the war effort in his own small way, and for the rest of his life, he remembered that brief interlude in a city of darkness as his primary personal memory of World War II.