The civilian auxiliary of the Air Force performs a range of domestic duties, including search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief services.
Early Years
Colgate Whitehead Darden was born on February 11, 1897, in Southampton County. He was the son of Colgate Whitehead Darden, a farmer and businessman, and his first wife, Katharine Lawrence Pretlow Darden. His younger brother, J. Pretlow Darden Sr., became a reform mayor of Norfolk after World War II.
Darden grew up on the family farm and attended the Franklin public schools. He studied at the University of Virginia for two years beginning in 1914. After World War I began in Europe, Darden volunteered with an ambulance corps of the American Field Service in France, contracted malaria in the trenches near Verdun, and then returned home. Undeterred by the experience, he won his pilot’s wings and returned to France as a marine aviator after the United States entered the war in 1917. About two weeks before the 1918 armistice, Darden was seriously injured in a bomber crash and required about ten months’ hospitalization.
on local history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story. From a safe distance, history can become romanticized. For example, there is a persistent misunderstanding of the World War II American home front. Many believe that Americans willingly submitted to wartime necessities, like price controls, rationing and blackouts. The truth is far less generous. Blackout announcement published on the front page of the Anchorage Daily Times Dec. 9, 1941. Consumer demand, not need, frequently surpassed ration limits during the war. Once rationing was instituted, black markets instantly emerged in every corner of America. Gasoline, meat and nylon stockings were some of the most common goods criminally traded. One journalist documented his drive across America on a single gas ration stamp. Every time his tank ran low, he was able to fill up, albeit illegally. The Department of Agri
An immigrant family on the dock at Ellis Island, 1925. (Photo by Bettmann / Getty)
At the beginning of the 20th century, one of the easiest ways to get marked for deportation at Ellis Island was flunking an eye exam. From 1903 to 1930, trachoma an eye disease caused by Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria, which eventually leads to blindness was classified by the United States Health Service as among the most serious of diseases “brought in” by immigrants. As Grover A. Kemp, a doctor who worked on Ellis Island from 1912 to 1916, recalled, everyone who stepped foot on the island had to undergo an inspection for it: