{"response":{"docs":[{"id":"geh_vhpohr_597","title":"Oral history interview of Buell Wallace Gifford","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Japan, Naha Air Base, 26.19065735, 127.653682387641","Japan, Okinawa, 26.53806, 127.96778","Philippines, Mindoro, 12.8692137, 121.134575750245","United States, Arkansas, Faulkner County, Conway, 35.0887, -92.4421","United States, California, Monterey County, Fort Ord Military Reservation (historical), 36.65278, -121.80056","United States, Hawaii, 20.78785, -156.38612","United States, Texas, Smith County, Camp Fannin, 32.42367925, -95.2112318132556"],"dcterms_creator":["Gantsoudes, Lillian","Gifford, Buell Wallace, 1924-2006"],"dc_date":["2004","2014"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities","Segregation--United States","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Area","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Ocean","Bronze Star Medal (U.S.)","Silver Star","United States. Army. Infantry Division, 96th","United States. Army. Infantry Regiment, 382nd. Battalion, 3rd. Company I"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Buell Wallace Gifford"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/597"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["streaming video","Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["51:41"],"dlg_subject_personal":["Skelton, Red, 1913-1997"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_748","title":"Oral history interview of Catherine Wiley","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882","United States, Iowa, Fort Des Moines, 41.5202677, -93.6157731","United States, Texas, Harris County, Houston, 29.76328, -95.36327","United States, Texas, Jefferson County, Beaumont, 30.08605, -94.10185"],"dcterms_creator":["Kyle, Glen","Wiley, Catherine, 1922-2008"],"dc_date":["2004"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":["Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center, 130 West Paces Ferry Rd., Atlanta, GA 30305"],"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center","Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","World War, 1939-1945--Participation, African American","World War, 1939-1945--Participation, Female","Segregation--United States--1940-1950","Race discrimination--United States","United States. Army. Quartermaster Corps","United States. Army. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps","United States. Army. Women's Army Corps","University of Georgia","Morris Brown College","Columbia University"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Catherine Wiley"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/748"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["30:21"],"dlg_subject_personal":["Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_596","title":"Oral history interview of Frank DeSales Murphy","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["France, Camp Lucky Strike","France, Le Mans, 48.0073498, 0.1967379","France, Saint-Nazaire, 47.2733517, -2.2138905","Germany, Frankfurt am Main, 50.110922, 8.682127","Germany, Moosburg an der Isar, 48.4667, 11.9333","Germany, Münster, 51.9625101, 7.6251879","United States, Alabama, Montgomery County, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, 32.38266, -86.35502","United States, Florida, Highlands County, Hendricks Field, 27.4566741, -81.3466577228957","United States, Georgia, Dougherty County, Albany, Turner Army Airfield","United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354","United States, Idaho, Ada County, Gowen Field, 43.557875, -116.22517983792","United States, Massachusetts, Bristol County, Camp Myles Standish, 41.9474841, -71.1417201","United States, Texas, Bexar County, Kelly Field, 29.3838847, -98.5861854258543"],"dcterms_creator":["Kyle, Glen","Murphy, Frank DeSales, 1921-2007"],"dc_date":["2004","2014"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Attack on, 1941","Civil rights","World War, 1939-1945--Aerial operations, American","World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons","B-17 Bomber","Radar","Messerschmitt Bf 109 (Fighter plane)","Atomic bomb","World War, 1939-1945--Refugees","United States. Army Air Forces. Air Force, 8th. Wing, 13th","American Red Cross","Stalag Luft III","Stalag VII A","Emory University","Germany. Luftwaffe"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Frank DeSales Murphy"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/596"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["streaming video","Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["54:04"],"dlg_subject_personal":["Gasper, August H., 1917-2007","Zhukov, Georgiĭ Konstantinovich, 1896-1974"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_600","title":"Oral history interview of Jane Cox Steele","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882","United States, Georgia, Meriwether County, Warm Springs, 32.89041, -84.68104","United States, Georgia, Muscogee County, Columbus, 32.46098, -84.98771","United States, Georgia, Putnam County, Eatonton, 33.3268, -83.3885"],"dcterms_creator":["Gantsoudes, Lillian","Steele, Jane Cox, 1920-2007"],"dc_date":["2004","2014"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","World War, 1939-1945--Georgia--Atlanta","Race relations--Georgia--Atlanta","Bell Aircraft Corporation"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Jane Cox Steele"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/600"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["streaming video","Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["31:00"],"dlg_subject_personal":["McDuffy, George","Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_594","title":"Oral history interview of John Glustrom","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["France, Cherbourg, 49.6425343, -1.6249565","France, Normandy, 49.0677708, 0.3138532","France, Reims, 49.2577886, 4.031926","Germany, Frankfurt am Main, 50.110922, 8.682127","United Kingdom, England, 52.355518, -1.17432"],"dcterms_creator":["Kyle, Glen","Glustrom, John, 1916-2008"],"dc_date":["2004","2014"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Attack on, 1941","Civil rights","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--France--Normandy","Atomic bomb","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Ardennes","Georgia Institute of Technology","Emory University","Buchenwald (Concentration camp)","Atlanta Urban League","United States. Army. Engineer Special Service Regiment, 333rd"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of John Glustrom"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/594"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["streaming video","Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["33:36"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_209","title":"Oral history interview of Lewis S. Conn","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882","United States, Kentucky, Hardin County, Fort Knox, 37.89113, -85.96363","United States, Louisiana, Rapides Parish, Camp Claiborne (historical), 31.07056, -92.54889","United States, Texas, Bell County, Killeen, Fort Hood, 31.13884585, -97.715048633985"],"dcterms_creator":["Kyle, Glen","Conn, Lewis S., 1922-2010"],"dc_date":["2004"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Lewis Conn recalls his childhood during the Depression in Georgia, as well as his service in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. His father owned a drugstore near Atlanta University, but lost it during the Great Depression and died soon after. His grandfather was given a cabin in which to live in Coweta County (Ga.) by a Mr. Todd. He recalls his education, where he faced segregation and hardship, but also found support and opportunities. He recalls how living near Atlanta University influenced his desire and motivation to get an education. He describes how his principal, Mr. Lewis, helped him get a working scholarship for college. He describes hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor and recruiters who came and took 95% of their young men to Warner Robins. He describes how German POWs could go in to the Post Exchange and the bars, yet black soldiers were barred. He recalls his response to the conditions black soldiers had to face: \"We did what we had to do.\" He also explains that some soldiers rebelled and were sent to prison. He discusses Eleanor Roosevelt's praise of blacks and how it affected their opportunities to go into combat; until that time all blacks were either cooks or in transportation. Even after they had become soldiers, they ceased to be soldiers when they went into town, yet they still felt determined to prove they could do their jobs. No blacks could become senior officers and all black units had white officers; Conn relates that some of them were good. Even aboard ship, segregation continued and he also faced severe seasickness as well as the threat of U-boats. They found a very different reception in Wales, where they did not face segregation. About six weeks after D-Day, they found themselves landing at Omaha Beach after another rough crossing, where he describes the evidence of the fighting that had happened there. He reports that his unit was scheduled to go in to liberate Paris, but was diverted away from the celebration and that many deserted. On coming home, Conn remembers that after fighting for liberty, they still faced the same discrimination. He describes how the Georgia General Assembly would pay the difference in tuition for blacks to go to an out of state college; Conn opted to go to New York to go to school and felt that going to watch the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees was a bonus. He emphasizes the importance of education and family.","Lewis S. Conn was in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.","INTERVIEWER Ok, um, just, uh if you could give me your name and where you are from. LEWIS CONN My name is Lewis S. CONN, and I was, live in Atlanta, Georgia. INTERVIEWER Um, how long have you lived in Atlanta? LEWIS CONN Off and on, approximately maybe eighty years. INTERVIEWER Um, where did you grow up? LEWIS CONN Well, I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. I stayed here until, approximate, around when I was six or seven years old which I lost my father. We, we used to own a drugstore over by the Clark and (Gownan) University Center as we call it now, which around Morehouse College. Well, during the Depression we lost everything - my father did - and then he passed, and my grandfather took over. Well during the Depression, and that you had no security on your money that you put in the bank, so we had no money to run anything. So my grandfather was born in Grantville, Georgia, Coweta County. So my grandfather said, well, look like we can't survive, that's what he told my mother, which I have a sister. Said, well what you all want to do? Say, I'm going back to the county where I was born, and I believe I can make it rather than just eat soup everyday, cause we had no food stamp. So they would bring soup and (rankle) the bell. You came out with your pots and your pans, and that's what you had around lunchtime, and that was the end of that. So that's four hour (prak and raves) in the country, Coweta County, around Grantville, Georgia. But I tell my students, which I'm still instructing, well the state of the day, that I'm a country sheep and a city slick. INTERVIEWER Uh, tell me why you say that? LEWIS CONN Because I have and give you some ideas about how maybe people live in the country, here we call it in the rural area, plus I can give you some ideas what I came back and forth to the city so I could keep up with what was going on in the city, how city people live and what they did. And therefore I have ideas about both city and the country. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me, tell me just a little bit about growing up back in those days. LEWIS CONN Back in those days naturally we were segregated. So naturally going back to the country we were still segregated, and so we had in it noth-, we had nothing. So, my grandfather knew a person he grew up with, which was a white person named Mr. Todd. So going back to the country we had nowhere to stay, but he knew Mr. Todd. So Mr. Todd said, well, Gus - that's what they called my grandfather, Gus (Ond), his name was (Guster Ond) - say, I'll let you have a little one log cabinet on one of my farms. Said I'll just let you stay there, free of rent, cause boy that's when you went to the country, if you had a farm, and you leased it out, normally they would charge you according to how many acres you had by the bale of cottons. No money was exchanged in those days. Whatever you had or whatever you produced then you gave it back to your landlord and you with the run up which you were the leasee, and that's how you stayed on the land. But my grandfather knew, cause we had no money, so he just stayed until maybe you can get yourself adjusted, as long as you want to. So it was a one log cabinet, just one big room. So with my sister, with myself, and with my grandmother, and with my grandfather, we stayed in the one room log cabinet. Now if I give my sister some privacy, I remember my grandmother had some quilts, so I remember her running a little string across to give my sister a little privacy, and that was her little room. And then I had a little place in the log cabinet, plus my grandfather and grandmother. Well we stayed approximately two years in that log cabinet in Grantville, Georgia. INTERVIEWER Um, did you go to school during that time? LEWIS CONN Yes. When I left Atlanta I was in, think the fifth or sixth grade. So when we got to Grantville, Georgia, the nearest school to us was what we called Moreland, Georgia. That's approximately three miles from where we had the little log cabinet. So we walked to school, although we had buses, but buses wasn't for the Negroes, cause we were segregated. So if you wanted to get an education, you had to walk to school. But the Moreland school only went to the fifth grade. So when we finished the Moreland school, and by that time we finished the Moreland school, my grandfather then had moved to what we call Meriweather County, which was right on the border of Coweta County. So when we moved out from Grantville, Georgia, out of that particular area, then I went to what we call the Lutherville Junior High. At that time you went to the eighth grade. And when I finished Lutherville Junior High, which was in Meriweather County, then Grantville had what we called the senior high. But for black people, Negroes, you only went to the eleventh grade. No twelfth grade. So I had three more grades that I want to accomplish. But where we were living it was five miles from where we stayed to where I had to attend the school. So for approximate three and a half to four years I walked from where we lived to Grantville High School, and the first time I attended Grantville High School it was a church. It wasn't a building. They had a church, and they called it Grantville High School cause the high school for the whites naturally you couldn't attend. But we had a bus that would run about a quarter of a mile away from where we lived, but I couldn't ride the bus, cause it was segregated. But we knew the people – my grandfather did – who drove the bus. So on some bad days it would be cold, freezing, raining, and we used to rabbit hunt together. The people who used to drive the bus used to come and use our rabbit dogs, cause we had the best rabbit dogs in the (hearing), so we rabbit hunted together. So they took a little chance and when it was real bad they said, and stop the bus, and it was muddy and raining, whatever it is, and I could stand right on the steps of the bus, and they would said, I'm looking for nobody to say nothing. And I picked up this person or whatever it was, so I got a little break there. But most of the days I walked. And I did that for three and a half, approximate, four years. Five miles there. For doing the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday that my grandfather would let me attend school. When I would leave like in the wintertime and the fall the chickens were still on the roof – people don't know about chickens used to be roostin', they didn't get up until sunup but I was on the road walking, heading to school. When school was out around three or three thirty, by the time I got back home the chicken had gone back to roost. So the only time I saw the chickens when I was going to school in the wintertime was on a Saturday to Sunday. Because other days when I left it was dark, when I got back it was dark. Now remember this, we had no electricity. No electricity. Well I attended the school in Moreland we had just lamps. We had potbelly stoves as they called them. Then sometime you had coal – you may of be lucky – but you more or less went to the woods and you got wood. And burned wood to kinda keep warm one way at cold days. For attending Grantville my last year, they finally put up a little school there, and they called it then Grantville High School. So this is when I finished, and I was only boy in the graduation class. And I do have documents to show where I think we had nine or ten students, but I was only boy, because nobody else wanted to walk. Nobody else had the desire for some reason. And then nine times out of ten they were staying what we called on Lee's farm, so they had to work. They couldn't attend school, cause if they didn't work then the landlord would run ‘em off the farm. Because that's how you stayed, you had to work, and in order to stay in the shelter they provided for you, and that was your rent, and that was the way they provided for you. Some places, rural area, they called ‘em camps, or groups where people stayed together and therefore you stayed on a person's farm, and you stayed there as long as you worked for them. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me why it was so important for you to get that education. LEWIS CONN Well for some reason a little like, by being maybe growing up around the Atlanta University Center as we call it now, I always had the desire to want go to Morehouse. Morehouse, I could see ‘em you know there, developing. So I guess by me being around an education center, it maybe dawned upon me, this is the way to go. And that's what maybe instilled in me, and why I pursue what I did regardless nobody wasn't going to turn me back. And I wasn't going to be and let no segregation or anybody keep me back. I will make my own what desire. And if I had the desire I believe I could maintain it which I was able to accomplish it. INTERVIEWER So you did end up going to Morehouse? LEWIS CONN No. INTERVIEWER No? LEWIS CONN I had the desire coming from Morehouse, around AU Center which we had Morris Brown, also Atlanta University. Now Clark College as they called it then was out from Atlanta, but now they are all in what we call a complex. Now it's Clark Atlanta University Center as we talk about it today. What all the groups was there, then I would always see people from the colleges and we had the little drug store, and so they would come in and that you'd get hotdogs and milkshakes and things like that, and that's how we made our, our living when my father here that in my grandfather passing so it would just make a desire that I wasn't gonna plough mules all my life. I wasn't gonna pick cotton all my life and that's what kept me going and I desired, and that's what gave me that desire to continue. INTERVIEWER And uh, after you graduated, uh, then what? LEWIS CONN Now, after we graduated, least after I graduated, by being the only boy, then my grandfather said, boy, what you want to do, you know we don't have no money. I say, I don't want to plough no mule. He say I go get you another one, I go get another mule. And we'll go lease, what, more land, and we'll grow more cotton and corn. He feel what we have more revenue, we'll have more money. I say, no sir, I say I don't want to do that. He say what you wanna do? So he got in touch with my principle, which was Mr. Lewis at that time. I played basketball (whither) we played, and I was a pretty good basketball player, that's the way they, they said, and I could run track. I'd developed myself running track running rabbits. Cause when I would rabbit hunt, and we only had a few shells, and they was very expensive – they cost a nickel, but a nickel now, back in those days, was like maybe five or ten dollars today. So in order to conserve my shells, then my dog would run the rabbit, once they were running them so long, rabbit get tired, he start out across the open field, I would see him come out the woods, I would outrun the rabbit and catch him. So I'd have to use my shell. And I'd just take and hit his head right on a rock, or hit his head sometime with my fist, then I had me something to eat. So that's how I got that desire. I figure I had some kind of talent. We didn't have much in high school to really offer. So my principle came and talked to my grandfather, said, well I believe he's a pretty good basketball player and I know people at Fort Valley College at that time, that maybe I can get him a working scholarship, but they didn't have the Hope Scholarship that you had then, didn't have the GI Bill, in which I was given after I got out, done, we didn't have all that. So, he say you know we still don't have anything, you don't have anything to wear. I say, well, whatever I have, I just take that. So I had one suitcase. So I had two pair of pants. I had one pair of brogan shoe. I had one pair dress shoe. I think I had two, maybe, maybe two sets of underwear. I don't remember having any toothbrush. We had no electricity. I don't remember having any toothpaste. I didn't even know what toothpaste, I didn't know what it was. I didn't know about, nothing about soap, and we made our own soap, cause we weren't able to buy soap that you sell in the store. We made what you call potash soap. That from lard off the hog, and you put potash in and you cooked it. And after you had soap from that. So what I had would fit in my suitcase. So we went on to Fort Valley, and he knew people, and they asked and they said, well, he's a pretty good student. Don't have all the facility in the school but I think he would do all right. They say, well we'll give you working scholarship, and we have two open for you. Said now one you can help and clean up the buildings once we have the classroom facilities after the class has ended and you can do what they needed. Then in those days they had what you call (nine horse). Now they served food, cause you ( ) food, as we have today. So they cooked the food for the students, served it in the dining room, breakfast, as they called it - lunch, and dinner. They say now he can work in the dining hall, but he have to get up before the sun, because at daybreak we have to feed and serve the student, and maybe he doesn't want that. I said that's what I want. They say why you want that. I say I've been getting up before sunrise ever since I've been big enough to know ( ), because I had to get up and milk the cow, I had to feed the hogs, I had to feed the mules to get them ready so we could go to work when the sun came up, and my granddaddy, boy, said boy go to work. I said that's no problem for me. Then I thought about, that's where the food is. I don't have no money. I don't have nobody sending me any money. How would I have a nickel or dime to go buy anything. But I'm in the food. I'm a have me something to eat. And I hit it just right, cause I had to worry about having anything to eat. So I went to the dining room – that's where I worked. So while I was working there my first year her name was Ms. (Frambroke) which was a dietician, she made me headwaiter. She had a headwaiter, but he graduated my first year. So I was just a freshman. I was punctual, and I was always there, you know, just doing what I need to do, stay late. She said, well you're my headwaiter, so as being headwaiter I was responsible for the whole dining room of operation, along with taking care of what we call when the president had that guest, and I was a headwaiter when the food was cooked, to go to the president's house to serve the guest. And that's what I had, and that's how I got to Fort Valley. INTERVIEWER Um, reading your, your other, the transcript from your other interview, um, it's a very interesting, uh, take on it, tell me, tell me, um, about when you and your friends heard about Pearl Harbor. LEWIS CONN Well, I remember we were in what you call old Jeanes Hall on Fort Valley State College campus. It was a wooden building. It's no longer there. It was destroyed by fire. This was where the men stayed, cause all those other two buildings were for the women. So, they don't have it like you have now, no cohabitation, no, you, co, co-habitating you was goin' on that we have today, so you had only one building Jeanes Hall. And we had potbellied stoves at three levels, and we burned coal on the three levels. So, I remember one evening, I forget when it was, that we finally got the word that we was attacked by the Japanese in Pearl Harbor. And we have thought nothing of it, you know, we just say hey, here's another, uh, country attacking the United States, and, well, everybody went along their normal way, and we didn't even take for granted that nothin' gonna happen. But we said was a long ( ) and wasn't normal before we started seeing they started recruiting you know, and started getting people and having them come and recruiting for the army. And that's when it dawned upon us maybe they're coming here next. And which finally they did. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about how you got into the military. LEWIS CONN Well, they came to Fort Valley State College. And they said, and called out all the men, and said line up. They came from Warner Robins and they brought the buses and trucks cause they say we gonna get you all and take you back, or we're gonna get some of you. So they notified us when they was coming to the campus and we all had to be ready to fall out, you know like we was in the army cause they was coming to recruit us. Cause if you didn't, then you were put in jail. So they came to Fort Valley College at that time, and we all was there lined up, and they looked at our resume for us (men) and saw you know I played basketball, ran track, so ( ) that was the first one they say, fall out, fall out, they figure, you, you goin'. You figure you were in good shape and you were an athlete, whatever it is. But they ended up taking approximately maybe ninety-five percent of the young men off the campus, and taking them to Warner Robins and all what, to recruit them and put them in the army. INTERVIEWER And, and what did you think about that? LEWIS CONN Well, at that time it didn't dawn upon me about what it was all about. I just knew I was a U.S. citizen, and I said hey, I'm a U.S. citizen and I'm gonna fight. And they want me to fight, and that's the law, what can I do about it? If I don't do it, they say jail time, so I said, let's go. And it didn't dawn upon me till a little later on ( ) the army. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me a little bit about your, um en, enlistment, um, and training experiences in a segregated army. LEWIS CONN Yes, this is where I, it started dawning upon me and maybe the other Negro soldiers. We were recruited and when we left Warner Robins then we were went to Fort Benning. And that's where they took us there to give us further examination and maybe to give us what we call a IQ test or other test in order to see maybe what unit they would like to maybe put us in. So when we got to Fort Benning, then naturally that's when it hit us, we saw a lot of other white soldiers, but here we was on Fort Benning, and we went to our little segregated place they had for all blacks. Then we found out in another part of Fort Benning, here you had all the white soldiers. But when we get, and we be goin' through in order for examination, then they had a line for the blacks, had a line for the whites. Even when you went to get your uniform, you had a line for the blacks, you had a line for the whites. And that's when it, we started talkin', say, look, what are we doing, uh, uh what is all of this about? We getting ready now, what, to risk our lives or, they're recruiting us or go fight for freedom as they say, so to speak, and here we just like outside, here we come inside, figure, this is the U.S. army. Should be controlled by the federal government. Why shouldn't it be one for all and all for one? And that's when it started dawning upon us, we got a little problem here. But we figured least we had to do what we had to do, cause I had no other recourse. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me if you would about the instance, uh, with the, uh, German POWs. LEWIS CONN That dawned upon us. We heard about it before we left Fort Benning, but you really hadn't got into a war see too much with the Germans at that time, but once they put us in the unit, which was a tank outfits, then we were sent to Fort Knox, which is in Kentucky. Fort Knox I think is still there, I think is the army unit training center as of today, last time I heard, and where all the gold is placed, that's what I heard too. We tried to really find it but we never could find where they placed all the gold. But we figure that's where all the gold was established and put in Fort Knox. But that was a training ground for tank units. But when we got to Fort Knox, then they had captured a lot of the German prisoners. And when we would go to the PXs, after training, whatever it is, for recreation, or they had the theaters on the fort. Then we saw the Germans with the outfits they had given them to distinguish them from the white soldiers. Then we started asking, who are these people? And they told ‘em these were the German prisoners. Well they could socialize with the white GIs, but they wasn't admitted to socialize with us. They could go to the PX and sit down and drink beer, do whatever you wanted to do with the white soldiers, then they could attend the theaters. Well we still had to go to our little segregated PX. We used to had to go to our little segregated movies. And that's when it started being rebellious against some of the recruits. And we had a lot of men was sent to prison. Lot of them, uh, uh, what, I think, POWs, what it, uh, POA, what, you, in other words they escaped. And they was captured, so when they brought ‘em back they put ‘em in prison. And this ways it dawned upon us in Fort Knox. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me a little bit too about, uh, the idea of, uh, putting blacks into combat units, and, and how that, how you got into a tank unit. LEWIS CONN Well, this came about, I think, and I do have documentation here, which, one of the predominant Negro papers wrote an article which Ms. Eleanor Roosevelt at that time, President Roosevelt's wife, she commended us for being recruited and maybe being segregated, and would have a willingness to maybe fight without being too rebellious at that time. So whoever interviewed her wrote the article, and he named it Eleanor Roosevelt Niggers. And I have the documentation right here to show it, where he went on to express, and she expressed, why can't we let these Negro soldiers maybe train what they should be capable of fighting in tanks outfits, shooting arms, and just like anybody else. So that's when they organized the tank battalion. And I became part of one called seven eight four, seven eighty-four tank battalion. INTERVIEWER Um, at this, when they, when they, uh, formed a tank unit, and you were, you were assigned to it, and you started training, um, did the comradery, uh, you felt with your, uh, fellow, fellow soldiers, start to, um, really make you take a, a pride in what you were doing, placed within the context of that segregated military? LEWIS CONN It gave a little more, I say, desire, because we knew what had happened with other Negroes that were recruited, and they were placed in what were called the cooking units or transportation units. I mean, things that maybe nobody else desired. You figure, they not capable of doing or participating in. So, it say, well, they are recognizing us a little bit. That maybe we are capable if you only give us a chance. So we took it in heart and say, we're gonna do it. But within that whole development of our tank outfits at that time we were still segregated, so all of the officers was white. No black person or Negro could become, in that tank outfit, a captain, a captain, a first lieutenant, a second lieutenant. Now you could become a master sergeant, I will call a technical sergeant. That was your highest ranking at that time. So the people who was over you, who could really control you was still what? White, and we were still segregated to leadership. Well we didn't let that get next to us, cause here we were put in a unit, and we were going to make the best of it, and could we show, and we were going to show, that we could fight and do ( ) as well as anybody else if we were only given a chance. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me a little bit about your opinion of the officers that were placed with you. LEWIS CONN Some as we will have in any situation were very good. They understood, and more or less it was amazing to me, and I can remember Captain, Captain, whew, Captain (Bertstrand), I can remember his name. He was from a, a capital of South ( ), I can remember that very well. So he was from the south. He, he was placed as Captain, Captain over the unit and which he was controlling, so he was, he had a desire and he was pretty gentle. But we had other lieutenants that was in our outfit, and they gave us a hard time. And we had to take it, and we was punished a lot, because what we said and maybe they heard us say, and they took it out on us because they were saying we were violating a ( ) justice. Well we had to go along with it, those who were what they did had to serve time in, in the prisons camps whatever years and they had to put on extra duties and we went along with that. But overall, the captain that we had, he was pretty reasonable, pretty reasonable. Because I figured he said if we had to fight and we had to back him up or back them up then everybody OK had to work the other, and it came out pretty good. INTERVIEWER Um, so they, so you were eventually shipped with your unit over to England, and . . . LEWIS CONN Well, from Fort Knox, then we went to what we call camp in Louisiana, and from the camp in Louisiana, Claiborne, Camp Claiborne in Louisiana, then we stayed there awhile, then we went all the way out then to Camp Hood, Texas. I think it's pretty close to where the President stay in that particular locale as I speak today, but Camp Hood I think is still there. So it was a training unit and ground for tank outfits. They land ( ) and the maneuverability that you did in order to train. And this is where we had our last training at Camp Hood, Texas. Now if we run along again, staying in those very little towns, here again we were segregated. So once they let us go to town we had to quit thinking we was American soldiers. What, we were Negroes, so you had to go what called what? Negro Town, or Blacktown. You couldn't be caught uptown going in any other establishment – you would be locked up, although you had on a soldier. I (swear), as far as they were concerned they were going to enforce the law, although you training to go fight for freedom, to make it free for everybody here to have freedom. But still, they was, they was against you, and that was really hurt us to a certain degree. Same as Camp Hood. There was ( ) weekend, sometime I used to go on, cause you had nowhere to go. Especially little towns, we stayed on the camp, did the best we could, cause nobody would, you under-, it's, it's segregated, and we violated the law. Naturally they going to get the people who let you in. They had a place for you to go round by the back wonder, if you ordered something but you couldn't go, like a restaurant, you couldn't sit out and eat just what you had on your uniform, and that was really tough. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about the first time your unit, uh well, actually just you specifically with your unit went into action. LEWIS CONN Well from Camp Hood we went all the way, and then they, went to New York. Naturally they took us across the Atlantic Ocean. Went on the Queen Mary. I haven't been on it since. Maybe somebody give me a ticket and let me ride it one day. But they convert it to having what? The troops, and putting them in as they could with the decks they had. So, they say we going across on the Queen Mary. I didn't know where, where it was, I know they getting ready to ship us overseas for combat duty. Even on the Queen Mary you were segregated. Going overseas, to fight, for freedom, and we was given no less the lower docks. I didn't ( ) that little ship, never hardly seen one in my life, so all I know, they say, whatever dock, that's where you go. And ( ) whatever it is, a hatch, whatever they had for you. So you can us imagine in the bottom of that ship the, the rocking, the rocking. And I remember it took us three weeks to go across the ocean, cause we had to zigzag, because of the U-boats, cause the German with the U-boat was destroying so much of our shipment plus a lot of transportation cause they found out we were using the ships to transport soldiers and they started targeting them with their submarines. So we hit water one day, and you come out, you had on an overcoat. Two or three days you come out on deck for a little relief. Then you could be in shorts, cause it'd be converted back down into warm water. So I was a sick, and most of us was sick the second day for three weeks on that ship, cause being on the bottom decks you couldn't hold, at least I couldn't, and most of us couldn't, no food. I remember losing approximately twenty pounds. And going across to England. And when we got across, I remember we got off the ship, they put us in little tents first. Then they shipped us all way down to South Wales. Most people never heard of, of South Wales. Most people I talk to about England, they say South Wales, where's that? I say, well that's in England. ( ) South Wales. I think they made a movie called How Green Is My Valley, cause you had a lot of coal mines. I think they might still be digging coal from those mines down in South Wales. So they, that's where we relocated and that's where we had, where we stayed and were going to do additional training until they shipped our equipment over for us to go for the invasion or right after the invasion on D-Day. So we stayed there approximate, I know, three to four months, and we got all of our equipment and train. Well when we got there they had places for us to stay - the people in South Wales which the government had leased out for us. But by being black, or Negroes, we were fascinating to them. For some reason they told them that we were from Africa, cause in England and all over Europe people didn't know they had black people which they had ( ). That's why Africa was in the predicament as we've known here lately, cause if you look at the Africa map, it's broken up into all parts of the European country who controlled them, who controlled them. So they used those people as slaves, not only in America, in all those European countries. England had a part of it. So they looked at us as being part of, coming from the apes, it's what they was taught. So when we got there and this ( ) didn't know about it cause they was taught that. And therefore you shake the hands, but when you see ‘em running around and you see the tail it will come out, and they did it, until we educated them and they became to say, what we have been taught and told, it isn't true. So we stayed there a couple of weeks and the people would come where we stayed and started inviting us to the church, inviting us to some of their affairs, and came to know us as black, Negro soldiers all the better. And so we got a lot of a relationship with the people there in South Wales, which made us feel real good, cause we was helping them, cause they was almost destroyed and they knew that. They had to have help. They had to make, it didn't make what difference what color you looked like because they almost conquered by the Germans. So here we came to their rescue, fighting for freedom. INTERVIEWER Um, just briefly tell me a little bit about some of the actions you saw. LEWIS CONN All right from South Wales I was ( ) what, equipment that we ( ) all the way to where we had the landing docks in order to go across the English Channel. Again one of the worst experiences I've ever, and I, that's why maybe I don't go back now. Water, don't show me no water, cause it's like when I see it I get sick. At that time, ( ) D-Day invasion, we were about maybe six to eight weeks behind the first two or three waves of the first groups before we land, we, we was docked to go across the English Channel. Well that time the English Channel was still really rough far as the sea is concerned, so when we hit the boats again, the second day out, we all became ill again, seasick. Lost a lot of energy and so forth and so on. So when we got, and we did land, our first experience when we got almost to the beaches, and I remember around Omaha and other beaches which we did land, D-Day was maybe about a week or two or three weeks on, but you could see the evidence of the slaughter. You could see evidence of the landing boat torn to pieces and you could see evidence of, just the beaches was just full of all kinds of debris. We didn't see any humans floating as people but we saw remnants of where they had been buried. You could see where people were slaughtered. So, when we hit the beaches, and when we regroup, then that's when we fanned out and ordered to make our desire and get and start the movement of branching out. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about the first time you actually ran into the enemy and were in combat. LEWIS CONN The first time we ran into enemy, I can't call the little towns but, maybe about three or four days after we landed and we got with the second army. That was our support, we were support for our group the second army the seven eighty-four tank battalion with the seven fifty-eight, seven sixty-first. And we were what you call the light tank outfits. And our tank that we had, we had two Cadillac motors in it, very powerful. So that's to penetrate, and they would run sixty, sixty-five miles an hour. But behind us we have what you call the backup units with the medium tanks, with the ( ) only we had the little thirty-seven millimeter. So we were what you would call what, the penetrating group. Go out and make contact with enemy. Hope you make it back. Now if you don't we know the enemy is out there and then we send out the big boys, cause we know the Tiger Tanks are there. So that's when we encountered our first enemy was we spearheaded in the gap going ahead toward Paris. Went up, went up what we call on the right flank following the English Channel. So we were very successful. We lost a lot of men. Naturally we supported the infantry group. And what was so, uh, hurt me so, really, when I saw movie that was made in which Mr. Steven Spielberg, I think it was Finding Private Ryan, I think what, I think that was the name of the movie. Finding Private Ryan. Then he made, and the infantry who fought, and had on that signal, was called the Screaming Eagles. That was the group my outfit supported. And when them Germans would drop those eight-eights and shoot those guns, they had no foxhole to jump in, they'd jump in our tanks for support and jump among them. We were all fighting together. When I saw it in the movie I didn't see anybody that looked like me, just like nobody was there but them. I say please tell them to call me. Please tell me to redo it. Please tell ‘em I got darker ( ). Please tell ‘em I do a little bit more research. We was there. Finding Private Ryan. All through those little towns supporting that group. And when they ventured off to find Private Ryan, we kept on to the right, cause that where I, uh, now we almost got to Paris. We going to liberate Paris, they had told us. But, came from high command, when they found out we was, what number, black tank outfit, we got orders, don't come right, turn left, regroup, and stay on the front line. So when we got the news, we were devastated, cause we thought we going to walk down, what, the Champs-Elysées, we thought we were going to celebrate a little bit. Here we had conquered, had lost a lot of men, had fought, but we were diverted away from the celebration. And it hurt us. We had a lot of young men in our outfit deserted. We never did see them any more. We don't know whether they got with the French people and stayed there or they killed themselves. We don't know. We just had to call up extra recruits in order to fulfill, cause we get up in the morning and call roll call and somebody be missing. We didn't have time to go find ‘em, cause you had what, orders what, to move on. And that's what, ( ) again, here we still fighting, segregated. Here we fought and maybe get a little, what, celebration. Nope, diverted. And so, what are we fighting for? I don't know what desire we had, what desire I had, but I say I got a family, I got to make it back home. INTERVIEWER Um, with, with all the stuff that you went through, not only, um, fighting the Germans but, it seems, fighting your own army as well, would you say that the experiences of black soldiers in World War Two, um, pushed forward social reform at home after the war? LEWIS CONN I think it had a great desire on maybe who maybe looked at what we had accomplished and what we went through. Maybe give ‘em a little more momentum to see, well let's fight just a little harder, because look what they have done. And I'll try to erase what we are here this discrimination and segregation, that we are one for all, all for one. Now's the time don't we are in a lot of trouble. And have a lot of desire we have show that we are citizens of the United States, we should be treated equally, we should given an equal opportunity, those who can do or not. And therefore we had the desire. And ( ) that's we had a lot of men in our outfit like I told you were recruited off predominant black, we didn't call them black universities, colleges then, we just called Negro school. Well, by us having already the desire to want an education, well we wanted an education cause we wanted to come back in the various communities what, to help our other what, brothers and sisters that was denied and was segregated. To uplift ‘em. So it was just in us to, to what, to maintain that momentum, to show that maybe somebody was here somewhere along the line. So that's what gave us the desire in order to keep going. And let's wait and see what's going to happen. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about, um, how the GI Bill helped you. LEWIS CONN In the GI Bill, I guess I'm a fortunate person, because I've told you about my little scholarship I had running track, playing basketball, working in the dining room, which they don't call as they do like the Hope Scholarship and all like that. And I worked even during the summer, summer school, that's how I made my little, extra money, to buy my little books what I need to buy, cause my people had no money, and they say, you can come home if you want to, stay down at work, which I did. But come home with my GI Bill, that gave me a little momentum. Now that time I had married and had a daughter of my own, my oldest daughter was born. So when I got back my wife was still there in school. So I decide, and that time they gave us an idea that they could get us some barracks and put on the campus, and we could use our GI Bill to further our education. Which I say well here that's what I've been waiting on. That's what I need. So that's what my desire was at that time, to get an education. Here I have something now what, to go upon, to look upon, to work upon without me being ( ) from my family, and have something if I use to the best of my ability and use wisely, then I can make it, and don't have to do what I see others doing by saying I'm segregated, I have no desire, nobody going to help me, and they give up, and they are hurting and was hurting at that, that time. INTERVIEWER Um, thousands of school kids will see this exhibit and this video. Um, what do you want to tell them about World War Two and what do you want them to remember? LEWIS CONN Well, World War Two, you can remember this. It was the United States declaring war on an enemy which they said was desirable in order they want to conquer the world as a dictatorship. It's called a different philosophy now as we have in, like, Iraq. But, this is what I would like for the young people to know. Regardless how you are treated and if you live in the country, do the best you can and do what you need to do to support your country and come back to your country in order to see what do I need to do, that I can help in order to what, work out the evils even in my own country, or uplift it in order that everybody can have what, freedom. And have representation one on one. So that was my desire, and that's what I would tell the young people, don't give up. You can make it and have your desire. You may have a little more difficulty than somebody else but look at yourself first. If you and only you keep you down only you can have a choice to go up or go down. Don't worry about what's around you, because they not going to help you too much. You've got to help yourself. If you help yourself, then other people probably will come to your rescue. But you've got to have the desire. And nothing is too hard for you to overcome if you got the objective, you got the desire, and you want to do it. And you can do it if you set your mind to it. And that's what I would like to give to them as I did my education. You like for me to expound after I left Fort Valley, on my GI Bill? INTERVIEWER I'm sorry? LEWIS CONN Would you like for me to give more explanation of how I got my other education? INTERVIEWER Um, actually, I've, I've got just a couple more questions, um . . . LEWIS CONN All right, OK. INTERVIEWER Tell me, uh . . . LEWIS CONN See what, what, I'm just asking you these questions, I hope we're not on TV. But what became very fascinating, which I think the students or somebody should know, once I left Fort Valley, a predominant black college, a Negro college, how I had to get my other education, and what I had to go through. ( ) I just got through fighting for freedom, and here I came back to Georgia and the United States was still segregated, and the education system and process. And they hit me again. Here I am on the GI Bill. They didn't have to give me anything. All they had to do, open up the door, let me in. Give me an opportunity to further my education. But I was denied, because I was still what, was a Negro. That's how I went to Atlanta University, in which I got my master's degree on administration through my GI Bill. When I finished Fort Valley College I applied Georgia Tech, University of Georgia. They looked at my resume, had to give what, my race, denied. Denied, because of my race. Here I am, born in Georgia, live in Georgia, fought from Georgia for the United States, but came back, here I had the GI Bill. Still, couldn't attend the university systems for further education. So the Georgia general center and the Georgia government said, this what we'll do. In other school you pick out that will accept you, like Atlanta University, and what we charge at Georgia Tech and University of Georgia, for our points, or whatever you want to call what you pay for how many units you want to take. Say for instance University of Georgia say was a hundred dollars a unit, and maybe Atlanta University say it was a hundred and fifty. The Georgia government general center would send a check to Atlanta University for the difference, for me attending, just as if I was attending the University of Georgia, they would pay the difference. And that's how I finished at Atlanta University. I paid just what I would've paid on the GI Bill going to Georgia Tech or University of Georgia, cause the government supplemented the university, and we were still segregated, which floored me again. Then I finished university, and I would call Atlanta University, then I had the desire to work on my doctorate degree, so I applied again. University of Georgia, Georgia Tech. Again I made application – denied. Then the general center passed a law saying that any Negroes that have a desire for further education we will pay the difference in the tuition and give you a one way round trip ticket by train, cause you couldn't ride by plane at that time, and we'll pay the difference that we did here in Georgia to the university of your desire anywhere east of the Mississippi River. Not west, east. So that made me to look out, and I picked out for some unusual reason, which my people at Atlanta University, my, people of my, instructors said, why not apply at Columbia University, Teachers College, cause they had a good administrator program there, which we did, and they filed application, and I was accepted, from Atlanta University, which I applied, they got all the coordinates together which they said. So I attended that for five summers. I said that's all right with me cause that's when they had the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees. So that gave me an opportunity during the summer, after I work and was teaching school, in order to go what, on a summer vacation like, get an education plus what, attend the ballgame, and have a vacation. So that's how I worked and got my six year certificate from Teachers College, Columbia University, which you call up on the Hudson. Wasn't too far from Harlem. And I'm very familiar with the Apollo Theater cause you just walk down on eighth avenue and you were right there at the Apollo. So that's where we'll go for recreation. But that's my educational background and more or less the people who had the desire, if they wanted to get further education, that's what they had to do. INTERVIEWER Um, just two last questions. Um, the first, um, what was the, there were of course a lot of effects on the, on the United States that came out of World War Two. What do you think was the, was the greatest, uh, effect, um, on the U.S. from World War Two? LEWIS CONN My desire from World War Two, where I look back at it and what we had to overcome, and what I was fighting for we called democracy against a dictatorship, but when we came back we had more trouble than the Germans had. For our equality, and for our rights, for all citizens. So I think that made our government take a different view of what we need to do in order to let the rest of the world know that we going to be a leader for what we said democracy, we've got to change our status here. We got to see what we can do so when we get our ( ) do we have what we can come back and say, do you see it, do you see our example, see how it works? I think it had a tremendous effect. And all during the rest of our what, development of our government, I think each time you had an administrator in, we got just a little more rights, a little more rights. Until you know 1968 in which my man ( ) the civil right act, which made everybody open their eyes. What do we need, what do we need to do to be what? And said we leaders, said this a democracy, this how it functions, this the way it should be? And I think all that alone, along with MLK, about him losing his life as he did, had a tremendous affect. And I hope we never get back in that rut again. INTERVIEWER Um, one last question. Why, um, black and white, everyone, why should future generations, um, remember yours? LEWIS CONN I think they should remember, and always, and hope, and really it starts, I say, from the family, mothers and fathers. Hope they would have the desire, because what you look like, what nationality? You should always say I'm human. And we're one. You're born, and nothing going to keep you here regardless how you look. You ( ). So they will look at that and say, why can't we live together, why can't we be one, why can't we treat one another right in our life? If they got that desire, then it starts in the home number one. Starts really in the early grades. You got to instill in these children as being one as a human. And you've got to maybe let the family, and mothers and fathers, whoever are in charge of these children, really come to let them know, this the way it's going to be. And being principle for school, I know they wouldn't want me principle now, I know a school cause, I know they wouldn't be allowed to take me cause even segregated days when I was principle, I was very adamant for what a desire in what I need for my students, regardless of who they looked like, which I was segregated, and teaching, but I got what I want from the board of education, cause I say, I deserve it. And I think that's what should be taught now. And everybody looks alike, everybody is alike, everybody should be alike, in regards how you think what you feel about people, nothing going to keep you here forever. Do let me know, please call me and I say, maybe I live to get old as Methuselah, which he said he lived, what, oh, ten thousand years old, so let me know and I come back again. INTERVIEWER All right, I think that will wrap it up. Thank you very much. LEWIS CONN All right. OK. INTERVIEWER Thank you very much sir."],"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings","Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center"],"dcterms_subject":["Segregation--Georgia--Coweta County","Segregation--United States","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","World War, 1939-1945--Participation, African American","Conn, Lewis Samuel, Sr., 1885-1927","Arnold, Augustus G., 1871-1957","Conn, Dorothy, 1920?-","Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962","Queen Mary (Steamship)","United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944","Fort Valley State University","United States. Army. Tank Battalion (Light), 784","United States. Army. Army, 2nd","Columbia University. Teachers College","United States. Army"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Lewis S. Conn"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/209"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["video recordings (physical artifacts)","Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["1:01:11"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_595","title":"Oral history interview of Marion Brody Glustrom","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, New York, Kings County, Brooklyn, 40.6501, -73.94958","United States, New York, New York County, New York, 40.7142691, -74.0059729"],"dcterms_creator":["Kyle, Glen","Glustrom, Marian Brody, 1916-2007"],"dc_date":["2004","2014"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Attack on, 1941","Civil rights","V-E Day, 1945","V-J Day, 1945","Racism--United States","Atomic bomb","Segregation--United States","Yale University","American Red Cross","American Veterans Committee"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Marion Brody Glustrom"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/595"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["streaming video","Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["29:13"],"dlg_subject_personal":["Brody, Alvin S., 1923-1945","Brody, David S., 1909-1994"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_437","title":"Oral history interview of Samuel Floyd Daniel","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Algeria, Oran, 35.69906, -0.63588","Brazil, Natal, -5.805398, -35.2080905","Canada, Nova Scotia, Halifax, 44.6486237, -63.5859487","Iceland, Reykjavík, 64.145981, -21.9422367","Trinidad and Tobago, Port of Spain, 10.66668, -61.51889","United Kingdom, England, Bristol, 51.4538022, -2.5972985","United States, Florida, Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, 26.71534, -80.05337","United States, New York, New York County, New York, Hoffman Island, 40.57898605, -74.05390232869","United States, Virginia, City of Norfolk, 36.89126, -76.26188"],"dcterms_creator":["Kyle, Glen","Daniel, Samuel Floyd, 1923-"],"dc_date":["2004"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":["Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center, 130 West Paces Ferry Rd., Atlanta, GA 30305"],"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center","Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["Merchant marine--United States","World War, 1939-1945","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Depressions--1929--Georgia","Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Attack on, 1941","Segregation--Virginia--Norfolk","Liberty Ships","V-E Day, 1945","V-J Day, 1945","Atomic bomb","World War, 1939-1945--Participation, African American","Seafarers' International Union of North America","Thaddeus Kosciuszko (Liberty ship)"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Samuel Floyd Daniel"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/437"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["video recordings (physical artifacts)","Mini-DV"],"dcterms_extent":["54:05"],"dlg_subject_personal":["Hutton, Barbara, 1912-1979"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_386","title":"Oral history interview of William M. Alexander, Jr.","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Belgium, Wallonia, Liège Province, Arrondissement de Verviers, Saint-Vith, Saint-Vith, 50.28407, 6.12728","Belgium, Wallonia, Luxembourg Province, Arrondissement de Bastogne, Bastogne, 50.00347, 5.71844","France, Maginot Line, 49.4112748, 6.0834938","France, Metz, 49.1196964, 6.1763552","Germany, Saarbrücken, 49.234362, 6.996379","Germany, Saarland, 49.4173988, 6.9805789","Moselle River, 49.0207259, 6.53803517035795","Netherlands, Rhine River, 51.97198, 5.91545","United Kingdom, England, 52.355518, -1.17432","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882","United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354","United States, Kentucky, Hardin County, Fort Knox, 37.89113, -85.96363"],"dcterms_creator":["Eberhard, Sarah","Alexander, William Murray, Jr., 1924-2009"],"dc_date":["2003-12-03"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, William Alexander describes his experiences in a U.S. Army infantry unit in Europe during World War II. He relates his experiences in training, and discusses the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). He participated in the Battle of the Bulge, was wounded and evacuated to England. He relates conditions in the encampment, travel on the Autobahn and the progress of the battle. He recounts communications with his family and his post-war life.","William Alexander was an infantryman in Europe during World War II.","BILL ALEXANDER VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW Atlanta History Center December 3, 2003 Interviewer: Sara Everhart Transcriber: Stephanie McKinnell Sara Everhart: My name is Sara Everhart, interviewing Bill Alexander on December 3, 2003, regarding his experiences in World War II. What we would like to start off with is just prior to going into the service, were you in school, were you working, you know, at what point in your life were you when things got started. Bill Alexander: I was a freshman at the University of Georgia. I spent one year there before I was drafted. My intention was to get into the armored specialized training program, which a college program for people going in the army, but to start with, you had to go through the basic training. So I was drafted and went through the basic training, which is the training that all ground forces have to go through where you learn to crawl under machine and shoot rifles and big guns and that sort. I was actually assigned to a armored basic training, I learned tank driving, tank tactics, and that sort of thing. The most significant part of my experience was later on in combat in Europe I was in the .Bbattle of the Bulge, and of course that was a real fantastic battle and quite a few hardships and that sort of thing, but I'll lead up to that, to how I got to that particular point. Since I had applied for this armored specialized which they called ASTP, there were a lot of them in my basic training unit that had applied for it and also some had applied for OCS. In our files, we were segregated; our IQ was a little bit higher than the average in order to qualify for those particular programs. So in the files, we were sort of segregated a little bit different, so when we finished basic training… SE: Where was your basic training? BA: Fort Knox, Kentucky. When we finished basic training, everyone was to be sent out as replacement as other tank outfits, but those of us who had been set up for ASTP and OCS were not sent out, but at that point, they had abolished those programs. They anticipated so many casualties in Europe that they wanted all men they could get over there, so they aborted college and that sort of thing. So everybody else in the company was sent out as replacements in nine units but they decided to create a separate tank company for us. This was, they were experimenting with a big heavy tank that the armored school had already turned down and I guess somebody with influence had an interest in it and they wanted to try again to determine that this tank was useful. So they created this separate tank company and those of us that had been designated for college training and OCS were put in that company along with some ________ from the armored school who had been training tank soldiers for years. They were a real specialist. Lot of them had been mechanics in civilian life and were very well trained. So we experimented with that tank for about six months I guess, and we came to the same conclusion that the armored school did, that it wasn't practical in combat, just too big and heavy. So they broke up this company, and by that time, course the ______ who had come from armored school already had high ratings, they were sergeants, master sergeants, that sort of thing, but those of us that had come in had gotten some promotions, too. I was a corporal at that time. And they sent us to the infantry. Now, the ones that was in our basic training unit, they sent them to a tank outfit, but they sent us to the infantry because when they see a bunch of soldiers who had ratings like we did to another outfit, that kind of fills up the rating so this new outfit could not promote some of their people. There was a lot of resentment about us coming in there. They also had people that had washed out in the air force, had been training for air force. They gave them a buck sergeant rating and sent them in there, so they were trying _____ to break us back to private so they would be able to advance these. And a lot of real experienced, high-ranking NCOs were busted to private. My first sergeant showed me an order that he was sending down to have me busted. But before that went through the inspector general got a hold of it and stopped all that. So I wound up going overseas with this infantry unit as a corporal. I hadn't had a lot of infantry training in a learned company; I had infantry training in basic training, but it's not the same thing. They tried, since I had a corporal rating, they had me work as a squad leader at times and so it was an area that I hadn't had a lot of experience so it was a sort of a stressful situation. SE: At what point did you go over, what year was that? BA: It was 1944, October '44. So we got into combat, and it's right ironic, but most of those experienced soldiers from this division that we were in were some of the early casualties, so a lot of those of us who had come into the outfit moved up in rank pretty fast because of the casualties. I became a staff sergeant very quickly and was a squad leader for a long time. Because of more casualties, I wound up being a platoon sergeant. So I had a lot of responsibility without having a lot of the training that most of these people had had. We first went into battle down into southern France around Metz and _____. In fact, we pushed into Germany for a short time there. While we were down there was when the Belgian Bulge broke out. ‘Course we didn't know what it was, we just knew that they were pulling us out of the line and sending us somewhere else. They loaded us in trucks and sent us north and we found out later, of course, that we were going up there to push the Bulge back. We were assigned to Patton's third army. We were near the end, you might say the tail end of the Bulge because we were the unit to push it back. The Bulge had broken out, and most of the damage had been done so we were in the position of pushing it back. The bad thing about that whole thing was the poor intelligence on the part of the U.S. Army. The top generals felt that the Germans didn't have the capacity to do any real damage up there so they had the lines pretty loose up there, didn't have too many troops, and the ones that they had were very green. For example, one of the divisions that was on the line was a brand new division that had just come over from the states. A lot of those were people that had been in this ASTP program and assigned into this division, and they had been, a few weeks earlier, they had been sitting in college classes, and also with new draftees. So you had soldiers that had never been in combat, of course, had had basic training and learned to use the gun but had never been really tested as far as combat even in training. They were spread out very thin along this line. Of course, the Germans were aware of that and they would just push right on through that. So when we came up to push them back, we ran into a lot of those guys that had been, had come in there and gotten in the beginning of the Bulge, and I had talked to a lot of them. Some of them said they were in the classroom just a few weeks before that happened and they got up there and just really didn't know what to do. When the worst thing about that, as far as personnel problems is concerned was the weather. They said it was the coldest winter in many years there, it was down to zero with snow on the ground. This is another problem of the army, they didn't have winter equipment for us, we just had normal shoes and uniforms that we normally wore. We were having to sleep on the ground in that heavy snow. In fact, my feet got frozen, and they weren't bad enough to be evacuated, but whenever I got them warm, for example, if we were on the march and we stopped and went into some houses, when heat hit them, they started aching so bad I had to go back outside. At night I usually had to sleep with my feet out from under the covers because as soon as they would get warm they would ache. The bad part about it was the conditions, the weather and that sort of thing. But then we continued to work and push the Germans on back. I'll give you another example. I was, by that time, I was a squad leader, and we were in a holding position at Luxembourg, and there was a lot of snow on the ground and all. We were in a situation where we were under fire from the Germans during the daytime from artillery on the side of a mountain and we had to stay down in the foxholes. At night we would get up and go over the hill to get our supper, the cooks would bring it up to us and that sort of thing, and we would get a hot meal then and they would give us a ration. We would get a hot breakfast the next morning. We had to do all of this in the dark because as soon as it got light the Germans would be ready to open up on us. So we would, they would give us a, at breakfast time they would give us a K ration to eat for lunch. Then we'd have to go back over the hill and stay in the foxhole all that day until the next night. I had a replacement assigned to my squad and he came up to me and said he'd been in that foxhole one day. He told me, he said sergeant, I'm suffering from asthma and I'm just about to die up in that foxhole. If I'm up there another day I won't be able to survive. He said, can you do anything about it. So I talked to the first sergeant about it and they were able to move him out. Later on, he was sent back behind the lines, and later on he was coming up. No, as he was going back, he ran into some guys from my outfit and he was telling them if it hadn't been for Sgt Alexander I'd be dead now. So you have a lot of situations like that. And again, some of these guys that were sent up there, replacements, had been in this ASTP program and I had one of them tell me that he was given a three-day pass to go home and then shipped overseas from this college classroom. So this was a situation that was going on more. Then there, we finally pushed the Bulge back and the, Patton's army was doing a tremendous job on that and they didn't get much credit for it. The press was talking about General Montgomery from England, giving him credit for most of this, and a lot of that is in this book I have here. So that was generally the situation, mostly the hardship, cold weather, and of course there were casualties. I remember one case, one of the toughest battles we had, we were trying to push the Germans out of a town. They were pushing us back. We were going back and forth. A couple of companies from my battalion had moved out beyond us, and they had the snow for the first time, and they had gotten hold of some sheets and improvised a white uniform. They came back in where we were and we started shooting at them because we had never seen anybody with white uniforms. They were yelling that they were Americans, and Germans were shooting at them from the rear and we were shooting at them from the front. So we had to quiz them and ask them questions about the United States to make sure they were legitimate and got them in. We had, that was about the time the Germans had sent a lot of English speaking Germans with American uniforms over. They disrupted the traffic. They would change signs, _____ signs of that nature. So we heard that there were Germans in American uniforms, so we didn't trust anybody. We had to be very careful. I remember going back and seeing where some of our people had captured some of those Germans that had American uniforms on and they had them sitting up on the hood of a Jeep, and they took the shoes from them in all this cold weather and that sort of thing, they took a lot of the uniform stuff off. That was a thing you just couldn't trust anybody, you just didn't know what the situation was. We had gone into this place that I was just talking about, where we found these people. Before, we had gone in to try to take this town, my company did, and the Germans overwhelmed us, and we lost a lot of people. We went in with a full company of about 140 people and we came out with about 28 people. The rest of them were either wounded or captured, that sort of thing. Then we tried to get orders to retreat to ______ because the Germans were still in there. But the orders came back with anybody that retreated from that would be court-martialed so we had to go back in and fight again. But they did give us a platoon of tanks to go in, and we, although those tanks were knocked out very rapidly, we finally came in and got control of the town. We stayed in that town for a while, then knocked out, knocked the Germans back and forth. SE: Do you remember the name of the town? BA: I want to say it started with an “A” but there was another town close to it, was ______. I've got it in this book. Let's see if I can find it. I can't read it, it's small print. Can you read that? I meant to bring a magnifying glass. That was one of our toughest ones. It was in this thing somewhere, I'm trying to see if I see it. SE: Is this a book that your group printed that or? BA: This is a book about the 87th Infantry Division. It was compiled professionally. SE: It looks like it's beautiful. BA: And it's divided into regiments. So there's a section on my regiment which was the 347th. See this is pictures of captured German prisoners in the snow, and you can see, you get an idea of the weather conditions from this. There's some charts of some of the battle operations. SE: What we may do towards the end is actually have you hold up, hold up some of those to the camera, because… Another person: Was that compiled by the army, the army compiled that book, didn't they? BA: Not the army officially but some group did and of course they sold it to us and we had to pay for it. On the front of it, they've got the route that we took. We landed at La Havre France and then these arrows show where we were going. The first time, our first infantry attack was in this Sarb___ area of southern France, in Metz right here. This was the first time the division was entered in combat, and here's where we crossed the German border. And then arrows turn around, that's when we were going back up to help on the Bulge, and it shows us going up to Bastoigne. You may have heard this, Bastoigne was the town where the 101st Airborne Division was surrounded and almost wiped out there. So this shows our route. After most of the fighting is over, the division, I was wounded by this time and was back in England. The division was sent right on over to Czechoslovakia. So this gives us a little bit of a history of how we were. SE: At what point were you wounded? BA: I was right on the Rhine River. After the worst of the fighting was over. In fact I would get letters from some of my buddies while I was in the hospital and they was telling about how much fun they were having on the autobahns and driving through there and all that stuff. But I was sleeping on clean sheets and so I didn't have any complaints. The first time I had been able to sleep on a nice bed and all that. SE: You want to give a little bit of information about how you were wounded, what led up to it, where you were when you were wounded and… BA: We were on the, we had pushed into the Rhine River one night, and the Germans were trying to get a lot of equipment across the line, so there was a lot of real heavy fighting going on there. But by daytime they had gotten across and there was no more fighting. So we went down to the river there where they had left a lot of their equipment and all that sort of stuff, and we were going through the trucks and all that. Some of the guys were riding motorcycles up and down the road over there, and I was gathering souvenirs when I was wounded, so after all that fighting, I was wounded by collecting souvenirs (COUNTER 289) but a sniper had gotten me from I guess across the river. I was shot in the knee. We called a leg wound a million dollar wound because that meant you'd be evacuated and you wouldn't be sent back because you couldn't fight with a bullet in your leg, so we always looked forward to a wound like that because you'd get to go into a hospital and sleep on clean sheets. I remember one time I had a guy in my squad who was a very malcontent person, just always complaining, and I went to relieve him from outpost duty one time, and he was laying on his back with his leg up in the air like this. I said what are you trying to do, he says I'm sticking my leg up so maybe a German would shoot it and I'd be evacuated. That's the kind of extreme that they would go to. SE: When you were injured, where were you taken? BA: I was taken up to a field hospital there, and they did the preliminary operation I guess. Then I was flown back to England and I was in a general hospital in England until I was able to get out. Then I was in a recuperation center for a while in England. SE: What part of England? BA: You know I don't even know where I was. We got some weekend passes and I went to some of the towns, but I can't… I remember one time I went to Stratford-on-Avon, I was close to that but I'm not familiar really with where I was. I was shot full of luck in my army service. Number one, I was forced to get out of the tank outfit because one thing I saw when I got in combat is those tanks went up in flames and a lot of people were burned and all. You could take care of yourself out on the ground a lot better than you could all cooped up in a tank. So although there was a lot of bad conditions, I'd much prefer to be on the ground in the infantry than being cooped up in that tank. So I felt I was lucky in that standpoint. Then when the, after I was wounded, and that's another thing, getting wounded in the leg which sent me back to the hospital was another stroke of luck. Then with the, when the war was over, the chances are that it would be a quite a while before I got back to the states, but I was assigned to a general hospital unit. I was in limited service. So instead of going back to infantry, I was assigned to this general hospital unit. It was scheduled to ship to the pacific. See the Pacific war was still going on. So I came, ______ the same ship I went over on, which was the Queen Elizabeth. When we docked in New York, they had announced that the Japanese were surrendering. See we were on our way to the Pacific, we was going to ____. They sent us, they sent everybody closest to home for a 30 day furlough before they were shipped to the Pacific. So I was sent to Ft. McPherson, here in Atlanta. The day that I got to Ft. Mac was the day that they celebrated the Japanese surrender. So I was able to walk up and down Peachtree Street with my girlfriend who I later married, and so we enjoyed the celebration with all of that. So that's another lucky streak. If it hadn't been for that, I would have been over in Europe for a long time before I would have gotten discharged. And of course, if it had been a little bit earlier, if the war was still going on, I'd be over fighting in the Pacific, being over there. SE: How was the communication back home? Did you have much opportunity for communication with your family? BA: Yes, that was an interesting thing. I had written a letter to both my mother and my girlfriend to tell them about how I had been wounded. My mother got the letter from me, and I was telling them how fortunate I was and how nice it was to have a nice bed to sleep in, how I was really happy about it. My letter to my mother got to her before she was notified by the war department that I had been wounded. Back then they sent telegrams, Western Union, and the only people they had to deliver telegrams were old men, and she said this old man came up to the door with a telegram and says, Lady I'm sure sorry to bring you this telegram, and she said oh that's alright, I already heard, so I was glad to get it. And he was afraid he was going to get her upset because I had been wounded which she had already heard. The communication was very good. I meant to bring a sample of it. We had what we called V-mail, which we would write the letter and they would microfilm it and reduce it and put in on film and they could ship you know thousands of letters over on one reel of film. Then they would reproduce it when it got over here. So what they would get would be a little bit, a small thing, but at least it was fast communication. I got packages, cakes and cookies, and… My mother knew that my favorite dish was, what did we have to eat today?, Brunswick stew. My memory's getting bad. She canned Brunswick stew and had it shipped to me over there. We were real fortunate for that. I remember that time when we were moving out to go up to push the Bulge back. We got our first mail from home, and I got a fruit cake from my aunt. The officers got a, two bottles of whiskey a month. They had a fifth of gin and a fifth of bourbon, and our lieutenant was a teetotaler. So he had gotten his liquor ration and he had given it to us. We were in this truck. So I passed my fruit cake around and they passed the bourbon around, so we enjoyed that going up to the Bulge. Of course TAPE 1SIDE B COUNTER 000 That was a real experience up there. One of the towns that my, well the only real sizeable town that my company got into was St. Hubert Belgium. And it was, we took this town with my, we had to struggle through snow and all that, it was really a rough situation but the Germans moved out the next day and we didn't have any problems. And so we were resting and glad to be out of combat, having a nice town to relax in, and somebody from the signal corps came in and said they wanted us to put our equipment back on. They wanted to take pictures of us taking the town. And we told them nothing doing, we weren't about to do that. But they went and talked to our company commander and so we got orders to do it, so we had to retake that town for the benefit of the cameras. We stayed in that town for about a week and it was real nice, it was the first time we had had a good place like that to stay. All of Belgium was very friendly, and we enjoyed that quite a bit. Then we had to move out and continue the war. That was, in that area, that's around St. Vith. St. Vith was completely wiped out with artillery fires back and forth from the Americans to the Germans. Then we began to move on back towards Germany and it seemed like we marched from Belgium to Luxembourg all the way to German. Then we, my unit crossed the Mozelle river which is at a point where it almost runs into the Rhine river, and that was a very sticky situation. There's pictures of that in here. There's a steep bank on both sides of that river, so we were, my unit was taking ____ to go on in, and we went, we didn't carry a lot of heavy arms because we anticipated the Germans would open up on us and we'd but out there in the water with a lot of heavy equipment so we went over very lightly in light boats. We got on the other side and without incidence the German's didn't fire on us. Then a group was coming behind us with the heavy equipment and they came in bigger boats and all that, and the Germans were waiting for them and they opened up on them, and they went down, a lot of them drowned because they were carrying heavy equipment and they couldn't maneuver. But my unit held that beach head for a while, a while until they could get more equipment across there. And then we had to fight up that hill. When we got up to the top of that hill, that was about night time, and the fighting had slowed down. We were told we would be taking it easy for a while so we took over a house, our unit did, and so we were enjoying it, they said we wouldn't pull out until the next morning. This was in Germany, and of course, we had been through France and the Germans had just looted France, and we go into a France house and everything was just looted, nothing was there. But in this German house we were staying in, we found a wine cellar down there so we were enjoying t his booze and living it up and then all of the sudden the orders came in that things had changed that we were moving out. So we moved out and fortunate that my unit, my company was in reserve, and two companies went down the hill in the middle of the fighting and we were up on top of the hill. I remember it was drizzling rain and I was under a raincoat with a buddy of mine, and you could hear the shells popping over your head as it went by. He says look up and see where they're firing from and I said I looked up and I said they're firing from everywhere, and he said well pull that raincoat back down, thinking that would protect him. So we spent the night on that hill, fortunately we didn't get hurt up there. And then the next day is when we went down the hill and that was the Rhine river and that's where I got wounded. SE: Did you have, were there friends and family members that were also in the war at that time? BA: Not any immediate family members. I had an older brother who had two children and then he didn't go in. I had a younger brother who went in the Navy, and the war was over by the time he finished boot camp. In fact, he enlisted in the Navy, he dropped out of high school to get in the Navy, because he was afraid the war was going to be over before he got in there, and it was over by the time he finished his boot camp training, and he was assigned to an aircraft carrier, and all they did was to haul troops. They had to go over and pick up the troops and bring them back. He didn't get in any fighting. I had some cousins that were in the Navy in the Pacific, I didn't know much about what they were going and all that, but I didn't have any real close family members there. SE: We talked about the communication, it sounds like the army's communication was a little bit slower than your own mail getting over there. Once you came back here and you were back in Atlanta in your way out, when were you officially discharged? Did you stay in the reserves? BA: Alright, lets see. I got back, Japanese surrender was in August and that's when we landed. When I had a 30 day furlough from that. After that furlough I was, they had to do something with us, so I was assigned to a unit in Fort Oglethorpe which is up near Chattanooga. They just had to find something for us to do until the time to be discharged. You had to accumulate points. When I first went in, was first drafted, they asked if anybody if you could type, and I could, and I passed a typing test. I had given, I was given a rating as a clerk/typist but I never used it until I was getting ready to get out. So when they assigned me to this hospital unit they saw where I had been a, I could be a clerk/typist, so I spent the time typing medical discharges until I accumulated enough points to get out. That was in November I think is when I was actually discharged. So I just killed time you might say up there until that period. SE: Then you went back to Atlanta? BA: Yeah and went back to college. SE: At Georgia? BA: Well I went to the, it was a separate school then, what's now Georgia State, its. No I mean it was not a separate school, it was part of the University of Georgia, it was called Atlanta division of University of Georgia. So I went there for a quarter and then I went over to Athens and got back into it. Course I got in with returning veterans, we were all in the same boat. We were in our army uniforms dyed and that sort of thing and we were all struggling to get along, and everybody was just, anxious to get out of school. It wasn't like your normal college group because everybody was serious and wanted to finish up and get on with their lives because they had matured, I had matured a lot then in that length of time. I probably wouldn't have finished school, college, if I hadn't finished that. Because see it was right at the end of the depression and I was having to work my way through college. Going back it was with the GI bill and the combination of the GI bill and a part time job, I was able to make it alright. SE: When you first went in, you were pursuing the military ___ programs. Did you completely change paths when you went back, in terms of your studies or what you wanted to do? BA: Oh no, I went back and continued what I had planned to do which was to get a degree in accounting. This specialized training thing I was telling you about, that was a way of getting college time while you were in service, and it just didn't work out for me, the timing was wrong on that. A lot of people got a lot of college credit while they were in service. SE: What about, are you involved with going to reunions or staying in touch with any of the people? BA: No. Our division really wasn't anybody that pulled together. That division had been a training division, they brought an old line unit like the 2nd Cavalry and something like that. So people had come and gone through that unit, even before they went overseas, it was a training unit. So you really didn't have anybody that had been in the division for a long time, so nothing was really built up on it. SE: Would you ever go back at any point, or have you ever been back since? BA: No, I would always like to have seen some of its, area that I had been to but I never got over there? SE: Hold up those pictures and try to focus in here. BA: I was reading, oh I've got a lot of clippings I've gotten over the years. This was a series that was in the Atlanta paper, its about World War II fifty years later. And I was reading something about the Bulge and they were saying that we had over 80,000 casualties there in that Bulge. It was the biggest battle that the Americans had been in since Gettysburg I think. Now these are some of the pictures, showing ____ can you focus on that? This is a picture of a couple of soldiers stopping to eat, they're on their way to St. Hugert, that was the town I was telling you about and you see how heavy the snow and all was there. We had to battle through all that to take the town of St. Hugert. Then this just shows some scenes of all the snow and all out there. That's just GI's lounging around. These are some of the battle plans that shows some of the activities of where we were fighting. SE: You actually followed that one there on the left. Was that the one you followed? BA: No, that happens to be another unit, its not mine. Let me see. That's, its another battalion, its not my battalion. These are just some pictures of GI's out there. It doesn't show much snow there but it was awful cold at that point. ?? … foxhole with the snow over the top of it. BA: Yeah I'll do that. This is where we went through the Sigfried line. That was dragon teeth. Here's another picture of the Sigfried line, that's where we first went into Germany. That's where we crossed the Mozelle river, that I was telling you about before and the tanks finally got across. Now here's some of the boats I was telling you about that we went across on. See guys had all this heavy equipment and boats were sunk and a lot of them were drowned, course they couldn't swim with all that equipment. Then after we got across, we began pulling a bridge together and you could bring the heavy equipment across on this bridge. Engineers would come up and put that bridge together? ?? Pontoon bridge? BA: Yeah. Another place where we had to battle up a hill. That's what most of this is, various pictures like this. SE: On the right there… BA: Oh that's some, that's _______ Germany and that shows what happens in a lot of those towns. The artillery had been blasting through there both with Germans shooting towards us and us shooting towards the German just about like that town there. I thought maybe that was St. Vivre. They have a picture here of St. Vivre which was just completely obliterated, let me see if I can find it. Here's a picture of eating out on the field. St. Vivre is back the other way. Yeah, here's the ruins of St. Vivre. That was a pretty good sized town. But as you can see, there's not a house standing. I remember one of the ____ I talked to had told me about going through St. Vivre, she said there's not one brick standing on top of the other, they're all completely liberated. I can't stand up too long, I got a pain in the back. SE: Were there others, I know you said these clippings were from the Atlanta Journal Constitution and that was on, when was that, did that series run? BA: That was in 1995. See that was 50 years after the war. This particular one here is about Patton and it tells a lot about the Bulge. “Patton said that since January, the 3rd Army has ____ 6,484 square miles from the enemy captured 140,000 or wounded an additional 99,000. History records no greater achievement in so limited a time. The defending Germans flee and panic in front of the armored forces of Patton and the 1st Armored commanded by Lt. Gen. Hodges. GI's were the first Americans to cross the Rhine. The two US armies streaked across the open plains of middle Germany, gobbling up massive industrial centers as they go. The retreat becomes a rout as Nazi troops cannot turn tail and run fast enough. German roads leading to Munich and Nurenberg are carved with fleeing civilians. Thousands of Nazi troops rush to the American lines to be captured.” In other words, they were wanting to be captured by Americans. “A jubilant General Eisenhower, supreme commander, said that the main German defense line has been broken and that as a military force on the rest of the front, they are a whipped army. There will be no negotiated unconditional surrender but an imposed unconditional surrender.” I was trying to pick out something there. “In the American press, General Marshall complained there was overdose of Montgomery [talking about British General Montgomery, they gave him a lot more credit than they did the Americans]. So on March 23, Ike telephoned and directed that I owed a press conference to emphasize American achievement. Both General Hodges and General Patton had crossed the Rhine before Montgomery's grandiose operation plan to go as scheduled the following day. Montgomery's massive assault across the Rhine is launched at 1:00 AM March the 24th among the more than 250,000 troops at his command are the British and Canadians.” The press had given Montgomery a lot more credit for crossing the line, and he wasn't the first one to cross. The Americans were already across. “Patton's ___ seized the German city of Frankfurt on March 26th, and cut the Stuttgart-Hanover highway. The 1st armored drives into Lindberg and clears it quickly.” That's what that's generally about. Then there's a story here about a bridge leading across the Rhine that the German's were desperately trying to blow up and it wouldn't blow up. They set a lot of charges on it, and it never did fall. And so the American's were able to use that bridge to cross, that's the way they were able to get across. That's real interesting to go back and read this but it… SE: Those were some very good stories. Did you have any other ___ or things… BA: I don't think so. These is divided by regiment. I'm going to show you a picture of my company if I can find it. A right interesting thing, I was home on that 30 day furlough I was telling you about, and I wasn't in my original unit, I was in this, I had been assigned this general hospital unit. But my unit had been sent back to the states, and they were stationed down at Ft. Benning. I happened to run into some of them down at a nightclub in Atlanta and take some of them right from my company. So they was telling me about being down at Ft. Benning and invited me to come down there. So I went down there the next day and I just happened to be there when they took a picture of the company, and I was no longer a member of that company, I got my picture taken with them, that's me right there. SE: [Inaudible] BA: That's what the whole company looks like. SE: I'd like to reference the book itself on this tape, I know. I don't know if there's a…. It's called the, what's the title? [COUNTER 298] BA: See it says here this book is respectfully dedicated to the officers and men of the 87th Infantry Division who gave their lives so that we may live. I thought maybe it would say who produced it, but it doesn't. SE: What about the ____. Just going to see if you have anything else in particular you'd like to add? Go ahead and just wrap things up. Have you thought about that you forgot to say earlier? Another person: I remember a story that he used to tell about at the Bulge where he used to have to sleep in the foxhole with the shelter half over the top and a snow on top. The snow actually insulated the… BA: When we moved up to the Bulge, we got into the first snow, me and a buddy built a real good foxhole, and we had built a fire, it was real cold, during the daytime, and we'd built a fire down in there. As it came on close to night, course we had to put the fire out, and it was warm ashes there. And we'd put a shelter half over those ashes and we'd lace the top of the foxhole with logs. Generally we did that in case an artillery shell came in and exploded in the air, it wouldn't rain shrapnel down on us. So, that made a top for this and I put a shelter half down on that to kind of seal it in. So we were down in that hole with the warm ashes and it snowed and completely covered all of that over with snow. I was called out about 2 o'clock in the morning to go on guard duty and I had to come out of that nice warm hole in that cold. I always said that was the nicest foxhole I ever built. I couldn't stay there very long. And then the next day we had to move out, had to keep pushing that Bulge back. Oh we saw lots and lots of German equipment as we pushed them back, trucks and tanks that had been bombed and all that. And horses. See the German's didn't have much gasoline so they used horses to pull a lot of their guns and all that sort of stuff. And we'd see dead horses laying around and all that. And we would occasionally see dead Germans. The Americans always tried to keep the dead Americans cleaned up because they didn't want us to see dead Americans. And they have a unit called graves registration group that go around and pick up the dead American soldiers as fast as they come. I remember one time, I had to run into a place where they were accumulating the dead American soldiers, and there must have been fifty of them that were just stacked up there. And the usually keep that hidden from the soldiers but I had to run in there. That's a sickening feeling to see your own men lined up like that. We got used to seeing dead Germans and didn't think much about it. If you've got a couple of minutes I can give you… SE: Yeah, actually we do. BA: I had one time, when I had been evacuated for a short time because I had a cold and my temperature was over 100. I came back up to the lines and I was snuggling down and we were in the Magino Line and there were places to sleep and all that. I had bedded down there and somebody came in looking for me. And they said somebody said Sgt. Alexander's back and they said yeah, he's around here somewhere. And I just snuggled down, I didn't want them to pull me out because I'd been out of combat for about a week and I wasn't ready to go back. He said the lieutenant wants him to take a patrol out. So he found me and they dug me out and I had to take a patrol out that night and drive us to go up in the German lines and contact a unit on our right which was not part of our division, it was another division, so we made the contact. They had had breakfast in the dark and they had pancakes. We always tried to get our cooks to cook pancakes and they said they couldn't keep them. So we had these what they call marmite cans, big thing about that big, and they were laying around. And it had gotten daylight and they didn't tell us that the German mortars were up on the hill up there. So we got out there and were helping ourselves to pancakes when all of the sudden the mortars broke out. I remember one looked like a mortar went right into those pans and scattered pancakes everywhere. And we had to run and get out of there. In fact, I saw one guy was running right beside him [tape inaudible]. I could tell he was dead before he hit the ground, but we enjoyed those pancakes. SE: Well anything else you want to add? [inaudible] COUNTER 414"],"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings","Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Ardennes, Battle of the, 1944-1945","V-J Day, 1945--Georgia--Atlanta","World War, 1939-1945--Medical care--Europe, Western","Alexander, Sarah Anna Huffaker, 1925-2002","Patton, George S. (George Smith), 1885-1945","United States. Army. Infantry Division, 87th","United States. Army. Infantry Regiment, 347th. Company L","Queen Elizabeth (ship)","United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of William M. Alexander, Jr."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/386"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["video recordings (physical artifacts)","mini-dv"],"dcterms_extent":["1:01:10"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_233","title":"Oral history interview of George W. Kennedy","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Guam, 13.47861, 144.81834","Japan, Okinawa, 26.53806, 127.96778","Japan, Volcano Islands, Iwo Jima","United States, California, 37.25022, -119.75126","United States, District of Columbia, Washington, Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling Heliport, 38.84289, -77.01553","United States, Florida, Duval County, Jacksonville, 30.33218, -81.65565","United States, Florida, Escambia County, Pensacola, 30.42131, -87.21691","United States, Florida, Pinellas County, Saint Petersburg, 27.77086, -82.67927","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383"],"dcterms_creator":["Lowance, Lynn","Kennedy, George Wallace, 1921-2005"],"dc_date":["2003-11-19"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, George Kennedy describes his career as a Marine Corps pilot in the Pacific during World War II. He already knew how to fly before the outbreak of the war; he describes his training and then instructing during the following year. He describes his war-time marriage and trip to California as well as his voyage to the Pacific as a passenger on an aircraft carrier. He describes the living conditions there as well as experiences throughout the islands. He recalls having to censor enlisted men's letters home. He describes visiting occupied Japan and his separation from the Marines. He recounts hearing about the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt and how he felt about Truman. He remained in the reserves for seven years. He describes his post-war education and careers, and how he felt about his military service.","George Kennedy was a Navy pilot in the Pacific during World War II.","GEORGE KENNEDY VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW Atlanta History Center November 19, 2003 Interviewer: Lynn Lowance Transcriber: Frances Westbrook Note: Two transcribers tried this one and found tape inaudible. We have done a re-recording on microcassette to try to get better sound. There are still many gaps. Present with the interviewer and Mr. Kennedy were Mr. Kennedy's son, George Kennedy, Jr., and another interviewer, Stephen Goldfarb. *** INT: Today is Wednesday, November 19, 2003, and this is the beginning of an interview with Mr. George Kennedy at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. My name is Lynn Lowance and I will be the interviewer. Mr. Kennedy, could you tell us a little bit about your early years? SON: I think you also want to say, also present is . . . . INT: Thank you. Also present is his son, George Kennedy, Jr. Thank you. GK: Uh, I was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1921, one of five children, I was the middle one. And, uh, we lived in Avondale, I graduated from Robert E. Lee High School, uh, then I went to Georgia Military College in Milledgeville where I had family connections. My mother's folks were from there, and then I went to the University of Florida for a year. From there, uh, [?] in the meantime, and I got accepted as a Navy flight cadet, and was sent first to, uh, do you want to get into the military part? [yes] OK. I was first sent to Athens to pre-flight school. They didn't have any planes for us to fly right away so they sent us over to these pre-flight schools to quote get us in shape and learn something about the Navy and ground school work, like navigation, and weather predicting, et cetera. I was there three or four months. It was very strenuous for me because I had half a day in classrooms and a half a day athletics. And not being an athlete, I always [?] a spectator sport, I was on the reserve squad and it wasn't all that much fun for me. But, however, I did know how to swim, having been raised in Florida and some of the big football players that were there couldn't, some of them almost drowned. Anyway, from there I went to Anacostia which is a naval training field, basic training at, uh, outside of Washington. There we learned how to fly Stillmans and you go back to something that was important in my case, because I already knew how to fly this before I got in the Navy. Uh, Franklin Roosevelt in anticipation of us getting in the war at some point, and realizing we were behind the Nazi powers, and so forth, decided to stir up some interest in flying since he and many others felt that was where the future, most of it was going to be fought in the air. Anyway, he started, and offered to college students what they called Civilian Pilot Training Program, and I was given flight lessons at Georgia Military College to learn how to fly their single engine, bi-planes. So I did at least know how to fly. We were, going back to Anacostia. I, uh, was the first to, I may have been the last to go out of pre-flight school, but I was the first to fly in my class, ‘cause I had had some previous flight training. From there I was lucky to go to Pensacola, which is the cradle of aviation, and steeped in military and naval history. And there got in the second round of training, and then decided I wanted to be a multiple engine pilot rather than a fighter pilot. Not being, I guess, an aggressive type for foreign duty, having anybody shoot at me. I chose twin engines and got in, was taken and trained in PBI, which is a patrol plane, sea plane. And after graduation, pure luck had it, knew some instructors and I was on the list so I got assigned for a year's instruction in PBI sea planes. Is that enough or do you want me to keep on? INT: That's fine. GK: Well, I'll be out, the war'll be over soon. [laughter] I'll have to say in the meantime I did get married, a girl I had met in Athens. She was from St. Petersburg, and I probably would not have had I not gotten this training and being in the states for a while. I doubt frankly she would have had me, and it probably would not have been advisable to get married and go overseas right away, which a lot of guys had to do. One issue is my wife, being social minded, planned a big wedding in St. Petersburg, and sent out invitations, et cetera, and I asked to come down. And when I applied for my leave for the weekend or a week I was called into the executive officer's office, and he said, “Well, you just got your wings a few months ago, and you already had your vacation. We're not going to let you go anywhere.” And I said, “Well, it's going to be bad news, ‘cause my girl's not going to like that.” Which they didn't. And, my mother-in-law was supposed to have said, “You tell that commander or whatever he is up there that I said that he's got to be in St. Petersburg the night of the wedding.” And he consented, and said, “Maybe it would be good for public relations,” which it was, a big thing, and all that jazz. INT: Were you in Pensacola the entire time that you were in the service? GK: No. Uh . . . INT: What years were you in Pensacola? GK: Well, I guess it took me a year total to get my wings. I was in training down there probably three or four months, because I had pre-flight and then basic training. And then there, the next assignment I was stationed in Pensacola a year. INT: Do you remember what year that was? GK: I went overseas in '44 or '45. No, I don't remember dates, I'm not very good at that. INT: Where did you go when you went overseas? GK: We went first to, uh, California and my wife insisted on seeing me off, quote, and we borrowed enough gas rationing from both families to drive out there on re-retreaded tires. We thought we'd never get there. But, uh, but we did. And she had to come back on a plane, and they were put off three times to make room for servicemen. You weren't supposed to be flying in those days. Another little item, when we went out there, we could not stay, nor could she stay, just before I left, for more than two nights in any tourist, quote, kind of motel. And that was the limit anybody could stay in any public hotel because they had everybody and their brother coming to California to see ‘em off, which we did, which she did. Anyway, we loaded on a Navy carrier as a passenger, and went to Guam, which is where I was stationed, which was my main base for the year I was overseas. INT: Tell me a little about your experience on Guam. GK: Well, I, we, primarily were to transport, for the Marines, personnel, equipment, and supplies, to the Pacific islands. The war was winding down and we were not all that busy but we were standing by, had a thing going with the Navy NATS, called Naval Air Transport. They were much bigger than we were, the Marine transport, so they got most of the jobs, but I flew, I guess, onto every island in the Pacific. It was very interesting, the different ones, and some of them fell soon after they were taken. I went to Iwo Jima just a few weeks after it was secured, and ran into a buddy from high school, and he was a captain in the infantry Marines, and he wanted to know if I wanted to go up in the mountains. There were a few Japs set up there, and we can get them. And I said, “I decline the invitation.” Well, another, one other time I went to Okinawa and they were still fighting on the end of the island. And that was the one time I did sleep in a trench because prior to that one of our planes, air transport planes, was there and spent the night, and the fellas that slept on the plane, the pilot and the crew, it just happened that the Japs had captured one of our transport planes, and came into the air field and succeeded in attacking whatever aircraft were on the ground. So, they wouldn't let us sleep in the planes, they didn't want that to happen again. INT: When you were flying your transport missions, did you have one crew that always flew together? GK: No, the crews were interchangeable, as the pilots were. INT: Who do you remember from those missions, flying with you? GK: Well, of course, I would remember a movie star, Tyrone Power had gotten his wings. And by the way, he did it the hard way, not like somebody like Robert Taylor who was well known and got his wings easily. Tyrone Power went through basic training at Parris Island and was well liked. He was not in my squadron but I ran into him several times. And, uh, he got to go into China when the war was over, some of the planes were going over there, and he got to go cause of who he was, but he was, he was well liked. [coughs] Excuse me. INT: Do you have any particular individual memories of missions that you flew? GK: There is one of the important ones, I went to Peleliu Islands, which is, not well known at the time [coughs] Excuse me. Let's call a halt. INT: OK. We'll get started again. SON: [?] GK: I'm not ready yet. SON: . . . get into some bad weather, and Dad had to take the controls from the first, . . . GK: First pilot. SON: Yeah. GK: Yeah. That's one I'll never forget. We had been home, had arrived after flying back, I believe it's three thousand miles, and we had to fly from, I forget, San Diego or El Centro , or one of the fields, in the airplane. And we, uh, got into a storm _____ front, which is when two fronts run together, and really bad weather. And, uh, we were in between these two high mountains near the short of California, and the storm got worse and our lights went out and, uh, we all of a sudden discovered we were lost. We had, had not been on instruments, or at least we couldn't determine where we were, and in that short of distance we could have run into one of the mountains real quick. So, uh, it was scary for a while, I'm sure it wasn't more than a few minutes, but it seemed like an hour. I remember one of the crew saying—I told them if they wanted to, they could jump, we were in a pretty bad spot, and one of ‘em said, “No, no, lieutenant, we'll stay with y'all, with you.” And fortunately we did see, I did see a break. For a while there in flying a twin engine and both of us were wrestling with it. But anyway I saw a bright spot in the sky below me and we went down and landed at Baker's Field, I'll never forget that. So, a little scary toward the, toward the end. INT: What was the morale like among all the men? GK: Great. The war was in some sense, as people would call it, a good war if there is such a thing because simply we were all in, everybody was in it, there wasn't any, uh, attempt to make it a half-war like some of the others have been since. As a result everybody was involved, including the civilians, and very, morale was very high in spirit and camaraderie and whatever you call it, very high. And it was a real privilege and an honor to serve. And the uniform was highly respected and officers got special treatment and I was lucky in that sense. And, uh, it was an experience I'll never forget because number one, I was young and adventuresome, and life was before you and you had great dreams and expectations. And you were, everybody was friendly, and everybody was respectful of each other, and took time to be friendly, and it was, it was a great experience. INT: Did you have much contact with the people who lived on Guam, the natives? GK: A few, a few times we went to one of those religious ceremonies, I think, I forget where it was, but, the main one I guess was the guy that cut our hair [laughs], and, uh, I forget what we called ‘em. But anyway Guam and people in the islands, most of the islanders spoke English and they were more educated than the others because the Navy for years had been in there, and a lot of them had served as cooks and so forth for the Navy. So it was, it was more civilized than most of the other islands. The other islands, one place called Ulithi, which has not received a lot of publicity, but it was a, a natural base for the Navy operations and closer to the front. And so Halsey kept his fleet and then we'd move ‘em in, in and out, but use the same airplanes. And the Japs thought we had more, a bigger force than we did, because of that reason. The only strip, landing strip there was very, another reason I remember it, because it was very short, I don't remember the figures, but I remember we, we, we took off, we gave it all, all we had with the brakes, and then let loose, and hope we got, got there before we got to the end of the, the end of the little strip. INT: What were your quarters like? GK: Well, they were called Follies. The squadron there before had them. And some French had them. There was a, well it had a dark wood floor and sides up about waist high, and then a tent. And, when we took over we were told by the guys that went home that the plumbing, which was a sink, was going to cost us three hundred and fifty dollars, which we thought was ridiculous but we were glad to pay it. To have in-house plumbing. Of course, we had an out, that wasn't true of all our needs, we had an out-house which was, which we called ______. INT: How many people did . . .? GK: ….. We had the officers'____, I mean the officers' mess, which _____, liquor was rationed, we got about a fifth a month as I remember. And it's interesting that the Seabees were contractors, so they got wind of this ration coming in before we did. They were down trying to buy it from us less than fifty dollars a bottle. And they wouldn't sell it for much less. They'd sell us, wanted to sell us Japanese cigars, some of the officers, but you could probably make Jeep springs with it [laughter]. But we had powdered eggs and the food was pretty good but the Navy, of course, I wasn't in the ground Marines and I don't want to take away from them. They're a little different breed of cats. INT: How did people entertain themselves when you were . . . GK: Well, time was the biggest _____ and ____ parts of it was ______ [inaudible portion] especially when you didn't have anything to do. I read a lot, when I could get my hands on ‘em. And, uh, had movies every night, some of them they'd seen two or three times. But, it seemed like . . . INT: How many people were there? GK: . . . some of them played cards all night [?], gambling. In my squadron? INT: Um-hmm. GK: I guess a couple of hundred. INT: And how did you stay in touch with your family? GK: Just with writing. I wrote my wife practically every night, and my father every month, every couple of weeks. And we had V-mail and we, it was supposed to be censored, and so we were in there and they, we were, one of our jobs we detested, we had to censor the enlisted men's mail. And, and it was kind of pitiful to hear some of their tales [?]. And, uh, they would get, they would thank ‘em for sending some letters and things with perfume in ‘em. INT: What were your instructions on censoring the mail? GK: Well, just scratch out anything that might give information, maybe where we were, where the mail's coming from. We were there _____, I didn't read half of ‘em. By the time I got there, I thought it was pretty ridiculous. I suppose had I been in the front lines it would have been important to talk about it, to write about it, but where I was, I didn't think it was that important. We did have, another experience was a monsoon hurricane typhoon. We happened to be in Iwo Jima. This was when I was going from Guam. I didn't fly from Guam to Japan. We went up there after the war was over. We had no idea, no one did, how we were going to be treated. And MacArthur did a good job of arranging for us to go there peacefully because of our mission with the atomic bomb later. But I went from Guam to Japan on a liberty ship, some of us went up with some of the equipment instead of flying. And this liberty ship was in the little harbor there in Iwo Jima, and a typhoon came up, and of course you don't want any ships near land when a typhoon could blow you into the shore. So, we, uh, but two ships there took to sea, and I've never since in weather experienced the waves that we went, and all the dishes and everything . . . we went, some of the old time seamen, veteran Marines, on this ship, said they'd never had anything like it. And then they get off two or three ships with a lot of mail aboard which got a lot of bad publicity. Speaking of that, those who think that we should never have dropped the atomic bomb, I, for one, am glad we did. The Japanese were not about to give up as people say, just look at the, look at the kamikazes at Okinawa at the end. And they were blind when it came to loyalty and they would have fought and it would have cost the Americans, some estimates are above a hundred thousand people, soldiers, to take those islands. And I'm glad we used it, and I, we were prepared to help in the invasion of, I understand the plans were made, and my own personal view I'm glad we did it. It could have been an awful massacre if we had taken those islands. They were right there, [they] were not going to give any time soon as some people guessed. INT: Were you over there when they dropped the bomb? GK: Yes, we didn't know anymore about it than anybody else, except that it was a massive thing, and that something would come from it, something big. I remember Roosevelt's death was like that, of course, we knew that right away. He was, he was the president all my grown life, and it was, he was quite, well, he was worshipped by most Americans at the time. There were some who hated him, but he was very popular. INT: Were the folks in the military, were you concerned when he died? GK: Yes, we were. Well, I suppose it's hard to, to replace a commanding president, the only one you knew in my case. And, Harry Truman was unheard of except he had headed up the investigation into war profiteering and done a good job. But the contrast of his background and his manner and his speeches was quite a blow. But we soon learned and subsequently learned that he made a good president anyway. And I liked him from the beginning after, after the blow [?] came. INT: Did you get any leave while you were overseas? GK: No, I wasn't considered, and also I was not in combat. Had I been in combat I'm sure I probably would have. Although I think some of them did not. ______ The thing lasted longer than anybody expected, and there were a lot more casualties and deaths than people expected. There was a lot of casualties as any war has, and _____ how bad it is. And I don't mean to glamorize it or glorify it in any way. But it seems like to me since the beginning of time they've, they've had ‘em, and there are times when you have, you have to use force. INT: What do you think was the most dangerous thing that you were involved with? GK: That I was involved with? Not really, I was lucky again. I guess training was, we lost some guys in training. And, in my case, I was lucky. INT: How did you lose some in training? GK: Just accidents, flying accidents on the ____. It's _____ great duty there. The Navy had very fine facilities and the officers' club, drinks at the bar about fifty cents, and you flew half the day and played golf the other half. [laughter] It was good duty. INT: Do you remember the day that your service ended, overseas? GK: Overseas? INT: Um-hmm. GK: No, I wasn't overseas, we flew the planes, some of the planes back, and I wish I'd loaded up with some things. I did get two rifle, what do you call it, what did they give you? SON: M-1 carbines. GK: Carbines. I, I was afraid when I got back to the states and got home that the planes would be inspected for any contraband or whatever. But we, I saw, I saw a Quonset hut that was full of nothing but carbines, just thousands of ‘em. There were probably just laying around like the airplanes were. INT: When you returned to the states, what happened then? GK: Uh…. SON: You went to Japan first. GK: Well, yeah, uh, yeah……when it was over and they found out that they weren't going to shoot us, they sent our squadron up just in case and I was there a couple of weeks, and went ashore, it was a liberty ship, and went ashore as much as I could. It was very interesting, we knew very little about Japan and there was one book on ship that we all read. And it's a very mountainous country. And food was very scarce, flat land wouldn't grow anything. And they had no meat. And went to one of the big resorts there at the base of Mount Fujiyama. And, pretty country, but I still don't, I still don't trust them. INT: How were you treated by the Japanese when you were there? GK: Very nice, and bowing, and, that's what I say, you can't, but you couldn't, you couldn't trust ‘em. Since just in recent months the, some of the atrocities that they pulled on some of the pilots, there's a new book out, it's called Fly Boys and it goes into the, the ones that were captured, the men that were captured. President Bush, he was lucky, he was picked up by a submarine, but the rest of ‘em, were sent to one of those islands and beheaded and tortured. . . I have not read it all yet. INT: Did you leave the service when you returned to the states or were you still in the service? GK: Well, I got out, couldn't wait, I was not the type. It takes a certain type of man to be a career military, you know, your life is not your own and there's a big class distinction [or system?] which there has to be. And there's no room for discussion, like business where you have a voice if you have anything to say. It's a different world. At any rate, I got out. I think I was in the reserves for several years. And was afraid of being called up for Korea but I wasn't, fortunately. INT: What did you do after you left the service? GK: I went back to school and got my, was very fortunate, with the GI Bill. And they, they funded millions of us education. INT: Where did you go? GK: University of Florida. Did not graduate. I went to work instead. INT: What kind of work have you done in your life? GK: Mostly real estate, done a little bit of everything, appraising primarily. I was in the Appraisal Institute. And, uh, was with Adams Cates doing five years of leasing. Then I was with a public real estate company and managed some thousand apartments. And that was my management. Then I went with the bank for fifteen years, to SunTrust, Trust Company of Georgia, now SunTrust, head of the trust real estate division in the Trust Department. INT: How did you end up in Atlanta? GK: When I first got out I went to work for my father-in-law, who was in the real estate appraisal business. He appraised for tax purposes, and we got a big job in Atlanta, and I came up here and liked it, and wanted to stay. INT: . . . wife's name? GK: Mam? INT: Your wife's name? GK: Louise Hunnicutt [sp?] was my wife, first wife. INT: OK. GK: And then I have, she died of cancer a year, at age fifty . . . SON: Fifty-two. GK: Fifty-eight. SON: [unclear] GK: And I had one marriage that didn't work in between and now I'm happily married to a local girl. INT: Do you have any children other than George, Junior? GK: I have a daughter. She was, she was fifty-eight. SON: Courtney, Courtney was forty-eight. GK: Forty-eight. SON: And mother was fifty-two. GK: OK. SON: Courtney never even made it to . . . GK: She had cancer, too, and died. INT: Oh, I'm so sorry. GK: She never married. George, Junior, has two grown sons, doing real well. INT: When you were in the reserves, was that here in Atlanta? GK: In the military reserves? No, they did carry me in the reserves for a few years after World War II. And I was never called up, and the issue [?] was just dropped. I did not participate . . . some of the guys stayed in the reserves. And I was traveling at the time and I didn't want to spend weekends sitting in an airfield. INT: Have you maintained any friendships or connections with those you served with in the military? GK: There were a few that I thought we would be, as you do when you're, you're closely, . . . close. We thought we'd all see each other, but we haven't. I have heard from one of my roommates who stayed in the reserves, and he ended up a major, and we've corresponded a couple of times, but that was about it. Your interests change and your life changes after something like that, and I . . . I haven't seen, I don't guess any of ‘em. We like to talk about it, though, at the drop of a hat, we'll, we'll talk about it. Cause it makes us feel young again. [laughter] INT: Did you join any of the veterans' organizations? GK: Not really, no. INT: And, so you haven't attended any reunions, or . . . GK: No. INT: Anything else you'd like to add? GK: I think I've touched on . . . Thank you. SG: Mr. Kennedy, . . . just to return briefly, tell us a little bit about the planes that you actually flew, and how big the crews were, and that kind of information. You know, just some of the technical aspects of flying. GK: I'm not technically minded but I'll give you that from a pilot's standpoint. We, the first plane I flew was—am I on the camera still? SG: Yes, sir. GK: [laugh] First plane was a civilian pilot program at Georgia Military College, and that was a, what we called a Rotor Chief [?], it looked like a Taylor Craft [?], which everybody was familiar with. Uh, you'd take eight hours, then you soloed, and then you, we took a dove [?] hop from Milledgeville to Savannah and back, big deal. Mostly followed the railroad, or the highways. Then . . . SG: This was a single, just one person in this . . . GK: Two. SG: One was the instructor? GK: Yeah. Then basic training was ___'s famous all-Army ____ , baby, and the pilots trained in Stillmans. And bi-wing, acrobatics, and it was a great trainer, and everybody, all military flyers have great memories of the Stillmans. We called it, they were called the Yellow Peril, they were all painted yellow. That was to be easy recognized because we were students in ‘em. [laughter] . . . . [inaudible] GK: Flying by instruments, . . . that's another reason you always had a co-pilot . . . Then that was the second one. And I got . . . SON: You went up in one of those rec – a couple of years ago. GK: Yeah, my instrument training, the late trainer in Pensacola where I was a cadet, they put you there and you're supposed to fly from New York to Atlanta, Pensacola, New York or something. It was a trainer. Then they put the wind on you and change it and so forth. And, uh, I got out as chief who was the manipulator for the thing. ________ Another time I was taking some refresher on instruments before I went overseas I was in California for a couple of months. And when you fly the plane they'd put a cloth over your side so you can't see where you are, how to do any dead reckoning, which is looking at the ground, or horizon. And here, I was supposed to fly somewhere. Anyway, so then, _____ where we are, and I was an officer then, and he says, “We've been over Mexico for at least an hour and a half.” So, that's why I always wanted a co-pilot. Also, navigation's not easy for Navy pilots, most of ‘em, the single aircraft, do their own navigation. So that was ______ and then ____ PBI [PB-Patrol Bomber] because that was my, I sat in for half a day every day for a year, and it became part of me and I, it was, as it took off, they flew and landed, it was not much speed but it served a good purpose. And, we practiced landings, all afternoon or all morning. [unclear question] GK: Training, bomber, I don't know, anyway, first they did some bombing of submarines during the war, most of it was scouting. I went and sighted the Japs in Midway and also one of us British found the Bismarck. But, mostly observation, you could go out for half a day if you had enough gasoline. LL: Was there one plane that was yours? GK: No. LL: So you just rotated, whichever plane was available. GK: ____ and everyday ____ SG: With a different group… GK: We had a different crew. I suppose, overseas, well, we didn't, maybe they did with small squadrons and, and, we didn't. I think fighter pilots were, probably had the same crew when they came back, and looked after. Same thing with a carrier. But for ours I don't think so. LL: What do you remember of your commanders, the people that were over you when you were overseas? GK: Well, with one or two exceptions, they were quite vigorous, they'd weed out the weak. And you don't find many high ranking officers of any ______ you had to go through the program. There were some “90-day wonders” that we'd call them _____ fliers, had some flight training, ____ but very few. Most of them were high class and qualified. It's true in most businesses. You know, you don't find any presidents of corporations ______ SG: After the PBI you flew what? GK: Well, the DC-3, cargo. I flew a R5D with Curtis Commander. Those two were the transport planes. SG: How big was the crew? GK: Crew, three or four. _______, the radio man, and the two _____. You had a navigator. SG: Were the planes easy to fly? GK: Yes. Easy to fly, you say? SG: Yes, sir. I mean, _____ GK: Oh, yes. ________ some of the, somebody ___ you've got to go home, if you have so many children, or, we joked about how we made all these medics in the hospitals, made them into mechanics, so didn't have much faith in what they were doing, they weren't qualified. All the qualified ones went home LL: Did you do any flying once you returned to the states? GK: No, it was expensive, and it took time, and I was never that crazy about it, I mean I enjoyed it. It's not cheap. And ___ so much, you forget. And rather than take chances on the weather, it's serious, it's sort of a serious business to fly, like this young Kennedy. He had no business in a fairly unfamiliar airplane, fast, hot airplane, and no real time in it, and then he went into, took off in bad weather, and he didn't know anything about instruments. _____ because, you just, what do you call it? LL: Turned upside down? GK: Yeah, don't know where you are. SG: Disoriented? GK: What? SG: Disoriented? GK: No, there's another word for it. Well, anyway, you have to believe your instruments. And if you don't, you get in trouble. LL: It sounds like you got good training, though. GK: We did. I mean, all, I, the Navy gave you good training. I can't speak for the Army. I'm sure they did. That was one thing that the high ranked people sending people over to combat, they lost a lot of people, ground forces, and I don't know about flying then, but there wasn't much to it. But there were some training people in the battle, and I think it was, proved to be a wise move. LL: When you were overseas, other than letters from family, how did you learn about what was going on? GK: Well, mostly radio and the Yankee Magazine, the Army magazine was available, they had ____ and I've given y'all, by the way, Time Magazine and Newsweek, a reduced copy, a victory issue of Time Magazine. LL: How often were the magazines published? GK: That was scarce, everybody was scarce, I didn't see but half of one magazine the whole time I was over there. We _____ wished the war was over so we could go home, like all soldiers. LL: If you were going to summarize your war experiences in a few sentences, what would you say today? GK: My war experiences. For the most part, it was an exciting time, and people were interesting to know, and it was a good experience for me. I'm sure it matured, helped me through the wild age and got me down to earth. My experiences, I was fortunate not to have been a combat soldier and it was very pleasant for the most part, very exciting however. LL: Anything else you'd like to add? GK: No, I think we've covered it all. Wasn't much to it. It was my pleasure. LL: Well, we really appreciate your coming in and sharing, and your son being here with you. GK: Thank you. LL: Thanks so much, Mr. Kennedy. GK: Thank you."],"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings","Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Stearman airplanes","Catalina (Seaplane)","Kennedy, Louise Hunnicutt, 1922?-1978","Kennedy, Jacqueline Thiesen","Power, Tyrone, 1914-1958","Taylor, Robert, 1911-1969","Georgia Military College","Civilian Pilot Training Program (U.S.)","United States. Naval Air Transport Service","United States. Navy. Seabees","University of Florida"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of George W. Kennedy"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/233"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["video recordings (physical artifacts)","mini-dv"],"dcterms_extent":["48:19"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_319","title":"Oral history interview of Wallace Baldwin, Jr.","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, California, San Francisco County, Presidio of San Francisco, 37.79704, -122.46713","United States, District of Columbia, Washington, 38.89511, -77.03637","United States, Florida, Hawthorne, 28.7613803, -81.8709132","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Georgia, DeKalb County, Camp Gordon, 33.795644, -84.22788","United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354","United States, Maryland, Anne Arundel County, Fort Meade, 39.10815, -76.74323","United States, Mississippi, Forrest County, Hattiesburg, 31.32712, -89.29034"],"dcterms_creator":["Goldfarb, Stephen","Baldwin, Wallace, Jr., 1930-"],"dc_date":["2003-11-19"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Wallace Baldwin describes his life in the United States Army during the Korean War. He was a member of the Army Reserves while it was still being integrated. In his later years, he also worked for the Army's CID and the Post Office during the Civil Rights Era.","Wallace Baldwin was in the United States Army during the Korean War.","WALLACE BALDWIN, JR. WWII Oral Histories November 19, 2003 Atlanta History Center Transcriber: Joyce Dumas [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: It is November nineteenth, two thousand three, approximately ten thirty in the morning. We're in the Atlanta History Center and today we are interviewing Mr. Wallace Baldwin. Mr. Baldwin, if you will identify yourself for the record and tell us a little bit about where you were born and that sort of thing we can get our interview started. Baldwin: My name is Wallace Baldwin, Junior. I was born Hawthorne, Florida. I'm the only child. My mother had a large family so I wasn't really lonesome in the process. There were thirteen [inaudible]. In fact, I'm older than most of her brothers and sisters. Go back to third generation of the family. From there, just the normal schools. Mother was a teacher, so after the second grade… Interviewer: Why don't you tell us the names of your parents? Baldwin: Wallace and Elmo [phonetic] M. Morris Senior. And I basically grew up in and around Hawthorne. The fact that my mother was a teacher at that time, they allowed persons to [inaudible] high school, so I had travel around when she was finishing her education. So I was told at one point to go to the same school early in the morning. She went in the afternoon. Interviewer: Where was this? Baldwin: This was in Palatka, Florida, which is within the same general geographic area of Florida. And that's the town…the only class I had. My mother teaching [inaudible] that would be the last one. Cause I was always the example. Interviewer: Tell us about high school. Baldwin: All right. After grade school I went to a private missionary school known as Pheasant [phonetic] Academy. It was outside of…north of Ocala, Florida, in [inaudible] Springs. [inaudible sentence] since high school there. Interviewer: [inaudible] military service Baldwin: No. I was seventeen years old when I came to Atlanta during the summer after high school. Interviewer: This is just after World War Two. Baldwin: Right. In high school…right after high school I had a scholarship to Florida A\u0026M in track, but my pastor decided that that may not be the place for me. Given the fact that I know a lot of people [inaudible]. Pick out what to study. Anyhow, I came to Morehouse [inaudible]. I was a freshman in Morehouse first year. After that I sort of worked around jobs. The second year I was in school at the [inaudible] Institute. [inaudible] work so I sort of dropped out and went back home. Worked during the summer and came back to college again and by the time I got settled down and you know, to use the expression get your head screwed on right, I was drafted in the military. Interviewer: What year was that? Baldwin: That was nineteen fifty-one. Interviewer: Nineteen fifty-one. Baldwin: Yeah. Interviewer: So uh…then you…where did you…where were you inducted? Baldwin: Well, I was in…actually I had to go back to Florida, but they transferred my papers here somehow. I left Atlanta. Went to Fort Gordon, well, it wasn't Fort Gordon. It's Camp Gordon. I attempted to get in there. I wanted to go in the medical field. So at the time, I'd been reading about the situation in Korea and when I to Fort Gordon, they didn't need a psychiatric social worker, that's what I was thinking about majoring in, you know. And that's part of [inaudible] Morehouse with the school's social work that they had at that particular time. So I wound up in…I guess it came from some of my high school experience [inaudible] that kind of stuff and [inaudible]. I went into the field of radio repairmen and after basic training, of course. Interviewer: How tough was basic training? Baldwin: It was pretty tough cause it was a known fact at the time the way the war was going, that everyone would basically wind up [inaudible] basically what was happening. You had only one place to go once you finished basic training and in some instance you didn't even get a trade, you know, a specialty. You got it over there. I was one of the lucky ones. Cause most of the persons that started off with me, most of them took some sort of trade, maybe they were in different areas and so most of them went to Korea and unfortunately, most of them were killed. [inaudible] but the statistics of that war in comparison…short war but a lot of people were hurt. Interviewer: Let me ask you something. You took training. Where did you take the training? Baldwin: At Camp Gordon. Interviewer: [inaudible] Camp Gordon. How long did that last? Baldwin: It was about eighteen weeks with a night and day kind of thing. Getting ready to go [inaudible] They put night and day in the classroom. [inaudible] go out in the morning. You rest a little, then go back at night because they were really trying to push the signal corps [inaudible] try to establish a communications unit [inaudible] so forth. Spent a lot of time on studying terrain and difficulty, you know, they had over there fighting some of [inaudible]. I just [inaudible] experience of the…of the persons who were in active Army, 187th Airborne. Most of them jumped and they were killed in [inaudible] Europe. And we were getting, you know, all this [inaudible] difficult it would be. And given we did not have the normal infantry training became a factor [inaudible] communications. [inaudible] sort of…one thing you had to almost know as much as [inaudible] to know how to succeed in life, so. During that period of time, I sort of changed course. I said, “Well, God knows I had high school.” [inaudible] that kind of stuff, you know [inaudible] kind of stuff. They call it cryptography. So I volunteered for cryptography so that sort of caused [inaudible] going with the group that I came in with. Then by the time that they did the background and checked all the way back to you are four years old. [laughs] I mean they really went back and some people thought I was in trouble because when they went to get information background, checking on [inaudible] top secret clearance to be in that area… Interviewer: You did have top secret… Baldwin: Yes. [inaudible] so. What happened, the cryptographer kind of got bored, you know, waiting [inaudible] so I went to electronic background which I got there. I went to Fort Mead, Maryland, [inaudible]. That was the ordnance there. I took a short course there and ultimately I would up getting [inaudible] what they call an ordnance fire control technician. Interviewer: [inaudible] Baldwin: [inaudible] fire control technician wasn't necessarily what it means in terms of fire. There they had artillery weapons and guns that they used which would basically fire planes and knock them out of the air. We were technicians that would support their mission. So there we went through the radar sets and things that was gonna be used. They [inaudible] in the top [inaudible] see where they stand, you know, [inaudible], you know, things of that nature. In the meantime, we were…basically what happens…[inaudible] something happened to the equipment we would be responsible for keeping them on the air because in Washington you couldn't be out there…they don't [inaudible]. The [inaudible] was probably about four hours and then you had to really report that there was a weakness in the setup. Interviewer: About how long were you in Maryland? Baldwin: In Maryland? I guess I was there maybe four months or more. I don't know exactly. Interviewer: Did you have a rigorous training? Baldwin: Rigorous training. At that point, decided to send me to Japan. Interviewer: What time frame, 1952 yet? Baldwin: No, early part…[inaudible] fifty-two. We're still in nineteen fifty-two. So they decided at the last moment to send me to the signal school. That's what Camp Gordon [inaudible], in [inaudible], Japan. So I took a fast ride over. Interviewer: How'd you get there? Baldwin: Plane. Fast ride over and a fast ride back. All of a sudden started to set up the…[inaudible] Monday morning [inaudible] teach classes in radio…field radio repair, basic things in radio, AC and DC and the kind of things that they would need to know. All of a sudden I was flying back to the United States. I couldn't really figure out why. So I'm back landing in San Francisco. And I was actually assigned to an artillery group. And what happened, they had made a decision that the training I had in Maryland and the fact that the artillery, which was out of Texas, they weren't gonna necessarily use that equipment in Korea because of the…I guess because of the terrain, for one thing, and the kinds of Army equipment wasn't good at the time. It wouldn't be feasible to use it there. And the war was still going on. And I guess the decision being made whether they used [inaudible] whether they used Napalm. Subsequently they did in order to burn the enemy out of their mountains and . . . . What happened was, someone realized that the defense of the United States was similar to what's going on now with all the troops over there and then what about the defense over here. And so basically, it [inaudible] was to get in America. They sent those of us who had the training in addition to some who hadn't trained [inaudible] these artillery, part infantry groups. So I was assigned to San Francisco at the Presidio and others were assigned in Miami, New York and Seattle and other areas where possible enemy come in [sic]. And the artillery people were on the sites away from…well, in San Francisco they were away from the Presidio where we all basically, except in the hospital. They were called twin mountains, we call twin peaks, going north of San Francisco, south San Mateo. They had [inaudible] around there because while I was in Maryland they did have, I guess, the pre-runner of the jets. And they had guns on them. The kind of guns that the artillery, you would sit on. You know, actually they would sit on some of the faster planes get there…got under your radar, then [inaudible] cause [inaudible] and shooting. Interviewer: Were you trained on those guns? Baldwin: No, they showed all, you know, [inaudible] radar and some of the equipment from our [inaudible] and that's what equipment [inaudible]. Interviewer: [inaudible] Baldwin: [inaudible] in the van was watching it and we did have some tragic situation that happened by guys not sitting on, not buckled in [inaudible]. But the one point is which was the larger weapon, so we had the vans on the site. And with the artillery person, they had limited training so when something really happened on the range, we had to get out like TSOP, you know, irregardless of where he was in San Francisco, might be in the dinner or whatever the case might be. The MPs immediately come pick you up and escort you to the site and that's the way it was most of the time. It's the rare instance during the that time and yeah, I used to get paid, back then you get paid to line up. We were the only ones that really got paid by check because of the…no one really ever knew what we were doing cause it was civilian clothes most of the time. We did…I guess there's a plus to it to some extent in that we didn't have to worry about inspections and all that kind. We had to stay in the area, but basically we were either in the vans or if something had gone wrong and one of the sites in and around San Francisco, they'd get in parks and some instances, some of us were chosen to [inaudible] where they were building [inaudible] repairing and the shop by the way is right under the Golden Gate Bridge. In order not to delay us stay off the air [inaudible] had to get parts [inaudible] go back and get them off the assembly line. That's how critical it was at the time. So [inaudible] we would call critical [inaudible] subject to the extension. So I was able to stay right there in San Francisco until I was officially discharged to the [inaudible] stay over because of my MOS until somebody came and replaced me. Interviewer: How long did that take? Baldwin: It took almost sixty days. Interviewer: [inaudible] sixty days? Baldwin: Right. Interviewer: And they'd bring you up someone. Baldwin: Yeah. And they recruited…it wasn't a factor…I guess if I had taken the job at the time. I discussed with my parents taking the job at the time. Had to do it more or less as a civilian, doing almost the same thing [inaudible] so forth. [inaudible] come back and, you know, continue to teach and things like this. I'd gotten to know the town, San Francisco and the Bay area, and I was supposed to take some courses there. [inaudible] I took some courses at the University of San Francisco. That's where I first met Johnny Mathis. Few people know that. He was a track star [inaudible] courses in San Francisco from the University of California from Berkley. They had the bridge in between. Couldn't get over there like you can now. Things have changed considerably. And getting back to the [inaudible] Interviewer: Let me ask this question. Truman integrated the armed forces, I think, in forty… Baldwin: Forty…somewhere between forty-five and forty-eight. Interviewer: What was it like? It still must have had some bumps. Baldwin: Well, it had some bumps, not during the period that the war was going on. But I was surprised when I got back from my obligation. Probably ten years [inaudible] cause they really didn't know what was gonna happen at that time. So you always are on the alert to be called any moment at any time. Interviewer: Did you have to tell them when you… Baldwin: So when I came back, I said…I asked…I called to talk with the local reserve [inaudible] and I asked them what can I do to get my filed papers, so to speak. Can you get them before the ten years up and so what happened was, in this particular instance [inaudible] and explained how to do that. So [inaudible] the only that we have for you is a truck driver or a cook. Interviewer: Despite all of your… Baldwin: Despite the background and stuff of that nature. And [inaudible] may or may not be a paid slot, that's another thing. For at that time… Interviewer: This has been in the reserves. Baldwin: This was in Atlanta in the reserves. Interviewer: This was the reserves that was not integrated. Baldwin: Not at…[inaudible] not in Atlanta. Maybe in some places. [inaudible] was not in [inaudible]. So I didn't take too much exception to it other than object [inaudible] completed in time wouldn't [inaudible] needs to be. Of course, although I was proud, you know, I'd come to the realization after [inaudible] when I was in the Army that I was glad to serve the country and enjoyed the experience and if I had to do it, you know, [inaudible] I would. [inaudible] so I went through the process and got assigned, not as a truck driver but something pretty close to it in maintenance, maintenance of vehicles since they really didn't have maintenance of the electronic kind, so that's still lower than what I'm doing [inaudible] what they call second echelon maintenance. So basically, I was changing oil in vehicles and doing just normal things that would maintain the vehicles [inaudible] mechanical [inaudible]. The group here was headed by [inaudible] it was all segregated in terms of units in the reserve [inaudible]. [inaudible] pretty distinguished in Atlanta and associated with the Methodist Church. Of course at the time, he was commanding officer of that particular unit and another unit which was basically quartermaster and it was all segregated too. So I guess it's [inaudible]…fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six. I guess at that point in time they split up the units that were all segregated. Split it up and we all went different directions. Interviewer: So they integrated in fifty-six? Baldwin: I would say the segregated unit. They were [inaudible] split up. I guess between…I would say between fifty-five and….fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six. Cause some were still standing after that. So we split up and three of us, I know…two of us were sent to the…around the Atlanta school [inaudible]. Interviewer: Now say that again. Where was the school? Baldwin: After [inaudible] Atlanta U.S. [inaudible] school. He was in the East Point at the time [sic]. They had a facility in East Point over there off of Payne Street, near now where the Center for National Archives is located. [inaudible sentence] I was assigned to the staff and they had very few enlisted classes at the time for rank and file persons. Interviewer: What was your rank at this point? Baldwin: Rank at that point…I was still corporal. There wasn't any…still a corporal. Interviewer: And you had all these skills that you… Baldwin: Right. Interviewer: That were not being used. Baldwin: Both college and…not being used. So when I was in the school staff, they eventually had classes where we [inaudible] needed the skills for the particular [inaudible]… Interviewer: M-O-S? Baldwin: That's Military Occupation Specialist, at that time. So, I went in to…[inaudible] as an assistant instructor. And I guess the first class was in…[inaudible] being an assistant instructor, cause they still carrying on cooks, classes and things like that [sic]. So, [inaudible] assistant instructor, made sure of the logistics and ordered materials and things that they needed from the various points where got materials from. Eventually, along with the other guy, one or two of us got assigned to the schools. And Mr. Rucker and me [inaudible] a few years cause he was also in the unit with me. Interviewer: His full name was… Baldwin: Walter Rucker. He was one of the…some people you know have a knack for rules and regulations and things of that…it just comes natural to him and organizes and so forth. So he got to be on the administrative side and I was on the instructor side. So eventually after a few years, I wound up [inaudible] instructor training which was at Fort McPherson. That's where it was located at the time. [inaudible] instructor. Interviewer: What year? Baldwin: I guess about nineteen fifty…between fifty and fifty-nine, if I recall. And then I became an instructor in the school with the OS classes, but during the summer camps, either twenty-one days or in some instances a month of active duty, the school's primary mission was to train officers for officer school…Army Reserve officers. And in the summer I became an assistant instructor to an officer. The officers start off at lieutenants and they go all the way up in the…they have the training all the way up to the…some of them even wind up going to war college and… Interviewer: What was the office that you were assigned to? Baldwin: There wasn't any specific about [inaudible]. Depends whatever stage that they had classes in. They had command general staff school when…about the fourth series. So it may be assigned to an officer at command [inaudible] as an assistant instructor. May not be doing any actual instruction, but making sure that all the thousands of pieces of materials that they get from Fort Leavenworth was actually in place and then explain to them how to use it as they were…as instructors, you know, basically going through the materials. Interviewer: [inaudible] Baldwin: [inaudible] Interviewer: You were instructing [inaudible] African-Americans and whites? Baldwin: And whites. No, it was all mixed."],"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings","Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center"],"dcterms_subject":["Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American","Draft--United States","African American soldiers--Civil rights","Mathis, Johnny","Sutton, Roswell, 1920-2009","Manning, Archie (Elisha Archibald), 1949-","Powell, Colin L.","Bell, Griffin B., 1918-2009","Rucker, Walter","Young, Whitney M.","United States. Army","United States. Army. Reserve","Morehouse College (Atlanta, Ga.)","University of San Francisco","United States. Post Office Department","Florida State University","United States. Army Criminal Investigation Command","Atlanta Housing Authority","Atlanta Regional Commission","United States. Army Reserve School (East Point, Ga.), 568th FCO","United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944","Integration in the military"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Wallace Baldwin, Jr."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/319"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["video recordings (physical artifacts)","mini-dv"],"dcterms_extent":["57:23"],"dlg_subject_personal":["Jackson, Maynard, 1938-2003"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_719","title":"Oral history interview of Samuel Floyd Daniel","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Brazil, Natal, -5.805398, -35.2080905","Canada, Nova Scotia, Halifax, 44.6486237, -63.5859487","Iceland, Reykjavík, 64.145981, -21.9422367","Strait of Gibraltar, 35.95, -5.6","United Kingdom, England, London, 51.50853, -0.12574","United Kingdom, England, Plymouth, 50.3712659, -4.1425658","United States, New York, New York County, New York, Hoffman Island, 40.57898605, -74.05390232869","Vietnam, Cam Ranh Bay, 11.893334, 109.170167"],"dcterms_creator":["Bruckner, William Joseph, 1944-","Daniel, Samuel Floyd, 1923-"],"dc_date":["2003-11-05"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":["Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center, 130 West Paces Ferry Rd., Atlanta, GA 30305"],"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center","Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","World War, 1939-1945--Participation, African American","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Africa, North","Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American","Vietnam War, 1961-1975--African Americans","Merchant marine--United States","V-2 rocket","Race relations","Liberty Ships","National Maritime Union of America","Alcoa Rambler (Merchant ship)","Thaddeus Kosciuszko (Liberty ship)"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Samuel Floyd Daniel"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/719"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["Mini-DV"],"dcterms_extent":["1:01:02"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null}],"pages":{"current_page":5,"next_page":6,"prev_page":4,"total_pages":7,"limit_value":12,"offset_value":48,"total_count":79,"first_page?":false,"last_page?":false},"facets":[{"name":"type_facet","items":[{"value":"MovingImage","hits":78},{"value":"Sound","hits":1}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":16,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"creator_facet","items":[{"value":"Kyle, Glen","hits":9},{"value":"VerHoef, Sue Hardy","hits":9},{"value":"Gantsoudes, Lillian","hits":5},{"value":"Brown, Myers; Johnson, Ahnekii","hits":4},{"value":"Bruckner, William Joseph","hits":4},{"value":"Bruckner, William Joseph, 1944-","hits":4},{"value":"Lacy, Margaret","hits":4},{"value":"Palmer, Janet","hits":4},{"value":"Tate, Candy","hits":4},{"value":"Taylor, David","hits":4},{"value":"Eberhard, Sarah","hits":3}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"subject_facet","items":[{"value":"World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","hits":52},{"value":"United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944","hits":15},{"value":"World War, 1939-1945--Participation, African American","hits":15},{"value":"Race discrimination--United States","hits":11},{"value":"Segregation--United States","hits":11},{"value":"Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American","hits":11},{"value":"Atomic bomb","hits":9},{"value":"American Red Cross","hits":7},{"value":"Race relations","hits":7},{"value":"Vietnam War, 1961-1975--African Americans","hits":7},{"value":"World War, 1939-1945","hits":7}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"subject_personal_facet","items":[{"value":"Davis, Benjamin O., Jr., 1912-2002","hits":4},{"value":"Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945","hits":4},{"value":"Carter, Jimmy, 1924-","hits":2},{"value":"James, Daniel, 1920-1978","hits":2},{"value":"King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968","hits":2},{"value":"Powell, Colin L.","hits":2},{"value":"Ackland, Ezra H., 1927-1993","hits":1},{"value":"Aikens, Anthony","hits":1},{"value":"Alakulppi, Vesa J., 1941-","hits":1},{"value":"Allen, Ivan, III, 1938-1992","hits":1},{"value":"Altman, Sidney J., 1917-1998","hits":1}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"name_authoritative_sms","items":[{"value":"Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945","hits":4},{"value":"Carter, Jimmy, 1924-","hits":2},{"value":"James, Daniel, 1920-1978","hits":2},{"value":"King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968","hits":2},{"value":"Alakulppi, Vesa J., 1941-","hits":1},{"value":"Allen, Ivan, III, 1938-1992","hits":1},{"value":"Arrington, Marvin S.","hits":1},{"value":"Blackwell, Randolph T., 1927-1981","hits":1},{"value":"Bush, George, 1924-2018","hits":1},{"value":"Carmichael, Stokely, 1941-1998","hits":1},{"value":"Howard, Pierre","hits":1}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"event_title_sms","items":[{"value":"Georgia Tech Integration","hits":7},{"value":"Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Nobel Prize","hits":2},{"value":"University of Georgia Integration","hits":2}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"location_facet","items":[{"value":"United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","hits":46},{"value":"United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","hits":42},{"value":"United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882","hits":15},{"value":"United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354","hits":11},{"value":"United States, California, City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco, 37.77493, -122.41942","hits":8},{"value":"Guam, 13.47861, 144.81834","hits":7},{"value":"United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798","hits":7},{"value":"United States, South Carolina, Richland County, Fort Jackson, 34.04757, -80.83335","hits":6},{"value":"Korea, 37.663998, 127.978458","hits":5},{"value":"United States, Kentucky, Hardin County, Fort Knox, 37.89113, -85.96363","hits":5},{"value":"United States, Virginia, City of Norfolk, 36.89126, -76.26188","hits":5}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"us_states_facet","items":[{"value":"Georgia","hits":65},{"value":"","hits":42},{"value":"California","hits":27},{"value":"Texas","hits":22},{"value":"Florida","hits":21},{"value":"Virginia","hits":18},{"value":"New York","hits":12},{"value":"South Carolina","hits":12},{"value":"Hawaii","hits":11},{"value":"Alabama","hits":10},{"value":"North Carolina","hits":9}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"year_facet","items":[{"value":"2004","hits":30},{"value":"2003","hits":16},{"value":"2014","hits":7},{"value":"2016","hits":7},{"value":"2017","hits":6},{"value":"1999","hits":4},{"value":"2015","hits":4},{"value":"2002","hits":2},{"value":"2005","hits":2},{"value":"2018","hits":2},{"value":"1939","hits":1},{"value":"1940","hits":1},{"value":"1941","hits":1},{"value":"1942","hits":1},{"value":"1943","hits":1},{"value":"1944","hits":1},{"value":"1945","hits":1},{"value":"1946","hits":1},{"value":"1947","hits":1},{"value":"1948","hits":1},{"value":"1949","hits":1},{"value":"1950","hits":1},{"value":"1951","hits":1},{"value":"1952","hits":1},{"value":"1953","hits":1},{"value":"1954","hits":1},{"value":"1955","hits":1},{"value":"1956","hits":1},{"value":"1957","hits":1},{"value":"1958","hits":1},{"value":"1959","hits":1},{"value":"1960","hits":1},{"value":"1961","hits":1},{"value":"1962","hits":1},{"value":"1963","hits":1},{"value":"1964","hits":1},{"value":"1965","hits":1},{"value":"1966","hits":1},{"value":"1967","hits":1},{"value":"1968","hits":1},{"value":"1969","hits":1},{"value":"1970","hits":1},{"value":"1971","hits":1},{"value":"1972","hits":1},{"value":"1973","hits":1},{"value":"1974","hits":1},{"value":"1975","hits":1},{"value":"1976","hits":1},{"value":"1977","hits":1},{"value":"1978","hits":1},{"value":"1979","hits":1},{"value":"1980","hits":1},{"value":"1981","hits":1},{"value":"1982","hits":1},{"value":"1983","hits":1},{"value":"1984","hits":1},{"value":"1985","hits":1},{"value":"1986","hits":1},{"value":"1987","hits":1},{"value":"1988","hits":1},{"value":"1989","hits":1},{"value":"1990","hits":1},{"value":"1991","hits":1},{"value":"2007","hits":1},{"value":"2011","hits":1},{"value":"2013","hits":1},{"value":"2020","hits":1},{"value":"2021","hits":1}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":100,"offset":0,"prefix":null},"min":"1939","max":"2021","count":138,"missing":0},{"name":"medium_facet","items":[{"value":"video recordings (physical artifacts)","hits":57},{"value":"mini-dv","hits":40},{"value":"streaming video","hits":15},{"value":"Betacam-SP","hits":8},{"value":"oral histories (literary works)","hits":4},{"value":"hi-8","hits":3},{"value":"Mini-DV","hits":2},{"value":"VHS (TM)","hits":1},{"value":"audio recordings","hits":1}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"rights_facet","items":[{"value":"http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/","hits":79}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"collection_titles_sms","items":[{"value":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","hits":79}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"provenance_facet","items":[{"value":"Atlanta History Center","hits":79}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":11,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"class_name","items":[{"value":"Item","hits":79}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":100,"offset":0,"prefix":null}},{"name":"educator_resource_b","items":[{"value":"false","hits":79}],"options":{"sort":"count","limit":100,"offset":0,"prefix":null}}]}}