Oral history interview of Lewis S. Conn

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Lewis S. Conn
Creator:: Kyle, Glen
Conn, Lewis S., 1922-2010
Date of Original:: 2004
Subject:: Segregation--Georgia--Coweta County
Segregation--United States
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Participation, African American
Conn, Lewis Samuel, Sr., 1885-1927
Arnold, Augustus G., 1871-1957
Conn, Dorothy, 1920?-
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
Queen Mary (Steamship)
United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944
Fort Valley State University
United States. Army. Tank Battalion (Light), 784
United States. Army. Army, 2nd
Columbia University. Teachers College
United States. Army
Location:: United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882
United States, Kentucky, Hardin County, Fort Knox, 37.89113, -85.96363
United States, Louisiana, Rapides Parish, Camp Claiborne (historical), 31.07056, -92.54889
United States, Texas, Bell County, Killeen, Fort Hood, 31.13884585, -97.715048633985
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
Betacam-SP
Type:: MovingImage
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Lewis Conn recalls his childhood during the Depression in Georgia, as well as his service in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. His father owned a drugstore near Atlanta University, but lost it during the Great Depression and died soon after. His grandfather was given a cabin in which to live in Coweta County (Ga.) by a Mr. Todd. He recalls his education, where he faced segregation and hardship, but also found support and opportunities. He recalls how living near Atlanta University influenced his desire and motivation to get an education. He describes how his principal, Mr. Lewis, helped him get a working scholarship for college. He describes hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor and recruiters who came and took 95% of their young men to Warner Robins. He describes how German POWs could go in to the Post Exchange and the bars, yet black soldiers were barred. He recalls his response to the conditions black soldiers had to face: "We did what we had to do." He also explains that some soldiers rebelled and were sent to prison. He discusses Eleanor Roosevelt's praise of blacks and how it affected their opportunities to go into combat; until that time all blacks were either cooks or in transportation. Even after they had become soldiers, they ceased to be soldiers when they went into town, yet they still felt determined to prove they could do their jobs. No blacks could become senior officers and all black units had white officers; Conn relates that some of them were good. Even aboard ship, segregation continued and he also faced severe seasickness as well as the threat of U-boats. They found a very different reception in Wales, where they did not face segregation. About six weeks after D-Day, they found themselves landing at Omaha Beach after another rough crossing, where he describes the evidence of the fighting that had happened there. He reports that his unit was scheduled to go in to liberate Paris, but was diverted away from the celebration and that many deserted. On coming home, Conn remembers that after fighting for liberty, they still faced the same discrimination. He describes how the Georgia General Assembly would pay the difference in tuition for blacks to go to an out of state college; Conn opted to go to New York to go to school and felt that going to watch the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees was a bonus. He emphasizes the importance of education and family.
Lewis S. Conn was in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.
INTERVIEWER Ok, um, just, uh if you could give me your name and where you are from. LEWIS CONN My name is Lewis S. CONN, and I was, live in Atlanta, Georgia. INTERVIEWER Um, how long have you lived in Atlanta? LEWIS CONN Off and on, approximately maybe eighty years. INTERVIEWER Um, where did you grow up? LEWIS CONN Well, I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. I stayed here until, approximate, around when I was six or seven years old which I lost my father. We, we used to own a drugstore over by the Clark and (Gownan) University Center as we call it now, which around Morehouse College. Well, during the Depression we lost everything - my father did - and then he passed, and my grandfather took over. Well during the Depression, and that you had no security on your money that you put in the bank, so we had no money to run anything. So my grandfather was born in Grantville, Georgia, Coweta County. So my grandfather said, well, look like we can't survive, that's what he told my mother, which I have a sister. Said, well what you all want to do? Say, I'm going back to the county where I was born, and I believe I can make it rather than just eat soup everyday, cause we had no food stamp. So they would bring soup and (rankle) the bell. You came out with your pots and your pans, and that's what you had around lunchtime, and that was the end of that. So that's four hour (prak and raves) in the country, Coweta County, around Grantville, Georgia. But I tell my students, which I'm still instructing, well the state of the day, that I'm a country sheep and a city slick. INTERVIEWER Uh, tell me why you say that? LEWIS CONN Because I have and give you some ideas about how maybe people live in the country, here we call it in the rural area, plus I can give you some ideas what I came back and forth to the city so I could keep up with what was going on in the city, how city people live and what they did. And therefore I have ideas about both city and the country. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me, tell me just a little bit about growing up back in those days. LEWIS CONN Back in those days naturally we were segregated. So naturally going back to the country we were still segregated, and so we had in it noth-, we had nothing. So, my grandfather knew a person he grew up with, which was a white person named Mr. Todd. So going back to the country we had nowhere to stay, but he knew Mr. Todd. So Mr. Todd said, well, Gus - that's what they called my grandfather, Gus (Ond), his name was (Guster Ond) - say, I'll let you have a little one log cabinet on one of my farms. Said I'll just let you stay there, free of rent, cause boy that's when you went to the country, if you had a farm, and you leased it out, normally they would charge you according to how many acres you had by the bale of cottons. No money was exchanged in those days. Whatever you had or whatever you produced then you gave it back to your landlord and you with the run up which you were the leasee, and that's how you stayed on the land. But my grandfather knew, cause we had no money, so he just stayed until maybe you can get yourself adjusted, as long as you want to. So it was a one log cabinet, just one big room. So with my sister, with myself, and with my grandmother, and with my grandfather, we stayed in the one room log cabinet. Now if I give my sister some privacy, I remember my grandmother had some quilts, so I remember her running a little string across to give my sister a little privacy, and that was her little room. And then I had a little place in the log cabinet, plus my grandfather and grandmother. Well we stayed approximately two years in that log cabinet in Grantville, Georgia. INTERVIEWER Um, did you go to school during that time? LEWIS CONN Yes. When I left Atlanta I was in, think the fifth or sixth grade. So when we got to Grantville, Georgia, the nearest school to us was what we called Moreland, Georgia. That's approximately three miles from where we had the little log cabinet. So we walked to school, although we had buses, but buses wasn't for the Negroes, cause we were segregated. So if you wanted to get an education, you had to walk to school. But the Moreland school only went to the fifth grade. So when we finished the Moreland school, and by that time we finished the Moreland school, my grandfather then had moved to what we call Meriweather County, which was right on the border of Coweta County. So when we moved out from Grantville, Georgia, out of that particular area, then I went to what we call the Lutherville Junior High. At that time you went to the eighth grade. And when I finished Lutherville Junior High, which was in Meriweather County, then Grantville had what we called the senior high. But for black people, Negroes, you only went to the eleventh grade. No twelfth grade. So I had three more grades that I want to accomplish. But where we were living it was five miles from where we stayed to where I had to attend the school. So for approximate three and a half to four years I walked from where we lived to Grantville High School, and the first time I attended Grantville High School it was a church. It wasn't a building. They had a church, and they called it Grantville High School cause the high school for the whites naturally you couldn't attend. But we had a bus that would run about a quarter of a mile away from where we lived, but I couldn't ride the bus, cause it was segregated. But we knew the people – my grandfather did – who drove the bus. So on some bad days it would be cold, freezing, raining, and we used to rabbit hunt together. The people who used to drive the bus used to come and use our rabbit dogs, cause we had the best rabbit dogs in the (hearing), so we rabbit hunted together. So they took a little chance and when it was real bad they said, and stop the bus, and it was muddy and raining, whatever it is, and I could stand right on the steps of the bus, and they would said, I'm looking for nobody to say nothing. And I picked up this person or whatever it was, so I got a little break there. But most of the days I walked. And I did that for three and a half, approximate, four years. Five miles there. For doing the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday that my grandfather would let me attend school. When I would leave like in the wintertime and the fall the chickens were still on the roof – people don't know about chickens used to be roostin', they didn't get up until sunup but I was on the road walking, heading to school. When school was out around three or three thirty, by the time I got back home the chicken had gone back to roost. So the only time I saw the chickens when I was going to school in the wintertime was on a Saturday to Sunday. Because other days when I left it was dark, when I got back it was dark. Now remember this, we had no electricity. No electricity. Well I attended the school in Moreland we had just lamps. We had potbelly stoves as they called them. Then sometime you had coal – you may of be lucky – but you more or less went to the woods and you got wood. And burned wood to kinda keep warm one way at cold days. For attending Grantville my last year, they finally put up a little school there, and they called it then Grantville High School. So this is when I finished, and I was only boy in the graduation class. And I do have documents to show where I think we had nine or ten students, but I was only boy, because nobody else wanted to walk. Nobody else had the desire for some reason. And then nine times out of ten they were staying what we called on Lee's farm, so they had to work. They couldn't attend school, cause if they didn't work then the landlord would run ‘em off the farm. Because that's how you stayed, you had to work, and in order to stay in the shelter they provided for you, and that was your rent, and that was the way they provided for you. Some places, rural area, they called ‘em camps, or groups where people stayed together and therefore you stayed on a person's farm, and you stayed there as long as you worked for them. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me why it was so important for you to get that education. LEWIS CONN Well for some reason a little like, by being maybe growing up around the Atlanta University Center as we call it now, I always had the desire to want go to Morehouse. Morehouse, I could see ‘em you know there, developing. So I guess by me being around an education center, it maybe dawned upon me, this is the way to go. And that's what maybe instilled in me, and why I pursue what I did regardless nobody wasn't going to turn me back. And I wasn't going to be and let no segregation or anybody keep me back. I will make my own what desire. And if I had the desire I believe I could maintain it which I was able to accomplish it. INTERVIEWER So you did end up going to Morehouse? LEWIS CONN No. INTERVIEWER No? LEWIS CONN I had the desire coming from Morehouse, around AU Center which we had Morris Brown, also Atlanta University. Now Clark College as they called it then was out from Atlanta, but now they are all in what we call a complex. Now it's Clark Atlanta University Center as we talk about it today. What all the groups was there, then I would always see people from the colleges and we had the little drug store, and so they would come in and that you'd get hotdogs and milkshakes and things like that, and that's how we made our, our living when my father here that in my grandfather passing so it would just make a desire that I wasn't gonna plough mules all my life. I wasn't gonna pick cotton all my life and that's what kept me going and I desired, and that's what gave me that desire to continue. INTERVIEWER And uh, after you graduated, uh, then what? LEWIS CONN Now, after we graduated, least after I graduated, by being the only boy, then my grandfather said, boy, what you want to do, you know we don't have no money. I say, I don't want to plough no mule. He say I go get you another one, I go get another mule. And we'll go lease, what, more land, and we'll grow more cotton and corn. He feel what we have more revenue, we'll have more money. I say, no sir, I say I don't want to do that. He say what you wanna do? So he got in touch with my principle, which was Mr. Lewis at that time. I played basketball (whither) we played, and I was a pretty good basketball player, that's the way they, they said, and I could run track. I'd developed myself running track running rabbits. Cause when I would rabbit hunt, and we only had a few shells, and they was very expensive – they cost a nickel, but a nickel now, back in those days, was like maybe five or ten dollars today. So in order to conserve my shells, then my dog would run the rabbit, once they were running them so long, rabbit get tired, he start out across the open field, I would see him come out the woods, I would outrun the rabbit and catch him. So I'd have to use my shell. And I'd just take and hit his head right on a rock, or hit his head sometime with my fist, then I had me something to eat. So that's how I got that desire. I figure I had some kind of talent. We didn't have much in high school to really offer. So my principle came and talked to my grandfather, said, well I believe he's a pretty good basketball player and I know people at Fort Valley College at that time, that maybe I can get him a working scholarship, but they didn't have the Hope Scholarship that you had then, didn't have the GI Bill, in which I was given after I got out, done, we didn't have all that. So, he say you know we still don't have anything, you don't have anything to wear. I say, well, whatever I have, I just take that. So I had one suitcase. So I had two pair of pants. I had one pair of brogan shoe. I had one pair dress shoe. I think I had two, maybe, maybe two sets of underwear. I don't remember having any toothbrush. We had no electricity. I don't remember having any toothpaste. I didn't even know what toothpaste, I didn't know what it was. I didn't know about, nothing about soap, and we made our own soap, cause we weren't able to buy soap that you sell in the store. We made what you call potash soap. That from lard off the hog, and you put potash in and you cooked it. And after you had soap from that. So what I had would fit in my suitcase. So we went on to Fort Valley, and he knew people, and they asked and they said, well, he's a pretty good student. Don't have all the facility in the school but I think he would do all right. They say, well we'll give you working scholarship, and we have two open for you. Said now one you can help and clean up the buildings once we have the classroom facilities after the class has ended and you can do what they needed. Then in those days they had what you call (nine horse). Now they served food, cause you ( ) food, as we have today. So they cooked the food for the students, served it in the dining room, breakfast, as they called it - lunch, and dinner. They say now he can work in the dining hall, but he have to get up before the sun, because at daybreak we have to feed and serve the student, and maybe he doesn't want that. I said that's what I want. They say why you want that. I say I've been getting up before sunrise ever since I've been big enough to know ( ), because I had to get up and milk the cow, I had to feed the hogs, I had to feed the mules to get them ready so we could go to work when the sun came up, and my granddaddy, boy, said boy go to work. I said that's no problem for me. Then I thought about, that's where the food is. I don't have no money. I don't have nobody sending me any money. How would I have a nickel or dime to go buy anything. But I'm in the food. I'm a have me something to eat. And I hit it just right, cause I had to worry about having anything to eat. So I went to the dining room – that's where I worked. So while I was working there my first year her name was Ms. (Frambroke) which was a dietician, she made me headwaiter. She had a headwaiter, but he graduated my first year. So I was just a freshman. I was punctual, and I was always there, you know, just doing what I need to do, stay late. She said, well you're my headwaiter, so as being headwaiter I was responsible for the whole dining room of operation, along with taking care of what we call when the president had that guest, and I was a headwaiter when the food was cooked, to go to the president's house to serve the guest. And that's what I had, and that's how I got to Fort Valley. INTERVIEWER Um, reading your, your other, the transcript from your other interview, um, it's a very interesting, uh, take on it, tell me, tell me, um, about when you and your friends heard about Pearl Harbor. LEWIS CONN Well, I remember we were in what you call old Jeanes Hall on Fort Valley State College campus. It was a wooden building. It's no longer there. It was destroyed by fire. This was where the men stayed, cause all those other two buildings were for the women. So, they don't have it like you have now, no cohabitation, no, you, co, co-habitating you was goin' on that we have today, so you had only one building Jeanes Hall. And we had potbellied stoves at three levels, and we burned coal on the three levels. So, I remember one evening, I forget when it was, that we finally got the word that we was attacked by the Japanese in Pearl Harbor. And we have thought nothing of it, you know, we just say hey, here's another, uh, country attacking the United States, and, well, everybody went along their normal way, and we didn't even take for granted that nothin' gonna happen. But we said was a long ( ) and wasn't normal before we started seeing they started recruiting you know, and started getting people and having them come and recruiting for the army. And that's when it dawned upon us maybe they're coming here next. And which finally they did. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about how you got into the military. LEWIS CONN Well, they came to Fort Valley State College. And they said, and called out all the men, and said line up. They came from Warner Robins and they brought the buses and trucks cause they say we gonna get you all and take you back, or we're gonna get some of you. So they notified us when they was coming to the campus and we all had to be ready to fall out, you know like we was in the army cause they was coming to recruit us. Cause if you didn't, then you were put in jail. So they came to Fort Valley College at that time, and we all was there lined up, and they looked at our resume for us (men) and saw you know I played basketball, ran track, so ( ) that was the first one they say, fall out, fall out, they figure, you, you goin'. You figure you were in good shape and you were an athlete, whatever it is. But they ended up taking approximately maybe ninety-five percent of the young men off the campus, and taking them to Warner Robins and all what, to recruit them and put them in the army. INTERVIEWER And, and what did you think about that? LEWIS CONN Well, at that time it didn't dawn upon me about what it was all about. I just knew I was a U.S. citizen, and I said hey, I'm a U.S. citizen and I'm gonna fight. And they want me to fight, and that's the law, what can I do about it? If I don't do it, they say jail time, so I said, let's go. And it didn't dawn upon me till a little later on ( ) the army. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me a little bit about your, um en, enlistment, um, and training experiences in a segregated army. LEWIS CONN Yes, this is where I, it started dawning upon me and maybe the other Negro soldiers. We were recruited and when we left Warner Robins then we were went to Fort Benning. And that's where they took us there to give us further examination and maybe to give us what we call a IQ test or other test in order to see maybe what unit they would like to maybe put us in. So when we got to Fort Benning, then naturally that's when it hit us, we saw a lot of other white soldiers, but here we was on Fort Benning, and we went to our little segregated place they had for all blacks. Then we found out in another part of Fort Benning, here you had all the white soldiers. But when we get, and we be goin' through in order for examination, then they had a line for the blacks, had a line for the whites. Even when you went to get your uniform, you had a line for the blacks, you had a line for the whites. And that's when it, we started talkin', say, look, what are we doing, uh, uh what is all of this about? We getting ready now, what, to risk our lives or, they're recruiting us or go fight for freedom as they say, so to speak, and here we just like outside, here we come inside, figure, this is the U.S. army. Should be controlled by the federal government. Why shouldn't it be one for all and all for one? And that's when it started dawning upon us, we got a little problem here. But we figured least we had to do what we had to do, cause I had no other recourse. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me if you would about the instance, uh, with the, uh, German POWs. LEWIS CONN That dawned upon us. We heard about it before we left Fort Benning, but you really hadn't got into a war see too much with the Germans at that time, but once they put us in the unit, which was a tank outfits, then we were sent to Fort Knox, which is in Kentucky. Fort Knox I think is still there, I think is the army unit training center as of today, last time I heard, and where all the gold is placed, that's what I heard too. We tried to really find it but we never could find where they placed all the gold. But we figure that's where all the gold was established and put in Fort Knox. But that was a training ground for tank units. But when we got to Fort Knox, then they had captured a lot of the German prisoners. And when we would go to the PXs, after training, whatever it is, for recreation, or they had the theaters on the fort. Then we saw the Germans with the outfits they had given them to distinguish them from the white soldiers. Then we started asking, who are these people? And they told ‘em these were the German prisoners. Well they could socialize with the white GIs, but they wasn't admitted to socialize with us. They could go to the PX and sit down and drink beer, do whatever you wanted to do with the white soldiers, then they could attend the theaters. Well we still had to go to our little segregated PX. We used to had to go to our little segregated movies. And that's when it started being rebellious against some of the recruits. And we had a lot of men was sent to prison. Lot of them, uh, uh, what, I think, POWs, what it, uh, POA, what, you, in other words they escaped. And they was captured, so when they brought ‘em back they put ‘em in prison. And this ways it dawned upon us in Fort Knox. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me a little bit too about, uh, the idea of, uh, putting blacks into combat units, and, and how that, how you got into a tank unit. LEWIS CONN Well, this came about, I think, and I do have documentation here, which, one of the predominant Negro papers wrote an article which Ms. Eleanor Roosevelt at that time, President Roosevelt's wife, she commended us for being recruited and maybe being segregated, and would have a willingness to maybe fight without being too rebellious at that time. So whoever interviewed her wrote the article, and he named it Eleanor Roosevelt Niggers. And I have the documentation right here to show it, where he went on to express, and she expressed, why can't we let these Negro soldiers maybe train what they should be capable of fighting in tanks outfits, shooting arms, and just like anybody else. So that's when they organized the tank battalion. And I became part of one called seven eight four, seven eighty-four tank battalion. INTERVIEWER Um, at this, when they, when they, uh, formed a tank unit, and you were, you were assigned to it, and you started training, um, did the comradery, uh, you felt with your, uh, fellow, fellow soldiers, start to, um, really make you take a, a pride in what you were doing, placed within the context of that segregated military? LEWIS CONN It gave a little more, I say, desire, because we knew what had happened with other Negroes that were recruited, and they were placed in what were called the cooking units or transportation units. I mean, things that maybe nobody else desired. You figure, they not capable of doing or participating in. So, it say, well, they are recognizing us a little bit. That maybe we are capable if you only give us a chance. So we took it in heart and say, we're gonna do it. But within that whole development of our tank outfits at that time we were still segregated, so all of the officers was white. No black person or Negro could become, in that tank outfit, a captain, a captain, a first lieutenant, a second lieutenant. Now you could become a master sergeant, I will call a technical sergeant. That was your highest ranking at that time. So the people who was over you, who could really control you was still what? White, and we were still segregated to leadership. Well we didn't let that get next to us, cause here we were put in a unit, and we were going to make the best of it, and could we show, and we were going to show, that we could fight and do ( ) as well as anybody else if we were only given a chance. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me a little bit about your opinion of the officers that were placed with you. LEWIS CONN Some as we will have in any situation were very good. They understood, and more or less it was amazing to me, and I can remember Captain, Captain, whew, Captain (Bertstrand), I can remember his name. He was from a, a capital of South ( ), I can remember that very well. So he was from the south. He, he was placed as Captain, Captain over the unit and which he was controlling, so he was, he had a desire and he was pretty gentle. But we had other lieutenants that was in our outfit, and they gave us a hard time. And we had to take it, and we was punished a lot, because what we said and maybe they heard us say, and they took it out on us because they were saying we were violating a ( ) justice. Well we had to go along with it, those who were what they did had to serve time in, in the prisons camps whatever years and they had to put on extra duties and we went along with that. But overall, the captain that we had, he was pretty reasonable, pretty reasonable. Because I figured he said if we had to fight and we had to back him up or back them up then everybody OK had to work the other, and it came out pretty good. INTERVIEWER Um, so they, so you were eventually shipped with your unit over to England, and . . . LEWIS CONN Well, from Fort Knox, then we went to what we call camp in Louisiana, and from the camp in Louisiana, Claiborne, Camp Claiborne in Louisiana, then we stayed there awhile, then we went all the way out then to Camp Hood, Texas. I think it's pretty close to where the President stay in that particular locale as I speak today, but Camp Hood I think is still there. So it was a training unit and ground for tank outfits. They land ( ) and the maneuverability that you did in order to train. And this is where we had our last training at Camp Hood, Texas. Now if we run along again, staying in those very little towns, here again we were segregated. So once they let us go to town we had to quit thinking we was American soldiers. What, we were Negroes, so you had to go what called what? Negro Town, or Blacktown. You couldn't be caught uptown going in any other establishment – you would be locked up, although you had on a soldier. I (swear), as far as they were concerned they were going to enforce the law, although you training to go fight for freedom, to make it free for everybody here to have freedom. But still, they was, they was against you, and that was really hurt us to a certain degree. Same as Camp Hood. There was ( ) weekend, sometime I used to go on, cause you had nowhere to go. Especially little towns, we stayed on the camp, did the best we could, cause nobody would, you under-, it's, it's segregated, and we violated the law. Naturally they going to get the people who let you in. They had a place for you to go round by the back wonder, if you ordered something but you couldn't go, like a restaurant, you couldn't sit out and eat just what you had on your uniform, and that was really tough. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about the first time your unit, uh well, actually just you specifically with your unit went into action. LEWIS CONN Well from Camp Hood we went all the way, and then they, went to New York. Naturally they took us across the Atlantic Ocean. Went on the Queen Mary. I haven't been on it since. Maybe somebody give me a ticket and let me ride it one day. But they convert it to having what? The troops, and putting them in as they could with the decks they had. So, they say we going across on the Queen Mary. I didn't know where, where it was, I know they getting ready to ship us overseas for combat duty. Even on the Queen Mary you were segregated. Going overseas, to fight, for freedom, and we was given no less the lower docks. I didn't ( ) that little ship, never hardly seen one in my life, so all I know, they say, whatever dock, that's where you go. And ( ) whatever it is, a hatch, whatever they had for you. So you can us imagine in the bottom of that ship the, the rocking, the rocking. And I remember it took us three weeks to go across the ocean, cause we had to zigzag, because of the U-boats, cause the German with the U-boat was destroying so much of our shipment plus a lot of transportation cause they found out we were using the ships to transport soldiers and they started targeting them with their submarines. So we hit water one day, and you come out, you had on an overcoat. Two or three days you come out on deck for a little relief. Then you could be in shorts, cause it'd be converted back down into warm water. So I was a sick, and most of us was sick the second day for three weeks on that ship, cause being on the bottom decks you couldn't hold, at least I couldn't, and most of us couldn't, no food. I remember losing approximately twenty pounds. And going across to England. And when we got across, I remember we got off the ship, they put us in little tents first. Then they shipped us all way down to South Wales. Most people never heard of, of South Wales. Most people I talk to about England, they say South Wales, where's that? I say, well that's in England. ( ) South Wales. I think they made a movie called How Green Is My Valley, cause you had a lot of coal mines. I think they might still be digging coal from those mines down in South Wales. So they, that's where we relocated and that's where we had, where we stayed and were going to do additional training until they shipped our equipment over for us to go for the invasion or right after the invasion on D-Day. So we stayed there approximate, I know, three to four months, and we got all of our equipment and train. Well when we got there they had places for us to stay - the people in South Wales which the government had leased out for us. But by being black, or Negroes, we were fascinating to them. For some reason they told them that we were from Africa, cause in England and all over Europe people didn't know they had black people which they had ( ). That's why Africa was in the predicament as we've known here lately, cause if you look at the Africa map, it's broken up into all parts of the European country who controlled them, who controlled them. So they used those people as slaves, not only in America, in all those European countries. England had a part of it. So they looked at us as being part of, coming from the apes, it's what they was taught. So when we got there and this ( ) didn't know about it cause they was taught that. And therefore you shake the hands, but when you see ‘em running around and you see the tail it will come out, and they did it, until we educated them and they became to say, what we have been taught and told, it isn't true. So we stayed there a couple of weeks and the people would come where we stayed and started inviting us to the church, inviting us to some of their affairs, and came to know us as black, Negro soldiers all the better. And so we got a lot of a relationship with the people there in South Wales, which made us feel real good, cause we was helping them, cause they was almost destroyed and they knew that. They had to have help. They had to make, it didn't make what difference what color you looked like because they almost conquered by the Germans. So here we came to their rescue, fighting for freedom. INTERVIEWER Um, just briefly tell me a little bit about some of the actions you saw. LEWIS CONN All right from South Wales I was ( ) what, equipment that we ( ) all the way to where we had the landing docks in order to go across the English Channel. Again one of the worst experiences I've ever, and I, that's why maybe I don't go back now. Water, don't show me no water, cause it's like when I see it I get sick. At that time, ( ) D-Day invasion, we were about maybe six to eight weeks behind the first two or three waves of the first groups before we land, we, we was docked to go across the English Channel. Well that time the English Channel was still really rough far as the sea is concerned, so when we hit the boats again, the second day out, we all became ill again, seasick. Lost a lot of energy and so forth and so on. So when we got, and we did land, our first experience when we got almost to the beaches, and I remember around Omaha and other beaches which we did land, D-Day was maybe about a week or two or three weeks on, but you could see the evidence of the slaughter. You could see evidence of the landing boat torn to pieces and you could see evidence of, just the beaches was just full of all kinds of debris. We didn't see any humans floating as people but we saw remnants of where they had been buried. You could see where people were slaughtered. So, when we hit the beaches, and when we regroup, then that's when we fanned out and ordered to make our desire and get and start the movement of branching out. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about the first time you actually ran into the enemy and were in combat. LEWIS CONN The first time we ran into enemy, I can't call the little towns but, maybe about three or four days after we landed and we got with the second army. That was our support, we were support for our group the second army the seven eighty-four tank battalion with the seven fifty-eight, seven sixty-first. And we were what you call the light tank outfits. And our tank that we had, we had two Cadillac motors in it, very powerful. So that's to penetrate, and they would run sixty, sixty-five miles an hour. But behind us we have what you call the backup units with the medium tanks, with the ( ) only we had the little thirty-seven millimeter. So we were what you would call what, the penetrating group. Go out and make contact with enemy. Hope you make it back. Now if you don't we know the enemy is out there and then we send out the big boys, cause we know the Tiger Tanks are there. So that's when we encountered our first enemy was we spearheaded in the gap going ahead toward Paris. Went up, went up what we call on the right flank following the English Channel. So we were very successful. We lost a lot of men. Naturally we supported the infantry group. And what was so, uh, hurt me so, really, when I saw movie that was made in which Mr. Steven Spielberg, I think it was Finding Private Ryan, I think what, I think that was the name of the movie. Finding Private Ryan. Then he made, and the infantry who fought, and had on that signal, was called the Screaming Eagles. That was the group my outfit supported. And when them Germans would drop those eight-eights and shoot those guns, they had no foxhole to jump in, they'd jump in our tanks for support and jump among them. We were all fighting together. When I saw it in the movie I didn't see anybody that looked like me, just like nobody was there but them. I say please tell them to call me. Please tell me to redo it. Please tell ‘em I got darker ( ). Please tell ‘em I do a little bit more research. We was there. Finding Private Ryan. All through those little towns supporting that group. And when they ventured off to find Private Ryan, we kept on to the right, cause that where I, uh, now we almost got to Paris. We going to liberate Paris, they had told us. But, came from high command, when they found out we was, what number, black tank outfit, we got orders, don't come right, turn left, regroup, and stay on the front line. So when we got the news, we were devastated, cause we thought we going to walk down, what, the Champs-Elysées, we thought we were going to celebrate a little bit. Here we had conquered, had lost a lot of men, had fought, but we were diverted away from the celebration. And it hurt us. We had a lot of young men in our outfit deserted. We never did see them any more. We don't know whether they got with the French people and stayed there or they killed themselves. We don't know. We just had to call up extra recruits in order to fulfill, cause we get up in the morning and call roll call and somebody be missing. We didn't have time to go find ‘em, cause you had what, orders what, to move on. And that's what, ( ) again, here we still fighting, segregated. Here we fought and maybe get a little, what, celebration. Nope, diverted. And so, what are we fighting for? I don't know what desire we had, what desire I had, but I say I got a family, I got to make it back home. INTERVIEWER Um, with, with all the stuff that you went through, not only, um, fighting the Germans but, it seems, fighting your own army as well, would you say that the experiences of black soldiers in World War Two, um, pushed forward social reform at home after the war? LEWIS CONN I think it had a great desire on maybe who maybe looked at what we had accomplished and what we went through. Maybe give ‘em a little more momentum to see, well let's fight just a little harder, because look what they have done. And I'll try to erase what we are here this discrimination and segregation, that we are one for all, all for one. Now's the time don't we are in a lot of trouble. And have a lot of desire we have show that we are citizens of the United States, we should be treated equally, we should given an equal opportunity, those who can do or not. And therefore we had the desire. And ( ) that's we had a lot of men in our outfit like I told you were recruited off predominant black, we didn't call them black universities, colleges then, we just called Negro school. Well, by us having already the desire to want an education, well we wanted an education cause we wanted to come back in the various communities what, to help our other what, brothers and sisters that was denied and was segregated. To uplift ‘em. So it was just in us to, to what, to maintain that momentum, to show that maybe somebody was here somewhere along the line. So that's what gave us the desire in order to keep going. And let's wait and see what's going to happen. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about, um, how the GI Bill helped you. LEWIS CONN In the GI Bill, I guess I'm a fortunate person, because I've told you about my little scholarship I had running track, playing basketball, working in the dining room, which they don't call as they do like the Hope Scholarship and all like that. And I worked even during the summer, summer school, that's how I made my little, extra money, to buy my little books what I need to buy, cause my people had no money, and they say, you can come home if you want to, stay down at work, which I did. But come home with my GI Bill, that gave me a little momentum. Now that time I had married and had a daughter of my own, my oldest daughter was born. So when I got back my wife was still there in school. So I decide, and that time they gave us an idea that they could get us some barracks and put on the campus, and we could use our GI Bill to further our education. Which I say well here that's what I've been waiting on. That's what I need. So that's what my desire was at that time, to get an education. Here I have something now what, to go upon, to look upon, to work upon without me being ( ) from my family, and have something if I use to the best of my ability and use wisely, then I can make it, and don't have to do what I see others doing by saying I'm segregated, I have no desire, nobody going to help me, and they give up, and they are hurting and was hurting at that, that time. INTERVIEWER Um, thousands of school kids will see this exhibit and this video. Um, what do you want to tell them about World War Two and what do you want them to remember? LEWIS CONN Well, World War Two, you can remember this. It was the United States declaring war on an enemy which they said was desirable in order they want to conquer the world as a dictatorship. It's called a different philosophy now as we have in, like, Iraq. But, this is what I would like for the young people to know. Regardless how you are treated and if you live in the country, do the best you can and do what you need to do to support your country and come back to your country in order to see what do I need to do, that I can help in order to what, work out the evils even in my own country, or uplift it in order that everybody can have what, freedom. And have representation one on one. So that was my desire, and that's what I would tell the young people, don't give up. You can make it and have your desire. You may have a little more difficulty than somebody else but look at yourself first. If you and only you keep you down only you can have a choice to go up or go down. Don't worry about what's around you, because they not going to help you too much. You've got to help yourself. If you help yourself, then other people probably will come to your rescue. But you've got to have the desire. And nothing is too hard for you to overcome if you got the objective, you got the desire, and you want to do it. And you can do it if you set your mind to it. And that's what I would like to give to them as I did my education. You like for me to expound after I left Fort Valley, on my GI Bill? INTERVIEWER I'm sorry? LEWIS CONN Would you like for me to give more explanation of how I got my other education? INTERVIEWER Um, actually, I've, I've got just a couple more questions, um . . . LEWIS CONN All right, OK. INTERVIEWER Tell me, uh . . . LEWIS CONN See what, what, I'm just asking you these questions, I hope we're not on TV. But what became very fascinating, which I think the students or somebody should know, once I left Fort Valley, a predominant black college, a Negro college, how I had to get my other education, and what I had to go through. ( ) I just got through fighting for freedom, and here I came back to Georgia and the United States was still segregated, and the education system and process. And they hit me again. Here I am on the GI Bill. They didn't have to give me anything. All they had to do, open up the door, let me in. Give me an opportunity to further my education. But I was denied, because I was still what, was a Negro. That's how I went to Atlanta University, in which I got my master's degree on administration through my GI Bill. When I finished Fort Valley College I applied Georgia Tech, University of Georgia. They looked at my resume, had to give what, my race, denied. Denied, because of my race. Here I am, born in Georgia, live in Georgia, fought from Georgia for the United States, but came back, here I had the GI Bill. Still, couldn't attend the university systems for further education. So the Georgia general center and the Georgia government said, this what we'll do. In other school you pick out that will accept you, like Atlanta University, and what we charge at Georgia Tech and University of Georgia, for our points, or whatever you want to call what you pay for how many units you want to take. Say for instance University of Georgia say was a hundred dollars a unit, and maybe Atlanta University say it was a hundred and fifty. The Georgia government general center would send a check to Atlanta University for the difference, for me attending, just as if I was attending the University of Georgia, they would pay the difference. And that's how I finished at Atlanta University. I paid just what I would've paid on the GI Bill going to Georgia Tech or University of Georgia, cause the government supplemented the university, and we were still segregated, which floored me again. Then I finished university, and I would call Atlanta University, then I had the desire to work on my doctorate degree, so I applied again. University of Georgia, Georgia Tech. Again I made application – denied. Then the general center passed a law saying that any Negroes that have a desire for further education we will pay the difference in the tuition and give you a one way round trip ticket by train, cause you couldn't ride by plane at that time, and we'll pay the difference that we did here in Georgia to the university of your desire anywhere east of the Mississippi River. Not west, east. So that made me to look out, and I picked out for some unusual reason, which my people at Atlanta University, my, people of my, instructors said, why not apply at Columbia University, Teachers College, cause they had a good administrator program there, which we did, and they filed application, and I was accepted, from Atlanta University, which I applied, they got all the coordinates together which they said. So I attended that for five summers. I said that's all right with me cause that's when they had the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees. So that gave me an opportunity during the summer, after I work and was teaching school, in order to go what, on a summer vacation like, get an education plus what, attend the ballgame, and have a vacation. So that's how I worked and got my six year certificate from Teachers College, Columbia University, which you call up on the Hudson. Wasn't too far from Harlem. And I'm very familiar with the Apollo Theater cause you just walk down on eighth avenue and you were right there at the Apollo. So that's where we'll go for recreation. But that's my educational background and more or less the people who had the desire, if they wanted to get further education, that's what they had to do. INTERVIEWER Um, just two last questions. Um, the first, um, what was the, there were of course a lot of effects on the, on the United States that came out of World War Two. What do you think was the, was the greatest, uh, effect, um, on the U.S. from World War Two? LEWIS CONN My desire from World War Two, where I look back at it and what we had to overcome, and what I was fighting for we called democracy against a dictatorship, but when we came back we had more trouble than the Germans had. For our equality, and for our rights, for all citizens. So I think that made our government take a different view of what we need to do in order to let the rest of the world know that we going to be a leader for what we said democracy, we've got to change our status here. We got to see what we can do so when we get our ( ) do we have what we can come back and say, do you see it, do you see our example, see how it works? I think it had a tremendous effect. And all during the rest of our what, development of our government, I think each time you had an administrator in, we got just a little more rights, a little more rights. Until you know 1968 in which my man ( ) the civil right act, which made everybody open their eyes. What do we need, what do we need to do to be what? And said we leaders, said this a democracy, this how it functions, this the way it should be? And I think all that alone, along with MLK, about him losing his life as he did, had a tremendous affect. And I hope we never get back in that rut again. INTERVIEWER Um, one last question. Why, um, black and white, everyone, why should future generations, um, remember yours? LEWIS CONN I think they should remember, and always, and hope, and really it starts, I say, from the family, mothers and fathers. Hope they would have the desire, because what you look like, what nationality? You should always say I'm human. And we're one. You're born, and nothing going to keep you here regardless how you look. You ( ). So they will look at that and say, why can't we live together, why can't we be one, why can't we treat one another right in our life? If they got that desire, then it starts in the home number one. Starts really in the early grades. You got to instill in these children as being one as a human. And you've got to maybe let the family, and mothers and fathers, whoever are in charge of these children, really come to let them know, this the way it's going to be. And being principle for school, I know they wouldn't want me principle now, I know a school cause, I know they wouldn't be allowed to take me cause even segregated days when I was principle, I was very adamant for what a desire in what I need for my students, regardless of who they looked like, which I was segregated, and teaching, but I got what I want from the board of education, cause I say, I deserve it. And I think that's what should be taught now. And everybody looks alike, everybody is alike, everybody should be alike, in regards how you think what you feel about people, nothing going to keep you here forever. Do let me know, please call me and I say, maybe I live to get old as Methuselah, which he said he lived, what, oh, ten thousand years old, so let me know and I come back again. INTERVIEWER All right, I think that will wrap it up. Thank you very much. LEWIS CONN All right. OK. INTERVIEWER Thank you very much sir.
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Extent:: 1:01:11
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
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