{"response":{"docs":[{"id":"geh_vhpohr_174","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, Kadena Air Base, 26.3555999, 127.7675","Micronesia, Yap, 7.556, 146.12854124","Papua New Guinea, Manus Province, Admiralty Islands, -2.2235542, 147.0182858","Philippines, 13.40882, 122.56155","Philippines, Mindoro, 12.8692137, 121.134575750245","United States, Arkansas, Faulkner County, Conway, 35.0887, -92.4421","United States, California, Contra Costa County, Camp Stoneman, 38.00742, -121.92107","United States, Colorado, Denver County, Lowry Air Force Base (historical), 39.72306, -104.89194","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Hawaii, Maui, 20.8029568, -156.310683316022","United States, Missouri, Dunklin County, Clarkton, 36.45173, -89.96704","United States, Missouri, Dunklin County, Malden Army Air Field (historical), 36.60056, -89.99111","United States, Missouri, Saint Louis County, Jefferson Barracks, 38.50283, -90.28039","United States, Texas, Smith County, Camp Fannin, 32.42367925, -95.2112318132556"],"dcterms_creator":["Gantsoudes, Lillian","Gifford, Buell Wallace, 1924-2006"],"dc_date":["2003-10-22"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Buell Gifford recalls his service in the U.S. Army in the Pacific during World War II. At the outbreak of war, he had been working on a degree in agriculture. His father owned land in Missouri that the government took to build an airfield; his uncle had to help his father with the tractor payments before the government paid for the land. He was drafted, but deferred a few months because his father was ill, and was eventually called up in spite of it. In Hawaii, he completed six weeks of jungle training in preparation for invasions in the Pacific. He recalls the hardships of battle, including a lack of provisions. At one point, they were reduced to eating raw field corn. He also describes war atrocities on both sides. He remembers their entertainment and receiving packages from home. He describes segregation in the Army and recalls an incident while returning home in which a black sergeant was robbed by two policemen. He describes his work and pastimes after the war and shares his feelings about the United States Marine Corps.","Buell Gifford was an infantryman in the Pacific during World War II.","BUELL GIFFORD VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW Atlanta History Center October 22, 2003 Interviewer: Lillian Gantsoudes Transcriber: Stephanie McKinnell Lillian Gantsoudes: This is a veteran's oral history interview on October 22, 2003. My name is Lillian Gantsoudes. I will be doing the interview. Our veteran today is Buell Wallace Gifford, and his daughter is also with us today, Sandra Gifford. Mr. Gifford, thank you very much for being with us. To start off the interview, if you would give us your full name and date and place of birth. Buell Gifford: Buell Wallace Gifford. And I was born in Conrad, Arkansas, June 19, 1924. LG: Was your family from Arkansas? What was that like, was that where you grew up? BG: No, I left when I was about three years old. I moved to Missouri, my dad and mother were school teachers. And my dad farmed then, on a farm. LG: And so what was it like growing up on a farm? BG: It was hard work, but I liked to farm. LG: Did you have any siblings? BG: Yeah. LG: Brothers or sisters? BG: I had a sister. LG: A sister, what's her name? BG: Rhonda Gifford. LG: Tell me your parents' names. BG: Jessie Gifford and Andy Gifford. LG: Is there anything significant growing up on the farm, going to school, any stories that you'd like to tell us about that? BG: No, not really. My sister was a real smart person, and she's unique because I can prove it because I have her report card. She graduated from grade school and high school and college as valedictorian of her class and made all straight A's. She was in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities, and I can truthfully say that she is as intelligent and wise as anybody I've ever known. And I can say that, and my daughter can tell you the same thing. LG: Well, tell me something about you going to school, what kind of grades did you get? BG: I did make three grades the first year I went to school. LG: When did you graduate from high school? BG: I graduated when I was 16 years old. LG: What high school did you graduate from? BG: Clarkton High School, Clarkton, Missouri. LG: And did you go on to college? BG: No, I took, after I got out of service, I went to college and got a degree in agriculture though. Sandra Gifford: Dad, it might be interesting to tell the story of who you were named after. BG: Named after Buell Gifford, my dad is an orphan boy, and he raised him, and I was named after him, Buell. SG: And tell that story about how he came to live with your father and mother. BG: My father's first wife died when he was young, oh, not very young, 37 years old, and my mother was a school teacher. She was only 24, 25 years old, and he was going to get married, and the guy I'd been talking about, this nephew, Buell, he lived with uncle, he just hated him, and he wanted to come and live with my dad. And my dad said, well, I referred it to my wife, and he said I can't take you in, he went home and cried all the way home. He rode a horse they said through snow about a foot deep for twelve miles ____ and back and my mother told him if he wants to live with us, you go get him and we'll raise him. And he went to Conway, Arkansas, and he became a teacher. LG: How old was Buell when he was adopted? BG: Twelve. Twelve years old. Twelve years old. LG: That's wonderful. BG: And he also, he raised an ____ who was an orphan, his dad got bit by a dog and rabies took over and killed him. LG: So at the time of the war, were you married? BG: No, I went in the service when I was 19 years old. LG: So from the time you graduated from high school, then it was three years before you went in service. Were you working on your dad's farm? BG: Yeah. And I'll tell you about the government took my dad out of two farms, they took it for landing strips for the airplanes to fly around there. LG: Well, tell us about that. BG: Well, they took our farms and they didn't take a cent in, give us any money or anything. Cut down the trees and cut down the crops, we didn't have no money or nothing. And they, we helped move, my dad had bought a tractor and he was supposed to pay for it, a John Deere tractor, and he wrote and told them he didn't have any money and they forced him to, he was going to have to pay for it. And my uncle, at that time, not many years later, he was a millionaire, and he paid that thing off for him. And my dad, my dad bought little outbuildings and farm, I mean outbuildings and a house and a farm for $150. And we moved the thing about four miles away on down the road, three bedroom house. LG: And so the government just came in and said . . . BG: They paid off later. LG: Oh, they did pay off later. BG: Yeah, but we didn't have any money then. LG: And how long did they use it for a landing strip? BG: It's still there. LG: A landing strip? BG: No, it's an emergency landing strip. LG: Did they have a name for this landing strip? BG: No, its just Marlin, Missouri. The field was in Marlin, about ten miles away. LG: Tell me, were you drafted or did you enlist? BG: Well, I was drafted. LG: Tell me the story about getting drafted. BG: Well my dad was real bad off at that time because he worked off the farm and you know he didn't have anybody to help him, and I got deferred for a few months and then they just said they had to have somebody, had no options, had to take everybody almost. And I was drafted then. LG: When was that? BG: That was like I said, in October, no, not '46, '43 or '42, I'm not positive. LG: 1942. BG: Yeah. LG: So what happened, so you were deferred for a couple of months and then did you go to basic? BG: Yeah, I took basic training, went to Camp Fannin, Texas. LG: Tell me about basic training. BG: Well, it was seventeen weeks of infantry training, firing machine guns, mortars, and all like that. LG: What was the, where did you stay, what were the barracks like? BG: They were good barracks. LG: Do you remember anything specific about them? BG: Just a lot of beds in there. LG: What was the food like? BG: Food was good. They always, they served 20,000 people in one mess hall in four sections, and it was real good. I mean you could, you'd, everything was washed and cleaned everyday, I mean after they eat, and mopped the floors and all like that. LG: What were these days like? I mean you could come from a farm and now you're in the army, you're in the service, what was that like? BG: Well, it was pretty good. I met a lot of guys there. I slept with a guy one time, I said, it was an older guy, I said, “what did you do before you went in?” he said, “Hi, my name's Tom. You ever see Tom's Peanuts, that's me.” [Tom Huston Peanut Company, based in Columbus, Georgia] He owned that place. And I made friends with a guy that was in Texas, he was older than me quite a bit, he owned a big herd of cattle there and I made friends pretty well. LG: What were the instructors like? BG: They were pretty good. LG: Do you remember any instructors? BG: Well, I remember one of them, he was a little old sergeant, not a sergeant, a corporal. He said I was doing something bad, infraction, I didn't do it right, _________. I didn't like that, but I learned to overlook that, you know. LG: After Camp Fannin, Texas, where did you go? BG: I went to Camp Stoneman near Richmond, California. LG: And what were you doing there? BG: I was getting ready to go overseas. I got a ship, a brand new ship, we went to the Hawaiian islands unescorted. LG: Well, now tell me, you are in the army, what group were you with? BG: The 96th Infantry Division. LG: And what was your infantry training, what were they teaching you? BG: How to shoot and how to bayonet and karate and how to fire machine guns and how to survive and anything you can think of. LG: Was there anything in your training that particularly stood out? BG: Well, I'll tell you, everything they did was good. You had to learn a lot of things yourself. If you, the way they taught me, I thought just lying the beach and you'd be dead in one hour, but if you use your head, you can survive, but if you don't you aren't going to last. I went through the war, never got a scratch, never got wounded or nothing. LG: Well, that's just wonderful. You left California, you said you went on an unescorted boat to Hawaii. BG: Took six weeks of jungle training. LG: In Hawaii. BG: Yeah. LG: What was that like? BG: Well, it was a jungle there. We had a mock landing on Maui, it's a big island there. And you, of course, did not give anybody any information. If they asked what outfit, a lot of people giving, they get lost, don't give them any information. There was one guy, he asked me one time, he got lost and he was an officer, said “what outfit is this?” I said “It's company X, what the devil do you care.” He didn't like that and he went and talked to the company commander and said, “ ___ that guy over there, you been telling him to keep quiet?” _____. He didn't like it though. LG: After Hawaii where did you go? BG: We went to ____ island on Yap Island and sent some spies in there and the Japanese had left. We waited and fought there, went island hopping to get to Japan so we didn't know what to do, and they went to the Altamonte islands, just right below the equator, 2 degrees below the, closest place on earth near the sun and stayed there for two weeks and planned to land in Leyte in the Philippines and MacArthur . . . LG: So you were supporting General MacArthur? BG: Yeah. LG: Did you see combat? BG: Oh, yeah. LG: Tell me about combat. COUNTER 136 BG: Well, when we went in, there was quite an experience. They told us to drop your full packs and we'll bring them on up to you tonight. Well, they didn't know there was this jungle and it rained all night and they couldn't do it, and we didn't have any food. Well, we didn't have any for five days really. Five days, that's the only time I ever didn't have any food, and they dropped it, parachuted it in and they'd just give you a big spoonful and that was it. I know one time, when I was getting there, I was traveling for the five days, we ate some field corn, just raw, you know, you're hungry, you can… and we had just a canteen of water. And when it was gone, we had to dip it out of the mud and that stuff _____ had ____ on top of it, you'd pull it unpurified with the worms and everything. But it was pure you know. LG: What was your job, what was your assignment? BG: Well, when I went in, I was a Browning automatic rifleman in combat. And that's kind of like a machine gun that fires twenty clips, just pull the trigger and had a ____ full of stuff like that. And that's where I got this silver star here, right here. LG: It shows in that picture? BG: Yeah. LG: When did you get this silver star? BG: It don't tell on there, I don't know. It's in '43. LG: 1943? BG: They've got this wrong, got 383rd Infantry, it was 382nd. LG: We have a copy of this? BG: Yes. I got that for, I, two Jap machine guns trapped a battalion and they couldn't move and I was the only one had something to stop them all and I killed those Jap machine gunners and we, one of the guys in the pictures right here was my, right here, was my weapon carrier. ____ ammunition and there was bullets going all around and they couldn't get him up there, he was scared to death,, he finally got over it though. COUNTER 170 LG: I see five people in the picture, are you in that picture? BG: I'm that tallest one in the middle. LG: And then, so who are the other guys? BG: A guy beside of me, he was the one that weapon carrier, and this one on the end was a sergeant too, and he's the one I named my son after. LG: What's his name? BG: Deville, Sergeant Deville. And this one on the left is ____, hunted for me for fifty-eight years, he had nightmares about the war. We fought together and dug in the foxholes. LG: Would this be a good time to tell us that story, tell us the story about the fellow searching for you? BG: Well, that was the end of that. LG: You've talked about him, just go on and tell us the story. BG: You don't want to talk about it but I'll go back… LG: We'll get back to it. [All talking at once.] BG: He had been searching for me for fifty-eight years and he couldn't find me and he… LG: He, say his name again. BG: Lavoyt Hale. LG: Lavoyt Hale. BG: Tuscaloosa, Alabama. LG: So Mr. Hale was looking for you. BG: And the funny part about it is, my best friend, one of my best friends, went out to eat that day and we was talking about him. He liked to drown in the water, he was a little guy. I told him “____.” I was kidding, you know. And he remembered that, and two hours later he called me, he says he bought his wife a computer, he didn't know nothing about it. And one of his friends said you can find anybody you want to on the computer. In fifteen minutes he found it. And he called me up and said “Did you,” said, “did you fight in World War II in the 96th Division?” I said “yeah” and he told me 382nd Regiment and all that bit. He told me his name and I knew that was him. And he was tickled to death, he had all them nightmares. LG: What kind of nightmares? BG: Well, about the war. But one thing about me that's unique I've never dreamed about anything, I could watch a movie or anything, never dream about it, never, never. LG: Well, you have a newspaper in front of you, what's that, why have you got the newspaper? BG: Well, it was an article was in here. SG: About your reunion. BG: Yeah, fifty-eight years, where is that? LG: With Mr. Hale? BG: Yeah, right down here. And this part, about fifty-eight years. Open it up. SG: The article came out on the anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, and this is my father's piece. BG: Show it down inside there. SG: Also inside… BG: Fifty-eight years. SG: Reunion after 58 years. Veteran… BG: This is me right here. SG: That's in front of his house. LG: What is the date of the paper, and what paper are we looking at? SG: This is the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Friday, June sixth, 2003. BG: And this is a picture there in Tuscaloosa. SG: At his house. LG: So who's in the picture, is that you in the middle? BG: Yeah. LG: And Mr. Hale… BG: Yeah, and that's my daughter over there. LG: That's a wonderful story, a wonderful story. And the wonders of computers. That was a great story, let's go back to the war. BG: OK. LG: You're in combat in the Philippines? BG: Yes. I got that picture you made right there, I got that, a big parade and there was a bunch of people that was given awards, and before we went to Okinawa. We went to… LG: Did you see any casualties? BG: What's that? LG: Did you see any casualties? BG: Man, have I seen casualties, there were thousands of them, thousands of them. LG: What was that like? BG: Horrible. The one thing that I found out, and I want to emphasize it, but a lot of volunteers, some people don't need to be in service, they haven't got the smarts up here. And again, some of them as officers. One of them, when I first went in, he was a sergeant, I'll never forget it. We hadn't went in very far ___ a little hut, and there was three people there, a man and a woman and a young girl, and this guy, friend of mine, said “What do you want to do with this little man?” And this sergeant told him, said, “Get rid of him. Don't you know better, use a bayonet.” He just took a bayonet and run it through him like that. I'll never forget it, the blood just gushed like that. And that guy, he never forgot that, he never did. And then another time, and it was a sergeant that did that, ___ it was an older woman carrying some clothes on her head, and she, he killed that, just shot her because his buddy got killed. He had nothing to do with it. And another time, a different story about this guy was a colonel, I know I was right by a foxhole when he was calling back behind the lines telling them to take that hill up there. He sent three squads out, one squad killed everyone of the, second killed everyone, and third one killed every one of them. And he said, “This general back behind the line said you've got to take that hill at all costs.” He said, “I'm not taking this hill at all costs, it's a suicide, and you can court martial if you want to but I'm not taking it,” and he didn't. They didn't do nothing with him either. But there was a lot of people that's just not fit to be in service. SG: Tell about the man you knew who was supposed to stand guard. BG: Oh, it was a friend of mine that was supposed to stand guard, he was a designer for Ford Motor Company, he was a very brilliant person. LG: Do you remember his name? BG: No, I don't. But he was supposed to be guarding the 8th Army headquarters. We'd been back in a rest area for a while. And he was, it had an outdoor theater, and he went over to look at that and they called him over there. The guards, I mean somebody checked on him and they gave him a court martial, gave him 99 years in the stockade. Nice guy. But I'm sure he didn't serve it all, they do that as an example. When the war is over, it's all over, you know. But they can, there was three, I know there was one four-star general and two three-star generals that he was guarding there. LG: Are there any other memorable experiences? BG: Well, on Okinawa, one time we was digging in on a hill on this, ____ he wanted to dig in holes with me when three of us would dig in, stand guard, and he wanted to dig up on a hill there, and I said “No, the artillery will get us.” And I finally talked him into down below a little bit. And that night, when we was digging, the artillery settled it, right in there, covered us up with dirt. If we'd have been there, it'd have killed all three of us. In fact, we got out of there and I was talking to them on the way back. I said “What happened to the third guy?” He said, “He's probably still covered up. I don't remember what happened to him.” _______. And also they, we got up to the end of the island and they started firing these rockets, flying boxcars called the screaming ____, its like a siren, it's honestly as big as a boxcar coming in the air projected like that. And you could outrun them because they'd just come over and you could run off to the side. But I've got a picture of that, where's that at? SG: This explosion maybe? BG: No, no, no. SG: I'm not sure what you're describing. BG: There's a hole, it's a horrible hole. Well, it don't make any difference. SG: The picture with the hole… LG: Are any of these pictures that you want to show us? SG: You can just go through it and you might just see the one picture. BG: Well, here's one. The Philippines were some casualties, some of them blowed right up in two. LG: That photo that you're showing us, the Philippines. BG: Yeah, that's the Philippines. Here's ___ on Okinawa, we lost about 13,000 people there in our division. We had a general that was killed. LG: Do you remember the general's name? BG: Easley, a one star general. We got a picture of that ____ right here, they had a ceremony there, right on Okinawa. LG: And that's when he had died, this is the ceremony. BG: Yeah. And here's one of MacArthur signing the peace treaty on the battleship Missouri with the Japanese. LG: Were you on the… a picture you took. BG: No, I got this from a war correspondent. This right here is a Filipino, and that's a Jap ____ right there. The Jap had him to climb a coconut tree and when he was drinking the coconut, he took a machete and cut his head off. LG: And is that a picture you took? BG: No. Here's, I don't know whether you want to show that or not. Here's one right here that I, I don't know do we want to do it detailed. I was, this is an uncle I never seen, he was a real intelligent person, he had a Ph.D. in history I think. And I wrote this on April 18, 1945, and I never mailed it. I didn't know it that I had a box that I kept my papers in, and _____ I looked in there, and I never, I hadn't mailed it. And what I figured out, there was an artillery ___ in back and I said “call it a day” and I never mailed it. And that was wrote on April 18, 1945. SG: Why don't you read that last paragraph, or do you want me to read it. BG: Yeah, you read it. SG: It says… LG: I want to ____ show you while you read it. SG: I'll read the last portion of it. “The soil is pretty rich here. They grow a lot of cabbage, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, carrots, and all sorts of vegetables. We've been getting a lot better food here than we did in the Philippines. They have different kinds of foods in the rations that we get than we used to have. The boys all like the new type of rations. We have had donuts several times here also. I sure don't see how Germany can hold out over two more weeks. They sure are getting close to Berlin. There is some Japanese mortar shells landing pretty close now so I guess I'd better get in my foxhole and call it a day. As ever was.” BG: Just recently, about two or three months ago, I opened that box up and seen that. LG: Thank you for that. Did you stay in touch with your family? Did you write many letters home? BG: Oh, yeah, that's one of my most important things for soldiers. People who don't even know anybody, if they want to do something for somebody, I've never seen anybody who was so depressed when they have mail call because it would be a month before you'd get any mail and you wouldn't have any. You know, somebody'd get a bunch of mail and they didn't get any. I wrote everybody I knew, my uncles and aunts and they kept all the letters I wrote. That's really important, though. LG: You mentioned at one point that there was five days you went without any food. Otherwise, did you have plenty of supplies? BG: The supplies, ____ they couldn't get it up to us but they finally parachuted it in. LG: What about the rest of the… BG: I did alright. And you know, tin cans, but I didn't get sick or nothing. SG: Tell about the time a friend got chocolates in the mail. BG: Oh, one guy got some chocolates on Okinawa and they had worms in it and he was going to throw it away. I told ____, I says, “Don't throw it away.” Said I'll eat it. And he did too. LG: Worms and all. What did you all do to sort of entertain yourselves? BG: Well, when we'd get back in a rest area, they had put up outdoor screens, thousands of them, would be setting out watching. And one time, Yokohama back in the rest area, they had that ____ down below and sitting up on the hillside seeing it. And it was pretty good, but entertainment had a lot of people come through, a lot of celebrities even. LG: Any celebrities that you remember seeing? BG: Yeah, I seen, well I took basic training with Red Skelton. LG: Oh, okay. BG: And I seen, I can't recall, but I seen some of them in California. But I know one thing I found out later that they'd been ___ planning on after we went… another thing, now, this is kind of interesting. The black and whites were separated in World War II, and we, when the war was over, we got on, I got the ship to come back on Christmas Eve Day in 1945 and they put all the sergeants in one place and all the privates in another. Because they had a lot of animosity, they'd kill them, you know. LG: And you were a sergeant? BG: Yeah. And they had the blacks with us, but I made friends with a black guy. He was a tech, I mean he was a 1st sergeant. And I never will forget when I was discharged in Jefferson's Barracks, Missouri, I was left there one night and he was taking me, I was riding in a cab, and two policemen stopped us and grabbed him and slammed him up against the, he had a uniform on too, and searched him, and I didn't know what was going on. Found out, I guess we got a lot of mustering out pay, cash about $400 around him, but they didn't bother me, but I thought that was a bad thing to do, to treat him like that you know. But I know one thing about the, what happened was going to happen, we was getting ready to go away to Japan when they dropped the atomic bomb, and they had three hundred of these big shells that would knock a hole, man, that's one hundred foot deep.aAnd they were going to use them on the Americans, and they had _____. They claimed the first day we'd lose a million people, gosh, a million people. ____ everybody that could ____ Japanese did, so that bomb saved a lot of lives, it killed a lot of people, but it saved a lot of lives. LG: What, when you heard that the bomb had been dropped, where were you? BG: I was on a boat going to M___ Island. LG: And what was the reaction of people on the boat? BG: Nothing. The reason why was the guy from Louisiana, he was a big windbag and he's telling how powerful that, bulletin board, he told how much powerful it was and TNT and all that, went yeah, yeah, yeah. The next day when we landed, well, they had found out, you know, they took all the guns away from us and _____, I was telling about the sergeants in danger, they had a, when we was there, a regiment, and they had a guy, I don't know who it was, he ____ strung up four guys while I was there, I called him the ____. LG: Do you remember anything else about Okinawa, or have you got some pictures? BG: Well, this is, yeah, here's… One thing about the Japanese, they really did not try to infiltrate through our lines, and they'd take the civilians and women, put their babies on the back and you couldn't tell who was coming through. And you'd shoot and then the babies would still be there and cry. That really got on your nerves. SG: Dad, would you like me to read what's on the back of this photograph? BG: No, it's too much. SG: On the back, it's April 15, 1945. Japanese civilians on Okinawa waiting to be taken behind the lines to a civilian stockade. Notice how many of them are wounded and have been bandaged up. A lot of the Japanese civilians were killed and wounded from our artillery barrages and the strafing from our planes. BG: One thing about the Americans, regardless of when they ____, they had superior weapons over the Japanese and ___ any of the countries. They had those P-38's, had those five machine guns right in the ____, the Japanese Zero, just flies like that, gone. SG: Tell about how the Japanese tried to trick… BG: They'd yell American names, John, John, help me, help me, help me, help me, I'm bleeding to death. You didn't dare get up, get out. LG: Where were they hiding? BG: Well, they were out in front. SG: And up in trees, would they hide up in the trees? BG: They did in the Philippines, they would, sharpshooters sat there. This is a flamethrower right here, they burned people up getting in the stockade now. LG: This is a picture from where. BG: That's on the Philippines. LG: And what's this picture of? BG: A flamethrower getting in behind a stockade. LG: Are there any other stories that you want to tell about your service before we bring you back home? SG: Dad, tell about the, was it during the battle of Leyte that the sky just lit up like in the… BG: Oh, yeah. No, not Leyte, on Okinawa, when they ____, there was the biggest storm on our ships that ever was settled in the beginning of time, there was five thousand of them. But on the way there something happened and I couldn't hardly believe that we would come in there in the dark. It wasn't very far before we got into a typhoon. It capsized some of the destroyers, you know, that's real slick. But we had a guy that jumped over, I mean fell over the ship and they turned the searchlights on trying to find him and ____ ships the Japanese around, they'd have got us, but that night the Japanese suicide planes got in there. They were strapped in the airplane and they were trying to sink ships with suicide, they didn't intend to ever come back. But they had tracer bullets, and I mean it looked like the sky was just full of red bullets you know, shoot them down. LG: Where were you, were you on a boat during this, or were you on shore that you were watching this? BG: It was on the shore, yeah, landed there. ____ airstrip. LG: So you're looking out at the attack happening on these ships that are out there. Now you mentioned the typhoon, was that before or after this? BG: No, that was before. LG: On a ship? BG: Yeah. LG: What was it like to be on a boat in the middle of a typhoon? BG: I was right in the boat bow, _____, on the top of the ship, and you couldn't eat, you were seasick. Couldn't eat. LG: Was that as scary as battle? Were you scared when that was happening? BG: Well, I'll tell you what, after the war, I'll tell you something worse than that though. And the war was over. No, I don't know anything else to tell you, but, about the war, I can't remember right now. SG: Have you described why you received both the bronze star and the silver star? BG: Well I told them about the… SG: The silver but did you? BG: The bronze star, I carried a guy back that had his insides stuck out like that, and I didn't even remember it, and this guy I see in Tuscaloosa told me I did. There's things I didn't even remember, you know. We got in hand to hand combat, they stabbed him. Another thing in Okinawa there, was it on Okinawa?, yeah, on Okinawa. We were, they were real cruel, they'd sneak up on, they'd put stuff ____, uniform, and I know one time, we was in the foxhole and a guy was standing guard and a Jap come in there, and this guy fired an ammunition, a couple ammunition, he still kept coming, hit him in the head line that, and his insides just felt out like that, right. That's what reflexes, you know, you just keep on going. LG: The rescue, that you did, was that Okinawa or the Philippines? BG: That was Okinawa. LG: Okinawa? BG: Yeah. LG: So you saw an awful lot of battle in Okinawa. BG: Lot of fighting on there. LG: Do you recall that the day your service ended, that they said that you were ____ back home? BG: Yeah. I didn't know, they had this magic, what they call magic carpet ships you go back on those. And you go by your service and your rank and your medals that you won, and that helps you get back faster, you know. They had a priority. I remember that. LG: Do you remember the day you heard that you were headed back, what did that feel like? BG: Yep, I sure did. And I, I never forget when I came back home, I, my Dad still lived on a farm and I came in about 4:00 in the morning, and I told a story. In high school you know, _____. Alright I come to the gate, ____ cause my dad heard it _____ woke up, I just couldn't take it _____ all the teachers, well you're doing really good. ______ what I was doing in the room, that's the dumbest thing. The teacher told us ______, he said, “Mr. Gifford, what did you do when you had to go to the bathroom.” I said, “you dig a hole, get behind the woods somewhere or down behind the hill.” ______. LG: Want to take a sip of your water? BG: Yeah. LG: So when you got back home, did your dad expect you to start working on the farm? Did you work the next day or did you get… BG: No, I don't remember when it was. He ____ medals, and you can't put them things on. I said, “That's just for my parade purposes, you know.” I forgot what I did, but he, I got to agricultural school, four years. LG: On the G.I. Bill? BG: Yeah. LG: What school? BG: Clark in Missouri. LG: And you went for four years. BG: Yeah. And I at one time farmed 400 acres alone. And I got older and had to move, but there's ____. What was I going to say now? My best friend, he farmed about the same amount as I did, but I sold out, I didn't get very much out of it, I didn't own the land, I rented it. But my dad had two farms, my dad and uncle had two farms. But this guy, best friend of mine, went back two years to see him, and he was a millionaire then. He had three machines that cost half a million dollars apiece. He was always lucky though by doing things. You talk about… TAPE 1 SIDE B COUNTER 000 …somebody that has stories, believe it or not, he was a cook in the army, he was a real good cook. He wouldn't, you know him, didn't you see him, you would never think he's a good cook, but he could make the best cake ever was. He got discharged and he was in St. Louis, Missouri, and he bought a suit of clothes and he cooked in a restaurant, and he paid for the suit fifty cents a week. And he came down to see his uncle, lived right close by where I did, and he made a, he got on a blind date, he had a date with the county judge's daughter. She had never been on a date, she was 18 years old. LG: Not allowed to go on dates? BG: Not allowed to go on dates. He married the girl, the first night. And they had the highway patrol and everybody else out there. That's the guy, I told you a millionaire, turned out to be a millionaire. And he raised two daughters, too, they got along real good. LG: Tell me how you met your wife. BG: Oh, let's see, how did I do that? Somebody… SG: Probably from church. Do you think it was from church? BG: No, that's… your mother, my cousin introduced me to her. I'm not… SG: He divorced my mother and now since he's remarried. BG: Twelve years ago. Eleven or twelve years. And my, somebody at church introduced me to my wife now. ____ got a picture, I never showed you a picture of her when she was young since she looked like _______. LG: Beautiful woman. Tell me your first wife's name. BG: Charlene. LG: Charlene. Tell me your current wife's name. BG: Ellen, Ellen. LG: Ellen. BG: And we, she had two, a boy and a girl, and I had a girl, and they graduated from grade school and went to college. I've got a son that works at Emory, he's a ____ university boy, got a Ph.D. LG: Has he got your brains? BG: Yeah, he's smart. But my sister's boy's smarter than that. I had an aunt that taught school for 48 years. My mother did 18, my dad, I don't know how many years he did. My dad was very intelligent too. LG: Let's talk about after the war. BG: After the war. LG: What did you do as a career? You said you had a farm for a while, but then you went to Arizona. What did you do in Arizona? BG: I worked at _____, one of the largest aluminum plants in the world, for 32 years. LG: What did you do for them? BG: You name it, I did it. I worked in a department where I could do any part of it. Well paying job and good benefits and I could have been a, I was offered jobs as a foreman but I didn't want it because you had no protection and you could, you know, you get in and ____ and lay you off. And I worked there 32. I worked, it was the largest aluminum plant in the world. I worked there until the last piece of metal come out of there, I worked there. LG: When did they shut the plant down? BG: In 1958, no ‘70's, '78. But I worked where if you worked 20 years they had a guaranteed ____ if they close it down, I got seventy percent of my wages for half and I've got an insurance policy and I've got insurance for that and if anything happens to my wife, she gets it as long as she lives. I _____ and it's in, they sold out to Alcoa, they're the largest in the world, but they've got a trust fund and I don't have to worry about jobs or anything. LG: Prior to starting the interview, you and I were talking about baseball. Tell me about your baseball. BG: I managed a team in Arizona for thirteen years. LG: What was the name of the team? BG: Well, we had different names. I had one that was the Red Sox and one of them the Cardinals. It was mostly a Jewish community and there was seventeen teams there and won the first place every year that I managed, and I got a second place in the state in a tournament in 1950… 1960… what was it, '63. '63. I went to Denver, Colorado. Flew us up there to play ____ Airforce Base. We played ____ Colorado, we beat them and played San Jose and they beat us 3-2. LG: What level baseball was that? BG: That was senior little league, I had a pitcher that was 6'3” weighed 220 pounds. Boy, he could throw that ball in a bullet, had my first baseman, and this boy I'm talking about, he played for me, Cary, ____ that's the one that works at Emory, he struck out in a tournament one time, we played seven innings and he struck out, let's see, he faced 21 people and he struck out 17. And I knew a guy when I was living on a farm that played baseball, played for the Cardinals, and my son was a pitcher and he was just as good as Gary Murdoch. But I enjoyed that more than anything, I liked baseball, my hobby, ____ she can tell you about that. LG: Well, all of this story has been taking place in Arizona, yet you're in Atlanta now, how did you…? BG: Well, because she had little girl and a boy, and I have a son who's here. And she's got a little girl that's 15 years old, smart as a whip, pretty as a doll, five feet nine and a half. She sang ____ opera, she sang in Norway, and _____ was a thousand years old that summer. SG: Church… BG: Church, yeah. My daughter, one thing about her, I can't think of anything bad to say about her, and I can truthfully say that, and she taught at church and school ever since she was old enough to do it. LG: So being closer to your daughter's family brought you to Atlanta? BG: And my son, too. LG: So they're both here. BG: Yeah. LG: When did you move to Atlanta? BG: I've been here twelve years, isn't it. I was talking about my hobbies, rocks and minerals. LG: Tell me about your hobbies. SG: He had to sell furniture when he moved out here in order to hold up all the rocks… BG: They weigh too much. _____, Sandra knows her. My wife didn't like the rocks for a long time, boy, she likes them now. I used trading and buying all I got, she don't want to get rid of any of them now. But she said, “I dreamed about that you had a, you died and they dug a hole, and outside the hole, _____ all your rocks.” I got twelve ____ full of rocks in my basement. Some that's old as thousands, millions of years old, rocks, and I got a that big around, red ____, not red but rainbow colored, those are ____ from Arizona. I've got some green, _____ anybody got anymore like them. SG: And you've shared your collections on many occasions with elementary schools in the area. LG: I would think Fernbank natural history museum might like to know about this collection. SG: Yes, would love to probably. I mean it really ____ pieces in a museum. BG: I know one time the first that showed you, you said something about choosing kindergarten teaching, and she said, “Dad, you might bring your rocks on, and ______ if they don't like them, they'll just walk away,” but they did and they all ranted and raved about it. How many teachers there, seventeen? SG: Well, I know all the kindergarten teachers were, six or seven classes. BG: The whole school, all them teachers wanting to see them. SG: Well, yes, that was ____. BG: Set it up later and I _____ showed, I put them out along the, when they got ____ about seventeen buses leave and they all _____ looking for rocks. I couldn't even talk. SG: Not for so long. BG: She's talking about the little girl who's fifteen now, about that tall, she kept pushing, pulling on my daughter's dress, said “I got something to say.” This teacher's in there now, she says, “I got a very important message to say. I _____ red socks. I got these red socks at Target on sale.” SG: Christina will never live that one down. LG: We've got about five minutes left on the hour of the tape. Did your military experience influence your thinking about the war? BG: Yep, it sure did. Yeah, I tell you what, the one thing about it, I do _____, the marines kill a lot of people because they are glory happy, and I know what I'm talking about because I fought right along beside of them. If they see a machine gun up ahead, they don't call in artillery, they just send the troops in and they got a picture showing them what they got. And they get out of the army, I mean the marines, that all _____ soldier, I'm a soldier. And they got a guy that's in the marines now, he's related to her, he's just a kid, and I tried to tell him when he was enlisted, that's all you talked about, and he's always asking me war stories. I said, “Boy, you sure got a memory,” I said, “____ you never forget.” SG: Do you think it's made you a stronger person? BG: Yeah. And I feel sorry for the marines, ____ they don't, they're just glory happy. I mean they don't care about people, that's not my opinion, that's a fact. I've seen it. I wouldn't advise nobody to get in that, they glorify it. Every marine that's been in a war know that you know. They're mean, they get a lot of things done but their casualties are triple and that's not necessary. LG: Is there anything that you want to add that we haven't covered in the interview? BG: Well, not, maybe you can answer a little bit. I still keep in touch with this guy that I met in Alabama. I never knew he thought that much of me, you know, when, I tell you what, he called me when I got out of service, his mother and dad called me. I lived in Missouri and he's way down there. I never lost touch and I didn't know he thought that much. One thing he told of me, he _____ says, “Well, who is ____.” He says, “Well, he's a big guy but he didn't cuss.” I've got a lot of bad habits, ask my wife, she's got a list. SG: And that's why she looked him up on the Internet, she said I wanted to meet a man who'd never cursed or anything like that. LG: Alright, well Mr. Gifford is there anything else, is that about it you think? BG: You've got it all, didn't you. LG: It's still running, we're right at an hour. BG: Well, I'll tell you a little about his wife though, it's something. He met this girl, she was 19 and he was 25, she was a little old girl I guess, and she wasn't dumb or anything, she's very intelligent, but he met her and he decided he was going to marry her. And they bought a house, and he gave her some money to pay the mortgage and she went and bought a big frame, a picture frame. And he said, “come back here. Did you pay the house payment?” She said, “No, I didn't.” “Why didn't you?” Said “I didn't have the money left.” He said that ____ down here. He had to go borrow money from his dad to go pay it off. But she's real smart, she's just dedicated. He said one month that she called over 700 people that's lonely in a church all over the country and she's cleaned up in Tuscaloosa, cleaned up the _____ get a bunch of women to get together and renovate the… SG: Yeah, they passed a city ordinance. BG: Yeah, city ordinance to clean up things. She's real nice person, real dedicated. LG: Sounds wonderful. Well is that it? BG: Good enough. LG: Thank you very much. BG: I don't know how I turned out to sound, I had a stroke about two years ago and I kind of slur my speech some times, it seems that way to me. LG: We didn't notice it at all. Thank you very much."],"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":["Browning automatic rifle","Silver Star","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Japan--Okinawa Island","Segregation--United States","Baseball","Typhoons","Lightning (Fighter plane)","World War, 1939-1945--personal narratives, American","Gifford, Vonda, 1940-","Gifford, Jesse O., 1886-","Gifford, Amlia, 1897-","Skelton, Red, 1913-1997","Hale, LaVoight Frasier, 1924-2008","DeVito, Unknown, Sergeant","Easley, Claudius Miller, 1891-1945","MacArthur, Douglas, 1880-1964","United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944","Japan. Kaigun. Kamikaze Tokubetsu Kogekitai","United States. Army. Infantry Division, 96th","United States. Army. Infantry Regiment, 382nd. Battalion, 3rd. Company I","Deere \u0026 Company","United States. Army. Army, 8th. Headquarters","Reynolds Metals Company","Kamikaze","Lockheed P-38 Lightning (fighter)","John Deere"],"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/174"],"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":["1:02:09"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_213","title":"Oral history interview of Marion Foster Stegeman Hodgson","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, California, San Diego County, Miramar, 32.89366, -117.11837","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Hapeville, 33.66011, -84.4102","United States, Kansas, Sedgwick County, Wichita, 37.69224, -97.33754","United States, New Jersey, Burlington County, Fort Dix, 40.02984, -74.61849","United States, Texas, Nolan County, Sweetwater, 32.47095, -100.40594"],"dcterms_creator":["Chandler, F. C.","Hodgson, Marion Foster Stegeman, 1921-"],"dc_date":["2003-10-15"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Marion Hodgson describes her career as a Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) during World War II. During college, she took civilian pilot training. She relates that by 1943, the country was desperate for pilots and developed a program for women pilots to fly stateside. She describes their training and that they had no uniforms but men's coveralls in sizes 42 and 44. They were issued two of them, and had to wash one in the shower and wear the other one while the first one dried. They purchased white shirts and tan pants in the dry goods store in town as a \"Sunday uniform.\" They ferried new planes from the factories to the bases or to ports of embarkation, where the planes would be taken apart to be shipped overseas. Often she was on \"detached orders\" which meant she picked up the plane from the manufacturers; the first twenty minutes of the flight was the test flight. If she had a problem, she could bring the plane back. She only had to do that once, when the plane caught fire on the runway. She describes her husband, whom she'd known from her youth. He was a Marine Corps pilot who had been badly burned in a plane crash; she wrote to him regularly for the year and a half that he was in the hospital. She sometimes landed illegally in Richmond, Virginia, so she could visit him in the hospital in Norfolk. She tells the story of his crash: he was attempting a night flight technique that was to be used in the Pacific when another plane took off in front of him. She also recalls landing in Athens, Georgia, to visit her family and having her mother run out onto the runway to see her. She recalls a harrowing take-off from New York City as a passenger in a DC-3 when both engines failed. She reports that WASPs flew every aircraft in the Army Air Corps arsenal. WASPs were used to fly B-29s around the country to show how easy they were to fly; B-29s had acquired a reputation of being difficult to fly and pilots were balking at flying them. One of her roommates purchased a P-38 at the end of the war. She recalls that when their fellow WASPs were killed, they had to take up collections to have their bodies flown home because they were considered civilians and had no military benefits. The dead had no flag on their coffins, and no gold star hung in their parents' windows. It took thirty years to get that recognition. She describes her husband's career after the war. She describes the book she wrote, \"Winning My Wings.\" She also discusses her father's career at the University of Georgia.","Marion Hodgson served as a Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) in World War II.","MARION STEGEMAN HODGSON VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW Atlanta History Center Interviewer: Hap Chandler Transcriber: Stephanie McKinnell HAP CHANDLER: My name is Hap Chandler, and I have the privilege to interview Marion Stegeman Hodgson. Marion, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about… MARION HODGSON: Well, I'm a native of Georgia, and I went to the University of Georgia, and my senior year was 1941, the year of Pearl Harbor. I think Roosevelt knew we were going to get in the war because he was trying to build up a big force of civilian pilots. And he introduced the civilian pilot training program, and University of Georgia had that to train pilots, and I was lucky enough to be one of the women selected at the only time they offered it to women, one woman for every ten men, five of us were selected to learn to fly on the CPT course. Five out of twenty who applied I believe it was. And, of course, we didn't know Pearl Harbor was going to happen, but we got our private licenses at the end of that course and got five hours college credit to boot. And then December 7th, along came Pearl Harbor, and by 1943, Uncle Sam was really desperate for pilots, and so desperate that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel and decided to use women for stateside duty and release the men to go overseas. So I was one of the ones that was selected by Jacquelyn Cochran to take training, air force training. I think about 2000 of us, I use rough numbers, I don't know the exact numbers, but about 2000 of us entered training for the WASPs, and it was a six-month program when I went through. And later it was increased to seven months. HC: Where did you take your training? MH: At Sweetwater, Texas, out where the rattlesnake rattles and the buzzard builds its nests. HC: It was kind of warm… MH: It got pretty warm in the summertime, triple digits most of the time. HC: What sort of uniforms did they… MH: Had no uniform at all except what we call zoot suits when I first went to Sweetwater. Those were mechanics coveralls made for men, and they came in two sizes, 42 and 44, so we had to cinch the belt around us several times and roll up the pant legs. I didn't have to because I'm so tall but it was way too big. But the girls that had to roll up the pant legs and the sleeves had a hard time looking military because the crotch of the uniform was down around their knees. We were not a very spiffy looking group. We were issued two of those, and we got in the shower with a scrubbing brush and bar of soap and washed down one suit while the other one was dry enough to put on, and we would swap them back and forth that way. That's what we lived in for six months. HC: ____ uniform? MH: No uniform at all. HC: ____ changed ____… MH: We went down to the dry goods store in Sweetwater and bought tan slacks and white shirts and tan overseas caps for our Sunday uniform, and that was as military as we could look. And of course shoes were rationed. You only got two pair of shoes a year, and you had to tear out a coupon out of your ration book to get that. And so our shoes were any size, color, or shape that we could get for one of our coupons, and they didn't last very long, and we marched in them, so we had to get them half-soled and make do with two pairs a year, which is not easy when you're drilling. HC: Did you receive your wings in Sweetwater after six months? MH: Six months in my case. HC: You were sent then where? MH: I was sent to the Ferry Command, the 5th Ferrying Group at Love Field in Dallas, Air Transport Command. And it was heaven after Sweetwater. HC: What duties did you have? MH: In the Ferry Command, we would go to the factories and pick up new airplanes usually and ferry them to bases all around the country and lots of them were ferried to Fort Dix, New Jersey, or other points of embarkation where the planes were taken apart and put on ships and sent overseas and then put back together when they got overseas. But sometimes we ferried old airplanes from base to base, or just wherever we were needed. Of course the WASP did a lot more than just ferry planes, that just happened to be my job. HC: You were in an organization referred to as the WASP, and the WASP means what? MH: Women Airforce Service Pilots. HC: And of the 2000 of them who applied, how many completed training? MH: Well more than that applied, actually 25,000 people applied, but that's sort of a misstatement because you had to be, had to have a private license, private pilot's license. By the time I came along, it had to be a lot more than that. In the beginning you had to have hundreds of hours to qualify for training, but by the time March 1943 came along, they reduced it down to a private pilot's license, and there were not 25,000 licensed pilots, women pilots, there were only about 3000, roughly 3000, a few more than that, women pilots. So 25,000 people applied but that didn't mean they were qualified to apply. But anyway, 2000 were accepted for training, and of that number, a little more than 1000 of us made it through, got our wings. HC: Highly selective process? MH: Yeah, it was. HC: Of those, _____ that rate was about fifty percent. MH: Not quite that high, more than one third washed out. HC: Of course, in World War II, _____ women's pilot training. I recall how disappointed some of my classmates were who were in navigation school and they washed out very quickly into the program. MH: Yeah, it was heartbreaking, you felt like your whole life was ruined. HC: You went back to the army, they would give an infantry soldier _____. So you're in Love Field in Dallas. MH: I actually spent a lot of time in Wichita, Kansas on what they called detached orders, which means I would report back there after I delivered a plane instead of reporting back to Love Field because there were three aircraft factories in Love Field. There was the Beechcraft Factory, Boeing factory, and the Cessna factory. HC: You would pick up the aircraft off the assembly line and take them to the nearest field? MH: Right. The first twenty minutes or so of your flight was considered a check, I mean a test flight. Actually they had been test flown by the factory but when we would pick them up, we would fly them the first twenty or thirty minutes of our route was considered a test flight and if something didn't seem right or didn't sound right, we would turn around and take it back. But I never had to do that except in one case when an AT-6 caught on fire with me, but I was still on the ground at the North American factory in Dallas. And I couldn't put it out, we were told to jam the throttle forward and it would blow the flames out, but when I jammed the throttle forward, the flames just got higher, and by the time they were coming out of the cockpit, I was out of there. But two mechanics with fire extinguishers were standing nearby, and one of them hopped in the cockpit and between the two of them, with the fire extinguisher, they got the fire out. But I always felt like a coward getting out of the cockpit, but I felt that thing was about to blow. HC: Better a live coward than a dead hero. MH: Thank goodness they're still alive too, or were when I saw them. COUNTER 085 HC: Well, through most of '43 and then 1944 came along, I knew that you had an interest in a marine pilot who was in the hospital, would you like to tell us a little bit about that? MH: Well he was a boy from my hometown, Athens, GA. Our families knew each other, and we knew each other, but he was eight years older, so there had never been any romance or anything. But I admired him, always had, he was a wonderful person. So when he crashed and burned and was not expected to live, I wrote to him everyday to keep his spirits up. And we wrote back and forth, he was in the hospital a year and a half and we wrote back and forth, and my letters took him all the way through my training and my Ferry Command experience, and we sort of fell in love through our letters. And course meanwhile I had managed to make a few illegal landings in Norfolk, Virginia, because he was in the, I mean in Richmond, VA, at the army airfield there, which was closed to Ferry traffic, but I'd take a chance and land there anyway and get on a ferry boat and go over to Norfolk where he was in the navy hospital. And we had our dates that way, illegally, so we just really had a very few dates before we decided to get married. You moved fast in World War II, cause you didn't know if you were going to be alive the next month or not. HC: That's right. He was ________. MH: Right, he was later promoted to Lt. Colonel. But he was perfecting a night landing technique that he was going to take over into the Pacific. He was with the 1st marine night fighter group that went over to the Pacific, but he didn't make it because he crashed just before they were due to leave. But he was trying to perfect the night landing technique and as he was coming in to land with no lights, and simulating a night, the conditions that he would find in the south Pacific, a bomber took off right in his path, and the tower either didn't see it or didn't warn him or something, anyway they collided. Fortunately nobody in the bomber was hurt, but he was critically injured and burned, horribly burned. But he had such a wonderful spirit about it all and stayed so upbeat with the whole thing that that was one thing that made me fall in love with him. HC: He had his WASP flying into Richmond. MH: Not very often, I think I only got there twice. HC: That must have been a real morale booster. And your friend in the WASP went on to some other airplanes. MH: Yeah, the WASP flew every fighter and every bomber in the air corps arsenal, course it was the army air corps, army air forces in those days. But we, they, the WASP, not I, flew everything in the arsenal, all the bombers and all the fighters, including the B-29. One of my roommates, not roommates, classmates, bought a P-38 at the end of the war. HC: Did she fly it? MH: She flew it, but she couldn't afford to keep it. It was such a gas guzzler, and hangar space was so expensive, and maintenance and so on, and nobody had any money in those days. So she had to let it go, but think what that would be worth now. HC: I recall I was in _____ we were out on a _____ mission which meant that somebody was towing a target and gunners would take potshots at them with .50 caliber ammunition. _____ technically it was a B-26, which was a red hot airplane as you recall. Sometimes called the widow maker. And after the mission was over, the B-26 came and landed. And this little bitty girl, very attractive I might add, got out of the airplane, and all the four-engine bomber pilots, instead of whistling at her as they expected, they stood around, why do those girls get to fly those hot airplanes and we've got these four engine props to fly. MH: Tough luck guys. HC: I understand that Colonel Paul Tibbetts trained some of your… MH: Two of them. HC: ______. MH: Yeah, Paul Tibbetts trained two WASPs to fly the B-29, in two days. He checked them out in the B-29, and they went around the country to demonstrate how easy it was to fly because it had a horrible reputation of catching on fire on the take off, and the chief test pilot at Boeing had been killed in it. And the men were balking at flying it. So Paul Tibbetts, actually Hap Arnold, General Arnold was the one that had the idea, but he got Paul Tibbetts to execute it, to have the women demonstrate how easy it was to fly. And sure enough, that shamed the men back into the cockpit, they never had another man refuse to fly it. HC: When you reflect back on those days, do you have an outstanding experience that comes to mind? MH: Well, not when I was flying it, but when I was on an airliner taking off over New York City, the airliners were mostly DC-3's in those days, as you know. And we were taking off from LaGuardia field in New York City and lost both engines on the take off in the DC-3. That's the thing I remember most, that and the AT-6 that caught on fire with me. I guess you remember the excitement and not the long boring hours. But anyway, somehow the angels held us up and we got back in the field. We broke every rule in the book, you're never supposed to turn toward the dead engine, and one engine went out first and he turned towards that engine. The plane was full of nothing but Ferry pilots, one other WASP and myself, and all the rest were men Ferry pilots. And everybody screamed when the pilot turned toward the dead engine, but he got away with it. And they say never turn back to the airport, and he turned back to the airport, and he got away with it and got us down. Just barely cleared the high-tension wires, ____ of course, and then as we got to, almost to the ground, he let the wheels down and we didn't roll that far. He was 26 years old, I think, 24 or 26, the captain. HC: On a page, some of our people go to high schools and colleges and talk about their war experiences, and one of the impressions that we get from children is they didn't realize how young we were in those days. MH: I tell them I was not always an old lady. HC: You lost some of your WASP friends. MH: 38. 38 WASPs were killed. HC: And they crashed _____. MH: Right. HC: Would you like to talk about some of these? MH: Well, the sad part was that there was no provision to send the bodies home. And we had to take up a collection to send the bodies home to the families and sit up all night in the boxcar with the coffin. And it was awful cold in the winter, I didn't ever have to do it. But I was told how cold it was in the winter and how hot it was in the summer to have that duty. And then when the girls got home with the body of the deceased, there was no, they were not allowed to put a flag on the coffin, and were not allowed to put a gold star in the window because we were still civil service employees and not really part of the air force at that point. Now thirty years later, by an act of Congress, we were made retroactively members of the army air forces or the US air force is the way my honorable discharge reads. And so they corrected that thirty years later, but it didn't do us any good at the time. We didn't have any money to bury the dead, not to bury the dead but to get the body home. COUNTER 180 HC: You were not accorded ____ benefits. MH: No, we didn't have any insurance and of course we made less than the men, but this was in the forties and we really didn't expect to be treated equally. We just felt lucky to be there at all and to be given that chance to fly those big beautiful airplanes. HC: Isn't it amazing how the country came together after Pearl Harbor? MH: Just amazing, and I've never seen it like that since. We were all pulling together, and everybody was patriotic, and gosh, if anybody hadn't been patriotic, I think they would have been lynched real quick. But it was amazing how the whole country pulled in the same direction and cooperated. Course we had been attacked and we knew what we were fighting for. So it was different, but I would love to see that same spirit of cooperation now. I don't think we'll ever see it again, the way things were going. HC: We knew who the bad guys were. MH: Yeah, it was clear cut. HC: ____ what sort of world we had today, had Hitler tried it, or the Japanese. World War II was ____ in the history of this country. We were privileged to… MH: It really was a privilege. In fact I… I'm still so patriotic that I cry every time the flag goes by and when I pledge allegiance I get a lump in my throat, and now the Supreme Court is considering whether to take “under God” out of it. Boy howdy. HC: It's a strange new world. On the other hand, women have been afforded opportunities that you never dreamed of. MH: True. HC: In the forties. For instance, as an astronaut. An astronaut which follows ______. MH: Is that right? HC: It's not unusual for women pilots to be flying any type of airplane, but their rank. What the problem is, when you sit in the left seat, you're the boss. MH: That do create a problem. HC: So men on the crew have contentions with that. MH: Like their mother speaking to them, they don't like it. HC: Did you get back home at all during this period? MH: I made some illegal landings in Athens. I remember one time my mother came rushing, I had called ahead and told her I was on my way from Atlanta, and so I could see her car coming out to Epps Field in Athens, and by the time I landed, she was already there, and before I could get the engine shut down, she started running straight toward the propeller, scared me to death, I thought I was going to decapitate my own mother. But I got it shut down before she did, but it was nip and tuck there for a while. But yes, I landed, I wasn't supposed to land at Richmond and I did, and I didn't get caught thank goodness. And I wasn't supposed to land at Athens and I did and didn't get caught. HC: Statute of limitations is up. MH: Right, I can say it now. HC: I had the privilege of reading the book you put together in regards to your World War II experiences, and also… MH: Ta-da. HC: Yes. The title is Winning my Wings. MH: There it is. HC: There it is. Tell us a little bit about it. MH: Well, it took me fifty years to write it for one thing. I started writing it when I first got out of the WASP, while everything was fresh in my mind, thank goodness, because I could never have written the flying scenes, I wouldn't have been able to remember all the details of the cockpit checks and things like that. Anyway, nobody was interested in World War II things right after World War II. Everybody wanted to return to normal just as fast as possible and get back to normal living. So I tried writing short stories about this, I had some good luck selling short stories in those days. There was a good short story market, but not for World War II stories, so they didn't want that. And I tried writing it as a fictional book and had no luck with that. And they just weren't, the market wasn't right, but now all of the sudden, the market is right, and the market is hot. So I've had really good success with this, it went through two printings with the Naval Institute Press as the publisher. And now I'm selling it myself, and it's had some inquiries from Hollywood, which I'm excited about. HC: They're making it into a movie? MH: I hope they do to, before I die. HC: It's got all the… MH: Ingredients? HC: Ingredients, thank you. I've just thought of the lady's name that introduced the bill that gave veteran's benefits to the WASP. Her name was Boggs. MH: Boggs, Lindy Boggs. HC: And her daughter is Cokie Roberts. MH: Right. Cokie Roberts quotes a lot of my book in her book, I mean a lot of my letters in her book. HC: Oh, really. MH: Uh huh. HC: How interesting. MH: In fact, Cokie's book came out before mine did, so I had to tell my publisher that I had given my permission to use those letters, it didn't create any problem, just a little bit of overlap. HC: I have not read Cokie Roberts' book. MH: It's good. I'll lend you my copy. HC: Well as the story goes along, pilots starting to come back from overseas, and they started to close flying schools, which meant that pilot flying instructors as civilians were subject to the draft, and _____. MH: They didn't like that. And they didn't want to get in the marching army. So they resented the fact that women had taken up the cockpits and they didn't have anywhere to go except to be drafted. So they started lobbying Congress to get us out of there, and they did. HC: General Arnold, I understand fought it, he lost that particular battle… MH: Won the war but lost the battle. HC: So you left the WASP when? MH: In June of 1944. HC: Then what happened? MH: I got married. HC: Married your Marine. MH: Right. HC: Who was in the states in where, Texas? MH: He was the executive officer at the Marine Corps air station outside of Fort Worth. We were stationed there for a year and then went out to Miramar, California, until V-J Day. But the WASP stayed on duty until December of '44. But since they didn't need us anymore, and they were raising such cain about us, I resigned in June of '44 so I could marry my, the love of my life. HC: And did he get out of the Marine Corps? MH: He was retired physically. But he served, he actually got back on flight status but not to go overseas, I think they call it class 2 pilot or something like that. But he got back where he could fly again. He recovered really well and stayed on duty until V-J day and then they retired him because they knew he'd never be able to do combat with his burned legs, got a stiff ankle out of the deal so he couldn't go back to flying for the airlines, which is what he had done before he went into the Marines. Well actually he went in the Marine Corps and then he got out and went flying for Eastern airlines and then Pearl Harbor came along and he was called back into the Marine Corps. He was in the reserves. HC: Well he was a pilot early on. MH: Yeah, one of the early pilots. HC: So now we're at V-J day, you're happily married, your husband is out of the Marine Corps, then what. MH: Then he went back to work for Eastern airlines but they told him he could never fly as captain and that if would be satisfied to remain a co-pilot, they'd take him back as a pilot, but to understand that with his stiff ankle, they didn't think he could handle the plane in an emergency. And so they gave him a job on the ground as an aircraft dispatcher. And he could hardly stand that with all his friends up in the sky. It was hard, and it was also shift work, which made it hard. But I could keep his schedule. I mean I might eat breakfast at midnight, but whatever his schedule was, I kept the same thing, until I got pregnant, and then I couldn't keep his schedule anymore, I had to keep the baby's schedule. So that was when he decided that it was time to change, and we got an opportunity to move to Texas and start an insurance company, life insurance company. And he took it, and so we lived there for more than fifty years, until he died. HC: He finally became ______. MH: It was just a small company, but it did quite well. HC: I believe you told me your first child was born in Piedmont Hospital here in Atlanta. MH: Right. We were living in Hapeville out near the airport because he was working at Eastern airlines, and he would go back and forth on his bicycle from Hapeville, he needed to keep exercising those legs that had been so badly burned. It was sort of like Vance [Lance Armstrong], what's his name. HC: Did you do any flying, serious flying you know, after the WASPs. MH: I haven't flown for sixty years. HC: Think you're ready to get back in the cockpit? MH: If this becomes a movie, and I get enough money, I'm buying me an airplane. HC: Good for you, I'll go for a ride with you. MH: If you're brave enough. HC: I had an experience over ____ field, Alabama, several years ago, over to the graduation of air command. A staff pilot, and I was with George Capers, a ___ naval hero, and some of us, we all had on our little medals that you wear, and this cute little major came over, a pilot, and she said what are all these for. So I think I told her combat story or two, and she said well can I hug you. I said of course. I said what are you going to do when you get out of the command staff pilot? Said I'm going to Travis Air Force base on the aircraft commander of a C-141. I was born about thirty years too soon, or I could have been the navigator. A whole different world out there. MH: It sure is. HC: Well, you've written a book, and two sons. MH: Two sons and a daughter. HC: You have five grandchildren. MH: Six grandchildren and a great grandchild to be born next month. HC: Fantastic. And you came all the way from Wichita Falls, Texas, to talk today to a Silver Wings group, and this _____ considerably sold a few books, so the questions were right interesting. MH: They were. HC: I've forgotten what they asked, do you remember any questions. Did any of them particular excite you. MH: I was surprised nobody asked me what type planes I flew or, what was the other thing they always ask me, how many hours I had. Nobody there asked me either question, and I was surprised because that's usually the first two questions that pilots ask me and I'm always embarrassed to answer because I didn't fly the big bombers or the fast fighters, I just ferried single and twin engine airplanes, but they were big enough and fast enough for me. I'm not sure my reflexes would have been fast enough to handle P-51 or… HC: You'd have been surprised I think. How many hours did you get. MH: About 500. HC: About 500. You know that's the number I had when I left the Air Corps, of which 265 as I recall correctly were combat hours. MH: Wow. Your hours were a little bit harder to come by than mine were. HC: Some of them were not fun and games, though. Tomorrow I'll be telling my story to the World War II Roundtable. Just as a matter of interest, Marion's father was a ____ figure at the University of Georgia, why don't you tell us a little bit about him. MH: Well, he was such a wonderful man. He was such a wonderful father and such a wonderful family man, wonderful husband, that I don't even think about his career until somebody like you asks me. But he had coached everything, football, basketball, baseball, and track at the University of Georgia, and really put the school on the map as far as athletics were concerned. When he died, he was director of athletics and dean of men. He gave up the sports he coached one at a time. All I can remember him coaching in my childhood was the basketball team and the track team. HC: ____ football ____. MH: Yeah I was, the Georgia-Yale game. 15 to nothing when they dedicated the stadium. HC: First game in Sanford Stadium. MH: First game in Sanford stadium, and Yale was expecting to clobber Georgia and instead they got clobbered. HC: Sounds like it was Miami _____. That was a great team. MH: Catfish Smith. I had a big crush on Catfish Smith. He didn't know it, I was about 12 years old I guess. HC: Athens is a wonderful place to grow up and a wonderful place to go to school. MH: I agree. HC: I'm sure that many people will share your opinion. You told me that when you went to Texas and they spoke of the university, you didn't know what they were talking about. MH: Well, ‘the university' to me meant the University of Georgia, and that was a great shock when I heard Texans talking about ‘the university' and they meant Texas. HC: Down in Austin. MH: Right. HC: Well, it was sixty years ago. MH: Let's see, got out in '44. How many years is that, it'll be sixty years next year. HC: As soon as you get the movie rights sold for your book, you'll be back in the old airplane. A great grandma. MH: I don't think the movie rights per se will get me there, but maybe the movie will. HC: And you can take your grandchildren and great grandchild. MH: Right. HC: Marion, I thank you very much for… MH: Well, you're very welcome. HC: … the History Center, and share your experiences with World War II, and we hope you'll come back often. MH: Thank you. COUNTER 396"],"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":["T-6 (Training plane)","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Beechcraft (Airplanes)","Cessna aircraft","Hodgson, Edward McCullough, 1913-1997","Cochran, Jacqueline, 1906-1980","Tibbets, Paul W. (Paul Warfield), 1915-2007","Arnold, Henry Harley, 1881-1944","Stegeman, Herman James, 1891-1939","Women Airforce Service Pilots (U.S.)","Dallas Love Field","University of Georgia","Boeing Aerospace Company","United States. Army Air Forces. Air Transport Command. Ferrying Group, 5th","Eastern Air Lines","North American AT-6 Texan (trainer)"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Marion Foster Stegeman Hodgson"],"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/213"],"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":["33:15"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_214","title":"Oral history interview of Geston D. Holland","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Philippines, Leyte Island, 10.95, 124.85","Philippines, Negros Island, 10.0206764, 122.977113156079","United States, Alabama, Calhoun County, 33.77143, -85.82603","United States, California, City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco, 37.77493, -122.41942","United States, Florida, Franklin County, Camp Gordon Johnston","United States, Florida, Franklin County, Carrabelle, 29.85326, -84.66435","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383"],"dcterms_creator":["Marr, Christine","Holland, Geston D., 1916-2011"],"dc_date":["2003-10-08"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Geston Holland recalls his history in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was drafted in 1943 and objected to serving in the Navy because he wanted to be with his friends. His training camp was in Florida, because the Army wanted to simulate conditions of battle in the Pacific. Holland describes it as being full of snakes, alligators, and mosquitoes. They trained day and night, including calisthenics, rifle training, crawling, and digging foxholes. He remembers that it was rough to leave his wife and child and ride in a boxcar to San Francisco. He discusses a trip across the Pacific in a Matson liner to Australia and finally New Guinea. He describes New Guinea as hot and rainy; they were warned not to bathe or wash their clothing in the water. He did it anyway and contracted jungle fever. After his recovery, he was made a coxswain on an LCM (Landing Craft, Mechanized). His duties were to pick up troops from the big boat and take them to shore along with ammunition and supplies. He reports that his was the first craft on the beach at Leyte Island. He describes the first day as one he doesn't like to think about much; Japanese planes came in swarms and his later duties were to pick up the dead and wounded and take them to the hospital ship. He recalls that night as being \"as miserable a night as I've ever spent.\" Later, as he was training to invade Japan, the atomic bomb was dropped. He expressed his admiration for President Truman because he believes millions of lives were saved by his decision to use the bomb. Next, they were tasked to go to a small island because there were some Japanese who wanted to surrender. Instead, the Japanese fired on them, killing half the crew. He details the circumstances of the day, including the blood flowing in the ship, the heat and the terrible odor. He recalls that they traveled at night to avoid Japanese Zeroes, and that they used a compass to arrive at their planned destination. He remembers that the \"bullets didn't sound too good\" whizzing by his head. He had to live on bananas most of the time; they had been supplied with canned food from Australia and he wasn't able to keep it down. He would trade the canned food for bananas. They had no time off and would collect water in rain barrels on the ship for bathing. Mail from home took about two weeks to arrive. After the war ended, they congregated on Leyte Island waiting for transportation home; it took a week on an old freighter. He contracted pneumonia and spent a week in a hospital in Oakland (Calif.). He concludes the interview by stating that he has tried to forget a lot of memories, that \"to have your buddy killed right beside you, it's rough.\"","Geston Holland was in the U.S. Army in the Pacific in World War II.","GESTON D. HOLLAND WWII Oral Histories October 8, 2003 Atlanta History Center Transcribed by Joyce Dumas [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: This is Christine Marr at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia, interviewing today Geston D. Holland on the eighth day of October, two thousand three. Mr. Holland, would you please introduce yourself and tell me where you were born and your birthday. Holland: I'm Geston David Holland. I was born near Dallas, Georgia. I was born June the twenty-sixth, nineteen and sixteen. I'm eighty-seven years old. Interviewer: Thank you. Can you tell me how you came to join the U.S. Army? Holland: I was drafted. Interviewer: In what year? Holland: Nineteen and…what was it? Forty-two or forty-three? Forty-two? Three? Nineteen forty-three. Interviewer: And once you were drafted what occurred? Holland: Well, when I was drafted I went to Addison, Alabama. I took my examination. They wanted me to go in the Navy, but I didn't want the Navy. I objected, which I was sorry of many times. Interviewer: Why did you prefer the Army? Holland: Well, because I had several friends in the Army and I thought we'd be in the same outfit, which we wasn't. But I was sent down to Caraville [phonetic], Florida. Did six weeks of training out in the swamps where the alligators, rattlesnakes and mosquitoes just absolutely tortured you to death. We had some deodorant, but it didn't faze them. Six weeks later, we came back. Interviewer: What was a training day like in Florida? What did you train to do? Holland: Trained to go to the Pacific where they wanted it as near like the same conditions after we got over there as we would have when we got there [sic]. Interviewer: Did you train for a specific function within the Army? Holland: Well, I guess I did. Interviewer: Could you provide some details on what a training day was like? Holland: A training day? Well, we done a little bit of everything. We almost trained night and day. They put us on guard duty. We did calisthenics. We would practice shooting with a rifle. Just a little bit of everything. Get out and crawled. Dig foxholes. Interviewer: How old were you at the time? Holland: I believe I was twenty-seven. Interviewer: And how did you feel at the time when you were going through this training knowing the war was coming up? Holland: Well, I felt like I was just wasn't no better going than nobody else [sic]. I wanted to serve my country, so I didn't dodge the draft. I went on. Of course, it was rough to leave a wife and a child. But I did it. So, we got that six weeks training. We were shipped on a old railroad boxcar to San Francisco, California, which took us a whole week. Then we were put on a [inaudible] liner, one of the fastest ships they had and sent to Australia. Well, we went from Australia to New Guinea, where the war was about over in New Guinea when I got there. Interviewer: What was it like when you arrived? Holland: In New Guinea? Well, that's just a terrible country. It just rained every day. Hot. Everything contaminated. They told us not to…whatever we do, not to wade or wash your clothes in the water there. But I thought they didn't know what they was talking about, so I go down and wash my clothes in a pretty little…looked like a clear creek and it gave me the jungle fever. So, as soon as I got up from that I was sent to the ship to the Philippine Islands, to invade the Philippine Islands. I was assigned to a boat. I was what they call a coxswain on the boat. I drove an LCM. Interviewer: What does LCM stand for? Holland: Well, it was a landing barge. We picked up the troops out of the big boat out to sea and carried them in to shore. And when we landed the troops, we also then carried in ammunition and supplies to them until they got a foothold, taken over. Then we move on and hit somewhere else. I was the first boat that hit the beach in Layte Island when the Philippines was invaded. Interviewer: Tell me more about that day. Holland: Ma'am? Interviewer: Tell me more about that day, please. Holland: That day? Well, that's a day I don't like to think about much. It was rough. There were many people killed because the Japs come out in swarms that night after we landed and killed a lot of our troops that we had landed there on the beach. Well, the first night then, I was assigned, my boat, to go in and pick up the dead and wounded off the beach, carry them back out to a hospital ship, which was out to sea a few miles. That was, I guess, as miserable a night as I've ever spent. But, we finally got everything taken over there. And then we went to several more islands and carried troops in, made landings, take them over. Well, we were training to go to Japan when they dropped the atomic bomb, ended the war. That was the happiest I ever was in my life and I've always admired and loved Truman for doing that cause that was gonna be a dangerous thing to land troops on Japan, on the [inaudible] beach. But we got a call from some little old island where they had a…was supposed to be a bunch of Japanese cut off, no supplies. Nobody lived in it. It was an uninhabited island. We got a call to come pick them up. They wanted to surrender. So my boat was assigned to go pick them up. We picked out a crew of about six, eight of us to go pick them up. Interviewer: Did your boat have a name? Was there a name? Holland: No, there wasn't no name. Just LCM landing craft. So, we went to pick them up. About fifty miles away from the base where we were. Interviewer: Do you know the name of that base? Holland: Of that? Interviewer: The base? Holland: Bay? Interviewer: The base where you were based out of? Holland: Oh, it was on Layte Island. Interviewer: Okay. Holland: Of course, I stayed on the boat all the time. I wasn't a…I was on the boat. Lived on the boat for two years. Interviewer: Okay. Holland: I wasn't a…just…if I went on the beach, it was just to pick up dead or wounded or something like that. Right back off. But my home was on that little old boat. But I was saying, we went to pick up them troops, prisoners. We got there, we pulled our boat in on the beach and they cut loose firing at us. Killed about half of our crew. Well, we backed off, but we done had about our crew dead. We had them on the boat. Put them in the bottom of our boat there and blood was flowing. And it was hot. Over a hundred degrees hot. Took us about two days to get back our base. And you talk about something, that was the worst odor that anybody could imagine. It's a dead human being out in the hot weather. That was one of the…I guess, one of the worst experiences that I had while I was over there. So I guess that about covers my activities over there. Interviewer: Well, where did you go after the Layte Island? Holland: Well, we to Nichols Island. We went to several of them islands, I didn't even know the name of them. We just got our orders to land troops such and such a place and they'd give us our readings to follow the compass. We usually traveled at night cause we were afraid to be out in there and the planes would bomb us, you know, if we were out in the ocean out in the daytime. So we traveled at night and they'd give us a reading with the compass and we'd have to follow that. And it'd carry us right to where we wanted to go. Interviewer: And why did you travel always at night? Holland: Always at night we traveled. Keep the planes from bombing us. The Japanese had them little old zero planes [sic] and they'd come down. It'd sound just like a bomber. Luckily, they never did hit our boat, but they hit some of the big boats. They'd go right down the smoke stack. Interviewer: And then after your work on Layte Island and Nichols Island, what came next? Holland: Well, as I say, several islands that we went on I don't even know the names of them. There's many islands over there. Interviewer: And you were…what were you doing at each of these islands? Holland: We'd carry troops into them from the…capture them, take them over. A lot of them, it wasn't much to it but some of them it was. It was rough on Layte. It was rough on Nichols Island. Some of… Interviewer: How was it rough? Holland: Well, you had the Japs a shooting at you. Just…and bullets didn't sound too good, whistling around your ears. Interviewer: What sort of food did you all eat there? Holland: Well, I had to live on bananas for most of the time because they give us that old Australian food, canned food. It was all we had on the boat. And that stuff wouldn't stay on my stomach. I'd eat it and right up it'd come. So I'd take a case of it in to the beach and swap it with some of them natives for a stalk of bananas and put them on the boat and that's what I'd mostly eat for nearly two years. Interviewer: And what about recreation? Did you all ever have any time off that you and your crew members… Holland: None whatsoever. Interviewer: No? Holland: We had a barrel out there on the boat. We caught rain water to bathe in. It's the only thing we had to bathe in. Barrels of water we caught rain water in. Interviewer: And I understand that you saw McArthur at some point? Holland: I what? Interviewer: Did you see General McArthur? Holland: Yes, I did. But it was out at sea about, oh, fifteen or twenty miles on the staff boat out there. And I went right up around him. I never did get on the boat with him but I've seen him standing out on the deck. He didn't get close in where the shooting was going on. Interviewer: What are some other vivid memories of your experience? Holland: Well, one of my experiences when we worked in New Guinea…they told us there were headhunters on the island. They said, “Don't go out anywhere away from the camp without carrying your rifle”. Well, I thought that was just a fairy tale. So I strayed off down there to a coconut grove. And one of the worst looking things I ever saw come up on me with a…and of course he couldn't talk English. It was some kind of jabbering with a big old long spear in his hand. And he took out after me. I've never run as hard in my life. I outrun him [sic] but it scared me to death. Whoa. Interviewer: Did you find out anything more about the indigenous people there while you were there? Holland: In New Guinea? There wasn't nothing there but, you know, natives there that couldn't speak English. They were terrible looking people. They said one of them lived to thirty-five years old. That was old. Their teeth rotted out while they were just children. It's a country I don't think no civilized person would want to live. Interviewer: And were you able to communicate while you were away with your wife or your family back at home? Holland: Well, none whatsoever except maybe we'd get mail from them. Maybe it took two weeks to get there. And we could write letters and carry it in and leave it on the shore. That was after we'd get a beach head made. There'd be times for several weeks that we had no way whatsoever of communicating. Couldn't write no letters or nothing. But when we'd get an island taken over, we could write some letters and we'd get a little mail once in a while. But we wasn't supposed to tell where we was [sic] or what we were doing. Cause it might give the enemy some information. Interviewer: Did you befriend anybody in particular that is important to you in your memories of World War Two? Holland: Well, there was several but they're practically all dead now, I reckon. I don't know another one of them that's living that was in my outfit. Interviewer: Were these men that you met at training camp or that you met later? Holland: Well, most…some of them was at training camp. We went all the way over there together, you know. That's one reason I ended up in that outfit because I didn't want to go in the Navy, I wanted to stay with my friends, people I met, knew. But… Interviewer: Who in particular? Could you give me some names/ Holland: Well, one of them was named J.H. Holland. Interviewer: A relation to you? Holland: No relation, just same name. But wasn't no relation. I can't remember the names. I'm very poor at that. Interviewer: That's okay. Holland: I did communicate with some of them a while after coming back home. But it soon played out. Interviewer: And…um…how…how often were you paid? Holland: How often we paid? Interviewer: Yep. Holland: Well, somewhere around once a month. I'd draw twelve dollars a month. Course, I had an allotment going back to my wife and child. That's where most of my money went to. But I'd actually draw twelve dollars a month. Interviewer: And when you returned home, tell me about when the war…after you were complete with your mission on the islands? What happened then? Holland: Which…when we started home? Interviewer: Yes. Or when you heard that the bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. What happened then? Holland: Well, we was uh…congregated on Layte Island and we was waiting on transportation to come in and pick us up, bring us back home. It was less than a month. They put us on an old freighter. And where it took me three days to go over there, it took a week to go back. And when we changed over climates, they supposedly gave us shots to keep us taking pneumonia, but I took pneumonia. And I come into Oakland, California. I had to be put in the hospital with pneumonia. So I had to stay there about a week or ten days before I could out to go home. And that was a miserable time. Interviewer: Did your wife know? Holland: Yes, she knew. Interviewer: What other memories do you have of your World War Two experience? Holland: Well, a lot of them I've tried to forget. [chuckles] It was a rough time. I had some bad experiences. When you have your buddy to get killed right beside of you, it's rough. So, it was a miserable experience to be…what I went through with it. I don't talk about it much. I don't like to think about it. So, I believe that's about all I have to say. Interviewer: Would you like to share those photos? That's a photo of you when you enlisted in the Army? Holland: Right. Interviewer: And would you like to show the next photo? Holland: Well, this is a group of the outfit that I went in. This was taken after our basic training was over. Interviewer: In Florida? Holland: In Florida. Caraville [phonetic], Florida. Interviewer: The medals that are on your uniform, would you care to tell me about those? Holland: Well, I never did go for medals. I was instructed to go down and receive several medals that I never did go get because so many of these soldiers never go to nothing but basic training. You go down to the commissary you can buy them, any kind you wanted and all kinds. And they just fill there uniforms full of them. So for that reason I just didn't want none. Interviewer: Is there anything you'd like to add to the story? Holland: I don't believe so. Interviewer: Thank you very much. Holland: Yes, ma'am. [end of tape]"],"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","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Ocean","World War, 1939-1945--Medical care","Atomic bomb","Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972","United States. Army. Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment, 542nd. Company C","Matson Navigation Company","LCM (Landing Craft, Mechanized)"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Geston D. Holland"],"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/214"],"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":["23:14"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_252","title":"Oral history interview of Kathleen Mainland","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United Kingdom, Scotland, Argyll and Bute, River Clyde, 55.97348, -4.81032","United Kingdom, Scotland, North Lanarkshire, Airdrie, 55.86602, -3.98025","United Kingdom, Scotland, Shetland Islands, Lerwick, 60.15339, -1.14427","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383"],"dcterms_creator":["Pace, Hayden","Mainland, Kathleen, 1931-"],"dc_date":["2003-10-08"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Kathleen Ann Cameron Mainland recalls her father's World War I service in the British Army and her own reminiscences from World War II in Scotland. Her father was a member of the Seaforth Highlanders and was headed for the front lines in France. He recorded his experiences on paper and Kathleen shares them. She also recalls her experiences and conditions as a child during World War II in Scotland. She remembers that the novel \"Gone with the Wind\" influenced her decision to move to the United States.","Kathleen Mainland grew up in Scotland during World War II.","Kathleen Mainland Veterans History Project Atlanta History Center With Hayden Pace October 8, 2003 [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: Okay. This will be the recorded interview for the Veterans Project of the Atlanta History Center of Kathleen Mainland, which is taken on October eighth, 2003. It is now twelve fifteen in the afternoon and the interviewer is myself, Hayden Pace. Kathleen, if I could get you to state your full name. Mainland: Kathleen Anne Camerton [phonetic] Mainland. Interviewer: And Kathleen, where were you born? Mainland: I was born in Airdrie, Lenoxshire, Scotland. It's near Glasgow. Interviewer: And when were you born? Mainland: Six October, 1931. Interviewer: When did you leave Scotland? Mainland: 1982. It was the date in the calendar that is also a command; March fourth. Interviewer: [laughs] All right. So you were there fifty years. Who were your parents? Mainland: My parents were James and Nancy Stout. My mother's maiden name was Bane. Interviewer: And what did James do for a living? Mainland: James was a banker. Interviewer: He was a banker. Mainland: Yes. Interviewer: And did James serve in the military at any time? Mainland: He served in World War One. And we do have an article that he wrote. Actually he wrote it as a letter home, but because he came from such a small community, Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, it was printed in the local paper and it told of his wartime experiences, mostly concerned with his progress toward the front along with his battalion. He was in the Seaforth Highlanders. And one thing he did not put on the letter, but told us, was that the kilts that they had to wear were made of very, very rough material and he apparently had rather tender legs because when the kilt material got wet it would take the skin off the back of his thighs [laughs]. Not at all comfortable. But anyway, he was on his way to the front along with everybody else. At one point they met up with German prisoners of war being taken to the back, taken out of combat. And he describes them as great hulking brutes [laughs]. He was not tall. He was not a tall man. Interviewer: How old was he when he enlisted? Mainland: Eighteen. Interviewer: And did he enlist or was he [inaudible]? Mainland: He enlisted because he was hoping that he could get into the physical training corps. But at that time, in nineteen…barely 1917, everybody just went straight to the front, so it didn't work for him. Interviewer: What is the physical training corps? Mainland: PT. Interviewer: Is it similar to boot camp? Mainland: No. No. It's a section that would be concerned with physical training, with exercising and building up muscle and you know. Interviewer: So he saw it as an opportunity? Mainland: That was what he wanted to go into. He was already working in a bank, but he didn't like it. And thought if he could get into the physical training part in the army that perhaps he could progress to that when he went back to civilian life. Interviewer: Do you know what your grandparents thought about him enlisting? Mainland: No. [laughs] I can't…well, I don't know. The atmosphere was so different, I think. Perhaps they were proud of him for serving his country, for taking it upon himself to go ahead and put himself possibly in the way of danger. Interviewer: Had he lived in that one town all his life at that point? Mainland: Yes. Interviewer: So this was an opportunity perhaps to travel, too. Mainland: Possibly. Although, he had lived…they went on holiday to what's called the mainland, which means Scotland. Actually the island that they lived on, the main island of both the Shetland and the Orkney group is called “The Mainland” and that's where my name comes from. Interviewer: Do you know if he spent his entire service career in Scotland or did he travel to… Mainland: Oh, he traveled to France. I think it was Arras. And as I say, he was on his way to the front when suddenly he found himself face down in the mud without any idea of how he had got there. And he got up and sort of cleaned himself off and went along the road and only at night, when he took off his helmet did he discover what had happened. He had a very small head and the helmets have netting in them that you're supposed to pull tight around your head. Well, in his case it made the helmet sit high off his head, really. And a bullet had entered the crown of the helmet, gone around the inside and out the back and that was what threw him forward. And having a small head saved his life and I guess that's one of the reasons why I'm here today [laughs]. Cause my dad had a small head. But before he got into any fighting at all--I don't think he ever fired his rifle in anger or in self-defense or anything else--he was hit in the thigh and his thighbone was broken. So he was left by the roadside, as it happened, for over twenty-four hours. And he tried, he describes how he tried to splint his leg with his bayonet and the entrenching tool that they carry. But it wasn't a good job apparently because when he got back to hospital in Britain his thighbone had knit together overlapping two and a half inches. So they broke it and reset it but that was not successful and he was two and a half inches short in his right leg for the rest of his life and had to wear a surgical boot, which of course put paid to any thought of a career in physical training or gymnastics. Interviewer: So he went back to the bank. Mainland: So he went back to the bank, yes. Interviewer: How long was his career in the military? Mainland: I think he joined up in February and was invalided out in April. Interviewer: So very short. Mainland: Very short, yes. Interviewer: And as you stated, he never even got a chance to shoot his rifle. Mainland: Nope. Interviewer: I see. Mainland: The only quote Huns that he saw were those being taken as prisoners of war back to… Interviewer: When he was in the military, did he communicate with his family at all? Mainland: Oh, yes. The whole family were letter writers and this letter that Daddy wrote, well, it's arranged by the editor of the paper, of course. But he wrote that and he also wrote a letter to his sister, Betty, which I brought. Well, I typed out a copy of it and I have it here. Interviewer: Okay. Will you hold that up for the camera? It's a letter that was written by James to his sister Betty or Elizabeth and that's going to be included in the materials here [inaudible]. Mainland: Monday, twenty-six March, 1917. When he was in…he does say. He mentions having met up with somebody else from Shetland. Oh, yes. [reading] “The village we're at just now is called Ourton.” O-U-R-T-O-N. “Or Durton and lies somewhere behind Arras.” And of course, he wasn't supposed to say that, so he's admonishing his sisters to keep it quiet. They must not have been censored or that would have been cut out. Interviewer: Right. Did he maintain any friendships with anyone he met during his time in the service? Mainland: Not that I know of. Interviewer: Did he frequently refer to his time in the service as you where growing up? Mainland: He sang “Pack Up Your Troubles” so much that I thought it was a nursery rhyme. It's one of the first things I learned to sing. Interviewer: And this song, in case the viewers aren't familiar with it, is that something he was taught in the military? Mainland: Well, it was a song of World War One. Interviewer: Okay. Do you remember any of it? Mainland: Oh, yes. [singing] “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. While you've a Lucifer to light your fag, smile boys, that's the style. What's the use of worrying? It never was worthwhile. So pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.” And a Lucifer, of course, is a match. A fag is a cigarette. He didn't smoke, I don't think. [laughs] Interviewer: So other than this particular song, would he speak [inaudible] told you his stories about the bullet in the helmet and then obviously he was shot in the thigh. Mainland: He didn't talk about it a great deal. I mean, it wasn't something I was taken on his lap and told about. I presume, I can't remember, but I should think sometime I was up in the attic and came across the helmet and brought it down and asked about it and that's how I heard. And we'd never known him without a surgical boot. And it wasn't all that apparent. It was just, the right boot was built up with a platform of cork inside it and when he was wearing trousers, long trousers, you couldn't see. But it didn't stop him playing badminton and oh, he played badminton quite a lot. Interviewer: Did he meet your mother before or after entering into the war? Mainland: After. Interviewer: Okay. And you were born obviously several years later, fifteen years later. Mainland: Yes. They married in 1926. I believe they were engaged for about four years. Well, you had to have enough money to marry on in those days. You didn't just get married and then wonder where the money was coming from. [laughs] No, my mother didn't work. She was a very shy, quiet person and she stayed at home until she went to live with my father. Interviewer: And were you living with them at the time that World War Two began? Mainland: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Interviewer: What do you remember of that? Mainland: Well, being seven years old, what I mainly remember is that war broke out in September and I was sort of vaguely aware of the grownups going around with very solemn faces and sort of clustering around the radio whenever there was a news bulletin. But my main memory is of great delight because it meant that school didn't open. We had extended summer holidays. [laughs] The very early days of the war, there were still a lot of worried people running around. They were issuing gas masks. They were appointing people as air raid wardens. We were being told to protect the glass in our house, the windows particularly, by putting either net or crisscrossings of brown sticky paper on them so if they shattered they wouldn't go everywhere. And of course, we had to have blackouts. We had big screens that went up over every window in the house and we didn't turn on the lights when it started to get dark at night until we had the blackouts in place. And the air raid wardens were civilians in each street, or perhaps several to a street if it was a long one, who went around and patrolled regularly to make sure no chink of light was showing. All the street lights were put out. There were no street lights at all. The few cars that were on the road, because of course there was no petrol or gas, had sort of hoods over their headlights directing them down so that they could scarcely be seen. And really, it was all to stop over-flying aircraft from seeing anything or knowing where they were or knowing that there was land below them at all. Interviewer: All this preparation, how did that impress upon a seven year old? Mainland: It was just…I think more excited. There was a real hum in the air. And as the time went on, I think being so young, we kids just adjusted to…that was life at the time and we hadn't known anything else so we couldn't contrast it. Interviewer: Did your parents explain what was going on, what was behind all these preparations? Mainland: No, I don't think so. It was just “the war” and we didn't know what “the war” was. Interviewer: Did you kids try and figure it out among your friends. Mainland: [inaudible, whispering] no. No. We knew the Germans were bad. Actually we, in my area, experienced the first air raid of the war on British soil. They tried, in September, I mean right at the beginning of the war, they tried to bomb the Forth Bridge, which was the main rail link between the southern part of the country and the north. And they tried to bomb the Roughside [phonetic] Dockyard. Now we were on the southern edge of Dunfermline, facing the River Forth and right down in front of our windows was Roughside Dockyard. If you had a good pair of binoculars, you could tell the time by the clock that was on the big chimney in the middle of it. So, it was going on all the time. They were testing the air raid sirens and I still get chills up my back when I hear the police in Atlanta. I'm a little more accustomed to it now, but it still goes back to that time where it meant, “Be frightened.” And they were testing the air raid sirens and so when we went out playing and the air raid sirens went one more time, we didn't pay any attention. “Oh, they're just testing again.” We didn't even think that, I don't think. Just went on. And then we started to see planes sort of streaking across the sky and then there were sparks of orange coming out of the planes. I can remember thinking, “It's a very realistic test, this.” And it wasn't until oh, a couple hours or more later that a neighbor came home, lived further up the street, white and shaking because he had been on a train that was crossing the Forth Bridge during the raid. And for some unknown reason, they stopped the train on the bridge until the raid was over. I don't begin to understand the reasoning. Maybe there wasn't any, but they did. So he sat there and watched planes dive bombing him. Said he could see the crosses on the wings and in some cases, actually see the outline of the pilot inside. Interviewer: How frightening. Mainland: Oh, terrifying. But they never did get the bridge. I mean, it's like a pencil from the air. And later on…they didn't harm the dockyard either. But later on, in order to forestall raids on the dockyard particularly, they put up barrage balloons, which are big helium-filled balloons. You know what a balloon looks like with the big sort of ears, which we would, in Scotland, call lugs. That's Scottish for ear. And they're flown at a certain height which prevents the planes from coming as low as they might do to strafe or bomb. So all through the war, we had these barrage balloons as part of our view. And we became very accustomed to them so that when they weren't there, it was unsettling. It was worrying. And one day, I remember, we watched as one by one they caught fire and sank down. And we thought that the Germans had come and were shooting them down so that they could come in and really put paid to the dockyard. But it turned out it was localized lightning that was hitting them and taking them down. I don't…we never really…I don't remember understanding really what the war was about or what it was. It wasn't directly concerning us. I mean, we weren't in the line of fire, as it were. We didn't have soldiers. We didn't have…well, I did evacuate actually. I was going to say we didn't have to evacuate. But there was a time when there were a great many raids and it was decided that I would be safer away from the dockyard and the bridge. So I was sent to my aunt's, and she lived in the country on the west side of the country. And it turned out that that wasn't a very good idea either because she was fairly close to the shipyards on the River Clyde and the Germans started going for those shipyards. So I came home. But we had air raid sirens, air raid warnings just about every night for ten days as the planes flew over us on their way to Clydebank. And we didn't [inaudible word] coming out of the shelter when the all clear went because we learned that they were going to come back the same way and if they had any bombs left over they would jettison them wherever. So, we just stayed in the air raid shelter until the all clear went for the second time. And then it was all right. But by then, most of the night was over. So. And I say air raid shelter, now if we had sustained a direct hit on the house we would all have been blown to kingdom come. Because the air raid shelter was a little sort of heavy wooden structure in the corner of my parents' bedroom, where there was just about room for the four of us to sit in there. The idea was that we were up against an outside wall which was double because we had a cold cellar just outside. Crazy. And I expect the Anderson shelters that were corrugated iron set into the ground, if they had sustained a direct hit they would not have…well, I say put into the ground. Then they had soil, dirt packed over them. But a bomb would have killed everybody in there if it had come close enough. It was some shelter but not really a hundred percent. Interviewer: An Anderson shelter. What is that? Mainland: Well, that was this thing that you dug a hole in the ground about maybe four feet deep and you got these pieces of corrugated iron that came up so far and then curved over the top to make a roof. And then when you'd got that you would pile dirt on top. You could dig it deeper than four feet, I guess. And then you piled dirt over the top and that was your air raid shelter and you went in there. Some people had bunks inside so they could sleep. But I don't know what the air raid shelters that we had at school were made of. I know we went down into them and I think they must have been brick built and you went down into the shelter, which I remember feeling very resentful that we had four or six of them in the girls' playground, not the boys'. It was a mixed school but we were strictly segregated. In the classroom, the boys sat on one side, the girls sat on the other and when we went out for recess or playtime, the boys had a separate playground from the girls with a great big wall in between the two [laughs], which seemed…I mean we just took it for granted. That was the way things were. But it seems crazy now. That was in elementary school. Infant school we all played together. That was five to seven year olds. And then when you were seven, eight, you went to elementary in the separate sexes. Although we were both in the same classroom. And then the same when we went to high school. The boys had a separate entrance and a separate gymnasium and we sat separately in class mostly. But that's just an aside. I was going to say that the one fear that stayed with me, and pretty much through the war, at least until the air raids finished, was that there would be an air raid while I was part ways between home and school. What would I do? Where would I go? I never voiced the fear because there was all this thing about stiff upper lip and you weren't supposed to show your fear and you didn't tell people about hardships or what you were feeling or anything. That was part of the war effort. Interviewer: The war went on for years. How did you deal with this for such a long time? Mainland: Yes, but the raids didn't go on. I mean, I guess by what…'42, certainly by '43 there were no more raids in Britain. And so it was three years, four years. Just when I was little. Interviewer: From age seven to ten? Is that about right? Mainland: Yeah. Something like that. Interviewer: Other than the two assaults on the bridge and the dockyards, which were I guess unsuccessful, do you remember any other assaults on your town or your village? Mainland: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. There was one time when my father…I saw my father afraid and that was very scary. He was, as I say, an air raid warden and after the siren had gone he went out to check round about that nobody was showing any lights. And when he came back in, he was pale. And he said, “Oh, we're for it now. We're for it now.” And he told us that what apparently had happened was that the light bombers had come over first and they had dropped incendiaries all around the…well, I don't know whether all around, but all around the boundary of the town that we could see from our windows and we were fairly high. And he said that they [inaudible] it's a ring of fire that the heavy stuff is going to be dropped into. Well, he had reckoned without our fire service because when the heavy bombers came over, there was no ring of fire left. It had all been put out. And I don't really know whether they dropped their bombs or whether they turned around and went back and dropped them somewhere else or what happened. And I don't know why they would want to drop the bomb on Dunfermline because there was nothing there. We weren't a military town. We weren't making munitions. We weren't doing anything outstanding for the war effort. Interviewer: How big was this town? Mainland: It was about sixty thousand. Incidentally, it's where Andrew Carnegie was born. Not a big town and yes, we did have the military in town. They commandeered the public…the Carnegie public baths, the swimming pool as barracks for the army. As they did when I…at my grandmother's, she lived outside Glasgow and there was a little sort of community hall down the road from where she lived and that was made into a barracks. And when I went to visit her, and I had a great time running errands for the soldiers and getting paid for it, you know. Interviewer: Did you meet with the soldiers personally? Mainland: Oh, yes. Interviewer: [inaudible] the errands? Mainland: Oh, yes. Yes. Interviewer: What do you remember of them? Mainland: The main thing I remember was that they had a pipe band there and every morning I would get up early and go down and march up and down with the pipe major as he practiced his pipes. I'm sure the neighborhood must have been delighted having a piper at seven o'clock in the morning [laughs], but I loved it. I thought it was just great and I marched up and down keeping him company. Interviewer: Did the soldiers ever tell you any stories or… Mainland: They hadn't been anywhere yet. This was a staging post. I mean, they weren't training. They must just have been there waiting until they were deployed, until they knew where they were going to go. Interviewer: Do you remember their general mood? Mainland: It was pretty upbeat as I remember. But then they wouldn't show anything else to a child. Interviewer: And you said that the town sort of had an attitude, “Keep a stiff upper lip.” Mainland: Oh, the whole country. Interviewer: Really. Mainland: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I don't know that there were any posters about that. The posters mostly were about “careless talk, save lives”. Careless talk…oh, what was it? “Careless talk costs lives.” That was it. So if you knew anything you weren't supposed to talk about it. Interviewer: Now you stated that the air raids ended after a period of time and the war continued. Mainland: Oh, yes. Interviewer: What do you remember about your family or your town keeping track of the war [inaudible]? Mainland: Oh, radio. Radio. Everybody sat around the radio when the news came on, six o'clock news at night. I mean, there were newscasts at other times of the day, but six o'clock you could just about count on everybody being indoors listening to the news and the different news readers. Albar Ledell [phonetic] is one name that comes to mind. They always announced their names when they were reading it. “Here is the BBC six o'clock news and this is Albar Ledell reading it.” Interviewer: And were these broadcasts just simply reporting what had taken place or were they from the front lines? Mainland: Oh, they weren't from the front lines. No. They might be stories from the front lines, but the news was purely reporting what was going on, what had gone on that particular day, what progress we had made. Interviewer: Very different from today's coverage of the military. Mainland: Yes. Interviewer: Do you remember the end of the war? Mainland: Oh, yes. [laughing] Interviewer: What was it like? Mainland: I can't remember exactly what V-E was like, Victory in Europe. But some people at school, high school by then, got a hold of some paint and on the entrance, the two entrances, boys and girls, to the school, they put a great big painted “V-E” on either side of the doorway. Never found out who did it. [laughs] I have a photograph. I don't know. You might like a copy of it. It's actually the prizewinners for 1945 and I was one. And there we are all clustered on these steps and you can see the V-E and they've tried to take out the V-E with blackboard dusters. You know, where you just smacked the chalk dust on it. But you can still see the V-E showing through. V-J I remember better because I was visiting Shetland. Stopped there staying with cousins. And we knew it was coming. And when it was finally announced, the first thing I think people did…must have come in the evening because that's what I remember about. People rushed to take their blackouts down and let the lights shine out. And it was wonderful. We went up to my cousin's bedroom and she was up on the third floor and we could crawl out the window into a little balcony on the front of the house and we watched the lights coming out. And there were…this was Lerwick which is a harbor. And there were little craft going up and down the harbor, shooting off ferry lights and it was like fireworks and we'd never…couldn't remember seeing anything like it ever before. That was just…that was a wonderful night. [laughs] Interviewer: [inaudible] celebration? Mainland: Yes. Oh, yes. I don't remember parties. I suppose there must have been but that's my memories of the end of the war, especially in Lerwick. Those ships running up and down and the lights coming on. Interviewer: And moving sort of backwards, do you remember when Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor or any event? Mainland: Not particularly. Interviewer: The United States at that point… Mainland: Oh, yes. Interviewer: [inaudible] Mainland: Oh, yes. Interviewer: [inaudible] Mainland: Well, not really. I mean I was what? Eight when that happened and it was just all part of “The War”. I wasn't aware that America hadn't been in before or that it was in now. Didn't know where Pearl Harbor was. Didn't particularly care at eight years old. Interviewer: Did you have a notion of politics or Allies? Mainland: No, not really. Interviewer: After V-E and V-J, do you remember the Scottish troops coming back home? Mainland: It wasn't really noticeable. I didn't have anybody who was in the war closer than a second cousin. Oh, no. A couple of second cousins. One was a surgeon in the navy and the other one was in the army. Oh, part of my war effort was writing to the one in the navy. I wrote letters to him regularly. And we got special…like the…you know the airmail letters that you get at the post office that you just fold up and stick? We had forces letters that were something like that. And that was what I wrote to this cousin just to [inaudible] my war effort. Interviewer: Did you get letters back? Mainland: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Interviewer: Do you remember any of them? Mainland: Then he came and stayed with us. I don't remember any…I mean he…again, writing to a child. He wouldn't put anything horrid. Interviewer: Am I right in seeing there's also a letter written from your dad to his sister during World War Two? Mainland: Yes. Yes, there is. This is the letter that he wrote. It's just an extract from it about the war, about not getting too much sleep and also about the night that the bombers came to drop their incendiaries and then the heavy stuff was supposed to go inside the ring of fire. Oh, he adds…I had forgotten about that. But the next morning, the burnt part that we could see, there was just a horde of people going down, going through it, looking for souvenir pieces of shrapnel and bits of bomb and whatever. We did not join in that. [laughs] He says, [reading] “It's amazing what some people will do.” But it was a time of deprivation. Everything was rationed. Gasoline for instance. You just could not get…unless you were a doctor or needed it for essential work. Public transport did get it obviously, but there were no cars on the roads virtually. I walked to and from school. It wasn't that far. Twice a day, because I came home for lunch. Food was rationed. Every food was rationed. I think, I have a picture that shows the exact amounts per person, per week. The only thing that I remember for sure was candy. Four ounces per person per week. And rationing did not finish in 1945. The first thing that was de-rationed was candy in 1950. And rationing was fully finished in 1954. We put everything we had into the war effort. Interviewer: So the transition from wartime to non-wartime took a period of years. Mainland: Oh, yes. Oh, it wasn't instantaneous by any means. Clothes were rationed. You had coupons and it was so many coupons for a pair of socks, for a length of dress material. When I was thinking about coming to this, it occurred to me to wonder how the theaters managed with clothes. I don't think they got special…they must have got special dispensation to buy material to make costumes. Another of the wartime phrases was “Make do and mend.” And you did. You mended your clothes until they wouldn't hold stitches any more. I don't know how my mother managed to keep interesting meals on the table because meat was rationed, for instance. I mean it was something like six ounces per person per week. But you didn't get to choose. You went down to the butcher shop and you took what he happened to have in at that time or maybe he was having something else in the next day. And so she wouldn't be able to plan ahead. She just had to decide on the way home what she was going to cook or how she was going to cook whatever she had. Much of our garden, which was quite large, was given over to growing vegetables. And we had fruit trees. We had apples and gooseberries and raspberries and black currants and rhubarb. And all through the war, my sister and I did not start drinking tea. My sister's five years younger than I am. In the summertime we would have milk to drink, as far as I remember. In the winter, going out to school to give us something warm in our tummies, we had a glass of hot water with a spoonful of honey in it. One of my father's cousins lived up in Aberdeenshire and kept bees. So at the beginning of every winter we would buy twenty pounds of honey from her. It came in a great big can. And that meant that my mother could save the sugar that we would otherwise have put in our tea and she used it for making jam and pies and so on. Interviewer: How about the psychological transition from wartime to after the war? Is this something that you noticed or people didn't relax as quickly as you might guess they would? Mainland: I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it took a while. I don't remember exactly. I guess I stopped being frightened when there stopped being air raids. Though I'll tell you another thing that…everything went gray during the war. We didn't bleach things any more. So newspaper was gray. The books that you bought had gray paper and very thin sort of flimsy feel to it. The packets that the cereal, breakfast cereal, came in were gray. We didn't get Rice Krispies any more cause we don't grow rice and Rice Krispies were my favorite. So that was a real hardship. This aunt that my father was writing to came to visit us in 1950 and I came back with her and spent a year in Atlanta. That's what made me want to come back. That and “Gone with the Wind,” which I read seven times when I was in my teens. But…where was I going with that? Going across in the ship I had Rice Krispies for breakfast every morning. It was great. But we didn't have corn flakes, cause we don't grow corn very well. It's only really fit for animal fodder, the corn that we grow. We grow a different kind of corn, which is a real grain. It's not the maize that you think of as corn. And we had wheat flakes. It's really not very appetizing. And the bread went gray because the flour wasn't bleached. Interviewer: Do you remember this returning to normal after a period of time? Mainland: Not really. Nope. Seems strange. You'd think I would. I don't remember it at this point. Interviewer: And then you moved to the United States and you have children? Mainland: Yes. Yes. I have two sons. One is living with me. I came partly as the result of the breakup of my marriage. My husband left and shortly afterwards my mother died. My father was already died [sic]. He had a cerebral hemorrhage at age fifty-five. I suddenly realized that there wasn't anything to keep me in Britain anymore and it wasn't really where I wanted to be. The early eighties was when the trade unions were running everything, it seemed. And there would be strikes over an extra five minutes on the tea break or really stupid things, it seemed to me. And I didn't want my children growing up with that sort of work ethic. So I started making inquiries about coming over here. Eventually, six years later. It isn't easy to come here as a legal immigrant. I was very tempted to come as an illegal, but I didn't want my kids to get off on the wrong foot. So, we waited and waited and all the paperwork that you have to go through. But eventually, two of my friends in this country engaged the services of an immigration lawyer. And among us, we managed to pull it off. Interviewer: And your sons have children? Do you have grandkids? Mainland: One of them has two children, a boy and a girl. Interviewer: How old is the boy? Mainland: The boy will be five on the fifteenth of October and the little girl was one on the twenty-ninth of September. They're up in Boulder, Colorado. Interviewer: Do you speak with your children about your memories of the war and told them about these stories? Mainland: Oh, yes. I wrote it all up actually and they both read it. We don't talk about the war a great deal. Interviewer: What about [inaudible]? Mainland: [inaudible] Now my older son, the one in Boulder, is a world history teacher and he's very interested in just all aspects. We haven't actually sat down and talked about the war as such, but various little things that have come up, he's interested in. Interviewer: What is your impression of military service these days? Would you encourage people to serve in the military or do you have an opinion in that regard? Mainland: [sighs] I don't really think I would ever encourage anybody close to me to serve in the military just because of the danger. I think it's great the benefits you get from it. You know, your college education if you need it, that sort of thing. But the danger is too much. Especially now, when the weapons get more and more sophisticated. It's horrifying. Interviewer: Okay. That's all I have, but is there anything you'd like to state or any story that I failed to ask you about [inaudible]? Mainland: Can't think of anything. I think we've covered it all. I don't think there's anything else, thank you. Interviewer: Great. Well, thank you very much. Mainland: You're very welcome. Interviewer: I appreciate it. [end of tape] Notable pages: p. 2-7—tales of James Stout, Mainland's father, in World War One p. 8—Mainland's childhood memories of World War Two start p. 10—war's first air raid in Britain p. 12—description of air raid shelter p. 15—ring of fire for heavy bombers p. 16—meeting the soldiers p. 18—the light of V-J day p. 20—rationing"],"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, British","Stout, James, 1898-1968","Stout, Nancy Bain, 1904-1984","Carnegie, Andrew, 1835-1919","Great Britain. Army. Seaforth Highlanders","Rationing","blackouts","evacuation","Anderson shelter"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Kathleen Mainland"],"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/252"],"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":["44:55"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_369","title":"Oral history interview of Ben Carella","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Alaska, Aleutians West, Adak Island, 51.78444, -176.64028","United States, Alaska, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Fairbanks, 64.83778, -147.71639","United States, Alaska, Nome Census Area, Nome, 64.50111, -165.40639","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, New York, New York County, New York, 40.7142691, -74.0059729"],"dcterms_creator":["Gardner, Robert D.","Carella, Ben, 1919-"],"dc_date":["2003-10-02"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Ben Carella describes his career in the Army Air Force during World War II and in the Reserves during the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. He enlisted because he felt the Army Air Force was more elite than the infantry. He recounts in detail primary, basic, and advanced pilot training. During World War II, he ferried planes from manufacturers such as Bell and Curtiss. Many of the planes he ferried went to Alaska as part of preparation for the invasion of Japan from a northerly route. After the war, he ferried weather instruments to allies throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He sailed home in 1947 and reunited with his wife and met his new daughter in an A \u0026 P grocery store. During the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, he stayed in the Reserves, providing logistical support.","Ben Carella Was a U.S. Army Air Force pilot in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.","BEN CARELLA VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW Atlanta History Center 2, 2003 Interviewer: Robert Gardner Transcriber: Linzy Emery 2nd, 2003. This is an interview of Mr. Ben Carella, 115 Sweetwood Way in Roswell, Georgia. His birth date is June 30, 1919. Interview is taking place at the Atlanta History Center. Robert Gardner is conducting the interview. Mr. Carella, what branch of service did you serve in? Mr. Carella: On the Air Force, known as the Old Brownshoe. What was the highest rank that you attained, sir? Mr. Carella: Lieutenant Colonel. Where did you serve, sir? Mr. Carella: Romulus, Michigan; Great Falls, Montana; St. Joan, Missouri; and Weisbladen, Germany. Where you drafted, or did you enlist? Mr. Carella: I enlisted. Where were you living at the time, sir? Mr. Carella: In New York City. Why did you join? Mr. Carella: Well, two or three reasons. I'd rather be in the Air Force, so I was going to be drafted and I figured that would be a more elite form of soldier than being just the regular GI. And that's the reason I joined. Do you recall your first days in service? Mr. Carella: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Took a train from Grand Central Station down to Maxwell Field, Alabama, and went through three months of basic and GI training before we even got to do any flying or got into the flying end of the business. Can you tell me about your boot camp or training experiences? Mr. Carella: Very difficult. Get up at about 6:30 in the morning, and didn't get to bed until, maybe, eight or nine at night. And, of course, we performed all kinds of military functions, learning how to march and drill and run. And then at night when you thought you were asleep the upper class would come in and haze you a little bit. Get you to jump out of bed, stand at attention and it got to the point where you wanted to do away with them. But, we got to be upper classmen later on, so we did the same thing. It was just a form of what was going on in those days. Do you remember any of your instructors? Mr. Carella: Oh, no. No, I do not. I can picture them, but I don't know their names. I can't remember. That's going back too many years. How did you get through it all? Mr. Carella: It wasn't easy. We just hung on there and did the best you could, and during the primary training we lost about, I'd say, maybe fifty or sixty percent of our people were washed out because they couldn't either pass the flying end of it or couldn't stand the strain for whatever reasons. Then, when you graduated primary, you got into basic training, and you lost another, I'd say, ten to twenty percent, for the same reasons, because you got into a second stage aircraft. We went from the PT13 Stamen[?] to the Vultivibrator, and then when you passed that phase of it, you got into advanced training. And when you got to advanced training you were pretty much in the program because the government had already invested quite a bit of money in training on you, and they weren't about to let you go for minor infractions. And we got into the AT6, which is the advanced trainer, and of course, that was a more sophisticated air craft with retractable gear and adjustable prop and flaps and all that kind of stuff, so. Graduated, advanced training, November 10th, 1942, and my first assignment was through Romulus, Michigan. My last ten, ten or fifteen hours of advanced training were done in a P40 aircraft. At that time we were scheduled in a program to support General Chenault's efforts in the Far East, and we were going to be some of the replacements that were going to be transferred or sent over to his unit. But at that stage of the game he wasn't requiring any more replacements because the air there, the war there was winding down. So we were assigned to the newly developed air transport command, which was a new unit formed in the Army Air Force to transport aircraft from manufacturers to the front lines. And that was about it. Which war or wars did you serve in, sir? Mr. Carella: World War II, and I was on active duty, I was in the Air Force reserve active duty training, sir, and we supported the Vietnam War and the Korean War, but I was not actively engaged there. We just supported them in a form of logistical support, moving equipment and supplies around the United States where they were needed. Do you remember arriving at any of your specific duty stations and what it was like? Mr. Carella: Oh, yes. I was a brand new lieutenant. Graduated November 10th and married – graduated in the morning and married my wife in the afternoon, my girlfriend, in the afternoon, same day. And we got transferred -- the first assignment was Romulus, Michigan -- and took a train up to Detroit and arrived at Romulus. Being a brand new lieutenant and not familiar with, or acquainted with military life it was kind of, kind of scary. Very nervous, and because you were with ten or fifteen other people that you graduated with, so you formed a kind of little group and you all pushed through together. Did you see any combat, sir? Mr. Carella: No, we did not. I got into combat areas, but I never saw any actual combat. We, from, Romulus, Michigan, we got transferred to Great Falls, Montana, and at that point, we were supporting a land lease program to the Russians up in Alaska. And, our primary duties were to go to Niagara Falls and pick up Bell aircraft, fly them back to Great Falls, and then prepare them for delivery to the Russians up in, at first we were going to Nome, and then we were pushed back to delivering to Fairbanks. The Russians didn't want us to get too close to their country. And we also went to Niagara Falls, a P40 Curtis aircraft company there, and picked up P40's and did the same thing. The P40's went mostly to Adack, off the Aleutian islands, to beef up that portion of the effort -- that we were thinking of invading Japan through the back door, which was going from the Aleutian Islands down into Japan that way, while the other countries, the other units, invaded Japan from the front door. And that's as far, that's how we got involved into being in combat areas, but never seeing any actual combat. Can you tell me about a couple of your most memorable experiences? Mr. Carella: Well, in 1942 and 1943, the Alcan highway was being built. And we had no photographic or maps to guide us. We were given a map, it was ten miles wide, a strip, strip map, that the army aircorps had photographed and developed in a hurry to enable us to, guide us up the Alcan highway to Fairbanks, Alaska. And that's pretty rough country up there. We used to, if you wandered outside this ten mile strip you were in, you were over country you had no way of recognizing or what to do with. So our primary objective was to stay within sight of the Alcan highway, which went from Edmonton, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, Northway and up to, in to Fairbanks. The weather going up that way was spotty, the weather forecast was spotty. We didn't have all the modern meteorology experience or knowledge that we have today. At that time it was just weather stations every two or three hundred miles apart run by weather sergeants in the army, and they were pretty good, really. They would give us their local weather and we would analyze the weather and make up our minds whether it was go or no go. We had to fly strictly VFR, because we had no IFR experience or equipment, in those days, to fly these fighter pilots, fighter planes in IFR weather. The P39 was equipped with a 165-175 gallon belly tank, which would enable us to give us some range, and considering gasoline weighs six or seven pounds a gallon, that was like carrying a 1000-1100 pound torpedo under your airplane, which made it very unstable, to say the least. And these were all things that you learn through experience how to handle. That's about… Were you awarded any medals or citations? Mr. Carella: Oh, yeah. We were given various medals for going through different theaters of operation. I can't recall them all. I've got medals for going through Alaska, out the Aleutian Islands. Later, in 1945 or 46, I was transferred to the weather wing, and qualified in a DC-4, or C-54 as the airforce called it, four engine transport, and we were assigned to the weather wing in Weisbladen, Germany, 11th, 11th weather wing. And the crew was given the airplane in Asheville, North Carolina, and we flew it over through Bermuda, and out to Y80, which was Weisbladen, Germany. That was the destination of the airstrip there was Y80. And we flew the DC-4 there and we were assigned to the 11th weather wing. And we were supporting, this was during the tail end of the war. We were, we were supplying a lot of the countries there with weather equipment – weather balloons, weather stations, wind instruments. The sole purpose was to help these different countries update their weather. In turn, we were flying our aircraft into these countries and the information we got from them was a little more accurate to enable our airplanes to go in and out of places like Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, down through Italy, Greece, Spain, Casablanca. We covered Europe, Africa and the Middle East at that time, with the DC-4. And that was the tail end of my active duty assignments. On returning back to the States in, I think it was June of 1947, and I remained in the Air Force reserve, active duty, unit. And I stayed with the Air Force Reserve until I retired in 1981, I believe it was. [From?]1969 or 1970, as Lieutenant colonel. And that was my experience in the military. How did you stay in touch with your family? Mr. Carella: Well, my wife traveled with me while I was in the states. And when I was stationed in Great Falls, Montana. But when I was sent overseas I went over alone, because they didn't have billets or homes or places for families to come over. So, I spent about fourteen months in Europe as a married bachelor, so to speak. And we, with the mostly letter writing. That's the only way we stayed in touch. There wasn't any, any phone calling back and forth. And I got in the habit of writing my wife at least once a day, sometimes every, at least every two days. And the mail, you wouldn't get mail for maybe a week. And then you'd get six or eight letters at one time, because they were going through the army post office. And it was, it was a little lonely at times. When I was overseas my first daughter was born, while I was over there. And I didn't get to see her until she was seven, eight months old I think. And it was, that was the hard part. That's it. What was the food like? Mr. Carella: The food was good. Of course, being an officer in the Air Force, we ate better than most of the army did, I guess. We were always, there was an old saying, we were not, if we were going to die, at least we'd die clean and well fed. And the poor GI's, they died cold and ill fed. So, anyway, that was just a saying. No, the food, I have no complaints of the food. We ate well, and were well clothed. Did you have plenty of supplies? Mr. Carella: Supplies? Oh, yeah. We had no trouble with supplies. We had all the clothing we needed. We were well fed, as I said. We were issued 45's and other means of arms that we needed, because you didn't, you couldn't carry too much in an airplane. No, the supplies were well…. That's one of the reasons I joined the Air Force, because I was, I knew it was one of the better units to be in. Did you feel any pressure or stress? Mr. Carella: Oh, yeah. Everybody feels pressure and stress. Sometimes it was hellacious, sometimes it was a lot of boredom. But everybody had pressure and stress in those days. Anybody that didn't, I don't think they were normal. Was there something special you did for good luck? Mr. Carella: Just kept a little bit of my religion and faith, prayed to God a couple of times, quite a few times as I recall. No, that was, didn't carry any rabbit's tails or rabbits foot or anything like that. I didn't believe in those things. How did people entertain themselves? Mr. Carella: Did a lot of drinking, a lot of smoking. We used to meet at the bar after duty hours and play live dice, and of course, drinks there were cheaper than water is today. Cigarettes were free. We entertained ourselves. We just raised a little cain, I guess, now and then. Were there any entertainers that came over to entertain you? Mr. Carella: Yeah, we had the USO groups. And, yeah. There was, a lot of that was, they did a lot of that, as much as they could to entertain the troops, because during the war it was difficult. Most of that was done in the States, for soldiers waiting to go overseas. There wasn't too much of that overseas at that time. What did you do when you were on leave? Did you get any leave? Mr. Carella: Not while I was overseas. We didn't get any leave where we could come home or anything like that, no. I was only over there a short period, so. I liked to save up my leave days, so when I got home I could have a couple of weeks off. We didn't do anything special. You mentioned some of the places that you went delivering the station equipment. Did you get to do any travel or anything? Mr. Carella: Oh, yeah. We'd load up the DC-4 and, one trip we took went to Norway, Denmark and Sweden. And we left all our equipment there and we were always treated well, because we were donating something to these countries and they were very happy and anxious to get them. And then we delivered equipment down in Rome, brought some down to Casablanca, Greece, Paris, France. I can't think of any others. Do you remember any particularly humorous or unusual events? Mr. Carella: Yeah, a couple. We, flying up north in a P-39, you couldn't carry very much. The engine was behind you. It was a twenty-millimeter canon went through the, through your legs up to the front, shot out of the propeller up. So all you could carry was a little bag and some change of underwear and maybe a change of khakis. And I can remember one weekend we were in Edmonton. We all went out to a Chinese dinner, which was the wrong thing to do. You don't eat Chinese food in Edmonton, Canada. Anyway, the next day we took off, because we drank a little bit that night. And, there were about four of us, and we all got the GI's [?]. And, I made an emergency landing at one of the strips there to relieve myself. And some of the pilots just had to relieve themselves in the cockpit, managed the best they could. And when we got together and discussed that, that was, there was more humor to that than anything else. That's one of the things I can remember. When you ferried the planes to Alaska, how did you get back from that station? Mr. Carella: They'd wait until they had maybe ten or fifteen or twenty, thirty pilots up there, then they'd send a DC-3 up, which was being flown by the airlines. They were converted, because there was not too much airline-flying going on, it was all under the control of the military. And the airline pilots would pick us up in these DC-3's, and herd us on board up in Fairbanks. A trip that took approximately seven to ten hours to deliver the airplanes up there, took ten to twenty hours to ferry us back, because of the speed. And the DC-3 was, even though we slept in sleeping bags and heavy clothing, they weren't airline type airplanes. They were just military aircraft, DC-3's, and the corrugated metal floors, and the bucket seats. And up in Alaska it would be ten or fifteen or twenty below zero. And it was hard to keep warm, very difficult. Some of us went to the parachute room and had hammocks made. We'd bring some, a couple bottles of Scotch up and give them to the parachute manufacturers up there, that worked in the hanger that kept the parachutes packed and reconditioned. And we paid him off and he'd make hammocks for us that we were able to string across from one window to the other with hooks. And at least we slept in hammocks to keep us off the floor. And then the military command said we couldn't use them, because in case of emergency, there was no, we were blocking the, the inside of the aircraft for people to bail out of. Of course, we didn't abide by that rule too much. But, that's what went on during those days. You made do, and did the best you could. And it wasn't too much regulation in those days, it's safety, we didn't abide too much by safety rules. We'd fly up in formation, wing tip to wing tip, come over an airfield, we'd spread them out in echelon, come down and buzz the airport at about two or three hundred feet, because we were all frustrated air transport pilots. We wanted to be in active duty and get into combat. And we'd make a big sweeping turn and come back and land in formation. And that's the way we'd kind of relieve some of our tension in those days, was by doing crazy things and taking a lot of crazy chances. What did you think of your middle officers and enlisted men? Mr. Carella: Oh, they were all fine. All supportive gentlemen. And every once in a while you found on oddball, but that could be, was to be expected. I guess a lot of people thought I was an oddball, too. But when you get a bunch of people from the city, from the farms, from the south and the north, and mix them all together, why, it's quite an interesting mixture of people. I think everything went along real fine. Did you keep a personal diary? Mr. Carella: No, I did not. Do you recall the day your service ended? Mr. Carella: Well, it was, I was discharged, and I was coming home from Weisbaden. We went to Hamburg, got on a liberty ship. That was the old kaiser ships that were being built with concrete and steel reinforcements, because they're quick to build. But they weren't very safe. They'd take a certain amount of pounding, and then they were known to crack. We got on one of these and took a, I think it was six and a half, seven days, to get back from Europe to the states. And we ran into some pretty bad weather. And I was assigned as a mess officer down in Hold #3, which was the third level down. And I went down there, and just the mixture of food -- and I'm not a very good sailor -- and the rocking of the ship, and I could see that I wasn't going to enjoy this. So I got a hold of the mess sergeant and I told him, you keep, everything's in your, you're in charge down here. You keep everything going, and I'll be upstairs, on the upper deck. If anything goes real bad, call me. And I'd, that was the last I saw the mess hall down in deck three. I went on topside and stayed in the officers' quarters and learned how to play bridge. That was my trip home. I hit Camp Bix, I was discharged. I got home, and went up to see my wife and daughter that I had never seen before. And I found out that they were shopping at the A\u0026P, my mother-in-law told me, so I walked around to the A\u0026P and walked in, and there she was with the baby. And, of course, that was quite a reunion, right in the A\u0026P. And, I was happy to be home. What did you do in the days and weeks immediately afterward? Mr. Carella: I was on a fireman's list in those days. And I went to get back into civilian life. I was offered various positions off the civil service list. One was a tunnel guard, to walk inside the tunnel at the Holland Tunnel, keep the traffic moving. And I, I couldn't see that. And then there was a bridge toll collector, and I didn't, I wouldn't enjoy that. And, waiting for a fireman's assignment. And I would have had two years seniority, because when I went on the list, being in the service, you automatically were eligible for seniority in those days. In the meantime, I bought my, used to be in the auto upholstery business. And I went back to work for my old boss. And he passed away and I was able to purchase his shop with the GI bill loan, and that's how I went to work on my own as an auto upholsterer. And that was what I did in those days, keep my family, a roof over their heads, and food in their bellies. Did you make any close friendships while in the service? Mr. Carella: I did while I was in the service. But once we were discharged we kind of drifted apart. I never, we never kept in touch. One or two people I did get to see. One guy was, worked up in Elmira in a casket company, and I stopped by to see him while I was in the reserves, on a reserves weekend. But other than that, I didn't keep in touch with anybody. Did you join any veterans' organizations? Mr. Carella: No. I'm not a joiner, believe it or not. Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general? Mr. Carella: Yes, it did, and I'd rather not discuss it. How did your service and experiences affect your life? Mr. Carella: Well, you matured in a hurry in those days. And, as I say, you get different thoughts about, of course, our war was fought, because we were invaded. But, war in general is, to me, is not the answer. I know you have to do it sometimes, but, and like I say, I'd rather not go into it. You mentioned being in the reserves afterward, and some of the support that you did for…. Mr. Carella: Being self-employed I was able to spend quite a bit of time in the active reserves. Of course, we had a mandatory two weeks a year of active duty, and then one weekend a month. And, I would put in two or three weekends a month, and sometimes I'd go on thirty days active duty, because I could leave my shop when I felt like it. And it created quite a hardship on my wife to raise the family. I had two girls and a boy. But, she did a good job, I'm sure she did. And I got to see a lot of active duty time. And as I say, I retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. I'm going to celebrate my sixty-first wedding anniversary November 10, which is also the Marine birthday. So, I guess I'm a pretty lucky guy. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Mr. Carella: I can't keep talking, rambling. I'm not much of a speaker. I think I've said enough. Thank you…. [end interview]"],"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":["Airacobra (Fighter plane)","Douglas DC-3 (Transport plane)","Liberty ships","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944","United States. Army Air Forces. Air Transport Command","United States. Army Air Forces. Weather Squadron, 7th","United States. Air Force. Weather Squadron, 7th","Alaska Highway","Maxwell Air Force Base (Ala.)"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Ben Carella"],"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/369"],"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)","hi-8"],"dcterms_extent":["33:13"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_305","title":"Oral history interview of Rudolph Valentine Archer","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Guam, 13.47861, 144.81834","Japan, 35.68536, 139.75309","Korea, 37.663998, 127.978458","Marshall Islands, Enewetak Atoll, 11.5141037, 162.06439324194528","Marshall Islands, Kwajalein Atoll, 9.1257934, 167.5740472","U.S. Outlying Islands, Wake Island, 19.28012, 166.64828","United States, California, City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco, 37.77493, -122.41942","United States, California, Santa Barbara County, Vandenberg Air Force Base, 34.7483, -120.51817","United States, Florida, Escambia County, Pensacola, 30.42131, -87.21691","United States, Florida, Hillsborough County, MacDill Air Force Base, 27.8472, -82.50338","United States, Florida, Okaloosa County, Eglin Air Force Base, 30.45907, -86.55026","United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798","United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354","United States, Illinois, Cook County, Chicago, 41.85003, -87.65005","United States, Indiana, Jackson County, Freeman Field, 38.9160257, -85.89181891749742","United States, Michigan, Wayne County, Detroit, 42.33143, -83.04575","United States, New York, Onondaga County, Syracuse, 43.04812, -76.14742","United States, Ohio, Franklin County, Lockbourne Air Force Base","United States, Texas, Wichita County, Wichita Falls, 33.91371, -98.49339","United States, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County, General Mitchell International Airport, 42.94668, -87.89675"],"dcterms_creator":["Roseman, Malcolm","Archer, Rudolph Valentine"],"dc_date":["2003-09-25"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Val Archer describes his experiences in the Army Air Corps at the close of World War II. He recalls the prejudice he and other black men experienced as the Air Force was desegregated by President Truman. He also describes the origins of the organization known today as the Tuskegee Airmen, and his life and education after his retirement from the Air Force.","Val Archer was in the United States Air Force in the Pacific following World War II."],"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":["B-47 bomber","Civil rights movement","Pitot tubes","Thunderbolt (Fighter plane)","U.S. Atomic Energy Commission","United States. Air Force. Fighter Group, 332nd","United States. Air Force. Composite Group, 477th","Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.","United States Military Academy","United States Civil Service Commission","United States. Air Force. Strategic Missile Squadron, 395th","United States. Civil Service Reform Act of 1978","Geiger Field"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Rudolph Valentine Archer"],"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/305"],"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)","VHS (TM)"],"dcterms_extent":["1:28:12"],"dlg_subject_personal":["Davis, Benjamin O., Jr., 1912-2002","Young, Coleman A.","Lewis, John, 1940-2020"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"9/25/2003 Val Archer interview, Atlanta History Center He is president of the Atlanta chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Veterans group. Transcribed 10/2003 by Frances Westbrook. NOTE: I have not tried to check spelling of the military bases he mentions. Interview with Mal Roseman, volunteer from the AARP. Side 1 MR: I'm Malcolm Roseman in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 25, 2003. I have the honor of speaking with Val Archer, also from Atlanta. Val, let's begin by just telling me where you were born and when, and a little bit about your early years. VA: OK. I'm Val Archer. I was born in Chicago, Illinois, on my grandmother's birthday, in 1929, on April 13. I attended elementary school at Betsy Ross, and I recently heard in the news it's still around and having probably more difficulties today than they were having then. As my family moved from one neighborhood to another, I transferred to different schools. I eventually graduated from [summer?] school, at a school called Charles Cominsky[?], which was over on the far east side of Chicago, I believe, from the 8th grade. I didn't go to high school, sort of dropped out then. My mother passed when I was 12, and I guess I didn't have the type of supervision that was necessary to compete with my peers at that time. My environment. I joined the service in 1945. Because I was out of school I associated with some fellows who were a few years older than I, and I sort of followed them when they went into the service, and it was my plan to follow them, and so on. MR: You were quite young when you went in. VA: Yes, I was. But I was sort of caught up, as I think many people were, with what we know as propaganda now, the way the war was described through the mass media and throughout the community, in every kind of institution. We were sort of bombarded with information about the enemy and the Axis and so on, and Uncle Sam needs you, and the USO, and the news reels, and so on. And in my young mind, I was caught up very much in that. And I figured that, I think I estimated that since I wasn't very productive at that time in any case, being in the military service would not be a bad thing for me. So I tended to follow in the footsteps of some of the older guys and I tried to enlist. I think, first in the Marine Corps and then the Navy and then the Maritime Service. And that went on, in fact, for a couple of years. And, one day another, a friend of mine and I were passing a recruiting station and decided we'll just go in and heckle these guys, ‘cause they're not going to take us anyway. As it turned out, I think, on that particular day, I've since deducted that probably that recruiting sergeant didn't have his quota at that time, because Freddy West and I both wound up being processed straight through, and finally loaded onto the back of a six-by-six and shipped out to Fort ____, Illinois, where we were inducted and sworn in and so on into the service. From there, it was a short trip, a short time before moving on into basic training in Wichita Falls, Texas, and so on. My early years in Chicago, I think, as I look back, everything seems to be sort of normal in my own terms. Perhaps it would not be normal for someone else who was observing that as I observe young people today. Some of their experiences are extraordinary and I think probably some of mine were as well. I had two brothers and one sister. One of my brothers recently passed a couple of years ago. Both my brothers sort of followed me into the service. Of course, they went to high school and graduated. MR: Were you the oldest? VA: I was the oldest. And ….let's see… MR: Well, let's go back to your military. You're now in Texas in basic… VA: Yeah. As I recall, that was quite an experience. And as I look back at it, some of it, I find some humor in it. Growing up in Chicago as I did, and I had, I did my time with gangs and so on. And as I came into the service I sort of brought myself into that picture and I obviously came into conflict with people from other backgrounds. I recall an incident with a wrestler from Oklahoma who was, I think, I guess he was probably about 200 pounds and I think I was probably about 130 pounds. And one day, he had decided that since our organization at the time was very close to his home, from Texas to Oklahoma was just a short trip for him, he had figured out that if he managed to get our training set back, then he would have an additional amount of time out near home, and so on. So, I thought that was kind of silly and kind of selfish on his part, and so did another kid from Detroit who was probably about my size, who said something to this guy, and he got smacked. And I thought, if he can get away with that, smack this kid and get us to go back and do that, then I'd have to try my luck with him. So, we were on the second floor of this barracks and so almost immediately we were tumbling down the stairs. And that lasted for I think a good 20 minutes or so, maybe longer than that. But I, I rather enjoyed it, and looking back at it, to be bloody or have that kind of physical engagement was not unusual for me. And I think probably fortunately for me it was, because it was not for the wrestler. So we both wound up going to the hospital. And I just always find some humor in that, in recalling that experience. MR: I have to stop you and ask you a question, because I think it's germane. You went into a segregated army, and my knowledge of the segregated army at the time was mostly officers, maybe all the officers that were around, tended to be, they were white. [Yeah.] How did you feel about all that? VA: I guess I had some feelings about it, but as I was incorporating all this new experience, I didn't know anything about, anything about the military, about the officers corps, the enlisted corps, or any of that. That was something that I had to learn. But I very quickly learned that some of our white officers were quite racist in their outlook and their expectations. And with my attitude as I was describing with the altercation with this wrestler, I would have had the same propensity to deal with them in the same way. I guess I was fortunate in a way that I received a few reprimands and had a lot of extra duty but I never punched one of them. And I therefore managed to stay out of serious, serious problems with them. But I fairly quickly became aware of the fact, and it was not, it was a kind of a group learning experience. It wasn't just that I was learning this myself but I was learning it from the other guys who were in the organization, and their attitudes, some of which I adopted, some of which I rejected, and so on. But I managed to keep a perspective over my feelings of individuals that I was involved with, and I met some pretty rotten white officers, and I met some very good officers that I later learned what a good officer was, and how he performed. And I quickly learned the difference, I think. MR: So you did the six weeks of basic? VA: Yeah, it seemed to have been longer than that, but it may have been six weeks. MR: Then what? VA: Well, from that I went to an aviation squadron, that's what they were called at that time, because when I enlisted, I had an opportunity to indicate which organization I wanted to belong to, and I checked the air corps, not knowing much about it other than what some people had told me. And I didn't have any expectations one way or another at that time. It didn't matter which branch you were in, you were still a soldier. And all of the appearances for the uniform and the attitudes and the values and so on were still that of a soldier, which was Army. I later on learned that being a part of this aviation outfit [was different?], though I didn't know at the time that there was an effort to develop this all-black outfit which was still going on since 1941 and 1942. MR: Before you go further, you put that down, to join an air group. Was there something that triggered that thought in your mind? I recognize that they were all part of the Army, and they were all soldiers, but still, I mean, going up in a plane, you know that whole thought, for somebody who grew up in a Chicago neighborhood, that's pretty extreme. I mean, what …. Were you a risk-taker? VA: Oh, big time. Yeah, I would take any risk at that time, although I did not perceive that as a risk. What I knew about airplanes at that time was, now I know that they were DC-3's that used to fly very low over Chicago, and you would hear them comin' for days. And of course by any stretch of the imagination they were slow, you know, because you could see them if you were in an area where the buildings were not very tall, you could actually see this DC-3 just flying over on its way. And I thought, boy, that would be great to do that. My exposure to anything to do with aviation was kind of fantasy stuff that I read in comic books and I think there was a radio serial at that time, I think it was Buck Rogers in the 25th Century or something to that effect. And that was sort of, I read a lot, and that was one of the things that I knew just a little bit about. So, when I had a choice of being in the army, I thought, OK, marching, carrying a weapon on my soldier, or flying in an airplane, whatever they did in the airplanes, I didn't know anything about fighters and bombers and stuff like that at that time. But I thought it was a pretty good choice. And I really didn't expect to get it, I just thought, OK, I'm going through this stuff. And I was psychologically geared to a kind of a racist culture that I could not articulate at that time. But my expectations were that, you're going to get the short end of the stick anyway, so just put down whatever you think you can get away with it, and go for it. MR: All right, so you moved into this, to where, at this point? VA: My first stop after basic training at Wichita Falls, Texas, was a place called Geiger Field at Spokane, Washington, and I went there. That was a fairly pleasant experience, you know, being out of the city, and out of Texas, which is another world by itself. To go up into the mountains, and it was cold and pristine, and a new experience, and I was excited about it. I went to, I think it was a demolition school, to learn how to blow up stuff, which was not inconsistent with my character at the time. But when I completed the training, I was very quickly put on a train with orders going to join this 332nd fighter group in Columbus, Ohio. And that's where I went to spend the next, a little more than three years until the integration occurred. MR: And so, you were in Columbus, Ohio, for three years at that point? VA: That was my base. Of course, I left here for training at different places, at Chinault [sp?], Scott, Keesler, Mississippi, short training. MR: At least for the World War II piece you were always in the states, you were stateside. [Yeah.] What were you trained for in Columbus? VA: Well, when I got to Columbus one of the first assignments that I had was as, to work on B-47s as assistant crew chief. And initially I was a gofer but that was called on-the-job training or OJT, which I became involved in. First in aircraft engine mechanics, and then I sort of gravitated to instrument specialist, where I worked with the instruments and related component parts like the—the instrument doesn't operate just by itself, it operates on some principle that's related to something else. Like the air speed indicator for example. In those days we had what was known as a peto-static tube [?] where that would register the pressure of the forward motion and that would be registered into this air speed indicator that would do that. Then there were engine instruments, manifold pressure gauges and tachometers and indicators and so on. MR: At this point, you were 17, 18, 19 years old…. VA: 16. MR: Even younger. 16, when you first went in. You never went to high school, here you are getting a whole education. How did you feel about all that? VA: I thought it was a real challenge. I enjoyed every minute of it, including all the other altercations that I got involved with. The thing I did not enjoy is I did an awful lot of KP, washing pots and pans, reporting to that at like 3 o'clock in the morning and working on that until 7 or 8 o'clock at night before, you know, getting off. MR: They taught you discipline. VA: Yeah. I can tell you some stories about [laughter]. I had some pretty creative first sergeants. But I managed to not spend a lot of time in the guard house. I did get to know most of the guys over there on a first name basis. MR: Well, we don't need to go into all the details on that… VA: No. MR: Tell me, so you were in Columbus for the most part until 1948? VA: '48…'49. MR: '49. Now, I believe Truman integrated the services in… VA: '48. MR: '48. How did that affect you? VA: Well, that, in terms of segregation, that really brought that home to me. You know, from my growing up in the civilian community was in Chicago. And it was not like growing up in Georgia or Mississippi or someplace like that, so I had a whole different kind of learning thing to get a grip on. It occurred to me when I left this all-black outfit, that was the only kind of military experience that I was aware of. In fact one distinction we briefly mentioned earlier about the white officers corps, when I finished my training and went to Lockborn, that was the end of my white officer experience. Our officers were all black, and in my estimation, far more professional and qualified in every way than those white officers that I had met prior to that time. And they were good mentors. Some of those guys I met back in those days who decided that they would take an interest and teach me some lessons, which they did, a lot of them, I still know those guys who are still surviving. And we can recall some interesting experiences from those days. But as far as the integration was concerned, that was my first experience with segregation from a different sense, because I was moving from an all-black community that had its own social and political and other kinds of dimensions into an all-white installation where there may have been 2,000 white troops there and three black troops. The black troops who were already serving on those installations were in the food service jobs and motor pool and what were considered unskilled jobs at that time. Now when I hit, my first assignment was at Bowling Field [?], headquarters of USAF. And when I reported in there, although I'm sure it was well publicized that, you know, you're going to get some black troops coming in here, and probably that they are skilled and qualified people, when I went to first report in to the flight line, I was told, well, I was a sergeant at that time, and I was told that, well, you can't supervise anybody here, we can't have you supervising any white troops, so we'll have to find something else for you to do until we get a white person who will come in and be over this shop, or this position. So I wound up being sent off to tech school, and spent more time in tech schools, and then I decided I would try and play football there, although I didn't weigh very much, but I was fast and I liked the game. So I did that for a season, in fact I did that until the Korean War. My first experience, initial, with that was, I had orders to go to Korean on assignment. And I was shipped out to a base, point of debarkation I think it was called in the San Francisco area, it was an Army base. And when I got there, I stayed around with a bunch of other guys who had come in from different places, and we were going to be on this joint assignment, I guess, leaving together anyway. MR: The war in Korean had already begun? VA: Oh, yeah. And so while I was there waiting for my direct orders, saying ok, you report to this base, I can't think of the name of it now, and then with further travel to…either K-6 or K-9 or something like that. In any case, when we finally got our orders to move out and board the ship, I remember that the name of the ship was the General Altman, which was a troop carrier. I wound up on this thing for, I think for about 30 days we were on that boat, just weaving in and out of the Pacific, sick as a dog. But we were told that that was necessary and the reason that you're going on this route is because of submarines and you know the whole, kind of scary stuff. In fact, what happened was that I wound up being dropped off on an island after we left Wake Island and we went to Quadulan [??] and then from Quad another few days after that wound up at Antiretoch [?], which was another island in the Marshall Atoll. MR: This is the first time you've ever left the country, at that point. VA: Uh, yeah. As a matter of fact it was. And I was glad not to have to go in that mode of transportation again. That troop ship, I think we were stacked up about 13 high in this place and you know, it's always the guy on top who gets sick first. And trying to find a place where you can breathe, you know, to get up on deck, that was a whole routine, getting permission and so on. MR: Were you part of a unit at that point, or you were unassigned? VA: I was assigned to a unit and didn't know it. I was assigned to a special task force, I remember that, it was called Task Force Number 3.4.1, was our designation. And I think there were, how many of us, got off, I think there were seven who got off, were dropped off on this island at that time, and the ship moved on and went to its next destination, which may or may not have been Korean, I don't know. But anyway I wound up there and this project turned out to be a nuclear project to test an atomic device, which was a whole other kind of experience. And some of the training that I received there was interesting as well. That whole experience was interesting. MR: When you say training, what were you training for? VA: Well, we were, our mission was to fly these drones through an atomic cloud after the weapon was detonated, and then the drones would come back and be examined, or all the checking that was done. The Atomic Energy Commission guys were there. We had Navy and Air Force, I know were there in this joint operation. MR: Your role in all this? VA: My role, I was assigned there as an instrument specialist. There were two of us assigned to that mission. I'll never forget this guy, a guy named Dolan, a white guy who was a kind of senior instrument guy. He had been, I think Dolan had his 20 years in at that time. And he taught me a lot. The two of us, we, you know when you're on an island that size, and practically nothing to do except work and read and so on, which we all did a lot of, I think. The other thing was to booze and fight. I did a little bit of that. But Dolan taught me a lot about instruments, instrumentation and so on. And we had, through our briefings we had a pretty good idea about testing devices which were going on at that time, mostly [?]. We heard about what was happening in New Mexico, and other places in the States at that time. MR: So, when one of these devices was tested, were you able to at least see the… VA: Well, you could…Understand that the device is detonated either on or near an island called, I think it was ___, I think it was 35 miles from where we were, on _________. That was what the report was, but, yeah, we experienced the whole thing, the detonation from that distance…as I recall our instructions were to lay on the ground. And we had some special eye protection and other stuff and we lay on the ground and covered our face, facing the opposite direction of the blast. I'm not sure that that made a lot of difference, because when it went off it was the most brilliant light, almost like you could see it going through your body and through the ground and everything else. And I'm trying to recall which was, if we felt….the island was sort of moving back and forwards, like that, at least that was the sensation. MR: You felt the pressure from the slight movement…. VA: Yeah. And of course the sound was, I think the sound may have been first, no, I don't know whether the sound was first or the flash was first, from that distance. They were separated by a distinct period of time, and it lasted for quite a while. The detonation was early in the morning, maybe 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, and so on. And we were sort of experiencing that way after dawn the next day. And then of course we were busy again with our separate operations. MR: How long were you on the island doing this? VA: I think for, it was less than a year, maybe eleven months or so. I recall that it was less than a year. [What next?] Next I came back intact with that organization, for the most part, and I was assigned to Eglin Field to a proof test wing, and when I got back there I sort of picked up right where I left off with the base in Washington. “We don't have a spot for you on the flight line.” And I'm sure I was offered, “Would you like to work somewhere else, would you like another job somewhere?” I recall going off to some more tech school at that time. MR: So you're getting a heck of an education at this point. VA: Well, I got some technical training but it was not really an education. I knew what was going on, it was pretty obvious. No one tried to conceal the purpose or the reason for any of this at that time. I had been to Eglin Field before because while stationed at Lockhorn [?] we had our gunnery training there at one of their auxiliary fields where we went every year. We went to, I think there were several auxiliary fields there, and different years we went to different ones, to do training, you know, for the pilots to go out and get their gunnery stuff in. And, of course, we had to support that, those operations. So I was sort of familiar with that. What really went on at that time was some more, that was my first sort of exposure to the south, and what all that meant in terms of being a black soldier. The segregation, the kind of places that we were allowed to go, when we were permitted to go. I remember going to a movie once in Pensacola and being told that blacks had to go, I think into the balcony, but you had to go up the back stairs like the fire escape, that was the entrance to the [unclear]. And there was a place, kind of like a section of seats that we were allowed to sit in. I think that was the only time I ever went to a movie off base. MR: You're about [19]52, '53? VA: No, this was back in the ‘40s. So when I came to Eglin after the nuclear assignment, I was somewhat familiar with that installation so I sort of knew what to expect there. I did have friends, young friends who were married, that I knew, and in Washington, who were assigned there, and they were living in an area called Skunk Hollow, which was at the bottom end, the swampy end of the base, in segregated housing on base. MR: Now let me make sure I understand this. The Army was integrated but the housing was not? VA: Well, it hadn't caught up, the integration. Well, the integration was going on. What was happening, we had black troops on the same base as white troops. That was the first step of the integration. How it unfolded from there was pretty slow, and in fact that's where the real abuse came, in such subtle and unsubtle ways, like the kind of housing again that my friends lived in. Just because they were married and they were allowed to have their families accompany them, they lived in this area called Skunk Hollow. And there were, I'm not sure what kind of housing that was, exactly. It was like, like shacks, but it was like a community of shacks on this installation. And I remember one family in particular had an infant child and they would, the deer would walk up, you know, they were very sort of domesticated almost. And the baby would crawl around on the ground among these fawns that were out there. But it, you know, was so basic and so crude. There was no, I don't recall what it was like there in the winter, I don't recall visiting them during the winter months, which could be quite cold and damp. MR: What were you doing at this point? What was your role? VA: At that point I was, most of my time was waiting for school assignments, so I had some time on my hands. MR: I have to ask this question, because you're now, it looks like you're making it a career. I mean, at some point in your head, did you ask that question of yourself, “Do I want to make the Army a career?” VA: No. I don't think that was ever really, that came later, much later. And I had, you know, we got…in 1950 unless you were at the point of completing your tour, at some point you got an additional year hung on, it was called a Truman Year. And that was I think because of the Korean War. And so, actually by that time, I think in 1953, I think it was 1953 or 1954, when I had an opportunity to get out, I took it. I separated. MR: 1954. VA: Yeah, I think it was 1954. I think it was after I had gone, I went to, yeah, I went to McGill in Tampa, Florida, to B-47 school. Prior to that I had gone to an ______ course. That was crazy stuff. Back at Chanook. And then I went to another course at Scott Field. I don't know what that was about, I don't remember that. But I came back and was kind of excited about this B-47, which was a whole new system, and jet bombers, and really it was a neat, neat system at that time. But I knew after I finished that, it was going to be some other thing, so I just decided, OK, I'll take my marbles and go home. And that's how I got involved, I think, with the Reserves unknowingly. I was carried on the rolls for the Reserves, although I was given an honorable discharge. And I think I'd been out for six or eight months or so and I got this letter saying that, “Report to…,”some base or something, I don't recall the details of it. But, “You've been recalled to active duty.” And, I thought, well, I've been discharged… MR: And the Korean War is over at this point. VA: Well, yeah, '54, it was over. MR: Eisenhower became president in '52. VA: That's right. So I said, well, it's got to be some mistake, you've got the wrong, maybe somebody else with the same screwed up name or something. And I think I contacted whoever the authorities were at that time, and they said, “No, you've been recalled.” And they didn't explain very much as you know oftentimes bureaucrats don't do. And they didn't feel any compunction about, in other words, you're AWOL if you don't, if you're not here, so you don't deserve an explanation. So my attitude was, Come get me. So then I moved to New York to Brooklyn and worked on the docks for, I think, about a month before, I don't know how they tracked me, but I got a letter again saying, “Report to someplace.” And I left again, and I went to Chicago, and I think I was there for six months or so and I got another one of those. And so I left and went to….I don't think, I wasn't really running from them, but in one sense I didn't feel that I owed them any explanation the same way they didn't feel they owed me one. And so, we were having a little standoff there. Anyway, finally, some really official guys who came, I think, in black suits and stuff, and they said, “You're…we're escorting you to your new assignment.” And they gave me two hours or something like that. One of them stayed and the others left. And then they came back. And so, went off to Mitchell Field in Milwaukee. MR: Before you go on, what year…. VA: This was, I think this was in '55. MR: So, you'd been out for a little over a year. VA: More than that. It must have been '53… MR: That you went out… VA: Yeah. Because it was over, no, it was more than a year, because I was bouncing from…as a matter of fact, Eisenhower was president, I think, then. And I remember how interesting it was that every time you turned on the news for something all you would get is how popular this guy is. And at the same time, you couldn't buy a job. There were people in soup lines, you know, and I thought, “What the hell's going on?” With people starving and they're talking about how popular and what a good job, that I didn't. I was not political at all, didn't have any interest, no knowledge of it and so on. But I did think that was pretty strange stuff. MR: OK, so now you're in Mitchell Field in Milwaukee. VA: Yeah. And I think I was there for a few hours and I met this colonel who also had an attitude at that time. I don't know if somebody had done something to him, but in any case, he had this attitude like, “We don't owe you any explanation. Here are your orders…you go next door and get your orders” or something. And I wound up at Geneva, New York. I forget the name of the base, in the dead of winter. And I stayed there for, I was there for I think a couple of months and there was some question about whether or not they were going to give me a grade adjustment or if I was going to have to be a private, which ultimately was the case. They never gave me a grade adjustment. MR: Because you left as a sergeant. [Yeah.] And then you've coming back as a private. VA: Yeah. So I was told that, that the authority for that whole operation was something called the Universal Military Training Act. And the fact that I was not old enough to be out of that category. Now this is what I was told, and I never got a straight answer about it actually. So it really didn't matter all that much. You know, there was no way I could get out of it without going to jail. And they made that clear. So, I sort of started off all over again. I didn't have to go through basic training or any of that, but I did, I think I was offered a chance to go to be a flight engineer, but without the pay. I would be a private on that. And so I thought, well, that's not, you know, we can do better than that. So, I said, you know, give me, send me somewhere else. And so they sent me to a different school again. I spent a lot of time in tech schools. Eventually, well, let's see, after that I was assigned overseas again. I did a tour on Guam, and from Guam I did a consecutive tour in Japan, and I had some assignments in Korea, brief, TDY periods. And then back to Japan, and I got married in Japan at that time. There was, that was a whole other story, it would take two hours to describe that to you. MR: You met your wife in Japan. VA: Yeah. And then I was assigned from Japan to a missile squadron, ICBMs, 395th Missile Squadron at Vandenberg Air Base in California. There was another interesting place where they were no, there was no housing at that time. I think that was a new base, a new facility, a new program and so on. I was assigned to the Titan. Also on that base we had the Atlas. MR: Now, when you say you're assigned, what was your job with respect to that? VA: By this time, I was in training. My job was, I was an instructor, and I did, mostly management training and then some technical stuff from time to time. But mostly I had an opportunity to work with some of the contractors, like Aerojet General and General Dynamics and so on, at night, learning to write technical data. And so that was a good experience, I had an opportunity to do that for a couple of years. MR: Now what years are we… VA: Now we're in 1958 to 1960, almost 1961, November of 1960, when I got another overseas assignment. MR: But at this point, you're in the Army, I mean, you're, you've kind of made the decision to stay? VA: Yeah. Well, by this time it was dawning on me that I was past the halfway mark for some retirement and I was still thinking that at some point, and I think I had given up on the grade adjustment thing. MR: But you're still very young, I mean you're 30, 31 years old in 1961. VA: Yeah, well, I think I felt pretty old at that time. [laughter] Anyway, I had some good experiences, some good training, military training, I think I was one of the most trained people in the military. And I had the opportunity to move into different career areas and learn that. And at some point I got wised up enough to go to night school, and I continued those, attending night school throughout the period when I was in California and then overseas. And I got my undergraduate degree, my education with the University of Maryland. MR: So, you finished, you got your high school diploma, equivalent [yeah], and then you went on to college and got your undergraduate degree. VA: Well, yeah. I didn't do it in that order. I normally didn't do things in a proper sequence. I was, I think I was on the Dean's List for two years, and someone decided that OK, you have, before you go onto the next category, whatever that is, you have to have proof of your high school stuff. So, I faked it, no one had ever challenged me on that before, and I said, well, I went to the school that my brother went to, in Chicago. And it took them about another semester to catch up with that, and they said, Well, they don't have any record of your attending there. So then I was given the option of taking the GED, which I did… MR: You'd been on the Dean's List in college and now you're taking your GED for high school so you can get the piece of paper that says you did it. VA: Anyway, after I left there, that was a long story… MR: Before you go on, what was your degree in, at Maryland? VA: In Maryland, economics and psychology. And that was primarily because at my last year and a half there, because of other people rotating out, and my having the most time remaining there, I became the education officer. So I hired the faculty to teach the off-duty courses for the University of Maryland. And the two best instructors that I had were a young guy, Dr. Lou Everstein [?], who was at Oxford, I think he was doing, he was reading philosophy there, and an economics [instructor] from the London School of Economics. And these were the two best guys that I had. And then, I got another economics professor who had been at West Point, and he was back at Oxford getting his masters in it. So I had these guys consistently over, and… MR: But you're still not an officer. Doing all this and you're not an officer. VA: No. Well, that didn't bother me as much as just not having enough, not having enough money to support my family. But then there were occasions when I had an opportunity to work a part-time job at the Officers Club or the NCO Club, or something like that. MR: But with all this knowledge and background, there was no way of you going into an Officers Candidate situation? VA: No, no way. MR: Was that in part because of the racial issues of the time, or…. VA: Yeah, I think so, because… MR: Even in the ‘60s. VA: Oh, yeah, because I had, I did apply for a program known as Bootstrap, to go away to get your final semester, to get your degree, and that was put off. In fact, when I got my undergraduate degree I was already taking graduate courses. And, because I had more than enough to graduate, except that you had to do one year, your final year had to be at the institution that you got your degree from. MR: So after that, where did you go next? VA: Well, I came back to the states, and I was assigned to Syracuse, New York, where, again, I was the education officer. I didn't have the grade, but I was the only person that they had to do that. And I did, part of my graduate stuff I did at night again at Syracuse. And then I got a fellowship to finish up my masters, and another one to begin my Ph.D. studies. And I was moving, I changed my field from education to political science and public administration. And I wound up with my doctoral studies in inter-disciplinary social sciences shortly after, and I retired there. I put in for retirement in 1968, and at that time I was offered an opportunity, the way it was put to me was something like, If you'll sign on for ten more years, there's this officer program that's in place now. But it was something, the way I understood it was that it was like a ten-year enlistment. You'd sign up for this program and possibly you can come out of it with an O-5 by the end of that ten years. And the sales pitch was, well, look at what you'll be earning ten years from now, compared to what you're doing now. And I had, fortunately I had some good counsel at the university and they said, well, that would be peanuts compared to what you might earn if that's the only consideration. MR: Now, in '68, Vietnam's obviously going on. Your involvement at all?….You never went over there? VA: Just TDY, temporary duty. I had gone over for, I went over for, well, a classified thing for, just for a month, less than 30 days. In fact, I did sign up to go there, to put in a tour, and there was no opening for my career field at that time. And I wasn't serious enough, I wasn't worried about it enough to, you know, to really pursue it. MR: Plus, the war really heated up in '68 when you were really getting out. VA: Yeah. MR: I should shut this off. [They pause to check time remaining on tape.] Side 2 MR: OK. Val, I'd like you to kind of tie together the whole Tuskegee Airmen as it affected you and if you could explain the relationship that you had with it and the benefits and a little bit about the organization. VA: Well, I'm glad to have this opportunity to share some of that. My experience with the organizations that were known, became known, as the Tuskegee Airmen, had—that experience was pretty profound, the impact on me. When I first joined the 332nd and the 477 compadre [?] group at Lo____ in Columbus, Ohio, I was just briefly removed from the whole different perspective and direction that my life was taking. I think that my experience at that installation was probably the most profound in my life because it has influenced the direction that I've taken since that time. To share a little of the background of that organization, it's important to know where they came from, to know where I come from. At that time, I quickly learned that this was a unique organization, it was the only black organization in all of the military services at that time that were engaged in actual military aviation, flying airplanes and everything that goes with that, the entire operation, the entire support function, ground support, operations support, everything. It was like a black city. It had all of its own resources, and all of its own specialists, who performed all of their activities. In my brief experience in the military at that time, that was the organization that had all black officers. We didn't have a single white officer on that installation. I think perhaps there was an occasional TDY person there, but not assigned. What some of those guys went through, they shared with me in a very positive way. The experiences that they had, the frustrations that they had, being trained to maintain the airplanes and then to fly them and then the other, for the fighter pilots, that was the first group that began. The Tuskegee Airmen started off as one squadron, the 99th Pursuit Squadron, which later on became a fighter squadron. It was the first black organization, flying organization, to go overseas. That was a real, they faced real challenges just accomplishing that. This was an organization that wanted to get into the fight. They were skilled, qualified, they had met all of the demands and requirements to be engaged in combat, and they wanted to go and contribute their performance to that. It started off, I think, there were five graduates in the first class. And it was headed at that time by ________ Davis, Jr., captain, West Point graduate. ___ spent four years at West Point, his complete tour there, receiving the silent treatment without anyone speaking to him outside of official duties. A guy who had to go and ask permission as a cadet if he could have a meal at the table of other cadets and would have to get permission to sit down. And often, as I understand the story, was not given permission until the meal was over and then it was back into the drill, and so on. So, some of the kind of harassment, the ugly, unnecessary experiences that this guy had there was, created the kind of discipline in him that as he became the first commander of this all black squadron, as the captain, and eventually—his promotions came quite rapidly—to catch up with his classmates from West Point. He graduated in the top numbers at West Point in his class. Despite all of the difficulties that he had there. MR: Was he the first black soldier at West Point? VA: No. No, he was not the first. There were, I can't give you the names right off now, but there were several. His father was the first black general in the Army. And, but that did not ease his path at all at the Academy. Anyway, when he came out of that, the kind of discipline that he had to develop, the kind of self-discipline to move through that experience, made him the kind of commanding officer to take over this first black flying organization. Now, to get his training along with four other guys who graduated from that, I think there were more than that but I don't have the numbers at my fingertips. So, anyway, going into taking this organization overseas into combat. And at first the numbers of cadets who washed out at Tuskegee where this training was established, it was the only training station for black pilots at that time. Subsequently, a few years later, when we were given the opportunity to fly bombers, B-25s, we received training from several other different locations at that time, different bases where we went for navigation training, places for gunnery and bombadiers and all the crew places, the different kinds of armament training that was required. And we had people to do that as well. Unfortunately, what happened, at different times we didn't have a home, a home base after returning from overseas. We had people who were assigned to Selfrage Field in Michigan, that was part of the organization. And the reason for these different locations…we had personnel at Walterboro, South Carolina, _____ Field, Kentucky, S____ Field in Michigan, and I think there may have been a couple of others. Until we all finally wound up with a base, a home base, at Columbus, Ohio, which was Lockborn. And that's when all the components from different places would pull together. Freeman Field in Indiana, there was a very famous incident there where the base commander, in order to prevent the blacks from using the Officers Club, designated all the black officers as trainees and then established the order that trainees were not permitted to use the Officers Club. And there was a, like a sort of mutiny. What happened was that 101 of these guys decided that they would not comply with that order. They went into the Officers Club. And they were threatened with court martial if they did not comply with that order. The last guy who was finally exonerated from that, and at great personal sacrifice to his career, both in and out of the service, received, I forget the word for it now, but President Clinton forgave his court martial. MR: So, were 101 actually court martialed? VA: Not all of them. But some, as a result of that, though, many of them decided that, OK, I will not remain in the service, because this is already on my record, I'm not going to go anywhere, every opportunity that would accrue would be put down by this court martial thing that was considered to be like a mutiny. We still have at least one of those guys right here in Atlanta, in the Atlanta Chapter. But the kind of discipline that we had to develop, and in my relationship as I came along and joined this organization at the time that I did, and with the experience and everything that was going on in their environment and their lives at that time, was a kind of conditioning process. And for those of us, the black troops who were brought into that organization, we were just sort of sucked into it. And fortunately for us, for the most part, these guys were smart enough and dedicated enough so that they said now, the training that they passed on to us, is that you better not fail at anything. If you fail, we're going to take care of you. And it's going to be worse than [laughter], and I think we got the picture. But, it was that kind of commitment, that kind of dedication and sacrifice that gave us the strength I think, that prepared us to go in and integrate this Air Force, this Army Air Corps. The kind of racism that I personally encountered, and I know that other people encountered the same way, was mostly kind of humiliating experiences for the most part. As being abused mostly, well entirely, verbally, of course. In fact there was some stereotyped stuff about black guys being like Joe Lewis, who was in fact a role model in many ways because he was a champion, and we had him to sort of respect, and that kind of thing to look up to. Fortunately or unfortunately, I think we had the reputation of every black guy is a prize-fighter, and you don't want to engage them in physical combat, but you screw ‘em every other way that you can. And there are thousands of ways to express that kind of racism. Most prominently it had to do with promotions, where on any number of occasions I did, and I experienced it with other people, where we would actually train some white troops who came in, and in a very short time they would replace us with the promotions and all. So, that kind of humiliation and not only the humiliation of it, but the actual loss of money, which was important in trying to maintain a family, and after being involved as long as some of us were, you reach a point where you have to, you've got to finish off the job. And that could be anywhere from wherever you make that decision, and depending upon what your circumstances were at that time, anywhere from, say, 10 years to between 10 and 20 years, and that was the time that you had to stuff that stuff up. And that's a long time. And it creates some very powerful feelings, I think, that kind of deprivation and that kind of vicious ugly stuff. MR: So the Tuskegee Airmen organization really becomes your support group. VA: We were our own support group, yeah. And, as important as it was to go out, to move out and turn the entire military around, and that's happened to a very large extent right now, as important as that was, it was done at great sacrifice, at great expense to many people. And I feel abused by that myself to a certain extent. But I think not enough to stop me from where I want to go, my direction has changed. MR: Now, this organization, you are president of the Atlanta Chapter. VA: Right. MR: So, this is an ongoing organization? VA: Yeah, established in 1972 in Detroit. Some of the guys got together, Coleman Young was one of our pilots at that time who got out of the service and developed a political career. It was under his watch as mayor at that time in Detroit where the organization started. Not that Coleman was the leader or the sparkplug for it, but there were many people who came together. In fact, as in the case I think with a lot of military organizations, where there are friendships that go beyond the active duty part, and together they make contributions to their communities. MR: Is it only veterans, or at-home service… VA: No, membership in the Tuskegee Airmen has always been open. Race, gender, it's open to anyone who agrees to work with the directions and the goals and objectives of the organization, which is to a large extent to help young people, especially minority kids get through some of the barriers and meet some of the challenges that they have to meet that many of us have gone through and are no longer intimidated by them. MR: So there are active servicemen part of the organization. VA: Oh, yeah. MR: It's ongoing. How many members are in Atlanta? VA: Atlanta at the moment has about 50 members, which is a very low count compared to other metropolitan areas of similar stature. We should probably have at least 200 members. That will be my primary responsibility. MR: How long have you been president? VA: Three months. MR: Oh, so it's recent. VA: Yeah. MR: I'm going to take you back a little bit. We're going back to 1968 when you left the Army. Let's talk about the rest of, the sequence… VA: Well, you probably recall that in 1968 was nearing the end of a very violent racial situation in the country. At that particular time I was in graduate school and I was teaching some classes while I worked on my doctorate. MR: In Maryland? VA: No, this was in Syracuse. [Oh, in Syracuse, sorry.] And typically on I think most campuses in the country, particularly in large, predominantly white campuses—our numbers, I think there were two other black guys in my graduate school at the Maxwell School at that time. I think we didn't face a kind of discrimination after getting in and being accepted, we had the same challenges as anyone else. But what was going on on the campus at that time, there were militant undergraduate students and they were agitating for their rights and positions. And we had to some extent an intransigent administration. We did not have…I think black faculty at that time were practically non-existent, and trying to adjust in that situation of kind of racial disparities and so on, while the city wasn't burning down around us, it was very close to it. There were riots with the police and so on. While I was attending school before I got my fellowship, I had worked for the city, actually for the mayor on the human rights commission, and so I was sort of exposed to a lot of that. In fact, my physical condition at that time, I was going to school full time and I was working full time, and I was working with the police on one hand, and several other organizations, and also trying to keep the community focused instead of the actual combat and burning the place down. So I didn't get a lot of sleep and I didn't get a lot of taken care of myself at that time. And as a result of that, I wound up having a heart attack. MR: You were young at this point. VA: I can say that now. I feel now I was young, but at that time I felt pretty old. MR: You were forty? VA: Yeah, somewhere about that. MR: In '69 you would have been 40 years old. VA: Yeah, that's right. Well, in any case… MR: The good news is you survived. VA: Yeah, I survived. Unfortunately, I had, I didn't complete my dissertation, which was a real, it seems like I've had two major blocks in my life. I didn't get a commission from the service, and I didn't finish my doctorate. Those are my two huge disappointments in my career. But it's not over. MR: OK, so you convalesced, you got better. Then what did you do? VA: Well, then I was offered another kind of a challenge, to work for the government again, and I took a job as a training officer with the Civil Service Commission. After about a year of teaching, kind of a normal continuation of my management and leadership studies that I taught… MR: Where was this? VA: This was Syracuse, started off in Syracuse, then it moved to New York. I was offered an opportunity to work with the Carter administration on the Civil Service Reform Act, a special task force again, which I did in 1967 [corrects to 1977]. MR: Carter was president from '76-'80. VA: Right. When I completed that I was given an assignment to teach at the Executive Seminar Center at King's Point in New York. I did that for a while and then I was recruited by one of my students to be the director of training for the Department of Defense Logistics ____ Agency. So I did that, and I subsequently had a friend who was at, who did his mid-career training at Syracuse as an O-6, as a colonel. At that time, he got his second star here at Fort McPherson. I had been out of touch with him for a while. And anyway I was offered a chance to come down and work with him on a special kind of efficiency review study that was going on. That turned into another major, major project, designing a new kind of military light infantry division which was, in fact, it's been operational now in, not Vietnam but… MR: Iraq? VA: Iraq, yeah. At the time it was designed to do combat kinds of operations at FORSCOM and Alaska and other places, but the concept was the one that I worked on. And that was with FORSCOM. And I got another offer from there after completing that assignment. And I got some big awards and stuff for that. And I was offered a chance to work with an organization that John Lewis had established, and it was called, it wasn't a Peace Corps, the Peace Corps was a part of it at the time he did it. But it was called…Action was the name of the organization. MR: He wasn't in the government at this point. I mean, was he a congressman? VA: No, you know I'm not sure what John was doing at that time. I think it was before he went into Congress, though. I think he was doing something else. In fact John was, John had been the first director, the first national director, for this agency [unclear]. In any case, I think he was in some political [?] by the time I got there. And I think since it's been converted over to another kind of operation. But it had, it was an all-volunteer agency working with young children and with seniors and communities and so on, directing volunteers. MR: And where was this? VA: Southeast Region, the headquarters was here in Atlanta. MR: Is that how you wound up coming to Atlanta? VA: No, I came to Atlanta to work with Mike Brown out at Forces Command. And then after completing that assignment Mike was shipped out to Germany again and I worked for the chief of staff for a while, and then he shipped out to Europe and I decided OK, there's nothing else for me to do here. So, I took the other assignment. And I retired from that and I just decided I've had enough. MR: And you retired when? VA: Hmm. '89 or '90. MR: I know you have two children. VA: Yeah. Alicia and Portia [sp?]. MR: And they have children, you have grandchildren? VA: Alicia has two boys, Sam and Jack, who are teen-agers. Sam is 17 and a fairly brilliant kid like his mom, but he decided that he's not interested in higher education, at least not at this time. His younger brother Jack, who is very much like Alicia's younger sister, Portia, who sort of decided that he does want an education. And he's preparing, his goal is Yale. And he's in his sophomore year at high school now. He's an A student, and an athlete and a scholar, and so on. MR: They all live in Atlanta? VA: No, no, they live in Brighton, in Massachusetts, right out of Boston. MR: Val, is there anything else you want to add? VA: Well, I have a grand-daughter who's four years old, who's taken over the family. This is Portia's daughter in Rochester, back in New York. One last thing, since I was divorced and married again, I have a wife here, Victoria, and I'll say 12 years to be on the safe side in case she's watching this. [laughter] MR: OK, Val, it has been a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you very much. VA: Thank you, Mal, I've enjoyed it."},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_338","title":"Oral history interview of Corbett Ward Clark","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Philippines, Luzon, 18.5530638, 121.1246109","United States, Florida, Clay County, Camp Blanding, 29.94686, -81.97324","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354","United States, Georgia, Richmond County, Augusta Regional Airport, 33.36986, -81.96428"],"dcterms_creator":["Pace, Hayden","Clark, Corbett Ward, 1921-"],"dc_date":["2003-09-10"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Corbett Clark recalls his Army career. In high school, he was a member of the school's ROTC and later joined the National Guard because he liked the experience and all his friends were joining as well. He became a section chief on a 155mm howitzer and was sent to the Pacific. He also functioned as a forward observer, placing smoke shells on target for supporting aircraft. He describes what it was like to be a forward observer, incidences of friendly fire, and Indians working with police dogs. He also worked with native Filipinos to negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. He sustained a non-combat injury and was sent back to the United States, recovering at Oliver General Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, and Welch Army Hospital in Daytona Beach, Florida. He learned Russian in the Army Language School, and later taught Russian at Gordon High School in DeKalb County, Georgia.","Corbett Clark was an Army officer for 20 years and fought in the Pacific during World War II.","CORBETT WARD CLARK WWII Oral Histories September 10, 2003 Atlanta History Center Interviewer: Hayden Pace Transcriber: Joyce Dumas [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: All right. This will be the recorded history of Corbett Ward Clark. It's taken by Hayden Pace on September tenth at approximately 12:10 in the afternoon. Mr. Clark, how are you doing today? Clark: Fine. Interviewer: Great. If I could get you to give me your full name. Clark: Corbett Ward Clark. Interviewer: And Mr. Clark, when were you born? Clark: August the sixth, nineteen twenty-one. Interviewer: Where were you born? Clark: In Atlanta. Interviewer: Have you lived in Atlanta your entire life? Clark: Well, I lived there before I went into the service in World War Two and then after the war I came back here to live. Interviewer: So the only time you've been out of Atlanta is for your service in the war. Clark: Twenty years in service. Interviewer: Twenty years. Are you married? Clark: Yes. Interviewer: What's your wife's name? Clark: Sara Louise Morgan Clark. Interviewer: And when did you get married to Sara? Clark: What was the date? Mrs. Clark: When we got married? Clark: Yes. Mrs. Clark: April the eleventh, nineteen forty-eight. Interviewer: And do you have any children? Clark: Yes, we have three. Interviewer: What are their names? Clark: It's Nancy Lee Cook, [inaudible] Clark. She's married to a Cook. And Margaret Ann Fitzgerald Clark and Susan Jane Meredith Clark. Mrs. Clark: It's Clark Meredith. Clark: Clark Meredith, I'm sorry. Mrs. Clark: Clark Fitzgerald. Clark: She married a Meredith. Interviewer: Well, let's go back to the point at which you started your service with the Army. What were your parents doing at the time? Were they employed? Clark: My father had passed away when I was thirteen and my mother was unemployed. Just a housewife. Interviewer: And how old were you when you entered into the service? Clark: Seventeen. Interviewer: What led you to do that? Clark: Well, I joined the Atlanta National Guard I guess for two reasons. I'd been in ROTC in high school and I kind of liked it. And it paid a little bit of money, which money was awfully scarce in those days. So, that's two reasons. And all of my friends were joining up, you know. The war in Europe was going. Everybody anticipated that we'd be getting into the Army [sic] and so…and those reasons. Everybody I knew my age was joining, either joining service or going into the National Guard, which I joined. Interviewer: Is this ROTC program in high school, was this in place even before the war had begun? Clark: Yes, it started at Fulton High School. I think Fulton High School in Atlanta was the only…the first high school in the country to have ROTC. We had a good ROTC unit and I was an officer in the ROTC. Interviewer: How many fellas were in the ROTC unit at your school? Clark: Oh, we must have had four or five hundred. Several companies. Interviewer: Wow. And out of those four or five hundred, how many of those ended up serving abroad? Clark: Oh, I would say a good part of them. I don't know what percent, but [inaudible]. A large number in my class were killed in the war. Interviewer: When did it become a guarantee that you were going to go abroad? Clark: Well, I guess…we mobilized…the government mobilized the National Guards before Pearl Harbor. We knew that the war was coming and we knew…everybody knew that the United States would be involved in it before it was over. And when…I was already on active duty when Pearl Harbor came and we knew, of course, then we'd probably all be going overseas. And most of us did before it was over with. Interviewer: What were you doing in your active duty prior to going overseas? Clark: I was in field artillery, Hundred and Seventy-ninth Field Artillery Regiment. And I was a section chief of a hundred and a fifty-five millimeter howitzer in the unit. Interviewer: Was that here in Georgia? Clark: Yes. Well, we were at Camp Blanding, Florida. See, we mobilized and we had gone to Camp Blanding, Florida. That's where we were when Pearl Harbor came. Interviewer: And a howitzer is a tank, right? Clark: No, no. It's artillery. Interviewer: Just an artillery. Clark: It's a…see, it's approximately six inch diameter artillery. Interviewer: How many men does it take to operate that? Clark: It took nine. It took seven cannoneers and a gunner and section chief, which I was sergeant section chief. Interviewer: How long were you on active duty prior to being sent abroad? Clark: I went on active duty in February, forty-one, and I didn't go overseas till forty-four. Interviewer: So almost three years [inaudible]? Clark: Yeah, about…forty-two, forty-three, forty…yeah. Interviewer: Did you have friends who were going abroad? Clark: Yeah. They would go to different things. They'd call in and say, “We need people who'd formerly worked for the railroad” and they'd form railroad battalions and they went to North Africa and then sometimes they formed military police units and they'd call for people who'd been policemen and all that type duty. And they'd break out from the unit. Then we'd keep getting replacements into the unit to make for them. And then finally, they split our battalion, the whole field artillery into two units. And I formed, my unit was the Six Ninety-fourth Field Artillery Battalion. That's when we went overseas in August, forty-four, I guess. Went to New Guinea. Interviewer: Maybe you can describe for me the general mood or feeling of the active service troops as they were preparing to go abroad and knowing that they were gonna go. Was it excitement or fear or…what was it? Clark: Well, we knew…everybody wanted to go and get it over with, but you didn't anticipate it as being something that was gonna be pleasure, you know. You'd say, “Well, we know we're gonna have a lot of risks and all, but until it's all over we can't go back home.” We had gone into active duty for one year. They mobilized the National Guard for one year. Then when Pearl Harbor came, they extended everybody's enlistment to the duration plus six months to stamp the service records. So, we knew we weren't going to get out until the war was over or six months after the war. So, we were ready to go, but nobody was anxious to go. I guess you might put it that way. Interviewer: And you heard stories of what was going on over there? Clark: Oh sure, you know. They had…Hitler was going all over Europe and England was about to…on the verge of surrender, really. We knew if you didn't stop them, we'd all be under dictatorship, probably. But in the Pacific when Japan hit Pearl Harbor, over in the Philippines and all the islands over there, they just about controlled the Pacific. So, we knew we had to go and get the thing over with. Interviewer: So you were in active duty was Pearl Harbor was bombed? Clark: Yes, I was. Interviewer: Do you remember when you first learned that it had been bombed? Clark: Yeah. I came back from…just finished lunch and the kitchen came back and said, “Japan bombed Pearl Harbor”. “Oh, good,” everybody says, “we'll whip them in three months.” [laughs] They were wrong there. Word came out that the Japanese had wooden bullets and that their ships were easy to sink and all that stuff, you know. That didn't turn out right either. Interviewer: Went you went abroad, where did you first go? Clark: We went to New Guinea. We went to Hollandia, New Guinea. That's where General MacArthur had his headquarters. Interviewer: What was it like arriving in New Guinea with these other troops? Clark: Well, it was hot and it was raining. They had just built a highway. The engineers and the Seabees had just built a highway seventeen miles from…it was Humboldt [phonetic] Bay in Hollandia, New Guinea, back to the old Japanese airport. And they said it was the envy of the world that they had built it through the jungle in just a few days. They had a hundred battalions working on that thing. And we landed and they took us by truck up through there. I remember the first night. We spent the night in the high grass and we had to put our helmets way up off the ground to keep the rats, they said, from biting you. Fleas on the rats, I guess, is what they're talking about. Then we would worry about the Japanese. They said…you're in that hammock and they come…bayonet you. They told all kind of stories. I was scared to death to sleep in the hammock up off the ground that way. But anyway, I remember that quite well. Interviewer: What was the average age of the troops that had just been sent up in New Guinea? Clark: I'd say about twenty-two, twenty-one or twenty-two, something like that. Interviewer: And how were you divided up? Ten of you in a group and those groups form larger groups or how was that done? Clark: Well, we were in sections. By then I was in charge of the survey section, so I had…and survey, wire and communication; radio, wire and instrument. We surveyed targets, you know. And I had about thirty to thirty-five men and we usually operated as a group. And then we were sub-groups of a survey section, which I usually stayed with. We would survey targets, locate the targets for the artillery to fire on the infantry. And that's where we stayed…stayed in groups. The battery would work together. We'd have one common kitchen for the whole battery of a hundred men. But then, we would also be sectioned off for specialized training and that's what…like I say, about forty men, thirty-five, forty men. And then little sections from that. The wire section would run the wire, the telephone wires and the radio operators with their other little section. But I had all three of these sections: wire, radio and survey. Interviewer: So your job, initially upon arriving in New Guinea, was to survey for potential targets? Clark: Yep, that's what we did. Interviewer: How long did you do that for? Clark: Well, I did that all till the war was over. And mainly though, in combat, we didn't do too much survey. We [inaudible] set me up with the infantry unit to convey fire commands to the battery for the targets and also for the airplanes when we had air support, to put these shells on the target so that the planes could come in and bomb and strafe the enemy. In my book, there is a chapter about when our planes strafed us, too. So they had plenty of ammunition for that. Interviewer: Now you've mentioned your book. I see you've got that on the desk. Can I get you to hold that up for the camera? From Hell to Surrender, Corbett Clark. When did you write that? Clark: I wrote it the last couple of years. I kept a diary during the war. During the combat [inaudible] the part of the book that's…my part in the combat is directly from the diary that I had during the war. The rest of it was just telling about from the time…the training that we went for overseas, before we went and then the combat and then in the end, when the Japanese surrendered. I've got it in here where I was, went down back behind the enemy lines to negotiate the surrender of the Philippines, of the Japanese soldiers in the Philippines. And that's kind of the story of this book here, From Hell to Surrender. Interviewer: We'll return [to] that book. You had mentioned that you were a forward observer. Did that place you on the front lines? Clark: I was right up with the infantry the whole…the whole during the war. Interviewer: What was that like? Clark: Well, that…right there where they were doing all the shooting and go out on patrols sometimes, you know. And some of the time, if the infantry is attacking, we'd put the…fired on the target that the infantry, the lieutenants or captains, company commander would tell us about what targets he wanted to fire on, what kind of ammunition to fire on ‘em. And I would do my best to get the right [inaudible] to hit the targets that they wanted. And sometimes on a counter attack, we'd have to bring the artillery in real close to the infantry. And luckily, we never did hit our own people. But sometimes the artillery would fall short and hit our own troops. But luckily, that didn't happen where I was at. You had a lot of things to take into consideration. Ammunition was short a lot of times. They'd [inaudible]…they'd say…they'd down the guns. They'd say, “The guns have no chow in them.” They didn't have any ammunition. [inaudible] [laughing] Instead of having high explosive shells to shoot, they'd give us armor-piercing, the solid shells that you use for tanks. And we'd try to hit the target with that one shell. And that's all the ammunition we had. We used what we had. But they were always short of ammunition because they were saving it for the invasion of Japan, which never happened. But they had all kinds of ammunition. Another thing, they had to bring it up a mountain trail. Took about sixty to a hundred miles to bring it up and they'd bring it up one way, one time, come up one day and go back the next. One-way streets. And when it rained sometimes the trucks loaded with ammunition would slip on the road and turn over down into the valley. One time a truck loaded with beer turned over and for months after that, every time a truck would go back they'd stop and go down and bring some of that beer up. Interviewer: As a forward observer, how far in front of the rest of the infantry were you? Clark: I was with the infantry. I didn't get in front of them. Nobody got in front of them. But we were right there with them where they could call in and sometimes they'd have a patrol of ten or fifteen men to go out and find out some information. And I'd go out with them so if they got pinned down we could call in artillery so they could go back. Interviewer: What was it like being a part of these patrols? Clark: Well, that's the worst part cause you get cut off you can't get back. There'd be a small number of people and you just…you're not out to [inaudible] run into combat, you're supposed to…you'd withdraw. But sometimes you'd be pinned down. You couldn't withdraw. And that was the worst part. But the easiest way to get yourself killed was going out on patrol. But I was lucky. I didn't get myself killed, so. Interviewer: How many patrols do you think you went on? Clark: Oh, fifteen maybe. Probably as many as fifteen different combat, at different times. Sometimes you'd go out two or three days. You wouldn't and then they'd say…you go out on maybe just a two-hour patrol, just try to find out where the enemy was located. And as soon as you figure out where they are, where the machine guns are, then you pull back and then the company can do whatever they want to, to bring in air support or artillery barrage. And we had…we really had a unique thing in our field artillery cause the United States had the best field artillery in the world. Excuse me. No country compared. We masked our fires. If I could fire on a battalion, on a target, then another battalion could use those same coordinates that we used and put their guns on it and we'd have guns all over the place firing at the same time at the same target. And we had that timed fire, which the fuse…the shell would burst about twenty feet off the ground, so it would just scatter the area with shrapnel. So, it saved the infantry. It saved many, many lives by destroying the targets before it even reached there. They never could kill them all, but they would weaken them so that they could do what they had to do. Interviewer: Do you remember any specific patrols more than others? Clark: Yeah, I remember all of them. Yeah, we ah…they ah…very few times you'd go out that you don't get some…get into some problem. But usually you can get back. We always made a rule that we'd never leave a wounded man out there. That was the number one thing we said when we always went up there. We'd never leave a wounded man. We never did leave a wounded man out. But some…a lot of times, one of the people were left out and the Japanese were very cruel to them sometimes, which I guess that's war. But it's hard to understand. Interviewer: How did they determine who went out on the patrols? Clark: Well, the infantry company commander would say, “I need…I'm going to send a patrol out. I need artillery support.” They'd come get me. I had four men in my section, but I was the only one who would convey the fire commands. They would carry the radios and do the other things. Help dig foxholes and things like that. There were three men. But the infantry company commander, the lieutenant…wherever… sometimes it'd be a lieutenant with about fifty men on a little hill or something. He'd say, “I gotta have some artillery support.” So, I'd go with them for that reason. I'd have a least a couple of men with me to carry the radio. We'd radio back our fire commands and that was the main things. Pretty heavy radio. It was a . . the batteries themselves were heavy. So, that's what…that's how they selected patrols. Interviewer: Now you've moved up the ranks. You're currently a major or a retired major.[inaudible] What steps along the way? Clark: Well, I went in the Army as already a sergeant by the time we mobilized. When we moved forward overseas I was promoted to Staff Sergeant, put in charge of this radio and survey and wire section. When we got into combat, it's supposed to be lieutenants up there doing this forward observing, but we ran out of lieutenants. So they called me one day and said, “We'll send you up with the Philippine Army.” Cause the Philippine Army…was responsible for artillery support. So, the rest of the war I was forward observer. I'd gone up one time. We had a lieutenant with us. After that they sent me up and I was [inaudible] the war. And that's when we went behind enemy lines to negotiate the surrender. I was the only American on the hill at the time. They said, “We want an American to go with the…go back there.” So after the war, I ran into the lieutenant colonel that had been an advisor, Lieutenant Colonel John P. Oday, and he'd been an advisor to the Philippine Army and he knew…he'd been up to the front lines and he knew what I'd been doing. He said, “I thought you were an officer.” He said, “I put in for lieutenant”. And I said, “Well.” I'd got in a wreck and broke my leg and they sent me back right after the war and I never heard anything. So, he wrote me a letter and about two weeks later I had a commission. And so after that, I worked on up to…stayed in the Army and I got promoted to first lieutenant and captain, then major. And then retired as a major. So I spent ten years enlisted man…enlisted service and ten years as an officer. That's the story of that. Interviewer: You said you were the only American working with this Philippine Army? Clark: I was the only one on the hill the day that…well, there was a couple of my [inaudible] party with me, but they wanted…what happened is the…it was the twentieth of August, nineteen forty-five and the Japanese had…they'd surrendered over in Japan, but they hadn't surrendered in the Philippines, I guarantee. And they were supposed to have ceased firing, but they were still shooting. The war was still going on, so this Philippine…I mean, this uh…well first, an American officer came up from Intelligence Service and was gonna go behind the enemy lines to negotiate and we had a flag of truce and he got about two hundred yards away and they…the Japanese shot through the legs. And he fell and we sent somebody out and brought him back. And then, the same day, they came back…the Japanese officer came back to our lines with a flag of truce, great big old…looked like a half of sheet on a long stick. And he said they wanted an American, wanted somebody to come to their headquarters. And so, they asked for volunteers so…I volunteered, I guess. And the Filipino major, Eduardo Bouy [phonetic] was his name. He went with us and a sergeant, a Philippine sergeant. And we went with that Japanese officer back across the line and we saw the guns and the men all over the place. And we got there, there was a big white horse and they had a big ditch dug out and he was in there. And the Japanese officer was there. And they said, “Take off your shoes”. And we went in that cave…went in that cave and there were railroad crossties all around to support it. And we sat down on the floor barefooted there and the Japanese officer was there. What would it take or how could we stop the fighting and all? And we said, “First, they've got to quit attacking.” They'd attack at night. “Cut out your attacks and cut out your mortars.” Mortars were the worst. “Any firing at us.” And then we would stop all fighting. We'd stop. And they said, “We're all hungry.” And they needed medical care. We promised them we'd get some food. They wanted some rice and medical care. And they were worried about walking back. Cause it's sixty miles down through a real mountainous dirt road to walk. They remembered the Bataan death march, the Japanese marched our men sixty miles or so and so many of them were killed and they were afraid we were gonna do the same. So we…we said that…the well would walk and the wounded would be sent on trucks. That's what we told them. Told them they'd have rice and medical care. So they said, “Well, we'll let you know.” Said that you'd get a message back from Japan. And sure enough, they accepted it and the war was over. I came right after that, they were leaving me and I went back from a that job back to the battery position. And I got involved in a truck…my truck turned over and broke my leg and they sent me on back to the States. There's a picture in my book about…where I broke my leg. Interviewer: When you went to negotiate with the Japanese, did you have authority to be making promises like escorting them down the mountain and providing trucks for their injured and things like that? Clark: I was told that the United States would do that, would do it and they were doing exactly that. When I left they were bringing big old long open-body trucks. The Japanese were standing up. Bet there was a hundred and fifty in there, standing up just packed solid and they were coming down that mountain trail in those trucks. Interviewer: Did you have any experience negotiating? Clark: No, I didn't have any. No, not that I know of. No. Interviewer: Were you nervous when you were there in the cave? Clark: Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. Because we didn't know what they were gonna do. They were nice. They offered us tea. We drank tea. Sat there drinking hot tea. Interviewer: Who did they have speaking with you? Was it a translator or was it? Clark: No, they had somebody in English…one of the officers spoke English. I think there were four of them there at a table. And they were sitting down. They stood up and…two or three of them…the one was speaking English, spoke English very fluently. And I think he said something about he had been to the States. Interviewer: And you mentioned that the decision to surrender was obviously straight from Japan. Clark: Yeah. Japan had to give the surrender…had to give the order. But the…they had…but Japan had instructed them to make contacts to try to surrender. Interviewer: The battle that you were involved in in New Guinea . . . Clark: No, in New Guinea we didn't do any fighting. We just…the Japanese had gone into the jungle and they tried to keep them in there. They didn't try to go in there and get them out. Interviewer: Oh, I'm sorry. Where was this that took place with the cave and the hill and the battle? Clark: At Luzon, North Luzon. Mountain province. They gave me the Silver Star for it. It's in this book here. There's a chapter in there. The order to give…Silver Star order is in here verbatim. Interviewer: While all this was going on, while you were a forward observer going on the patrols and during the negotiations, were you keeping in touch with family and friends back home. Clark: You always write letters, yeah. Interviewer: How often would you write a letter or receive one? Clark: Well, in combat you didn't write too much. There wasn't much time to do it, you know. Sometimes people…wonder, I guess, “How come I hadn't got a letter lately?” But you then get that back to the people that send it back. Then they had to…they photocopied it. You know how they did that? They photocopied them and send the photo back, then they reproduce it and they call it “V mail,” I think. But the process was long. Letters were kind of getting short. I mean, you don't get too many letters. And then sometimes you get everything at one time, you know. Interviewer: Were you continuously in combat or did you take breaks periodically? Clark: I was in continuous combat. The field artillery don't get breaks. The infantry gets the breaks. They say the artillery is always on line. Of course, they're not…the cannoneers and all the crews…they're not busy all the time. So it's kind of…and they are kind of away from the lines. They get mortars from artillery fire on them, but it's not like up at the infantry. But they don't give relieved like the infantry does. They pull back the infantry regiment to rest and bring another one up, because they can't stand it too long at one time. But, no. I was up there with them most all the time. Different units, whoever needed artillery support. The main combat that I did was when I went up with the Philippine Army, Hundred and Twenty-first Infantry Regiment of the Philippine Army. Interviewer: [inaudible] like that. Clark: Yeah, all that when we went behind enemy lines with the Hundred and Twenty-first Infantry Regiment of the Philippine Army. Interviewer: Did you witness sort of a psychological impact of the sustained combat? When the field artillery isn't getting breaks, did that affect the troops? Clark: Well, yeah. They get tired. They get tired. But that's the way it was. They couldn't afford to pull them back. They had to have it all up there. Interviewer: Did you interact much with foreign nationals that were involved in combat, like civilians when you were abroad? Clark: No. The Philippine Army was very good to work with. They were excellent. They had…their native carriers who brought up food and ammunition every night, mostly women. I never dealt with them because they had their own people in charge. But every night there'd be a hundred carriers, a long line bringing in everything from food, clothing and ammunition. Everything you needed. And you'd call in and…between those carriers and the Filipino troops, they kept…saved a lot of our own people from having to be in combat. Interviewer: So you didn't interact much with civilians? Clark: No, I didn't myself. Interviewer: When you did have this rare opportunity to take a break, was there any socializing or sports or anything that you guys would do? Clark: Well, the Red Cross was real good. They had these Red Cross stations different places. They'd be a few miles away. But any opportunity, we'd go down to the Red Cross. You could get a shower and you could get something to eat, to drink, letters, stationery, toilet articles, all that stuff. And everybody liked to go down there any time you'd get the chance. That was about the only recreation that there was. I played cards and all, things like that. Interviewer: I assume you made a number of friendships as a result of this action? Clark: Oh, yes. They still come see us. We have friends from Indiana and Florida. The colonel I had been a captain under, he's come down to see me. Comes down. Lives in New Jersey. Colonel Luther B. Arnold. I was a captain. [inaudible] made contact with one in Florida that I was…tells in my book about he and I were in the same foxhole during an attack one night. We talk about things sometimes. Interviewer: Like what? Clark: Well, about things that happened, you know. We got overrun that night. Talk about infantry, I'd talk about [inaudible] infantry more than them artillery. We got attacked. It's called the Battle of Twin Peaks. And the Japanese came in with the bayonets. And this infantryman shot a Jap that was coming about two feet from me with a bayonet. And I give the infantry a lot of credit for that. And this Eugene Whitcomb is the one in Florida I was talking about. He was in the same foxhole with me. And we talk about it. Interviewer: Do you know the infantryman who shot this Japanese soldier? Clark: No. He was a part of the Thirty-third Infantry Division that I was up with at the time. That's the first trip I went up on. First…Twin Peaks. It's…two mountains came up and they overlooked the objective. We went too far is what we did. The infantry company had advanced too far and they got in the middle of too many Japs. So they came in at night. So after that, we had enough artillery and all to get rid of them and they brought in the air support and the P-58s, P-38s and P-51s came in and bombed and strafed the Japanese. They took off and went on further up. When I left the hill it was all clear and all, I guess. Wasn't any fighting going on. Interviewer: So the Battle of Twin Peaks was successful? Clark: Oh, yeah. Very successful. And they had Indians up there with police dogs and boy, they could smell the Japs. They knew when they were coming. Two police dogs up there. Interviewer: What do you mean by Indians? Native Americans? Clark: Native American Indians. Had two attached to each company with police dogs. Interviewer: And their job was to [inaudible]? Clark: Oh, they could smell. They could smell those Japs. When they're coming in they could hear them, you know. In fact, one dog was killed up there, but I don't know how he got killed. One dog was killed on that hill. Interviewer: Did you know any of the native Americans? Clark: No, I didn't know them. Interviewer: Other than this situation in the foxhole, that one friend, are there any other stories of your involvement with particular friends of yours? Clark: Yeah. There's a corporal, Gallagher. Eugene Gallagher. G-A-L-L-A-G-H-E-R. He…we got… on a trail going up to the front lines and we got…mortar shells started coming in. He rolled down the bank. His arm was bleeding. His left arm, I think, was bleeding real bad. He rolled down the hill and they questioned whether or not he got hit by a mortar or whether he just…a rock or something. But anyway, they gave him a Purple Heart and I think a mortar shell fragment hit him cause they just go everywhere. The shell hit real close to us anyway. And that was the first casualty I saw in the war. And they shipped him on back to the States. I never heard from him until I saw in the paper where he had died. That's several years back. Interviewer: Now you received the Silver Star? Clark: Yes. I got a Bronze Star. I didn't know it till they surveyed my military records for a disability compensation and they found that in the records. It was supposed to have been destroyed by the fire back in some time and they found those records and they were real brown, scorched, looked like it'd been scorched by the fire. And the VA had a big stack about six inches high. Those records had it in there for conducting fire…artillery fire, under fire is what I got that for. But I never did get the official medal. I need to get the Army to get me that thing issued one of these days. Interviewer: Any other awards? Clark: Just simple things that everybody gets. All kinds of ribbons for being in theater of operation and American defense and Good Conduct medal that all enlisted men got if they didn't get in jail, I guess. They're nice to have, but there wasn't anything being heroic about it to get them, you know. You get a chest full of ribbons… [Tape 1, Side B] Clark: One man got the Silver Star for conducting…for radio…he climbed out on the end of the peak and under fire he transmitted some orders, fire commands that kept us from getting overrun, really, during the night. All night long…hand grenades, the Japanese had a little a hand grenade about as big as a snuff can and they you blow that thing a country mile. They'd just throw them off against the steel helmet to active it and you could hear them tap it and then they'd throw it. They were pretty accurate, you know. One of them came in the foxhole with a guy and he was, trying to get out of the way. And he jumped out of that thing, hole, and laid down and that thing exploded and threw dirt all over everybody. Yeah, let's see. We had a sergeant that brought his gun; he was a section chief. Sergeant Crisp was his name, Joseph Crisp. Brought it to the…into the…exposed the gun up and knocked up an enemy artillery unit. He was decorated, I think, with the Silver Star. He was an old-time regular Army sergeant. And that's the only ones who got any decorations that I know of in my unit. The three of us, I think. Might have been somebody I didn't know about. There were a good many Purple Hearts and we had some killed, several killed. Mostly when they went out on patrols with the infantry. That's where you get yourself killed is getting out there. We were strafed on by our own planes and we almost got killed one time. That was the P-38s. They mistook us for Japanese troops and we stopped them just in time cause they were just shooting those fifty caliber machine guns, just spraying. I was in a hole right next to a great big pine tree and they were knocking those limbs off. They were falling all over us, hitting the ground. But this Colonel Oday I told about, John P. Oday, lieutenant colonel; he was there and I was trying to get them to stop and they weren't listening to me. And he said, “Bring the radio to me.” So I got out of my foxhole and came over to him. He got on them and when he started talking they finally stopped strafing. Then they…they rolled them P-38s, you know, the twin-engine, they rolled over back to “victory road,” they called it. But we showed them the victory road that day. Just the opposite. But that's…things happen and nobody said anything about it. And they never did fix blame for anybody. I guess it's just an act of…couldn't be avoided. Communications. Interviewer: Were there any Americans injured in that? Clark: No, a lot of Filipinos. They all got out of a foxhole and the guy, Filipino, got a bullet right through his neck. And the first aid man came and got him and took him out. But he died. I don't know if I'd stayed in that hole whether they were hitting me or not. So, maybe the colonel calling me up there into his foxhole saved my life, I guess. Interviewer: You mentioned that a lot of the fighting was conducted during the night. Clark: Japanese…one night I did. We never did attack at night. The Japanese attacked at night. They were…that was their specialization, attack at night. Interviewer: Did you find that they were better trained for night fighting than the Filipinos? Clark: Oh, boy. There were, yeah. Oh, yeah. They were better trained than anybody in night fighting. Interviewer: What was it like to fight at nighttime? Clark: Well, you couldn't see, you know. You'd see something out there, looking. And you look like…maybe it's somebody around, maybe wandering, finding…maybe they show up. And when they come in, they come in like crazy. And one time, they…we had that Concertina wire, that barbed wire that stretched all around like round circles. And we had it all around the unit, the infantry did. The Japanese come in there and the Americans, the infantry just shot them up. In the morning, they said there were Japanese all over that barbed wire. They just didn't have any sense of safety or anything. When they were gonna come in, they decided to come, they were gonna come in there. See, they'd had amazing success when the war started, the Japanese had. Everywhere they went, they won. They overran the British and the Americans all over the place and they captured the Philippines, Singapore, all those islands over there. That's what their tactics were. Just go in there and just catch everybody by surprise. Interviewer: You left the service and returned to the United States as a result of an accident with a truck flipping over? Clark: Yes. My truck…the fact is I was going down to the Red Cross when it happened after the combat, gone back to the rear area where the artillery was. Several of us wanted to go down to the Red Cross, so I checked out a three-quarter-ton Dodge truck and we were going down to the Red Cross on a real narrow Filipino road. Went to cross a bridge and this big army, two and a half-ton truck rammed us in the rear. I was driving. Hit first and blew out our tire. Seemed like the left-rear tire. And I just about had it under control and he hit us again. When he hit me again, I couldn't…going across this narrow bridge and the truck tried to go around, is what happened. He was going too fast to stop and he hit me. And just as I left the bridge, he hit me again and we went over the bank and landed upside down in a rice paddy, water. And I thought I was all wounded or shot, there was blood and all. Water was coming all off my head and somebody was pulling me out of the truck. It was a major. He pulled me out of the truck and they had a…by then they had a whole line of people up there looking and they had an Army ambulance took me over to a big tent, field hospital. And that night, they didn't find anything wrong with my leg and it kept hurting and it was big, swelled up. So the next morning they X-rayed it and said I had a broken right knee. So had to put it in a cast and in a few days I was on the USS Hope, hospital ship, coming back to the States. Interviewer: What was it like to arrive back in the United States? Clark: Well, it was nice. The hospital ship was great. They treated us nice and we took a long time to get there because we went into San Francisco. They had a band…yeah, they had a band playing. And then they put on a plane and took about three days, I think, to fly me from the west coast to Amy hospital in Augusta. We stopped every time you turned around. Wasn't any through trips, I guess, back then. Stopped at air bases overnight, three or four nights. Took four nights to get there. And we got to the hospital, went into the main big hospital. It used to be a hotel, I think, there. And the nurse came back there and said, “Any enlisted men here?” I was the only enlisted man. She said, “This is an officer's hotel.” So they shipped me over to…Bush Field was the barracks, some kind of short…it was a one-story building, I think. They put us in there. And stayed there for a few days. And then I went on down to convalescent hospital in Daytona Beach, Florida. Stayed in that hospital till May, from November some time to May, with that leg. And finally got out. I don't know why I stayed in the Army, but I did. I stayed in. I'm glad I did. But everybody else was getting out. And people wondered why I was staying in. But the main thing, I stayed in because my leg was bothering me and I'd say, “Well, I'm gonna stay in and see if this leg straightens out before I get out.” So I stayed in another year and then I already had about six years in and I got a commission. So, I stayed in, which is…I'm glad I did. It works out good now cause I've good insurance in case…get good medical care and a lot of people don't have it, I know. So. Interviewer: Well, what was the transition like from combat to being over here? Clark: Well, I didn't sleep much at night for a long time, I tell you. That's about the worst part. Just anxiety, I guess. Just winding down, maybe. I don't know what. They call it something else now. They didn't use to recognize anything…combat being any problem, but I think they do now more, much more so than they used to. What do they call it? Stress…what is that they call it? I forgot. Interviewer: Post-traumatic stress? Clark: Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, they recognize it now. But they didn't do…they didn't use to recognize it. Interviewer: How long did you have sleepless nights? Clark: Oh, for years. I don't know. For years. I don't know if I ever got to where I could just sleep all night without nightmares or something like that. Interviewer: You still find yourself suffering? Clark: Sometimes I do. Yeah, I do. Yeah. It's…sometimes. Well, you know I do. Interviewer: So you were with the Army for twenty years? Clark: Yes. Interviewer: Did you do anything after…after leaving the Army? Clark: Yes, I went to work. I taught school. While I was in the Army, I learned Russian. There's an Army language school in [inaudible], Germany. And I came back, after I got out, I taught Russian in Gordon High School at DeKalb County for a year. I had two classes of Russian language. And I enjoyed it. But it didn't make enough money, I guess. So I got a job with civil service and wound up being training officer for Fort McPherson for the civilians and for the military and for the reservists. And I retired from that. And after I retired from seventeen years civil service, kind of did some independent real estate work. Just as a hobby and to make a little extra money, too. So that's been about the story. Interviewer: Well, I'm through with my questions. I know we have only touched on, I'm sure, a fraction of the stories that you've got. Are there any stories that you feel are important for us to have recorded today or do you think we've got a good slice of it? Clark: I think, I'll tell you what. This battalion I was in, the Six Thirty-fourth Field Artillery Battalion, the commander was a major, Major Charles Pershing Brown, from Oklahoma. And he was probably the most outstanding officer that I ever served under. And he got promoted to lieutenant colonel while I was over there after a big fight we had, a big artillery barrage thing that he had been responsible for defeating the Japanese. And he became a major general and one of the very few field artillery officers to have reached that rank. So he was…I served under Captain Luther D. Arnold, he comes…he still comes to see me. He's a retired full colonel. He was [inaudible]. But he wasn't in combat. He was also an outstanding officer. He was a West Point officer. But this general was not a West Point officer. Interviewer: It was a pleasure to serve under these two men. Clark: A pleasure to serve. I don't know where another officer is. There's a Captain Nicholas D. Stafford, who's an outstanding officer. He's a fine commander in combat. Interviewer: I think we're done. I just have one last question. What is harder? Doing patrols or teaching Russian to kids in Georgia? Clark: Russian was easy. Patrols were the hardest, yeah. Interviewer: Thank you very much, Mr. Clark. And again, if there's anything else you'd like to say. Clark: I think I've enjoyed it. I hope that…I hope these young men now don't have to go through what we did. But, I am afraid they are. Interviewer: Thank you, sir. [end of tape]"],"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":["Silver Star","V-mail","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Clark, Sarah Louise Morgan, 1927-2012","O'Day, John P.","Boyer, Eduardo","Whitcomb, Eugene, 1920-2012","Gallagher, Eugene","Crisp, Joseph","Brown, Charles Pershing, 1918-1998","Arnold, Luther D., 1915-2012","Stafford, Nicholas T., 1920-2010","Atlanta National Guard","United States. Army. Reserve Officers' Training Corps","United States. Army. Field Artillery Battery, 694th","United States. Army. Field Artillery Regiment, 179th","American Red Cross","United States. Army. Infantry Division, 33rd","Hope (Hospital ship)","Colonel John P. O'Day","Eduardo Boyer of the Filipino Army","Augusta Regional"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Corbett Ward Clark"],"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/338"],"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":["1:02:46"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_148","title":"Oral history interview of Clar W. Cukor","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Alabama, Houston County, Dothan, 31.22323, -85.39049","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Georgia, Lowndes County, Moody A F B, 30.97849, -83.21646","United States, Illinois, Cook County, Chicago, 41.85003, -87.65005","United States, North Carolina, Guilford County, Greensboro, 36.07264, -79.79198","United States, Texas, Bexar County, San Antonio, 29.42412, -98.49363"],"dcterms_creator":["Palmer, Janet","Cukor, Clar W., 1925-"],"dc_date":["2003-09-03"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Clar Cukor recounts his time in the U.S. Air Force at the end of WWII. He had been a college student when he enlisted, partly \"on a lark\" and because everyone was being patriotic. While he was in basic training to become an aviation cadet, the Air Force realized it had too many pilots and closed pilot training. The Army wanted the trainees, but the Air Force didn't want to let the Army have them, so they were first sent to a college training detachment, and then sent for line training. Their commanding officer met the train and asked if anyone could type, and Clar raised his hand; he immediately became Cadet Colonel. He goes on to describe the relationship between the cadets and the CO, and the ensuing (high jinx) on the part of the cadets. After the war, he went back to school.","Clarence \"Clar\" Cukor was an aviation cadet in the USAAF during World War II.","CLARENCE CUKOR VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER Interview Date: September 3, 2003 Interviewer: Janet Palmer Transcribed by: Stephanie McKinnell JANET PALMER: Today is September 3, 2003. My name is Janet Palmer, and my interview is with Clarence Cukor at the Atlanta History Center for the Veterans History Project. Mr. Cukor, will you please state your name and spell it. CLARENCE CUKOR: My name is Clare Cukor, given name is Clarence. First name is, I use Clare because I was raised on the southwest side of Chicago, and Clarences do not last long there. So Clare became protective coloring 60, 70 years ago. JP: And what was your date and place of birth. CC: September 28, Detroit, Michigan. 1925. JP: During which war did you serve? CC: World War II. JP: And what was the branch of service that you were in, and what was your unit number? CC: Aviation cadet. I was inducted as an aviation cadet, and I was discharged as an aviation cadet. Which alone is kind of unique. JP: Tell me a little bit about your background and what you were doing prior to going into the service. CC: Prior to going into the service, I was attending the University of Chicago. I had done my first year and I had just turned 18. Obviously I wasn't going to take the chance on going into the infantry, so I volunteered for the air force. And in my group, we were mostly 18 year olds. There were a few older members of the group, and we'll hear more about them as we talk later. JP: How did you feel about going into the service? CC: Well, of course, you know, it was all, big lark. The feelings were running high because of Pearl Harbor. Naturally we were all very big _. JP: When was that, when did you join? CC: September, October of '43. JP: And after you joined, where did you go for basic training? CC: Basic training, we went to Greensboro, North Carolina. What was rather interesting, towards the end of basic training, a clerk at Maxwell Field in Alabama literally looked behind his desk and found a list of 250,000 pilots the air force forgot they had. So they literally shut down pilot training at that point. Now all of us were destined to be pilots, but now with pilot training closed, the high command saw this big mass of raw material and they wanted to get their hands on it. The air force wasn't about to let that happen. We could pass air force physicals so they decided that they were going to hide us and keep us from the hands of the high command is literally what it amounted to. They, first thing they invented was so called college training detachment. So they packed us up and sent us to Davidson, North Carolina, for, two do the first year of college. Which of course for me was a snap. Most of the other 18 year olds had not been to college, so this was useful for them. This occupied us for about six months. Now it wasn't a total waste of time. We had a history professor who lived in the Piedmont, and his forebears for five or six generations lived in the Piedmont, so he took it upon himself as his basic mission in life to teach us Civil War history from the southern point of view. And it was well done. The man was superb. An interesting, and again, Davidson is a church related school, and their top student in their, in the civilian end of things, also happened to be the white lightening running and would make run up into Tennessee every couple of weeks to take care of our libation needs. After college training detachment, they sent us off to Moody Air Force Base for so called on the line training. Moody Air Force Base is in Valdosta, Georgia. The man that was running Moody Air Force Base was the colonel that had been running Hickham Field when the Japanese hit at Pearl Harbor. He had been demoted to his permanent rank of colonel, and of course he was now running Moody Air Force Base. My introduction to him was cute. A train arrived in Valdosta. I literally had one foot off the train. The colonel was standing out in front and simply said, can anybody type. At that time I hadn't learned the lessons about volunteering quite yet. So I could type. He walked over, pinned cadet colonel bars on your shoulder, said, they're yours, and he walked off. Literally. I now had a trainload of fellow aviation cadets. We had to find a place for them to stay, had to find the supply room, and on and on and on. Which we did. He regarded us as a labor pool. Moody Air Force Base had a contingent of German POWs. And the German POWs ran all the KP at the base. That is until we arrived. When we arrived, the German POWs were allowed to luxuriate. And we were given the opportunity to learn mess management, which is the air force way of handling KP. Since I was the cadet colonel, it was my duty to assign various of my friends to jobs. So we learned very early in the game how to make the game work for us. Now sick call in the air corps is typically around 8 o'clock in the morning. I ran my sick call at 7 in the morning. For some strange reason, all the people that were on sick call always wound up with the dirtiest jobs, which meant that they never got done. Now, the colonel didn't have much of a regard for cadets. He regarded us as raw material and that's all. We wanted to change his mind, so one day we ran a little competition. We had the top mechanic on the air field, an old line master sergeant, disassemble a P-47 radial engine. One of my crew did the same, except he didn't _ it, the master sergeant. After that, things eased up a little bit at the field. The young man who did this had been working at LaGuardia air field, and he was one of the top mechanics at LaGuardia prior to his induction in the service. We had some other interesting people in our group. One young man had come out of the merchant marine. This young man had made the run to Mermansk something like ten or eleven times, and he never got to Mermansk. Every ship he was on was torpedoed. The last one was torpedoed in the north Atlantic in the middle of winter. This young man was saved by a flotilla of ships that came by 30 days after the sinking. He survived 30 days in a little rubber raft in the north Atlantic. To this day, he doesn't know how he survived. He didn't have any frost bite. It was just an amazing occurrence. He was our front man. Every time we got ourselves into trouble, we'd push him up front. And of course it was very difficult for retribution to rain very heavy upon us in the face of all these ribbons that he wore. The field was run by, as I said, the colonel who had been in charge of Hickham Field. He was not very highly regarded by us. This man had a Nash as a staff car. His staff car was equipped with cameras. His avowed mission in life was to make every WAC on base. We learned about this because I had one of my boys who was very interested in photography. So I got him assigned to the photo lab. Naturally when the colonel got his set of pictures, we got a set. Finally after a year in the service, we did manage to get some leave. JP: What did you do when you were on leave? CC: Well, I went back to Chicago, obviously, which was home for me. Chicago at that time was marvelous. Because if you wore a uniform, there was no way you could spend money in Chicago. Didn't matter what. If you got into a cab, the fare was picked up. We went to eat in the finest restaurants in Chicago, you went to the Blackhawk, the bill was paid. It was a lovely place, a lovely town to have a leave. Eventually they decided they were going to transfer us from Moody to Dothan, Alabama. Now our colonel of our field had a pet cannon which he fired off every night when they took the flag down. He knew that we were going to do something as a parting gesture as we left Moody, so he put armed guards on the cannon. We staged a fight, managed to pull the guards off the cannon, and then very gently lowered it into the bottom of the swimming pool. That was our parting gesture to him. Eventually we found our way to Dothan, Alabama. JP: When was that, when did you go to Dothan? CC: Dothan would have been probably late '44. And Dothan, as far as I'm concerned, and to this day I consider a hell hole. My first view of Dothan was every single yard in the city of Dothan had a sign that said dogs and soldiers please keep off the grass. This was during World War II, and this is my memory of Dothan. The air field at Dothan was a fighter rebuilding center. So it was a very active field. It was interesting because it had six or seven messes. It was so big that it had three or four civilian messes. It had an officer's mess; it had a cadet mess. And of course it had a, several enlisted men's messes. The messes were run by an old master sergeant who was beyond the age of retirement, but he had come back to serve during the Second World War. His claim to fame was he was Hap Arnold's crew chief in World War I. Needless to say, the messes at Dothan, Alabama, were well run and well supplied. Now the CO at Dothan was a West Point _, and he had been careful to make sure that the Dothan, Alabama, air field had a 15,000 seat stadium, concrete stadium was built just so they could hold maneuvers every Saturday. They would shut down the entire field and everybody there was supposed to show up and participate in this showpiece. And of course there's not much going in Dothan, Alabama in 1944, so all the citizenry would come and view the goings on. Our group was kind of interesting. One of the members of our group was an old line master sergeant from the infantry. And he taught us how to march. We could put on a show if we felt like it. Weapons were tough, but we'd put on a good show. While we were there, our mental attitude was pretty bad. We had repeatedly tried to get out of the air force, but the air force wasn't having any of that. They kept us, and made damn sure that we couldn't get away. And so, now cadets normally wear an officer's uniform except wherever the uniform has officer's insignia on it. The air force uniform would have a propeller and wings on it. The shoulder patch would be a typical air force shoulder patch. Down on the forearm, we would repeat this propeller and wings thing. This was typical cadet uniform. We commissioned this patch, had it made, and essentially it says ‘thou shall not fly'. We of course, made a point of replacing our propeller and wings with the ‘thou shall not fly' patch. Well, we were just about ready to introduce it to the world, we hadn't done it officially yet, and I had sent out a crew to clean out a barracks. One of the crew came back to me and said, “Clare, you've got to come and see this. This is unbelievable, you've got to come see it.” Well this barracks had been closed since World War I. they were full of hats. And it had the old World War I hat. You know the kind of hat that sits flat on your head and has a peak and has a lanyard, the whole thing was full of hats. _ I assembled all the troops, ran them down, and issued new hats. Now typically, in the cadet uniform, you'd have an officer's hat and you'd have a gold propeller and wings like this in the front of the hat. So we took all the propeller and wings off, put them on these World War I hats. Almost at the same time, this was within minutes of this happening, one of my other friends came rushing back and said, now this was, this young man was in the message center. He was an interesting young man because in civilian life he worked for the mob in Chicago. And he lived in a house that was across the street from the Hawthorne racetrack. Typically he would sit up in the attic where he could see the Hawthorne racetrack, and he would run race results with Morse code, and he was a master with Morse code. He could send and receive something like 50, 60 words a minute, some horrendous number. That 30 second advantage that they got because of his activities were a big deal in Chicago gambling circles. Needless to say, when we got in the service, getting him assigned to the message center was child's play. This meant that I got the colonel's orders before he did. And of course, he comes running into me this day and says “look, the inspector general is coming down tonight. They're going to pull a surprise inspection on us in the morning.” OK. So at 4 o'clock in the morning, they pulled the surprise inspection. My group falls out in class A uniforms, World War I hats flat on our heads, propeller and wings, and of course, the ‘thou shall not fly' label on the forearm. The inspector general was just bursting with laughter, you could tell. He managed to control himself, but he was beside himself. Anyway, they finally assigned us back to our barracks and thought they'd give us a little bit of a review. One of the things he decided he was going to do is run a white glove inspection. Now for those of you that have never served in the service in the south in World War II, the barracks buildings were not very well made. The insides were never finished. The 2x4's were not even planed properly. They were just simply rough cut. So there was no way you could run a white glove inspection and pass it in this kind of construction. We didn't fall off the turnip truck that morning either. What we had done the night before was liberated some 50 gallon drums of lye, emptied out the barracks and sprayed all the barracks with lye and fire-hosed them down. So of course when the colonel ran his white glove inspection, we passed it. We were the only barracks in the south that could do it, but we passed it. This was an interesting time. From here, we were eventually transferred to San Antonio, yeah San Antonio airfield. And we did finally get some honest to gosh preflight training. We finally did get to see an airplane, we finally did get to fly one. We were just up to the point of soloing. JP: When was this that you went to San Antonio? CC: This would have been early in '45. Now we had gone through some of this training. By now it was close to, well it was late summer of '45. And the war was winding down. So the general assembled all of the cadets and he started out by saying, you know, we're going to discharge everybody according to the point system. We had men coming from overseas that had 150 and 200 points, that kind of thing. We had 20, 24 points. We'd been in the service 2 years. So he said, you have some options. Option number one: I hereby resign from the cadets and volunteer for the air corps for four years. Option number two is equally odious, three and four were no better. And so I said, general, that's, and I introduced myself and I said I'm not interested in any of these. He said, you will sign one of them. I said, I will? I said OK, I'll be happy to. I signed it, and over my name I put down ‘signed under duress'. Immediately all the cadets did the same thing. Well, the general went berserk; he just went crazy. They immediately ran us back to the barracks and put us under armed guards and so on. Along came another one of my friends. This young man was from Oklahoma. His grandfather had been in the great Oklahoma land rush, remember when they fired the gun and all the settlers ran out and claimed their land. Well, he was in that. And he was an attorney. In fact, he was the only attorney in the Oklahoma territory. So as he lived his life and as he functioned as an attorney, he got paid off in chickens and vegetables and occasionally a piece of land. To make a long story short, he wound up with pieces of land all over the state of Oklahoma. Eventually they found oil. Naturally he was sitting on lots of it. His grandson, who was in my group, every month, would get a check from Exxon for 10 to 12 thousand dollars for his share of the royalties coming from the land. So he had money. OK, here we are in the San Antonio barracks, we're confined to quarters. He and a couple of his friends sneak out that night, get past the guards. They go into town, and in the next two days, full page ads appear in major newspapers scattered around the country. He had the money; he had the resources to do this. Within a week we were all at discharge centers. That's the sum total of this story. JP: Where did you go after you were discharged? CC: Back to the University of Chicago to finish my education. JP: Did you use the GI Bill? CC: Yes, I did, yes I did. JP: How did you deal with this _ affected the rest of your life as far as being in the service? CC: Well, yes. Because prior to that, remember that when I went into the service, I was an 18 year old book worm. I had no idea in the world what the world was like. And I was totally insulated from all that. Well, here I had two years of growing up. And I had some good teachers. It was a marvelous experience. The GI Bill was fantastic. It's the best thing this county ever did for its citizenry. And why we've never done that since is beyond me. That should be a right of passage for every single high schooler in the nation. JP: Are you a member of any type of veterans group? CC: No, I've not been active with the veterans. JP: Keep in touch with the _? CC: No, no, not really. I have been active with high schoolers since my retirement. We, well, basically, something like ten years ago, we took four high schools in Georgia and matched them up with four high schools in Scotland. We allowed the senior economics classes to set up operating export companies. And they export to each other. Now in ten years we've gone from four, to there's something like 250 schools involved worldwide. We ran out of schools in Scotland. We're growing, I mean we're now in Ireland and Wales. Last year we added Germany, South Africa, and Ghana to the mix. This year, we've added Japan, Norway, Russia and Siberia and Spain to the mix. So essentially this is my give back activity if you will. JP: Are there any experiences or anything about your time as a veteran that we didn't discuss that you'd like to. CC: No, I think this would be… I don't know if this little vignette makes any real sense to you, but there were a couple of hundred thousand of us who lived this life. It did accomplish one purpose, it did put a little age on us, gave us a little bit of outside experience if you will. JP: Do you remember when the war was over how you felt, how the group was, how they felt and so on? CC: Well obviously we were ecstatic about the whole thing. I think the, when we dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and so on, I think those were more interesting times for me anyway. JP: Thank you very much. CC: Appreciate it."],"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":["Thunderbolt (Fighter plane)","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","United States. Army Air Forces","University of Chicago","Davidson College. College Training Detachment","United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944","Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (fighter)"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Clar W. Cukor"],"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/148"],"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":["31:55"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_216","title":"Oral history interview of Frank Parker Hudson","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Panama, Albrook Air Force Station","Panama, Chiriquí, David District, Corregimiento David, 8.42729, -82.43085","Panama, Panama Canal Zone, 8.9536841, -79.5376179437931","Panama, Rio Hato Army Air Base","Pan American Highway System","United States, Arizona, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, 32.17079565, -110.869902396303","United States, California, Riverside County, March Air Force Base, 33.89209, -117.2631","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Georgia, Sumter County, Americus, 32.07239, -84.23269","United States, Kansas, Fort Leavenworth, 39.345184, -94.921703","United States, Maryland, Harford County, Aberdeen Proving Ground, 39.46686, -76.13066","United States, New York, Mitchel Field, 40.734982, -73.5944933"],"dcterms_creator":["Lacy, Margaret","Hudson, Frank Parker, 1918-2008"],"dc_date":["2003-08-23"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Frank Hudson recalls his service in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. After college, he became an ordnance officer in a new branch of the Army Air Corps known as Aviation Ordnance. After training, his unit spent time filling ammunition rounds and putting them in link belts to be sent to Murmansk, Russia, as part of the Lend-Lease program. His next duty was to protect the Panama Canal from Japanese attack. They discovered that bombs had been stored in revetments alongside the canal, so he spent several days loading and unloading bombs, including confiscating trucks and men from other nearby units. He recounts a story about painting bombs for less visibility from the air. He recalls how the U.S. was making treaties with Panama, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Peru to build bases in those countries. As a commander, he frequently traveled to each of these countries via the Galapagos Islands. He recalls the effect viral fevers had on the squadrons and their men. He was transferred to a stateside unit, where he was put into a training squadron so he requested a transfer. He was then sent to Moses Lake (Wash.) which was being built as a training base for B-29s, but it was not completed and he was sent back to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. There he ran a training program, where he trained personnel in bomb recognition. He supervised the script writing for two Army training films, \"Bomb Handling I\" and \"Bomb Handling II,\" and was sent to California as a technical advisor. He discusses Consolidated Vultee building B-24 Liberators for the British under the Lend/Lease program; they were first known as LB (Land Bomber) 30s. He describes the first use of radar over the Galapagos Islands to pick up ships. He tells harrowing stories about some of his experiences in Panama. He relates the dangers of German submarine attacks, including attacks in Curaçao and Aruba, which were ports for oil tankers. He recalls his first days after the war and his time in the reserves. He explains that because he had studied the Army Courts Martial manual at ROTC, he often acted as a Judge Advocate General. He describes his philosophy of leadership and morale.","Frank Parker was in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.","FRANK PARKER HUDSON VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW Atlanta History Center August 27, 2003 Interviewer: Margaret Lacy Transcriber: Stephanie McKinnell TAPE 1 SIDE A Margaret Lacy: … and I am Margaret Lacy, and we are in the Atlanta History Center on August the 27th, and Mr. Frank Hudson is our speaker. Frank Hudson: Thank you, pleased to have the opportunity. ML: I didn't explain the introductory paragraph. You already know we're going to record what you did and where and when and anything else that you want to know about on the next sixty minutes of tape. We'll _ wrap up. You have given your name, and we have the current address, and where we are, but we need your date of birth and your address. FH: I was born in Americus, Georgia. That's in Sumter County, and I was born on the 12th of December, 1918. ML: And you were in which branch of the service in the war? FH: I was commissioned as an ordnance officer in 1941, and I served with the air force and then came back to the ordnance. ML: And the rank, when were you drafted, or did you enlist? FH: I was a senior ROTC student and went to summer camp after graduation from Tech. And that is why I got into the service on July 29, 1941. ML: Just before Pearl Harbor. FH: Long enough to get overseas and avoid what happened. ML: Where were you living at that time? FH: Where was I living, I was living at Georgia Tech until I went into ROTC camp, and then immediately after ROTC camp, I went into the service at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. ML: Can you recall your first days in the service, what did it feel like, what you did? FH: I was late for roll call. No, actually, my first, after being commissioned on a Saturday, we went back on Monday and started the special training for a new branch of the service called aviation ordnance. And we were ordered to active duty for one year and guaranteed we would be released in time enough to get home on such and such a date in, just one year of service is all we were signing up for. ML: _ where did you go after that? FH: Aberdeen and finished training in bombs and fuses and such things related to what we were going to be involved in. We were transferred to Mitchell Field on Long Island, New York, and waited for a boat . And we were there filling ammunition rounds, putting ammunition rounds in link belts, and the Russians, we shipped them to the Russian by _ for the lend-lease program in effect. We were supplying the Russians with ammunition. When I finished, when we got on the ship, we sailed to Panama. ML: Didn't go to Russia? FH: No, I wasn't going to Russia, no, no. I was going to have duty to protect the Panama Canal. So I was, went down to Panama on the ship Ancon, and we, upon arrival, we were, it was five other people, officers in the same condition as I was in. All of us assigned to Panama and none of us had on our dress uniforms, so we got off the ship, they loaded us up in the staff car and took us to a tailor downtown, in downtown Panama City for us to get our white dress uniforms and our dinner jackets so we could eat the mess at Aubrook Field. So while we're waiting for them to be delivered, they let us eat in the main dining room behind a screen. Really. ML: What was the rank you had at that time? FH: Second lieutenant, just a few days. ML: How long were you there? FH: I was at Aubrook Field and without any special uniforms, I was sent to Riohato, which was a training base that we were renting from the Panamanians, up on the west coast of the Republic of Panama. And we were on the Gulf of Panama. They had troops who would come up from the Canal Zone and do training exercises and so forth. And you could not, we could not fly an American flag, that was part of the treaty with Panama that, for us to use that base. One of the rules was you could not fly the American flag. So one thing that happened was that the day Pearl Harbor, the next morning, I had a Confederate flag flying in front of base headquarters, and it stayed there until I left. The Panamanians just loved it, and I didn't violate the treaty. But I was there long enough to outfit two companies and, we had no draftees… ML: All volunteers. FH: They were all regulars, all the officers were, whatever, but the all soldiers were regular army. Under the draft rules that no draftee could be sent overseas until we win the war. So the interesting part of it, as a second lieutenant, I commanded, I was the only officer in commanding two companies plus I was the base ordnance officer. And it converted from an infantry base to an Army Air Corps base overnight when the Japs hit Pearl Harbor. We, all the bombs that we had, a very few bombs stored at Riohato, but all the bombs in the Canal Zone to take to defend the canal were in the rebuttments alongside the canal. And they suddenly realized that if they blew up one of those bomb storage places, they'd shut the canal down. So they decided to send all those bombs to me up at Riohato. So I had night and day, 24 hours a day, for several days, was unloading bombs, kicking them off the rear end of trucks. We confiscated trucks from the army corps of engineers who were building the Pan-American highway, coerced them into duty, hauling bombs eighty miles from the Canal Zone up to Riohato. And just kicking and hiding them under trees, that's all we could do with them. We had quite a few experiences with army bureaucracy I'd call it. The rules were in those days that high explosives had to be painted yellow, bright yellow. So when then, in a month or two, the drought season came and all the leaves fell off the trees, and you could see those yellow bombs for miles and miles and miles if a plane came in. So we started painting them olive drab. We got them all, got them all painted, and we had a visitor from Quarry Heights, which was the headquarters of the Caribbean Defense Command, and he said the regulations say those bombs have to be yellow. I want you to paint them yellow right away. Well, we drug our tails and about three days later, an order came out that all bombs would henceforth be olive drab. ML: They were already olive drab? FH: We already painted them olive drab. We painted the yellow to olive drab and then this colonel ordered us to paint them back to yellow. And in the meantime, they flew in all these planes, and we were overnight, I guess, the world's largest airbase, but that didn't last long. We started, they were busy making treaties with Ecuador, Peru, Guatemala, and Panama for additional bases down there to protect, to put in airfields to protect against the Japanese coming in from the west. So I supervised, I had a company, I ended up with one company in platoons in five foreign countries. In those days, the company commander had to pay the men off once a month, and the only way I could get around was fly with the bombers out to Galapagos and then fly back with another crew that was flying back to another base because we all flew from the mainland out to the base on the Galapagos islands. They had lunch and then flew back so I could go out there and end up, I could go out there from Panama and end up in Guatemala or go out there from Panama and end up in Peru. So it was quite an experience but it soon started the allotment system so everybody could send money. They'd take money out of the pay and send it to a bank or to the wives or whatever those rules were. But I was transferred, excuse me, I had a lieutenant in charge of a platoon in Ecuador who had to have his phone installed in the latrine because everybody down there was getting bowel ailments of all sorts. So I got orders cut for me to go down there and relieve him for a month. And he came back to Riohato to operate in my place. But I had to take his place with the 25th Bombardment Squadron. And while I was there, secret orders came out from Washington freezing everybody that was attached to the air corps to integrate us into the air corps. And you remained in your present position. Very shortly, orders came out for the 25th Bomb Squadron to be sent overseas, and I went back to the states with the 25th Bombardment Squadron and went to Davis _ Field in Tucson, Arizona. And after one month leave and at the end, we got back and reported back to duty, and none of the fly boys could pass physical exams because of dysentery and diarrhea. And they put them all in training including me, we were all put into a training command in the 2nd Air Force. So here I am with all this experience in bomb handling with a company at Davis _ Field filling practice bombs with sand for the boys to take out and drop. And that didn't go very well, so I started complaining and sent a request for transfer. And it had to go the 2nd Air Force in Spokane, Washington, before it went on to Washington. And there at Spokane was Colonel E. C. Franklin, who had been my ROTC instructor at Georgia Tech. And he called me on the phone and says, I know what you want, you're tired of seeing everybody else get promoted and you can't get promoted because you're moving too fast, moving too many places. So he says, I'm going to get your orders over there to send you to Moses Lake, Washington. And that was a base being built for the B-29s to fly out of Moses Lake to go to the Aleutian islands and from there to Japan. It turned out we didn't need it because we took Saipan and Tinnean in the meantime, and these bases didn't ever fulfill their missions. But I was only at Moses Lake a little over a month when Hap, General Hap Arnold ordered me back to Aberdeen Proving Ground to run the school for the aviation ordnance that I had been a student, where I had been a student. So I was an instructor for several months, and then they made me chief, and then they made me, combined several sections and I became chief of the small arms aviation ordnance section at the ordnance school. We had five thousand or more students going through all the time. Some of them are on one-week course, some of them are on six weeks courses, always great time coming through and being educated in the finer points of ordnance. And we trained a lot of OSS personnel, we had a, there was a collection, museum, I think they called it, of foreign ordnance. And we were teaching the OSS which was the precursor of the C.I.A. and all these civilians came through. We were teaching them what different things were, mainly by sight because they were going behind the Iron Curtain. Not the Iron Curtain then, into German territory and reporting back. They were mostly foreigners, and they were reporting back just what they were seeing. ML: __. FH: In, I went back in early '43, early 1943 is when I went back. We kept expanding the school and training more people. I wanted to go overseas and fight so badly, but they had a rule at the ordnance school that if you had ever been overseas, you couldn't go until everybody else went. And, of course, I soon realized that that could never happen because every class that we graduated, they would pick the best students and make them instructors and send our instructors out, let them go overseas. So I just relaxed and did my job. Got married and… I supervised the writing of the script for two army training films, bomb handling. The films were on bomb handling titled “Bomb Handling 1” and “Bomb Handling 2.” And we, the scripts were for films that they were planning to shoot in Hollywood. Then they decided that they needed a technical advisor, so then the whole, they didn't know, nobody knew as much about handling bombs as I did. So I was sent out there to, over Christmas in 1944, Christmas 1943, which took me into 1944. I was in Beverly Hills with the Signal Corps Photographic Center making these films from the scripts that we had written. Santa Anita racetrack had been converted, there was no racing, and they converted it to an ordnance base so we had lots of training going on there anyway. So a lot of the shots were taken there and at _ was out at Lawrence Field at Riverside. Let's see, what else was… they had a hotel with . . . the Signal Corps Photographic Center in Hollywood was filled up with technical advisors and their families and I didn't have any family. So when I got there, there was no room at the inn. So the mother superior, secretary at the Signal Corps Photographic Center says, well, I'll take care of you. She had two young children and she had rented the Duhaney residence on Duhaney Drive. And if you're old enough to know the Duhaney, the big scandal in the oil business, _ down a lot of politicians I think, it was in Calvin Coolidge's period as being president. But anyway, we had that house, and she filled it up with… ML: _ big house. FH: Oh, it was, we had one family with three kids there, a captain and his wife and three kids. And we had, there were bachelors like myself, but it was a nice experience, and I saved enough money to come back and buy a ring and ask her to marry me. So that was, and I did get married June 3, 1944. My service continued, and when the war was over, I was offered the job of going to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and doing the surveying. And the offer was that you'd come back to Twenty-nine Palms, California, and write your report and then you would be released. Well, I'd been fooled on those kind of promises before, so I said no, I think I'm going to go to Atlanta, Georgia. That's right. And I had the points system, you know the point system is what got us out. So the first day that Fort George Meade of Maryland opened up for processing of release of soldiers, I was in line. I was there and was released there in, let's see, September, October, my last day official was in January 1945. Not, January 1946. But I had a, I had time before other people by the thousands were discharged. I could go in Baltimore, I could go in, buy a suit of clothes and white shirts. And when I got to Atlanta and signed up for my career job, I needed more clothes, and you go to Parks Chambers or Zachary's or Muse's, and there was nothing hanging on the shelves, nothing. And you'd sit down and they'd bring out one suit and they'd ask you to try it on. The Navy boys, the Navy officers had it great because they had white shirts when white shirts just weren't available. It was quite an experience. So I never shot at anyone, no one ever shot at me. I had experiences that were life-threatening, but nothing happened. I survived. ML: _ paying. FH: No, uh. ML: How many different countries were you in? FH: Guatemala, Panama, two places, David and Riohato, skipped the Canal Zone, I just go in there and get out and had my wisdom teeth taken out. Flew nine hundred miles to get my wisdom teeth removed. Ecuador, Peru, and the Galapagos Islands, they're on Ecuador so that's really one country. One of my experiences happened within two or three days after the war started. We had a, the airplanes that were there before they started bringing in our B-30s which we later called B-24s, we were making their B-30s. I believe Consolidated _ was building them for the British in the lend-lease, and when we got in the war, they just, I say converted them to right hand drive, left hand drive, whatever it is. And we just took them off the assembly line, and it was the first use of radar. The British had developed radar, they get credit for that. And we were using it flying from the mainland out to the Galapagos Islands to try to pick up any ships that might be coming in, from all these bases, flying out there and going back everyday. And so they never left a square inch uncovered by using the radar. And we had the B-24s and the B-17s, several different versions of the B-17s. But when I got down there, we had B-18s, and that's like an old DC-3 converted into a bomber. And we had a report there was a sub in the water out off our base, and they rushed a B-18 out and in taking off, it flew into a barracks. And it killed a colonel, engineer officer, and a major, the head officers there, and they were playing pinochle at night. And there was no fire, no explosion, but all the bombs were laying out in a disabled airplane, I tell you it was disabled. It lost an engine, there were just two engines, and it lost an engine on take off, and just curved right down into the barracks. I, surveying this situation, decided that the thing to do was to get the fuses out of the bombs and get the bombs out of there because the fuses were armed. They pulled, the weight of gravity, momentum and everything else ripped the bombs out of the bomb racks, and the fuses armed that way. And that's the dangerous situation when we had four or five hundred pound bombs that were armed, two of them were armed in the nose and one of them was armed in the tail. And I, we didn't have any real flood lights, operating with flash lights, and I decided that the safest thing to do was just let everything sit there until daylight. About this time, this colonel who was the base commander, he came rushing over and took a look at the situation. He says, get them out of there. I said, we're going to wait to daylight, with all due respect, blah, blah, blah. He says get them out of there now. So I called for volunteers and got one sergeant who was a, wonderful troops, always had wonderful troops. They got into troubles of all kinds but I kept them out of trouble for real, never had one prosecuted but had plenty of reasons to save their souls. Keeping on duty, one sergeant was willing to go in with me and we went in and we slowly extracted the fuses and handed them out one at a time. Of course, we evacuated the area, had to do that. So that was the beginning of the bomb… ML: Did you know what you were going to get out, _? FH: Did I know, no. No, it was definitely risky business because the fuse is armed, if you just bump it, it'll blow up the bomb. We got those, we got them defused, and then of course took the bombs out and put them bomb in the bomb _, they weren't damaged at all, the steel case bombs full of TNT. And then once I was flying back from Guatemala City to Riohato and the group commander was, I was on his staff, and he was the pilot for this trip. And he was, they had just changed out of, the work order had come out from Washington to put these new spark plugs in, these are Pratt and Whitney engines on the B-17. And the work order came from Washington, everybody to change to these new plugs. Well, these new plugs fouled up right quick and we were out over the water, and we had silence. You couldn't, unless you were actually ditching, you could not call for help or anything. So this B-18, we didn't have enough chutes for the people that were on it, a lot of people were traveling, staffs and so forth going. And we, I guess we were about 500 miles out when we lost one engine. They feathered the props on that engine, so we were running on three engines, which is not unsafe, but it wasn't long before another engine got rough on the same side. And the first thing you know, you had to kill that engine, tore the engine out of the wing. The backfiring was, you know, slapping the side of the aluminum, where we were back in the back of the plane. As we were approaching David, which a city in the northern republic of Panama, and we had an airbase there that was owned by an airline. And they had a little tower out there with one man with a red and green light, that's all it was. Tower is twenty or thirty feet high. And he was up there with a red light and green light. Panagra was the airline that owned this, and it was a grass field. And as we were approaching, one of the engines on the right side started acting up. And we didn't even make an effort to go around or anything else. Radio silence and all these other problems came in. But that tower operator realized something was wrong and it was a Panagra plane, it was at the end of the runway revving up for take off, and we came in over the top of him askew with just the engines on one side operating the plane, running through the air like this. And you have to cut the engines and make a dead stick landing and let the plane straighten out. We went over the top of that Panagra plane sitting there at the, I guess it was twenty, thirty feet at the most. And just set it down, just straightened it up like this. But we lost all the hydraulics and everything and everybody was up there operating the manual pumps to get the wheels down and do everything else like that, that was necessary for our landing. You're too busy to be… we dropped the bombs at sea. We didn't arm them, we let them go when the bombing device sent them. And we threw all the 50 caliber machine guns out. We were about ready to ditch a few other things but didn't dare. And we did land with no engines and coasted to a stop and everybody got out and kissed the ground. That was the, those two experiences with getting the bombs out of the barracks and this coming in on a wing and a prayer was the only other experience that I had that was not good time Charlie. ML: Right at the beginning, you mentioned _. Was there much enemy activity _, did you see it? FH: No, we never knew about the submarine. We had a squadron at Riohato that was sent down to _ in Aruba because that's where all of our gasoline was coming from, Aruba. And Aruba had a harbor and so forth and they had submarine gates, you know, wires, what do you call them, traps, that they'd put down, every time a ship would come in they'd do that. Well, a submarine sneaked in there and blew up many tankers. One of the war activities you've probably never ever heard of, they did, one German submarine got in there and he got away. That was early in the war. We were trying to protect against anything, the Japanese, you never, the Pacific is so vast and you never know, like how they got to Pearl Harbor without being noticed is still a mystery to me. And when we, when you look at the Canal, if we, if the Canal had been closed, the war with Japan would have gone, we'd probably had to use the atomics a lot sooner than we did if… ML: We didn't have it any sooner. FH: No, you're right. But anyway, I'm proud of my service and I decided when the war was over that I would stay in the reserves, ‘cause after four and a half years, if you make twenty, but I stayed in the reserves and taught the command general staff college for ten or twelve years, both at Fort Leavenworth on active duty for some, two weeks here and two weeks there. And Sundays down at the USO in the old Ford plant on Ponce de Leon. ML: __ discharge date, and you said you went into career after that. I guess was it later. Was that what you were doing in the ROTC, or did you have a different career type? FH: No, my, that was, when you're in the reserves, you're two weeks a year. No, my career as an engineer was sales and services of engineered products to industry, and I ended up, well, this is not war experience, it's something else, but I ended up at four companies here in Atlanta. When I retired I turned them over to the guys _ and said, I walked out in 1987 and turned it over to them. ML: _ when you were in the service, friendships that kept while _ were you able to, was it possible to keep up with those associations? FH: A very few. Mainly because they're scattered, other parts of the country. Some _ knew I was closer to so many other people. And in my business I was traveling a lot, covering Georgia, Alabama, and Florida for many months and then finally reduced it down to just Georgia. But my association and friends that kept on were those that stayed in the reserves. My social life in the post-war years was divided up between company and career, church activities, the hobby genealogy, and my buddies that I was with in the army reserves. And interestingly enough, very few of those fields ever co-mingled. ML: _ medals or citations? FH: I had the army commodation ribbon, I had the American defense service medal, and then all those things that they gave us at the end of the war, the ruptured duck, the flying, everybody who got out TAPE 1 SIDE B …with honorable discharge got a pin. I've still got it, never ever wore it, it's called the ruptured duck. That and I think, World War II victory medal, and the lapel victory pin, and the army commendation ribbon. That's the highest award I had. ML: What's the army commendation medal? FH: Exemplary service, you could never have fired a gun or anything, if you really performed your job and helped others, then you were awarded this. And there weren't too many of them given away. I got mine for what I did at Aberdeen, the administration of all of those students going through all the time. How are we doing on time? ML: _ see what you wanted to say on the _, that was one of my questions which I really want you to have to say first, when all this action started, did you have any idea how it long it would go on? FH: Far as I was concerned, it was going to go on one year. In July of 1942, I would be home, that's what my orders read. Yes, and I finally was free of all obligations under the war time in January of 1946. Summer of '41. ML: __? FH: No, I was always busy, never, I never had few occasions of shooting the bull or any of those other things. When I was, while we were in the service. ML: In those years, did you even get on leave? FH: Well, so much of your leave was stored up, saved, there was no opportunity to take it. But my leave when I was discharged in, I think I was discharged in September or maybe October, but I had to be at home. I had to be released _. They did put me, I had four or five months of pay… ML: _ school. FH: Yes, it really was. ML: Did the military experience that you had influence your thinking about war or about the military in general? FH: I don't know. It did not influence my future life because I had goals other than the military, and I served my time as most every other one did. I didn't join the American Legion, I didn't join the Veterans of Foreign Wars. They're good time Charlie affairs mainly, and I, there's camaraderie there, and I attended a couple of meetings as guests of people trying to get me to join, but I never did join. ML: I think you've answered the next possibility too, how did your service experience affect your life? FH: Well, it, maturity, responsibilities, learning how to deal with people. But knowing one thing, having been in the army, I knew I never wanted to go with a big company, never. ML: Is that why you started your own? FH: I went in partnership with one man and stayed and I was always the boss. Yes. ML: Are you sure we covered everything, is there anything else? FH: Well, I, without getting into real personal things, but I'll share one thing I just thought of. The, at Georgia Tech in the ROTC program, you had drills and then you had classes, and one of the things that you had in your senior year was the army court martial manual, the whole procedure of court martial and all that goes on with regard to duties and everything concerning it. And I didn't know I'd ever have much use of that, but when I got in, attached to the air corps, the air corps boys, the flyboys, they didn't have any experience with, no instruction or anything, the officers didn't even know what to do with a court martial. And when there was reasons to have court martials, everywhere I went, I was the trial judge advocate, I did all the prosecuting. And I fought _ in the guard house, AWOL, oh, you know, everything that goes on with a group of men. I got the duty. And it never, I never thought I would have that experience, but I did, and I'm not a lawyer by any means, but I know what the manual says. ML: I bet you do. FH: I know what the manual says. ML: _ that you had to handle _. FH: And morale. My company, my two companies were not up to strength. One was aviation ordnance pursuit and the other one was aviation ordnance bombardment. And neither one of them were up to strength, but when we started doing those bombs and all those other regular soldiers were sitting around doing nothing, we were swamped for requests for transfers. Everybody wanted to get in my unit, one of them. And a lot of them would be released and allowed to transfer, a lot of them weren't. But the unit morale, it was one of the things that I always made a point of. And this court martial was never for my troops, it was always some other troops. Like in Salinas, Ecuador. They had a, they sent down a West Virginia National Guard unit, they had National Guard officers and all the guys the same home town. And they sent them down there with a 155 mm field artillery pieces and set them up there, and they were going to protect our airbase from any attack that came in from the water. And those guys, the officers, the company commander was the, I forget what his commission was, but one of them was, they were all National Guard now and they had not been regular army. And they, they were goof-offs, the whole crowd was, and they caused more problems just because they didn't have anything to do. It really was make-work, it wasn't what we were doing, and we had a lot of, and such things as you'd declare an area of a little town with nothing but straw shacks or mud shacks or whatever they were building, and their whore houses and trying to, you'd declare them off limits. Then they got arrested by the MPs and put in the jail. ML: Going back to the _ morale thing, what were some of the ways that worked and _ at that time? FH: Same thing that works today, treat everybody as an individual and treat them with respect regardless of what their position is and thank them publicly for jobs well done and condemn then in private for goof-offs. That works for me. ML: How were you able to keep in touch with your family? FH: By letter. Well, I had girlfriends and my one month leave when I came, got off the ship in Los Angeles harbor and when I came back from Panama, yeah, from central America was to go home _ two girlfriends in Macon that I had been writing to. One of whom was up at Vanderbilt, and the other one was in Macon. I had a girlfriend at St. Louis at George Washington University, and I made good time straightening out things and wishing them luck, and they all got married shortly. ML: Not to you. FH: Not to me. Well, I wasn't ready to get married. But it was only when they told me I could not go back overseas up at Aberdeen that I was, really got interested, and I met this wonderful person, and we were married for fifty-eight years. She died December 23, 2001, fifty-eight years. Wonderful woman. ML: Had some good years? FH: Yes, thank you, I did. ML: Thank you for talking about the most memorable experiences _. FH: No, I think we've bragged enough. I might get telling lies. It's hard to, I do have memory problems today, particularly quick connection. You know, go out of this room to do three things and forget what I went out for. After I walk out of here, I'll probably think of a thing or two that I should have said. They're going to accumulate enough information up there. ML: Do you have books _, manuals? FH: No, not, I started doing family history research, and from that I found out that in Georgia, you couldn't go back up the country, reverse migration because you got bogged down in Wilkes County. And forty-five percent of all the free people lived in Wilkes County when they took the 1790 census, in one county. Well, very few people know it. We have the statistics but we don't have the schedules, census schedules are lost. British burned them when they sacked Washington. But it took the tax records, bits and pieces for Wilkes County from 1785 to 1805 and you'll find two big volumes that weigh twelve pounds down in your library on the tax records of Wilkes County, Georgia, by Frank Parker Hudson. ML: That's you. FH: And all the money, giving all the money that's been made, and it's sizeable, more than I thought it would ever, is going to three organization that are saving the loose records in our courthouses. ML: Which three organizations? FH: Georgia Genealogical Society, Augusta Genealogical Society, and the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board. That's a state organization, official organization for the state. And it's well over thirty thousand dollars that they've taken in. Until I got hurt lifting my wife, I did all the packing and shipping too, in my basement, and I finally had to just give them the rest of the books. ML: So you've been a genealogy expert and authority also. FH: Well, if you talk about an old Georgia family that was in north or northeast Georgia, I can pretty well tell you where they came from. ML: There is one date and one question, do you recall what you did on the day your service ended? FH: It was just like any other day. In January when I got my last paycheck. ML: Did you know what you were going to do then? FH: I was already doing it. ML: I want to thank you so much. FH: Well, I've enjoyed it. ML: Now it gets to be _. FH: Well, it's, I'm just one little plug. ML: _ hero service _. FH: In the dike, just one little plug, but I really enjoyed it. Thank you, thank you for putting up with me."],"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","Hudson, Elizabeth Lee Pudlich, 1921-2001","Franklin, E. C.","Georgia Institute of Technology","United States. Army. Reserve Officers' Training Corps","United States. Army. Air Corps. Bombardment Squadron, 25th","Ancon (Steamship)","United States. Army. Corps of Engineers","United States. Office of Strategic Services","General Staff School (U.S.)","March Air Reserve Base (Calif.)","Ancon (ACG-4, Communications and command ship)"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Frank Parker Hudson"],"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/216"],"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":["1:03:57"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_387","title":"Oral history interview of Roy J. Reynolds","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Belgium, 50.75, 4.5","Czech Republic, Elbe River, 50.0319222, 15.1943499","France, Carentan, 49.29476595, -1.25231194060659","France, Cherbourg, 49.6425343, -1.6249565","France, Île-de-France, Paris, 48.85341, 2.3488","France, Le Havre, 49.4938, 0.10767","France, Montebourg, 49.4882989, -1.380821","France, Sainte-Mère-Eglise, 49.4117704, -1.32682478113355","Germany, Bamberg, 49.8916044, 10.8868478","Germany, Elbe River, 52.4344639, 11.6813919","Netherlands, Rhine River, 51.97198, 5.91545","Taiwan, 23.69781, 120.960515","United Kingdom, England, Torquay, 50.4652392, -3.5211361","United States, Alabama, Dale County, Fort Rucker, 31.34282, -85.71538","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Maryland, Anne Arundel County, Fort Meade, 39.10815, -76.74323","United States, Texas, Bell County, Killeen, Fort Hood, 31.13884585, -97.715048633985"],"dcterms_creator":["Kyle, Glen","Reynolds, Roy J., 1919-2008"],"dc_date":["2003-07-31"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Roy Reynolds describes his experiences in a tank battalion in Europe during World War II. He enlisted in the Army in 1936, motivated by economic reasons. He participated in the landing at Utah Beach in support of assault troops and describes that experience vividly, including the tremendous Naval bombardment and witnessing the collection of the dead. He recalls surrounding a battalion of Germans, seeing American troops march through Paris and being welcomed by the French with flowers. After the war, he found employment with the railroad, but was not satisfied and joined the National Guard. He was sent to Korea and became an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek.","Roy Reynolds was in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.","ROY J. REYNOLDS WWII Oral Histories Atlanta History Center [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: [tape noise]…Reynolds and he's gonna talk to us to day about his time in service. If you could, just for the record, could you please state your name and where you live? Reynolds: Roy J. Reynolds, 4720 Springdale Road, Austell, Georgia, 30106. Interviewer: Okay. And your birth date again please. Reynolds: Is September the eleventh, nineteen nineteen. Interviewer: Okay. We'll just get started. You told me that you enlisted in nineteen thirty-six. Reynolds: Yeah. Interviewer: Could you tell me why you decided to enlist at that time? Or what sort of motivations you had? Reynolds: Things were tough at that time and I decided to join the service to get some kind of employment. And so that was the main reason that…because I was home and I was…my father had been killed in an automobile wreck. So… Interviewer: What did the rest of your family think when you enlisted? Were they supportive? Reynolds: Yeah, they were really supportive. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Interviewer: What did you do from thirty-six to nineteen forty? What was your military specialty and where were you stationed? Things like that. Reynolds: I was at Fort George, [inaudible] Maryland and then World War Two started and I went to Camp Rucker, Alabama, and they formed the seven forty-six tank battalion. And we trained there and we went to Europe on the Queen Mary. And we trained in Europe also and we were with the assault troops on D-Day on Normandy. So we were practicing with the…just exactly what we would be facing when we got to Europe. And we were supposed to have…well we left Torquay and we were supposed to land on the fifth. But it was so rough that they decided that they would wait another day. Then on the sixth… Interviewer: What was your…what was going through your mind when they canceled the invasion for that day? Reynolds: Well, nothing. It was just another day. Another day of waiting to get off of that LST. So, we went across the channel and we were pulling a small boat…bandelors [phonetic] on them, I believe. The engineer…there was a lieutenant engineer with a couple of men and they were to blow up any obstacles on the beach so that we'd get our tanks in. So we turned the…but when we got there the Navy was bombarding the…everything with their guns and there was one particular ship that had rockets on it and it looked like there were just hundreds of them going off at one time. So we landed on the beach and you have to get off the beach. The beach is hot. People are dying, getting killed and so forth. So you have to get off the beach. So we got off the beach and they…we were fighting for St. Mere Eglise. We were supposed to relieve the paratroopers in St. Mere Eglise. The hundred and first and the eighty-second airborne division. We were fighting with, as supporting armor, for the fourth infantry division. Paratroopers with laying out…dropping…they were out of the trees, hanging out of the trees and everything else with their throats cut and everything else. And I asked this one paratrooper, I said, “What's this German soldier doing here?” He says, “Well I've shot him in the foot, so he can't run. He can't get away.” And then from St. Mere Eglise we were fighting for Moneyberg [phonetic] and they pulled us out of Moneyberg and shoved us into Cherbourg. We took Cherbourg and then…then they put us to their right in Kerintan [phonetic] with the eighty-third infantry division. And from there they had the breakthrough and we went into…we thought we were going into Paris, but they pulled us to the right and we went around Paris and they had some troops that had just come into from the States. They used them to parade in Paris. Let's see. We had lost so many people and tanks that I was the intelligence sergeant and they…I was put in as a tank commander and it seems like every night the Germans would surround the…the engineers were on the front line, plugging up the holes. And every morning we'd have to go with our tanks and go through the forest and relieve the engineers. Then we started through Belgium. We…we were fighting through Belgium and I had three tanks under my command and we were supporting the ninth recon outfit. We were way out in front of the division, like a sore thumb. And we ran into, at one time, we ran into about a battalion of Germans, who ran into some woods. We surrounded the woods with our tanks and armored cars and…so what the…they had with us. And we opened up the firing and just shot them as far as we could. I guess I shot a couple of boxes through the anti-aircraft gun and we stopped there and we went into the next town. They could hear us firing and they came…all came out, putting flowers all over the tanks and everything else. They were so glad to see us. And from there they sent me to C Company as the first sergeant. I stayed with C Company a couple of months, I guess, and then they transferred me to headquarters as a first sergeant of headquarters. We were the first separate tank unit across the Rhine River. Captain Asher K. Pay was killed on the Rhine River. [silence] And we went on up and…was on the Elbe River when we were waiting for the Russians to come down. And I went across the Elbe River and came back, because that was the territory that the Russians were supposed to occupy. Then after that they…they signed the armistice and so forth and they said that the ones with the highest points would be the first transferred back to the States. Well, my unit at that time had put over two hundred and seventy-seven days in combat and I was one of the first men to be sent back to the States. I rode a stretcher…from Battenberg, Germany, to Le Havre, France, [chuckles] and came back. I was discharged in New York. Interviewer: Hmm. Um, if it's all right, I'd like to go back and ask a couple of questions about what you've talked about so far. Go back to the very beginning. You were in service during Pearl Harbor. Do you remember where you were and what you were doing? Reynolds: Yeah. Yeah, I was in G Company, thirty-fourth in the regiment at Fort…at…Fort Mead, Maryland. Um-hmm. Interviewer: What did you and your fellow soldiers think about when you got the word? Reynolds: We knew that…that there was going to be a war and the captain, I forget his name now, but he cried. He knew how serious and the number of men that would die in a war. Interviewer: Before Pearl Harbor, did…were you all thinking with events the way they were in Europe that there was going to be a war, that you all would be involved in, that the United States would be involved in? Reynolds: A war in Europe? Interviewer: Yeah. Did you think that eventually the United States was going to have to get into it? Reynolds: No, we didn't at that time. Not until after Pearl Harbor. Yeah. Interviewer: While you were overseas, I know you went to England first to do some of the training. How much contact did you have with friends and family back home? I'm assuming it was just letters. Reynolds: That's all. That's all. Letters. Yeah. Interviewer: Were there a lot of letters? Reynolds: There was a few. Not too many. Yeah. Interviewer: The training that you received in Europe and in your time previous, starting in thirty-six, do you…do you feel that it prepared you for what came after the invasion? Do you think the training was good or did you have to learn most of it the hard way? Reynolds: The training was good, but you see…I was the intelligence sergeant and I wasn't in the tanks at that time. I was plotting on the maps and stuff like that as to the…what position we'd take and all that stuff. But I was prepared, like I say, they put me in as a tank commander and you learn right quick. Interviewer: When did they stick you in a tank? Was it before the invasion or after? Reynolds: It was after the invasion. Yeah. We'd lost so many men and tanks. We lost over forty medium tanks in combat. Interviewer: Just so I know, the tanks you're talking about, or they all Shermans? Reynolds: Yeah. Interviewer: All Shermans? Reynolds: Yeah. Well, some of them are light tanks, you know. With a seventy-five millimeter gun…we…we got…one company, A Company…right before the Rhine River, we got a company of seventy-six millimeter…tanks with seventy-six millimeter on it. They put…and they gave them all to A Company and they kept A Company in reserve. They didn't want to put them up on the line and lose them all. So they kept the…B Company and C Company with the seventy-five millimeter guns on the…and uh…the first time that I saw them I thought they were German tanks. [laughs] Interviewer: There's a…I know there's been a lot written about our tanks, the United States tanks versus the tanks the Germans had. Would you care to elaborate a little bit on…on your experiences relating to that? You know, just…soldier's view? Reynolds: Yeah. The seventy…the German tank could hit one of our tanks, it'd go in the front end and come out the back looking for another one. We had paint-remover tank guns. You hit the tank and it'd ricochet off. And you can imagine what was going through the minds of the tankers that had to use them. We said at that time, “If the Americans mothers knew [laughs] what we were fighting with they would storm Washington” [laughs]. Interviewer: How did you deal with that? Did you just overwhelm them with numbers? Reynolds: Superiority in numbers. That's the only reason that they beat the Germans is superiority in numbers. They were good fighters. They had the equipment. They were trained fighters. They would not give up. There at the right at Kerintan, we were fighting with the eighty-third infantry division and we were up against the sixth SS parachute outfit from Germany. And they would not surrender. You had to kill them. Interviewer: While we're on the topic of Germans, while you were in the war how did you feel about Germans? Were they just the enemy? Did you hate them? Did you…I mean, how did you feel towards them? Reynolds: I felt that any German that came out in front of us, if he was knee high on up, he was out there for one purpose and that's to hurt some doughboy or kill somebody. So if he's out there, we're gonna shoot ‘em. That's what I thought of them. Interviewer: Okay, good. About the D-Day landings. Could you tell me…in talking to some other veterans, it's amazing the breadth of emotion that can run through you. Can you tell me a little bit about what was going through your mind as the ships were approaching the shore? Reynolds: Well, I really didn't get engrossed in anything except just watching shells go off. We were in the boat and you just…you're not actually in the fighting. But when they let the ramps down on the boat and we got down, you could see the dead men lying down and then you knew that this was for keeps. This was not play. This was for keeps. They didn't pick anybody up for a few days after the war started. There was no grave registration people there. We moved in and then a few days later, they had picked up the dead. And these hedgerows are small. And I looked in one hedgerow and they had dead American soldiers lying like cord wood. They were six foot high and maybe fifty foot long and many, many of them like that. Interviewer: When…as you got further in from the beaches, did you find that life got easier or harder? Reynolds: You die a thousand deaths when you're in that situation that we were in. I ran into General Teddy Roosevelt and he says, “How are you getting along, son?” And I looked at him and I said, “Fine, General, fine.” I was scared to death. He died up there with the eighty-third infantry division. They were losing so many troops. I don't know if he died of a heart attack or if he died by shrapnel or something like that because he would go right up on the front with the troops. [Note: General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the oldest soldier and the only general who landed with the first wave of the D-Day invasion, died of cardiac arrest on July 11, 1944, and was buried in St. Mere Eglise three days later. Doug Wead, All the Presidents' Children.] Interviewer: As the war went on and you got closer and you said you got…were at Remaugen [phonetic] and you took your…with the battalion you went across everything, you got to the Elbe and the armistice was signed. How did you feel when you got the word that Germany had surrendered? Reynolds: Great. Great. Yeah. Well, we knew the war was over when we reached the Elbe River cause we had stopped there and there was nothing going on. We'd defeated the Germans and we were just waiting on the Russians to come down. We knew that the war was over. Interviewer: What did you think about the Russians at that time? Reynolds: We didn't think much of them. Interviewer: Why not, if I may ask? Reynolds: I really don't know. They…I don't know. They had a lot of battles that…but I have no idea. We didn't care too much for the Russians. Interviewer: Was there ever a time in Europe that your unit specifically or you yourself personally ever suffered from a lack of supplies? Reynolds: No. No. Interviewer: So you always had everything that you all needed. How about…we're talking about our different enemies and allies, did you ever have any interaction with the British? Reynolds: No. No. Uh-uh. Interviewer: Okay. When the war ended you were very elated, went back home. When you got home, did you find it difficult to re-integrate into society? Reynolds: Yes. Interviewer: Could you tell me a little bit about why and how and what kind of job you got afterwards, if you did get anything or something like that? Reynolds: I started to work for the railroad and I didn't care for that. So I re-enlisted in the Army and I was advisor for the National Guard. And during the Korean War, I received a direct appointment as a second lieutenant and then I was with the first armored division in Fort Hood, Texas, during the Korean War…I mean at the start of the Korean War. Then they sent me to Chiang Kai-shek as an advisor at the armored school from fifty-one to fifty-three. Then I came back to the States and was assigned to Fort Rucker, Alabama, and I was in a tank company. And the G-4 of the regiment…or the battalion…division called me and wanted me to come up and see him, so I did. And he wanted me to go down and look at the procurement office because they were losing their procurement officer and he wanted to sign me down as the procurement officer. So I came back and I told him, I says, “I still don't want it. I would not like to be a procurement officer.” So he called me up another day a little later and asked me to go down and take another look. So I did and he came back and I said, “Well, I still don't want it”. He said, “Well, you've got the job”. So I was the procurement officer at Fort Rucker, the Army aviation school, from fifty-three to fifty-six. Then I went to Europe and they found out I was in procurement so they signed me as the procurement officer at Stuttgart, Germany, and I stayed there until fifty-nine when I came back to the States. Interviewer: Did uh…during your time in China were you [inaudible] directly to Chiang Kai-shek or just his… Reynolds: I was…we were in Formosa. China…China had kicked Chiang Kai-shek out of China. And we were the first American troops sent back to Chiang Kai-shek since that happened. And that's about all I know about that, other than the fact that I was there from fifty-one to fifty-three. Interviewer: Why did you join the Army as opposed to any of the other branches of service? Reynolds: I really couldn't tell you cause there just happened to be a recruiter there, I guess, that was looking for warm bodies at that time. Interviewer: Let me ask you a little bit about again the years after the war. How often after you got home did you think about your time in the service in Europe? Reynolds: Every day. Interviewer: Good, bad? Reynolds: I couldn't talk about it for a long time. It didn't crack…cracks me up. Interviewer: Well, what made you generous enough to talk to us today? Reynolds: Well, I think that I'm getting over the things that I went through and so…because it was so…it was so hard on you mentally that…it's had to describe. Interviewer: The United States did pay an awful price in World War Two. In your opinion, was it worth it? Reynolds: Yes, it sure was. Yeah. Because Hitler was…he would have really…he was a tyrant. He was…and Stalin was no better. So I think that Hitler was…he was a madman. Interviewer: Did uh…why is it important that we remember today what your generation did during World War Two? Reynolds: Well, just to remember the sacrifices that were made, the individuals who were involved. That we still have a great country, one of the largest and greatest countries in the world, that the world has ever known. I don't know. It's…it's hard to describe just exactly how you do feel and what had come out of the sacrifice that the people have made in World War Two. [Tape 1, Side B] Interviewer: There's no doubt in my mind and I'm sure yours that's it important that we do remember this sort of thing. What do you think is the best was we can maintain the memory of those sacrifices? Reynolds: I guess by talking to people and recording it and re…maintaining the weapons and things that they had at that time. But…I don't think that we should forget the great sacrifices that those people have made and we should…at the holidays that are…you know, the holidays that they have for Armistice Days and stuff like… Interviewer: Memorial Day. Reynolds: Yeah. That…those are the days that they can remember the sacrifices that were made by the people that were in the different wars. Interviewer: What about you personally? For you personally, was it worth what you had to give up and did it make you a different person, a better person? Reynolds: Oh absolutely, yeah. I would hate to do it again, but if it came to it I would. I would defend this country in any war that was declared by the President of the United States. Interviewer: Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to talk about or would like to mention? Reynolds: No. No. No, the glider planes that came in there in Normandy, I went up and looked at…inside a few of the gliders and the men had never even unbuckled their safety belts. The Germans had gone up one side and down the other with their burp [phonetic] guns and killed every one of them. That's…I guess that's about the extent of the…of it, really. It's hard to describe just what you went through. Interviewer: I can only imagine. I can only imagine. I have only one more question to ask. This is sort of another retrospective. With recent talk and controversies about this subject, dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. How did you feel about that at the time and has your opinion of it changed? Reynolds: I felt great. It shortened the war and saved a lot of men's lives and I felt great. Interviewer: Good. All right. Well, so unless you have anything to add, I think we'll wrap it up. Reynolds: Good. Interviewer: And I'd like to thank you very much for coming out. Reynolds: [chuckles] Okay. Interviewer: All right. [end of tape]"],"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":["Depressions--1929--Georgia","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Landing craft--United States","Torpedoes--Bangalore torpedoes","Sherman tank","Pay, Asher Knight, 1917-1945","Roosevelt, Theodore, 1887-1944","Chiang, Kai-shek, 1887-1975","United States. Army. Tank Battalion, 746th","United States. Army. Airborne Division, 101st","United States. Army. Airborne Division, 82nd","United States. Army. Infantry Division, 83rd","United States. Army. Armored Division, 1st","Queen Elizabeth (ship)"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Roy J. Reynolds"],"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/387"],"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":["39:53"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_323","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":["France, Saint-Lô, 49.1157004, -1.0906637","Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne District, Städteregion Aachen, Aachen, 50.77664, 6.08342","Netherlands, Rhine River, 51.97198, 5.91545","United Kingdom, England, London, 51.50853, -0.12574","United Kingdom, Wales, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Pontypridd, 51.6021, -3.34211","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, Georgia, Coweta County, 33.35346, -84.76337","United States, Georgia, Meriwether County, 33.04066, -84.68831","United States, Texas, Bell County, Killeen, Fort Hood, 31.13884585, -97.715048633985"],"dcterms_creator":["Bruckner, William Joseph","Conn, Lewis S., 1922-2010"],"dc_date":["2003-07-16"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Lewis Conn recalls his childhood during the Depression in Georgia, as well as his service in the United States Army in Europe during World War II. He was assigned to a tank unit and describes what it was like serving in a segregated army. Of particular interest are his recollections about German prisoners of war attending military base movie theatres that black soldiers were not permitted to enter. He describes the day to day operations of his tank unit and recalls burning German paper money in order to keep warm. He comments on the role he and his fellow soldiers played in changing American society.","Lewis Conn served in the United States Army in Europe during World War II."],"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--Participation, African American","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Ardennes","Depressions--1929--Georgia","Tiger (Tank)","Lightning (Fighter plane)","Patton, George S. (George Smith), 1885-1945","United States. Army. Army, 3rd","United States. Army. Tank Battalion (Light), 784","Queen Mary (Steamship)","Hitler-Jugend","Siegfried Line","Hitler Youth","soup kitchens","Screaming Mimi","P-38 (Fighter plane)"],"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/323"],"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":["1:31:19"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_320","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, Alsace, 48.33333, 7.43333","France, Cherbourg, 49.6425343, -1.6249565","France, Lorraine, 48.874423, 6.208093","Germany, Frankfurt am Main, 50.110922, 8.682127","Germany, Weimar, Buchenwald, 51.0195868, 11.2508336","United Kingdom, England, Salisbury Plain, 51.2486531, -1.89348305217729","United States, California, Inyo County, Death Valley, 36.44802, -116.86579","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Nevada, Death Valley, 36.42404725, -116.914043672057"],"dcterms_creator":["Wallace, Fredrick C.","Glustrom, John, 1916-2008"],"dc_date":["2003-06-18"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, John Glustrom describes his experiences as an Army engineer during World War II. He recalls his training in Death Valley, California, and his responsibilities in England building barracks and hospitals. He describes the supply lines his unit created in Normandy after D-Day and a later encounter he had with General George Patton. Of particular interest are his memories of Buchenwald and the conditions he found there. He concludes the interview by reflecting on his work with the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta, Georgia.","John Glustrom was an Army engineer during World War II.","FREDERICK WALLACE: Today is Wednesday, June 18, 2003. This is the beginning of an interview with Mr. John Glustrom. Mr. Glustrom is a Veteran of World War II and he saw service with the U.S. Army Engineers in England, France, and Germany during the periods from January 1941 to January 1946. The interview is being conducted at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. My name is Frederick Wallace. I'm with AARP, and I am going to be the interviewer. Mr. Glustrom, as I briefed you earlier, this is your story. We want you to tell it in your own words. Take us from the day of your enlistment into the service, tell us why you enlisted, and your experience during your days in boot camp or basic training, and take us all the way through step by step until your date of separation. So, Mr. Glustrom, will you begin, please? JOHN GLUSTROM: Thank you. I have to say to begin with that there's a thread going through this narration, a thread of fortunate events that occurred in time to keep me living through the war. Many things have happened that just by a thread changed the course of my life and kept me going, though I was never wounded or injured except getting a bad case of poison ivy from going to sleep in the woods without light. Time after time very important events occurred through which I was kept alive because my service was advanced beyond a front line as it might be called and in front of the tanks many times without protection of armed troops. And with that, I'll go into the narration. I was drafted one year before Pearl Harbor. In fact, my bags were packed on the company street waiting for discharge when the Japanese took their terrible action in Pearl Harbor. And in the course of my initial time in the military I went through several units. One unit I was transferred out of was the field artillery, and that field artillery later I found went to Africa and suffered enormous casualties in Africa, but I was put into the engineers and my job was to help form and train the 333rd Engineering Regiment. FREDERICK WALLACE: Could I back you up for just a minute? JOHN GLUSTROM: Sure. FREDERICK WALLACE: Where did you go for basic training after you were enlisted? JOHN GLUSTROM: That was a -- FEMALE SPEAKER: In South Carolina. JOHN GLUSTROM: Notable point, I went to South Carolina, but I never had hardly any basic training and so I survived without it. FREDERICK WALLACE: Just a moment. Yes, go ahead. [RECORDING CUTS OFF TEMPORARILY] Okay. JOHN GLUSTROM: I was in the artillery, and as I said, I was transferred out. The reason I was transferred out was that I had gotten a real desirable job working through for a Regimental Colonel and he kept me out of basic training and kept me out of company duties in order to take over his headquarters. And by not having company duties I became sort of a bad element in the company, because everybody else was jealous. And so, one morning I was allowed to go to Atlanta. I had a weekend pass from South Carolina, Camp Claiborne and every weekend a permanent pass and it was the kind of pass that did not endear me to the Regiment, the men who were doing the dirty work to keep the Regiment going, taking care of the kitchen and the latrine. And so, one morning about five o'clock I came back from Atlanta with a load men, which I took with me and found I had been transferred. And I asked what happened to the Colonel and they said he had been sent to an officer's training course himself, and he could not longer prevent my being put out. And so, that was, as I said, one of the best things that happened because the artillery unit had tremendous casualties in Africa. And our casualties in the engineers were relatively light, but it did save my life. During the course of the time I spent in the artillery, which was well over a year I never got promoted past Private. And then when I got into the engineering outfit I began going through a series of promotions until I made Master Sergeant. As Master Sergeant I was somewhat my own boss, and I decided to stay as Master Sergeant until we were going to be sent overseas. And I got an opportunity to be made into Warrant Officer in the same Regiment at the same position I was doing this Master Sergeant. And my job was to see that the Regiment had food and clothing and ammunition and things that they needed when they needed it. And I made contact with all sorts of sources of supply. And an interesting thing happened in the engineers, another event for which I as very fortunate. We were sent to Death Valley for training. The purpose of it was in Death Valley to prepare for Africa service. And in Africa things were very, very uncertain and dangerous. The Rommel of the Germans was a very adept Commander. Any troops who opposed him had real problems. But our unit was sent to train in Death Valley and we were divided into a red army and a blue army. All the units were there training. FREDERICK WALLACE: And Death Valley, you mean Death Valley, California? JOHN GLUSTROM: In the United States. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah, that would be in California. JOHN GLUSTROM: California and New Mexico and Oregon, you know, and – it's an extensive dessert through many states. And we had – there, you know, the temperature was 110 or 115 during the day and it would go down near to freezing at night. And we always had to get into a sleeping bag and hope that a rattlesnake was not in there waiting for us. But they divided us into a red army and blue army and the blue army was my organization. And everything was going pretty well with us in the maneuvers until one night the red army people stormed into our headquarters and stole our battle plans, and from then on we were severely trounced in the maneuvers and the red army was sent to Africa. And as a result, I found out later on leave in Paris that the red army suffered over 80% casualties in Africa because they weren't really adept at anything but breaking and entering. And that, of course, I think was one of the things that saved my life. And when I was made an officer before going overseas that gave me a much better lifestyle and situation as an individual soldier for service in strange lands, and I was suddenly transformed from an enlisted man to an officer. In those days it was a very, very different role and lifestyle, and I had to learn to live the officer core, eat with them, sleep along side of them, and generally be one of them and have the officer's duties in additions to the duties I had as a Master Sergeant. The first place overseas we were sent was to England, and that was during the bombing raids. I don't know how many people realize, but England was almost bombed out of existence during World War II. And if they had been we would most likely have lost that war. I was there many times during the bombing raids. I once had a weekend leave to London and several bombing raids took place every night; two nights I was there. In fact, the people were so immune to the effects of the bombs that they would go outside their places where they were and look up to watch the lights of any aircraft fire and the planes dropping the bombs and there was black falling all over the streets, and they would stand foolishly and endanger their own lives from flack, which could easily kill them. The effects of the bombs really almost destroyed England as a fighting force, and it was during that time that America got into the Lend-Lease program and began to help supply England with equipment and keep them going, because Roosevelt, who was President then, had the foresight to realize what was happening with England and how badly we needed them. And then America got into the race to be the first to develop radar. We had one man here named John Lumus [phonetic] who formed a unit at his own expense with 500 physicists, and they had a location near New York City and New York State, and they developed a radar lab there. And all these physicists worked on various aspects of the radar production. FREDERICK WALLACE: Let me take you back for a moment. Where were you based in England and what was the mission of your unit? JOHN GLUSTROM: Our mission in England was to build barracks and hospitals for incoming American troops and expected casualties from American soldiers. [RECORDING CUTS OUT TEMPORARILY] The first place we were sent into England was the Salzburg plains, which is a large area in the central part of England. We never saw any towns during the day time. We would get there at night, and I got into town maybe twice during the several months. And then we went to – I got a weekend leave. I had to go to London to pick up some equipment – special equipment, and I got a weekend leave into London as a result of having to get that equipment. That's when I participated in these air raids. Now, it was a very funny feeling; I picked up a girl in London, took her out to dinner and an air raid came while we were eating dinner. And the waiter came and brought all the rest of the dinner and told us he was going down to the air raid shelter. We could stay and eat if we wanted to. [LAUGHTER] And so, we tried to stay there and eat and the bombs were dropping around us and it was a very funny feeling. Our stomachs seemed to have feathers from all the danger involved of staying there and eating this delicious food in the midst of a tremendous raid that might destroy us any second. That was a brush with death. I can still feel, to this day, the effects of sitting there and those bombs dropping all around. And then when we later on looked outside the door we saw civilian Londoners ignoring the flack and walking around the street looking up in the air like it was a giant performance for their benefit. We had the job of building these barracks and hospitals there. One of the phenomenon's that reoccurred in England at that time, in addition to sending us over to build these barracks and hospitals, they sent large numbers of American Generals and Colonels over to take over the arriving American troops. And until the troops arrived in England they had very little to do, so as a result, every two or three days one of them would be inspecting the American troops that were there. And we were there then. We got an inspection almost every day. It got so bad we couldn't do any work so we set aside Company B for inspections, and all Company B did was pick up their saw dust and pick up their scraps of wood and keep the place spotlessly clean so the Generals would have a good report on the inspection. And nothing else got inspected but Company B. And we had a shortage over there because the submarines were very busy sinking American supply ships and the German submarines were very deadly. And the American supply ships were going from American to England trying to avoid being sunk. In fact, when I came across the ocean it was on a converted banana boat that hauled bananas from South America to the United States, and they converted that boat to a troop ship and took my unit over in that fashion, and we were kind of crowded on that banana boat. The boats were heavily dependant on what radar we had for warning at that time, and later on we developed, through the genius of these physicists, a very, very thorough and advanced form of radar that was able to not only pinpoint weapons after we shot them but ping back that we had hit the target. And it was radar that saved England and saved us. I might say that later on in the war there was – it was plain that American planes would do a world of bombing in Germany, and for a while they bombed civilian areas with the idea of disrupting the German war effort. And they carried on terrible bombings in German towns. The worst one was in Dresden in Germany, and I think that anybody that saw the bombing that the Germans did in England would realize that what they received in return was what they really deserved to get because of the indiscriminant bombings they themselves carried on. And so, every time someone complains to me about Dresden and the bombing of civilians and 100,000 Germans being killed in the bombing, I have to think back to the hundreds of thousands of Britain's who were killed by German bombs and how many killed us. FREDERICK WALLACE: Were you stationed in Germany at the time? JOHN GLUSTROM: No, I wasn't stationed any where more than a few days except in England. But I'll get to my German eventually. On D-Day Plus 12 I went across on Normandy Beach and when I landed off of – [RECORDER CUTS OFF TEMPORARILY] – the equipment as I took across to France was a pocket chess set and I got to play chess while we were waiting around to move. You know, they say that the Army they also serve who sit and wait, and I did my share of waiting and sitting. And so, the pocket chess set came in handy. I had a friend, a dentist named Walter Grant that I used to play chess with and I had much fun with Walter Grant. He was what we used to call a cocksman, and he would go around picking up girls in every town wherever we stopped for a day or two. He was a magician. They called it a Presto Digit Toto [phonetic], and he used to do tricks making the little knife disappear or change colors, and he would stop a young girl on the street and show her the tricks and before long he had a whole gang of young girls following him, and other people, and he invariably would end up going with the girl to her apartment. While we were in this particular town he would spent it with companionship. He was well known for that purpose. A very nice fellow and I enjoyed many a adventure with him, although I didn't need any of his dentistry attention. Now, I did go into France and after having three years in the military except for the time in England, which was about six or eight months, and I spent two years counting England, France, and Germany, and I went over to Normandy D plus 12 and we went over in these little boats they called ducks and when we finally got to the shore line the front of the boat let down and we marched down that ramp into the water by waist deep and had to walk up the shore. And at that time, D plus 12, the Germans had been beaten back, so they were only firing artillery and not firing machine guns at us. And we had a job assigned to go clear the Sherbourg Harbor. Unfortunately, we had no transportation and Sherbourg Harbor had been filled with boats. We had to hike to Sherbourg, and we went all the way to hiking day and night to the limit of our endurance. There was no – at that time, no weapon vehicles to ride in, so we took forced marches night and day to get to Sherbourg. When we got there the Germans were still firing from high peaks in Sherbourg and we had to help clear the town of Germans. And then after it was clear we realized that we could not clear the harbor in time for use, and so therefore, they had to give up on the idea of using Sherbourg for a port of debarkation. And so, we stayed there at Normandy and used Normandy Beach as a port of debarkation for supplies. Not many people realize but Normandy and Utah Beaches were massive engineering feats that were built for the purpose of invading France and then Germany. And there was storm that came up during the first few days of invasion and destroyed one of those beaches, but the other one survived and served to supply the entire American effort in France. And not many people realize that that was a thread that the American troops in France was hanging by this very thin supply line through one of the temporary beaches that were set up for supply purposes. And every GI that landed in France landed in either Normandy or Utah Beach. Later on we went there and re-visited that beach and I was a made an honorary citizen of France of Normandy Beach. And there were people swimming at the beach where we had so much misery. And I can't believe to this day that women and children were there on that beach swimming when we visited. And so, we marched to Sherbourg a new organization was set up called the Third Army, and it was primarily tank core troops in our engineering unit. And our job with the tanks core was to get out ahead of them sometimes and repair damage bombed out roads and bridges so that the tanks could be supplied with food, ammunition, and gasoline, the heavy items. And we went through France and Germany, sometimes ahead of tanks and sometimes behind them but always looking for bomb damage to repair along the way. There was little, short freight trains, must have been 20 feet shorter than American freight trains, that served throughout France and Germany and they had little box cars. In fact, one of the box cars was used by General Eisenhower to haul his own private cow around so he would have fresh milk wherever we went. And while I was in England I ran into – I was at a British supply depot hunting for special supplies for equipment and all of the sudden a jeep drove up with a 1st Lieutenant and a Technical Sergeant and driver, a Corporal driver and they'd go into the supply depot and said if you got any lacquer -- and supply -- the British soldier there at the supply depot said, of course, “we have no lacquer, there's a war going on.” And the American says, “Well, we got orders to get lacquer for General Patton's helmet. He takes 18 coats on each helmet.” And there they were with these, in a period of short supplies, using gasoline and equipment and their own time to hunt for equipment for General Patton that he really didn't need. And later on, to show us how short supplies were, one of the inspectors came to our headquarters and he looked in our trashcans and he saw where someone had thrown away the core of an apple. He reached in the garbage can and pulled out this uneaten core of apple and he started eating it. And he said, “You should not be throwing things like this away in this shortage of equipment.” But when the officer wanted lacquer for his helmet he had the time and equipment and when Eisenhower wanted the cow he had the cow. This is a couple of interesting episodes before we landed in Omaha Beach. The first thing we saw on the shore following landing in Omaha Beach was where an American soldier – a paratrooper had been caught by the Germans and he was strung up by his feet and his throat was slit and he was left hanging there so we would see what would happen to us if the Germans caught us, to scare or frighten us, but all it did was – the word spread about it all over to every American soldier in France at that time that this was what the Germans did to the American troops. And it made us hate them with a vehement passion. It didn't not frighten us to that extent, because what happened happened to someone else, and it was not, to us, personal, but it got us very, very disturbed and angry. And our anger against the Germans lasted throughout the war. In fact, some American retired troops that had gotten out of the military and back and civilian life 40 and 60 years later can remember how deep that hatred was. From Sherbourg we went – we were attached to the third Army and started a march through France. And once I needed some special equipment and I had to go to – I got a weekend leave to go to Paris, and in Paris my reception was like that of a hero and France couldn't do enough for us. In fact, one man coming running up to me with a 20 year aged bottle of Cognac, the best alcohol I've ever drank was that bottle of Cognac 20 years old. And I got back from Paris and continued with our march through France – FREDERICK WALLACE: How did you get to Buchenwald? JOHN GLUSTROM: I'm coming to that because that was deep in Germany. FREDERICK WALLACE: Okay. JOHN GLUSTROM: And it's a good question. Am I taking too long? I'm getting close to end. The first place we went was to Alsace-Lorraine, which was a territory being kicked back and forth between the Germans and the French through history. And in Alsace-Lorraine, it's around the edge of Mines River, which is about 50 feet across at that place. And I went to Alsace-Lorraine and we spent the night there. The officers were quartered in with a French family or a German family. They were betwixt France and Germany so they weren't – didn't consider themselves French or German. We were supposed to take off to Germany at three o'clock in the morning. Well, it so happens that at three o'clock the Americans didn't invade across the river. They were afraid and missed their departure and about four o'clock General Patton came rushing up with his pearl revolver and his helmet with all the lacquer and every other word a cuss word. And he says, “What the hell is going on here? Why aren't you across the river?” And they said, “We're afraid, General; the Germans may be waiting right over there with machine guns pointing at us.” And so, he says, I'm going across and any of you yellow belly sons of so-so want to go with me come along. So he takes off his boots and his helmet and dives into the river and swims across in the darkness, and he gets across and when he left to swim across then all the troops were shamed in the fact they didn't go across it, and they started swimming across with him. And that's the way they crossed the Rhine River and they established there was no Germans waiting for us, and they established the beach head there. And then by two, three hours they had a bridge across the river and that served to get our equipment and tanks over. And the first town I went to with any major consequences was Frankfurt, Germany. And I had a unique experience in Frankfurt. Two soldiers and I had gone into look at various well-to-do houses and it was getting dark. The two soldiers left for the camp ground and I was there, and I came out on the town square in the dusk, and the first thing I saw was a group of imported laborers from east Europe who had surrounded a pretty German girl with blonde hair. They were pushing her back and forth in this circle and tearing her clothes off with the idea, undoubtedly, of gang raping her. I stepped up the circle of men and I yelled at the top of my voice and pulled out my revolver and started waving it and they released the girl and she darted off like a rabbit in a distant alley and the men dispersed who were abusing her. And I saved, in spited of my feeling against the Germans, I was still feeling that I needed to save this girl from being manhandled and brutalized. And so, I – FREDERICK WALLACE: I'm going to stop you here. [TAPE CUTS OUT] JOHN GLUSTROM: -- so that desire to protect a woman from being raped by this gang of laborers – the later laborers got -- the Germans had imported impressing them into duty while the Germans were fighting their soldiers and they served all the way through Germany to run the factory and produce military equipment for the German Army. And after Americans liberated Frankfurt or any other town they would be without their German masters and they would be free and they committed atrocities against the German people in repayment for what had committed against them, and so, there was a terrible situation there. It reminds me of what's happened in Iraq where the population, some of them, seem to be uprising right now at this time. Anyway, I went all the way through Germany until about 20 miles from Berlin and on the way I had to go through the Weimar Republic near the time of Weimar and I heard that that was a – [END SIDE A] [BEGINNING SIDE B] JOHN GLUSTROM: -- go see it. And so, in Buchenwald there was a – it turned out to be a concentration camp, one of the worst. FEMALE SPEAKER: I think you [Unintelligible] because I think it's important how you – [RECORDING CUTS OFF TEMPORARILY] JOHN GLUSTROM: Buchenwald existed but as a soldier I didn't have any information on it. In the first place I didn't believe that the Germans could be so ruthless and brutal as to carry on an extermination camp as part of their system, and very few Americans believed they could do something like that. But when I got there I saw what they did and all of the sudden I began to believe it, that this was actually being carried on and all this brutality. And so, we came there April 11th, 1945 and there was a group of inmates in a half circle at the gate to welcome us in. They had about a 12 foot chain link fence all around the camp. And later on the tanks came and knocked the fence and the gates down. One person in the group caught my attention. It was a 15-year-old boy – looked 15. He looked about 12 because he looked so small. And I later found out he was Ellie Weisell, the writer who had been in Buchenwald concentration camp at that time. As we approached the camp about a half mile away the odor was so horrible we almost had to turn around and didn't go to see it. And when we got to it my two companions defected out and decided not to go in. I went in to see what was going on. In the reception room they had all these lamps which the head of the camp had made out of human skin, tattooed skin as sort of introduction to this inhuman place. And then at the hospital, which the inmates took me to, it showed the inmates of the hospital in barracks; in a room about ten feet tall like this one. And the barracks were every two foot up the wall to the ceiling and there were sick people laying in all the bunks floor to ceiling and nobody took care of them and so many of them had diarrhea and dysentery and they would have their excrement all over the place, and that's what the smell came from. Then further up the hill was a concentration camp – further up the hill was a crematorium and the crematorium had trailer with dead bodies outside stacked up like cord wood waiting to be cremated. They cremated – killed about 60 prisoners a day. The rest of them they worked to death. And later on in Allswidge [phonetic] I visited and found they cremated in 2500 a day in Allswidge, so it was a grand scale of what they did in Buchenwald. But anyway, that was the highlight of my experience and by contrast to Buchenwald, the German people were rosy cheeked and well fed and looked real reasonably happy. Right with all this going on in the midst -- the staff of Buchenwald, each eight hour shift was taken into Weimar, which was the nearest town, and a new staff was brought in on those trucks to take their place. And everybody in the town knew and talked of these staff members and knew what was going on in Buchenwald. So the Germans were well aware of what was happening in their midst. FREDERICK WALLACE: Let me ask you, how did that affect your later life? JOHN GLUSTROM: Well, when I got out of the military I decided to try to keep that sort of thing from happening over in this country. And I got involved in January of 1946 into the Civil Rights movement in Atlanta, and I became President – Vice-President of the Urban League and I served as a volunteer with the Urban League for 20 years more or less. The service with the Urban League -- started out I was the only white and they had to get a white man. They took me probably as the lesser of the evils. So anyway, I served with them. And I also got involved in the Gate City Day Nursery Association. I served as an officer and Board Member. And that was a nursery association in all the housing projects. And I also served with the Georgia Council on Human Relations as an officer. And my wife and I started the ACLU Chapter here in Atlanta, and we – FEMALE SPEAKER: He integrated with help – [RECORDING CUTS OUT] JOHN GLUSTROM: -- leading a group of the most prominent black citizens in Atlanta. They got me to come with them as their spokesman to integrated the public library, and before we went a black student would have to go and stand at the desk by the library and went and hunted the book he wanted out of the stacks. And later on, as a result of our visit, they did finally integrate the library. Then of course, the business of integrating the police force was a little bit more risky and we did get that done. But as a result of the library visit the newspaper published my name, address, and phone number on the front page and we had crosses burned on our front lawn as a result of that. And in those days, to begin with there may have been five white people involved in the Civil Rights Movement and I was one of them and my wife was another. And we became deeply involved and really whenever I see someone like you I realize, indirectly, I had a hand in your development and you've had a hand in mine. FREDERICK WALLACE: So what would you like for the younger people of America today to know about what you experienced and how they can apply your experience to their lives? JOHN GLUSTROM: Well, one thing about this experience is that at times it was as bad as it could get and life is so fragile even for the best of us that you need to live as though every moment was going to be your last minute. FREDERICK WALLACE: Very good. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Glustrom. We appreciate you sharing your experience with us. FEMALE SPEAKER: I can tell you how I feel what it was. I think he was saved to marry me, and I would not have married him had he not had that experience. I came from Minneapolis. 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