The year I was born, Adolph Hitler invaded Poland and began his relentless march across Europe. I was a toddler two years later when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I turned six during that momentous year, 1945, when Roosevelt died, the Third Reich collapsed, and bombs fell on Japan.

I was a war baby, and my early childhood experiences happened in an environment shaped by the needs of a conflict halfway across the globe. The memories of those experiences are vivid and lasting.

Though just a preschooler, I could see how the war affected the adults in my life. My father, who as a young man had served as a crewman on a U.S. Coast Guard vessel in the Gulf of Mexico, became a manager at the Coast Guard supply depot in New Orleans. The facility was housed in the old U.S. Mint building at the edge of the French Quarter on Esplanade Avenue near the Mississippi River. Daddy put in long hours at work, overseeing the inventory and shipping of essential supplies to Coast Guard bases throughout the South.

We were living at the time with my mother’s extended family in the camelback house on Laurel Street in New Orleans, and radios throughout the house were tuned to broadcast the war news. Daddy even had one in the bathroom, and I can still see him solemnly shaving as he listened to the latest reports from the front. The radio brought us more than information; it was our link to the rest of the world. Whether the news was good or bad, the voices of President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Edward R. Murrow seemed to bring us and the rest of the country resolve and encouragement.

My mother, grandmother and aunts often spent evenings at one of the local schools, wrapping bandages for the Red Cross. Several of my relatives joined the armed services and took off for distant points. Three of my older female cousins broke out of more traditional women’s roles and joined the WAVES, the WAACs and the Women Marines.

Military uniforms were a common sight on the streets of New Orleans as flocks of soldiers, sailors and airmen stopped in the city before moving on to somewhere else. Families were encouraged to sign up to invite a lonely serviceman to their home for Sunday dinner.

The needs of the armed services took precedence over all others, and soon many items for domestic use were either rationed or not available at all. Nationwide food rationing began in the spring of 1942, and each family member was issued a ration book. Shoppers carried their books of brightly colored ration stamps with them to the grocery store along with their cash -- and food shortages made shopping days unpredictable.

We learned to live with less meat, sugar, coffee and cheese. We did without butter and bought white oleomargarine that we colored ourselves. Even new shoes were rationed. Urban families learned to garden in backyards and vacant lots, planting Victory Gardens and canning vegetables to extend their food supply.

If there was money to spare, people bought war bonds. School children were urged to use their nickels and dimes to buy war stamps. Gas and cigarettes were in short supply. The average citizen was allowed three or four gallons of gas a week, and sharing rides was common.

Shoppers who rode buses and street cars were urged to travel home early to make room for defense workers at day’s end. Buying a new car was unthinkable, as domestic car production ceased in 1942, and my father coaxed a few more years of life out of our old Ford. Rubber tires disappeared from the market, and even synthetic ones were scarce. Drivers were urged to keep their speed to 35 mph to preserve their tires.

As a young child, I regarded none of this as a sacrifice, since it was the only way of life I knew. I sensed that our family and neighbors were taking part in some mysterious but worthy global effort, the causes and implications of which were beyond my understanding. But I found it rather exciting, and with the trust of childhood, I enthusiastically joined in and did my part.

To support the war effort and provide needed materials, scrap drives were organized for used steel, aluminum, paper and rubber. Daddy and I carried our recyclable rubber items to the neighborhood gas station and dropped them into a large bin. My personal contribution was an old rubber doll that had become cracked and sticky with age. I was sure our donation would help the allies win the war.

We squeezed the last smidgen of toothpaste from the tubes that contained needed lead and turned in the empty ones at the drugstore when we bought a new tube. We salvaged every drop of grease from the frying pan to turn in for use in making ammunition. We saved tin cans and newspapers to take to collecting stations, and we gathered metal items we could do without for the scrap drives. Daddy took me to see a wrecked plane at a local scrap yard, waiting salvaging along with heaps of other metal objects.

I learned to recognize the graphic symbols of the forces engaged in the war – the Nazi German swastika, the rising sun of the Japanese and the pointing finger of Uncle Sam. I was particularly intrigued with the swastika and wanted to learn to draw it myself. One day during recess when I was in kindergarten, my creation caused a stir and got me some unwanted attention. I took a stick and drew a perfect swastika in the dusty ground of the schoolyard. Soon several older children gathered round and, horrified that I would display the sign of the hated enemy, accused me of being a Nazi lover.

The hubbub brought a teacher to the scene and she asked me why I had drawn the swastika. Puzzled and frightened by the attention, I couldn’t answer. The teacher concluded that I didn’t understand the implication of what I had done, and the offending symbol was brushed away.

At times the war seemed frighteningly close to home. Because the busy port of New Orleans near the mouth of the Mississippi River was vital to the war effort, there was particular concern about sabotage and enemy attack.

Reports of German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico put residents on edge. Ships, some no more than 100 miles away, were being fired upon and sunk. My father’s boat had picked up survivors in the Gulf waters when he worked as a Coast Guard crewman in the early ‘40s. Daddy often took me for walks along the Mississippi riverfront in New Orleans where we might spot a war-damaged ship making its way carefully to the shipyard for repairs.

As a precaution against air raids, mandatory blackout drills were conducted regularly in the city. At a designated time, sirens would sound and all lights in buildings and on the street were turned off. Shades were pulled down in houses, curtains drawn and transoms covered with sheets of newspaper.

My dad was a block warden, whose job it was to walk about the neighborhood to make sure everyone was complying with the blackout. For a child, these drills were both scary and exciting, almost like a séance. Our family would sit quietly in one room in our darkened house with only a flashlight, listening for sounds outside. After a few minutes, a siren would signal that the drill was over, and lights would come on again.

Throughout the early 1940s, I carried with me the awareness that something terrible was going on far away that deeply affected those around me. But any fears I may have had about my personal safety were allayed by a childlike faith that my family would protect me.

With the innocence of childhood, I believed that everything would turn out OK if we followed all the rules. And when the news finally came that the war was over, I believed that all the things we had done had, indeed, made a difference.

Eva Augustin Rumpf is the author of the memoir, Reclamation: Memories from a New Orleans Girlhood, available from www.Booklocker.com.