Asylum Mobilitarium: March 2015

September, 1945 saw the surrender of the Japanese and WWII was officially over. The VA says however that any member of the military who joined up or was serving by December 31, 1946 is a WWII veteran. This is in some part because of the job of having enough soldiers, sailors and airman to bring the millions of service men and women home from overseas. There’s also the fact that the U.S. had so many military personnel on occupation duty in Europe and the Far East. That and also the fact that millions of civilians were starving in the countries affected by war, and the U.S. being the breadbasket of the world, kept the draft up and the recruitment offices busy for several years.

In Dallas however, the City was gearing up the first Labor Day since the end of wartime gas rationing in years. Chief Carl Hansson said that “This is the first Labor Day since 1941 that workers have not been asked to stay on the job as a war-winning measure.”

Soon after Labor Day Chief Hansson announced plans to institute immediately a personnel improvement program for the DPD. The first post-wartime measure was a plan under which all new police officers would receive six weeks concentrated training after passing a civil service examination. He said that he has contacted the commanding officers of many experienced DPD officers now in military service in efforts to have them released as soon as possible from military service. He has also received authorization to hire 26 additional men. Many of the war-time officers hired on a part time basis will be given the opportunity to take civil service exams that would lead to permanent commissions.

The Chief went on to say that because of the anticipated post-wartime population boom in Dallas as servicemen and women come home from the war, 15 new police motorcycles are being ordered for traffic control and that besides the 26 new hires approved, there are vacancies for about 25 more that he hopes the City will approve soon.

The war was officially over, but police work obviously had not changed dramatically since 1941. At the Rialto Theater at 1525 Elm St. an alarmed bystander called the police after a man yelled “hold up!” Squad cars swarmed the front of the theater to arrest the hold- up suspect. It didn’t take long however for the rocket scientist to explain that he had been arguing with the candy counter girl, she had threatened to call police if he didn’t leave and he yelled ‘hold up!’ when she reached for the phone. Yes, some things never change.

At the Rockyfeller Hamburger System at 219 West Jefferson, a customer put money into a cigarette machine. When he pulled the lever, the wrong brand dropped out. The person who obviously had no major issues going on in his life except this one at the moment, became incensed, shoved the machine over and began stomping it. Police were called of course.

In another story and since many people were still going without tires because of war-time rationing, Mrs. J.L. Beeson of 3010 Oliver came out on her back porch and found a brand new tire lying in her back yard. She’s not sure where it came from and called police…of course.

A soldier stationed at Love Field reported to DPD that he had $800.00 stolen from him by a pickpocket. He’s not too worried he said because the bills were from Belgium, Iceland, Holland, Germany, France, Egypt, England, Hawaii and Japan. The only bad thing was that there were autographs of all of his buddies he had served with were written on the bills.

A 25 year old male stole a car from a used car lot at 5323 East Grand Avenue. The owner’s son saw him leave, police were called and Officers C.W. Peters and Billy Phillips arrested the driver not far away.

A call came into DPD headquarters that a badly decomposed body had been found in a vacant lot on Scyene Rd. A squad of detectives went to scene immediately. They however scared the dead body to wake him up it seems. Three people had called and said that this person had been dead for some time but when officers woke him up he insisted that he had just been sleeping. He was put in jail for being drunk.

The owners of Howard Laundry and Cleaners, 3101 Commerce St. are not particularly mad at the burglar who broke in and stole seven pairs of pants from the store early Saturday. What really angers them is that the suspect kicked out a large window pane to enter the store, when there was a hole next to the window equally as large next to it that needed to be repaired!

So it was in September, 1945.