Oral history interview of Kenneth Larry Lowenstein

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Kenneth Larry Lowenstein
Creator:: Lowance, Lynn
Lowenstein, Kenneth Larry, 1919-2006
Date of Original:: 2004-05-19
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Edwards, Douglas, 1917-1990
Sullivan, Ed, 1901-1974
Landrum, Billy
Snowden, Kenny, 1915-1975
Rooney, Andrew A.
Stars and Stripes (Newspaper)
New York University
New York Daily News (Firm)
LeJeune (Transport ship : AP-74)
Kennesaw State University
American Red Cross
United Service Organizations (U.S.)
Cimarron Field (Okla.)
Location:: Northern Ireland, Neagh, Lough
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Kentucky, Hardin County, Fort Knox, 37.89113, -85.96363
United States, Ohio, Greene County, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, 39.81791, -84.04995
United States, Texas, Kelly Air Force Base, 29.37325125, -98.5663553693529
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: MovingImage
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Kenneth Lowenstein recalls his experiences during World War II. He recounts what motivated his pre-war enlistment, why he chose the Air Force and what his training was like. He was being recruited by the Royal Canadian Air Force who wanted airmen who had washed out of pilot training in the USAF. Because of his journalism courses in college, he was assigned to write articles for the Armed Forces publication "Stars and Stripes," as well as brief articles about his unit's personnel to be published in local newspapers back home. He describes his experiences as his unit followed and documented Patton's 3rd Army through Germany. The mission of his unit was to document captured German military artifacts to be sent back to the U.S. He describes having a German officer surrender an entire town to his unit's commanding officer. He recalls the issue of the pets of American personnel and their attempts at bringing them home after the war. He describes his post-war career, which
Kenneth Lowenstein was in the U.S. Air Force in Europe during World War II.
LYNN LOWANCE: Today is Wednesday, May 19th, 2004 and this is the beginning of an interview with Mr. Kenneth Larry Lowenstein at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta Georgia. Mr. Lowenstein was born November 20th, 1919. My name is Lynn Lowance, and I'll be the interviewer. Mr. Lowenstein, could you state for the recording what war and branch of service you served in. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Just a correction – my birth date is November 26th. LYNN LOWANCE: Oh, thank you. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: That's okay. And I was in World War II during 1941 through 1945. During my senior year in college before Pearl Harbor, because I believed strongly in what our government was trying to achieve against the Nazis and Germany, I enlisted as an Aviation Cadet, which in those days were “flying cadets.” There was a special group of cadets that were sent to special training. In fact, I was sent to Oklahoma City in 1941. It was November – I believe November 21, 1941 to take my primary training at Oklahoma City at a base called Cimeron Field, which incidentally was owned by a famous pilot at that time whose name now slips my mind. He was part of the Postengetti era of pilots. And from there I unfortunately washed out and not capable of handling the training as quickly as they wanted us to and re-enlisted again on the outside, because standing there were people from the Canadian Air Force and they wanted to take all us washed-out cadets who had good background in training and train them in their style up in Canada. Well, I accepted that assignment and was waiting to be sent to Montreal and the date was November – actually it was November 10th that I was to report. Unfortunately or fortunately, Pearl Harbor happened December the 7th and all foreign enlistments to our boys were cancelled so therefore I had to start all over again. I went back and took my test and went back to be a bombardier navigator – trained to be a bombardier navigator. I was sent to school and at a certain point and time they reported that they had enough bombardier trainers and so we were sent over to enlisted personnel at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas. Well that was going along fine. I was working there on the base newspaper and taking my basic training and so forth when a request came for aerial observers. That's the guys that flew those small air planes and spotted to the armored forces. Well, I qualified for that, and I went to Fort Knox, Kentucky to become an Armored Force Officer, however, about a week later they had filled that school up and we returned to the Air Force to be sent overseas since all original organizations had split up in various areas. So there I was back as an enlisted man being shipped overseas, and the first assignment that I got was in England. And from England we were dispersed to Ireland and sent to a base outside of a little place called Loch Nay, which is known as the largest eel lake in the world. It was built by the Irish and Captain Ellis as I remember was the name of the man that owned it. And we were on a little base there that trained B-24 pilots and I was assigned as the PR, public relations man, and assigned to be a reporter for the “Stars and Stripes” as a correspondent. LYNN LOWANCE: Had you had any experience with public relations or writing? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Oh, yeah, in college I took journalism courses and so forth. In fact, I worked for a newspaper and a magazine in college and I was experienced in that since I knew about writing and editing. LYNN LOWANCE: Where did you go to college? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: I went to New York University. In fact, when I came back to wait for my reassignment I worked for the New York Daily News in their promotion department and worked for at that time someone I hadn't known, Ed Sullivan. LYNN LOWANCE: Oh my – KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: What was it? The dance contest that he put on – what was that? And the boxing and so forth, so I got a taste of promoting situations in the newspaper field, which helped me a great deal to promote myself as journalist for the Army. And since very few people were in that area, particularly in these small units, I naturally got the assignments, which was great because all I did was go around writing stories about my fellow soldiers, my fellow airmen, and sent it to their local newspapers. And I guess I wrote some several hundred releases over the years. In fact, I was fortunate somehow; I don't know how I did it, I got flimsies, the flimsies is the second page of the release that I sent to “Stars and Stripes,” and I kept the flimsies. And I still have every single flimsy that I wrote. I got all those stories and I got a couple of samples of where they appeared in the papers. Actually, it does prove that I did write them and that they were printed somewhere. But it was very exciting to do that. And I was very fancy. I wore a correspondent label on my shirt and in order to impress people I didn't wear any of my stripes. I was a Staff Sergeant, but they thought I was a real correspondent like Walter Cronkite or Ed Murrow or something like that. I used to go around with all of the writers or the journalists that came over. For example, one time I was in Paris I ran into a fellow named Doug Edwards who later became very famous on CBS News and he wanted to take me for a drink at the Sank [?] Hotel which was in Paris and was the hang out for the journalists, the correspondents. I said “Look, I'm not really...” – He says “forget it” and he took his hat off – his officer's hat, put it on my head, put his arm around my shoulder and says “let's go have a drink.” So that's how I got in there and we had a jolly old time as we say. It was kind of fun. But I traveled with all my units into Germany. We were in several war zones. The unit that I was assigned to was kind of interesting. They put together a group of people who were experts in different phases in armament and so forth and trained us to go into Germany and to follow the Third Army, which was Patton's army, so as they picked up and found the air fields and the plants where they put all the stuff we were supposed to take them over, wrap them up, package them and send them back to the states at Wright Field, which is in Ohio and was a source of experimentation for all the Air Force. In fact, we came across a number of the first issues of the other thing that you – we have now, the airplanes. We sent all of that stuff back and all in my notes, I did stories on it. I've got all those stories and I've got all the notes on that. It's too specific to go through it right now, but we got that and sent it all back to the states and by that time we had gone into – we had started from Le Havre and went down Le Havre into Germany, through France into Germany into a little town called Neunkirchen. We went through all of that. Offenberg, Schweitzegun [PHONETIC], Nordingen, Heidelberg, all that, into the area of the German territory where Hitler had his wren's nest and so forth. And we followed them all the way down taking up this material. We found some very interesting things. For example, we found lipstick factories where phony –actually they were making cartridges. We found dummy airplanes that tried to get our bombers to drop bombs on them, but they never really got away with it. In fact one interesting experience was that we captured – four of us were out in the jeep looking for something, I can't remember what, and a German officer came up with a white flag and full dress uniform and surrendered the city, a little town to us. And the senior officer in our jeep was a captain and he didn't know what to do. He says “come on let's go in there and see what it's all about.” Well they surrendered about 200 people and they surrendered their guns and their cameras and everything and we took them over. And on the way back, we were driving, we ran into an infantry outfit and my captain says to the colonel, “There's a town we just captured; do you want to take them?” And he says “what are you guys in the Air Force doing in Germany, in this combat area? You're not supposed to be here.” He says “Well, this is where we were assigned.” He says “Well, if you ever come across a situation like this again, be sure to let us know because that could make a lot of trouble if we're unaware of what's happening.” But that was – so I captured a town. LYNN LOWANCE: [LAUGHTER] KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: I didn't get a medal for it or anything like that but at least nobody shot me. And that was kind of fun. We went back through Paris to London and spent some time in London. In Paris I was there for – the end of the war was over. My colonel wanted us to get pets. We had a lot of pets and they wouldn't let us take them back to the states. So he assigned me to go to Paris to write a story for the “Stars and Stripes” about getting our officers' pets and enlisted men's, their dogs or parrots or whatever, back to the states. So I spent three or four days in Paris on my own with a very good friend, by the way, that lives in Atlanta Georgia. His name is Billy Landrum. And I'd been looking for Billy Landrum and I could never seem to find him. There were quite a few Billy Landrums in Atlanta, but I never really caught the right one, but I'm still looking for him and hope to see him, if he's still alive before I go too. LYNN LOWANCE: What did you find out that they were doing about people's pets? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well, we wrote a story about it. It went into the newspaper and it was approved – I mean, the general public or the Army approved sending pets back home. So they were allowed to do that and the colonel was very happy because he had a very nice story. He wanted to get it back. But as I remember it was approved to do that and a lot of guys who brought their animals, pets, or whatever it is – no women just pets, although you could say women were pets. And, of course we had no fraternization rules at the time, but I can tell you now that nobody paid much attention to that except for in the Zone of the Interior now that it's over so to speak. But a lot of guys got married over there and some didn't, but we finally got back to the states and were sent to our homes and that's where – I had already had a bride at home. I was overseas for two and a half years and the problem was when I saw my bride for the first time after coming back after two and a half years I didn't recognize her. You know two and a half years we kind of grew up. She was – when we got married she was 20 and I was 22, but we managed to live together and bring up two little girls for some 30 years. Unfortunately, she passed away and a couple years later I re-married. But after we – we were brought up in New York state, did everything up there in New York and finally when she passed on and I re-married, my new bride said let's get out of New York; it's a busy, busy place, we want to relax after your being in the service. So we found Atlanta and we moved down here and now today we're married 31 years. So between the two marriages I have like 63, 64 years of marriage, two persons. Two different wives, two different agendas and it worked out beautifully. I was very lucky on both sides. LYNN LOWANCE: What was your first wife's name? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: My first wife's name was Muriel. And my second – my current wife's name is Joyce. And she takes good care of me. Us WW II guys have a few little aches and pains but she's been very strong and very helpful and has taken care of me through all of the situations. In fact, without her I wouldn't be able to exist. LYNN LOWANCE: How about your daughters' names? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: We have four daughters between us. LYNN LOWANCE: Okay. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: I have a Barbara and a Carol and she had a Penny and a Patsy. All but one is married. Well, one is a single parent; she has two children, Summer and Jesse, and my other daughter, Barbara, is a school teacher in Stanford, Connecticut. They do not have children. They opted against having kids, but she's a school teacher and has a lot of kids. My wife's first daughter is a renowned jewelry designer, very well known in the business, Penny Pervel. And she has two boys, both just graduated from Wisconsin – University of Wisconsin. And she has another daughter, Patsy, who lives in Jerusalem and has four children. Two of them, one is married, one is getting married and one has a child, so we're also great grandparents. She is going to Israel for the second daughter's marriage in June, and she'll get to see her great granddaughter for the first time and see the other one that got married, who she didn't know the husband either. But it will be a joyous occasion and she's going to enjoy it. Unfortunately, I'm not physically able to do the trip otherwise I certainly would go with her. But they'll take care of me at home. I'll get a babysitter who will take good care of me. LYNN LOWANCE: How about sharing some of your stories that you remember that you wrote for “Stars & Stripes”, some of the situations. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Oh, yeah. Coming to think of it, I brought some – this is an arm band that I took off one of the guys, one of the soldiers in the city we captured. But before that we didn't have Camels, cigarettes, anything like that, but we had what we called – what is the name of it? LYNN LOWANCE: Zipper? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Oh, the zippers. Yeah. Zippers. This is – I don't think you can smoke them. This is one of the cigarettes that we brought in the PX when it was 10 cents. And this looks – this strange, warped piece of metal, an interesting story about that is that I was visiting a buddy in one of the camps outside of London – LYNN LOWANCE: Do you remember his name? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Yeah, Kenny Sneldon [PHONETIC]. Kenny has since passed and he's my best friend actually. He's a wonderful guy from New York and he got a Dear John letter while he was there and some years later married one of the girls that was in his outfit that he met in London. So it turned out. They have a couple of kids. I lost track since he has passed on. But Bushy Park was where we were and he was assigned to the General's headquarters, General Eisenhower, and he worked for one of the generals there. But that piece of metal that I showed came from a V2 bomb. We got me a bed in one of the barracks and went out that night for some drinking and eating and whatever else that goes along with that and when I came back to the barracks the door of the barrack was lying on my bed. In other words, if I had been asleep or lying on my bed that door probably would have knocked me out and I wouldn't be here to talk about it. But that piece of metal – I went outside and I scrounged around and I found that piece of metal, which was, as I said, part of a V2 bomb, very interesting. We saw lots or heard lots of them in London and England and so forth. After a while we paid no attention to them at all. But one other thing, before going overseas we – I don't know if you can see this. LYNN LOWANCE: Uh-huh. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: But this is a cut down bayonet – we all carried knives with us. Never had to use it; thank you. But we always carried little knives with us, as well as our guns, and I still have that and so forth. Now when I got out of the service I got my medal – these are things that you wear on your uniform. There are small versions of the medals. I see one here is the ETO, European Theatre, the pre-Pearl Harbor one, the Good Conduct Medal, naturally, the North American Decoration Medal, the Germany Occupation Medal and Ribbon. There are six of them here and they look kind of cute and I like to wear it on Soldiers' Day so they say what's this for, Daddy, what did you do while you were in the Army? So those are some of the things that I have and I've given you some pictures which you may or may not want to put into this interview. But that was all part of it. LYNN LOWANCE: How about specific stories? Any others that you wrote that come to mind that were really interesting to you? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: There was one story if I remember. I got them all and I didn't bring all the stuff with me. The captured town was one of them. The other thing we came across was a piece of a machinery that was in a tunnel, must have been a mile long and I would say a mile high where they built aircraft to keep it from being bombed out. LYNN LOWANCE: Where was that? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: That was in Germany. LYNN LOWANCE: Okay. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: And then we found wind tunnels, things of that nature that they tested. There was one camera they said that it would shoot one thousand to one million frames per second and that story broke and that was amazing that they – the Germans were fantastic in their product that they got. Thank goodness that their leader was not that fantastic otherwise we would be speaking German today. But we kept ahead of – we really didn't know what we were doing. We just took orders and you know whatever it was and some of us were more lucky than others. I remember getting to Belgium just after the Battle of the Bulge. Thank goodness we were not in the Bulge because first of all it was very cold weather during that time so we kind of missed that. But I remember buying some little cookies and cakes in Luxembourg. We were in Luxembourg but we didn't do any – we were going through. The amazing thing is that coming down from Le Havre all the way down to Germany, through Germany, that we did things that were not necessarily, if I could use the word kosher, but we did them anyway. For example, when we came over the house – when we came over these homes that were just evacuated we would take – I mean we could take anything we wanted, silverware, glassware, clothing, anything that they could box up and send home and everybody did it. The fact of the matter, and this is not an exaggeration as far as I'm concerned, I saw a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force box up a whole house, crate it and send it to his home town. I don't know who it was, where it went or whatever, but I do remember having – it being put on a truck and being shipped out. You know we're all the same. It just depends on what army you're in. So that was kind of interesting. We were very loyal to each other. We helped everybody out and we did the best we could. LYNN LOWANCE: How many were in your unit? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: About 2500. LYNN LOWANCE: Oh, my goodness. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Yeah. It was a big unit. LYNN LOWANCE: And you all moved – KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: All moved together, yeah. I remember we stopped off at Mannheim, which is at the river I think across the bridge, and some Germans came out that owned a whiskey plant and they offered us champagne and everything in boxes. And we put it all on the truck, and of course we drank it as we drove along and you could see some of the GIs inebriated themselves as the trucks went on, as we drove through the place. And of course we did some silly things. Call them silly if you will; maybe they were worse than that. But as we drove through a town sometimes we'd see homes and houses and there was no compunction to take your gun and shoot a round of bullets at the house. Everybody – well, not everybody – we did it and it was not as sweetie pie as you think it was. LYNN LOWANCE: How did you – when you would make the journey what were your accommodations? Did you put up a tents or -- ? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well, mostly accommodations were the ground. LYNN LOWANCE: Okay. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: We'd find buildings. For example, in Nancy, France, we found a furniture factory. We just put our stuff on the ground and slept that way and lived that way and cooked that way and so forth. But you know, it wasn't easy but we were young, thank goodness, and we could take a lot of it and we went right along with it because we were on a victory ride so we felt a lot better – we even played softball. We had teams against the officers and the enlisted men, and we played volley ball, and we went into town and mixed with the natives and so forth. Things that we were not supposed to do but we did it, they all did it. LYNN LOWANCE: How were you received? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Okay. There was no shooting. They received us well because we had things that they wanted. Whether it be chocolate or nylon or whatever. We had food and we had other things and so they accepted that, cigarettes, you know, we were big into cigarettes at the time and we shared, you know, tit for tat so to speak. And it worked out okay for us. LYNN LOWANCE: How about your communicating back to the states with people? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: The only thing we had was V-mail, the old V-mail. A sad story that I have to tell is that I had to save – I was just newly married and I wrote to my bride every single day and I had saved all the V-letters she had and I put them together and have them in a box down in the basement of our first house and when we moved she threw them out. That was the story of my life in the war, every day. She didn't realize what they were and so forth but I've still got some good memories that I'm writing about in my book, which I titled Famous People Who Knew Me. It's going to be a memoir; first part will be the war, second part my civilian life, and third part [unintelligible] as we say. LYNN LOWANCE: Did you have any time off, any leave that you took? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Oh, yeah, when we were in the right location. We could go to Paris or Stuttgart. In fact, we were stationed outside of Stuttgart. And we could go to Munich. We could go down there and so forth. In fact, we'd go to Switzerland and we'd sneak across the border and go to Switzerland or something like that. But there was no danger. We went out, in fact, it was kind of silly as I remember and we'd go out anyway. We could care less if there were snipers out there or not. We didn't even think about it. By that time the German army was completely whipped and exhausted and glad to get it over with anyway. So they were not that dangerous. We lost no personnel that way at all. The only ones we lost were people being sent home or sent to another regiment or air force unit. LYNN LOWANCE: Were you involved in any combat at all? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Our unit got two, what they call little Bronze Stars to put on our medals for being and occupying – and being at war zones. In other words, we were considered in war zone even though we were not in any fighting or battle. We never saw any of that really. But we were in the zone so we were entitled or to identify we got these little Bronze Stars to put on our medals on the bars of our uniform and so forth. LYNN LOWANCE: Tell me about your training before you went over. What did you think about that? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well, when I went into the flying cadets it was just like going to West Point or any other major unit. We had underclassmen – we were underclassmen. We had upperclassmen that were second year men who did everything to us to make us break down and so forth and the training was very stringent. LYNN LOWANCE: What would a typical day have been like in training? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: It's interesting, I was a unit bugler so I had to get up early in the morning and then go back to bed, but we'd get up about 6:00, 6:30, have chow and then go to class and learn ground stuff and then when we were ready we got to take our solos. We went with our instructors a couple of times and when they felt we were ready to solo we would go to solo. Well, I soloed and I did fine. I soloed once; I soloed twice. The second time I soloed I wanted to practice what they call wheel landings, that's balance the wheels first and then land it. Well, I did that and I got a little nervous and that's one of the reasons I washed out. Instead of leveling my stick out to level the wings off, I pulled back so the nose of the plane went up and went out of control and dove into the ground about, I don't know, maybe a hundred feet or so before it stopped and I jumped out of the plane, hopped in – jumped back in again to turn the engine off on that. In the meantime, one of the officer's in a go-cart came out to see if I was all right, which I was, but the only thing that happened to me is that the bridge of my nose got a little bumped up. But otherwise I walked away from it and I was immediately put on suspension to go take what they called a test flight with the CEO to see if I could manage to get back. But by that time I was distraught, never having been in an airplane anyway before a nose dive. But I did manage to solo. And so they washed us out, as I said earlier, and never made it into pilot's training because by that time everybody was all set and then we had another [unintelligible] everything. But that was very exciting and after the solos we'd have classes and on the weekends we were allowed to go into Oklahoma City. In fact, each class was only, I think 13 week classes. It really went by fast. We had a big party dance and we had a base and we went to the dance and it was great. Our station – we knew where we were because we were between Oklahoma City – between El Amino and Yukon. Those are two towns, El Amino, Yukon in Oklahoma, and that was where we were to fly. That's where we took our training. And so if we were out of that area we were in trouble. But we managed – we could see bases – train tracks on one side and a lake – and a river on the other side so that kept us pretty good. But it was – in fact, I remember vividly getting up there on my first supervised solo and getting up in the air all by myself in this airplane. I was so excited I screamed. I yelled out “I'm flying; look at me!” I remember that. I did it all by myself. And I found out a lot of the other guys had that same experience, that it's so exciting to be able to fly. It was a wonderful experience, one of the greatest experiences in my life, flying a plane alone. LYNN LOWANCE: Had you been interested in aviation before that? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Not really. The reason I picked out the Air Force is because I didn't wanted to be drafted, but I wanted to get in before because I wanted to pick my branch of service, and if I picked the infantry, that's dirty work. But Air Force at least if you get killed quicker you [unintelligible] but at least you have a nice place to live and you got decent food. So that's why I picked the Air Force and unfortunately – or as I say, fortunately, I didn't make it. So it was a wild experience for a 21-year-old. LYNN LOWANCE: I also thought it was interesting what you were saying about the Canadians being there. Was that kind of normal that they would try and – KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Yeah, they figure that the men that were accepted for the Air Force in the United States were physically perfect. They had to be. The fact of the matter is they never figured standing next to some football player, great big men, and I was 145 or 146 pounds. And I passed and these big guys they were flunked out, high blood pressure, whatever. But I was perfect, you know, just a skinny kid. So first of all they got some people, good health and you had to have a minimum two years of college to get into the Air Force, this group, so we all had at least two years of college, which means that we were not stupid particularly, and they knew how strict the Americans were with their pilots because it was very tricky. I say we were right in being there because I saw good guys, a few of them I trained with, spin in testing out the spin and never pulled out and they went to the ground. As I remember, two guys went that way. And they were perfectly nice guys all from the northeast but it happened. So they figured that they'd make good pilots if given a little bit more of chance and opportunity. So they waited for us and there was nobody prohibiting them from signing us up, so we didn't really sign up we just said we'd go at the time we'd go, but as I say December 7th came before December 10th -- and I said November before I think. December 7th came before December 10th so all those things were cancelled and I had to start all over again, which was okay, too, part of the experience. But most of the time, with my background in journalism I ended up editing the base newspapers and getting special privileges like more rations of gas and so forth and I got around. I've got most everyone I've ever – the papers I wrote both in the Army and up until the time we got out. In fact, coming back on the boat, the USS Lejeune, a group of us edited a newspaper on board the ship, and they were ex-newspapermen, journalists who later on turned out to be – one was the editor, Sports Editor of the Year at Time, another was a feature columnist for the New York Times; the third guy – what does he do. Oh, he was a columnist for the Daily Mirror but they were all guys that went into the service. Like what's his name, the guy on 60 Minutes who I knew very well? What's his name? Rooney, Andy Rooney. Andy and I corresponded a couple of times. But they were professionals. I went back and got a job that I had for a couple of weeks with the New York Daily News because I had to take a [?] back after we got out of the service. But I was only paid $25 a week and somebody offered me a job at WOR in New York for $40 a week, and with a wife and baby, if you got $40 that was fairly good, which I took, and that's how I started, got involved in radio and television and broadcasting. LYNN LOWANCE: Specifically what else did you do for the rest of your career? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Are you talking about after the service? LYNN LOWANCE: Uh-huh. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: I was just going to say that we had fun in the service. I'll tell you one thing. LYNN LOWANCE: Okay. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: We had a friend who had one of those fairs. He lent us a wheel and we'd take the wheel out and we'd spin the wheel and have the guys put money down and bet on it. And what my buddy and I, Teddy Sloan [PHONETIC], God bless him, he was very good, what we did is when we – the money came in so fast there was one frank for me, one frank for – because when it all finished whatever the overload was we'd give it to the winner. But we kept pocketing one for us, one for them. So then we'd go to Belfast, which is where we were stationed and had a great ole night thanks to our buddies. But anyway after I got out of the Army I still wanted to get into journalism broadcast and it was very difficult because they'd say “what did you do?” I'd tell them what I did in the Army and they'd say “yeah, but what did you do?” You know, it's a difficult – what you experience in the Army as a young person is nothing. It didn't mean anything, you had to have experience. So finally you take a job as a clerk here and as an assistant here and so on and each year you get another deal and your resume gets a little better, a little better, and finally I ended up doing public relations for CBS where I was Director of Press Information for CBS Television Network for seven years. And also the Director of Public Relations for a major advertising agency called Major-Boles [?] and little by little got involved in Hollywood and a press agent for stars of the stage and screen, you know, like Elizabeth Taylor, Ed Sullivan – there are so many of them. LYNN LOWANCE: You mentioned Bob Hope. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Oh, I got a picture of Bob Hope. He was one of the USO guys. I didn't know Bob Hope. He was one of the few I didn't know. But Arthur Godfrey, I worked with Arthur for several years. The young people won't remember him but us older folks remember Arthur Godfrey. And they always say “Oh, yeah, my mother loved Arthur Godfrey!” So well, okay, they loved him, but when I worked for him I had a great time. And I was mostly in the public relations, publicity business for stars and stuff and later got into the business of publicizing products and so forth. So I had a fairly long run of it. And when I came down to Atlanta with my background in broadcasting I got a job at Channel 2 and from there I got a job at WXIA-TV and I spent my time there and created a show called The 11 Alive Community Affairs Awards, which is my baby and it's still going on 27 years later. They invite me every year to the show and sometimes introduce me, which I love. LYNN LOWANCE: Did you see any USO shows during your service? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Oh, I saw a lot of them. In fact – LYNN LOWANCE: Tell me about them. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well Hal Lloyd was one – I don't know the name of people – he was a tap dancer. I think he played Harold Tee in the movies years ago, and Bob Hope, and this gal, I think her name was Robin something. Anyway, I've got a picture of her. And I've got a picture of me with the whole group of the guys around a star – she was in the show “Glockimora,” whatever the name of that thing was. The name slips, but she was there and she was very big in those days. And then there were some other stars that would come up and we would see from the distance. of course. But they did their bit. LYNN LOWANCE: How many service men would they perform in front of? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Oh, I've seen them perform in front of thousands. Yeah, yeah, they did from 200 to a thousand. It depends on what their schedule was and I guess the USO entertainment group set that up knowing where different people were and were careful that they weren't in danger and so forth. But they did their job. The big fair, the Red Cross – the AeoroClub Nurses – not nurses from the Red Cross. They were always able – there was always that story that they sold donuts for five cents apiece. I don't remember them doing that. But the only thing I objected to that was the Red Cross gals always hung out with the officers not the enlisted men. LYNN LOWANCE: [LAUGHTER] KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: It was very simple. Why not? The officers had the officers club. We had a sergeants club, so they had a better deal than we did. But bitter as we were, we got over it of course. But I'll never forget, always the Red Cross and the GIs got shafted in favor of officers. So that's what I can say about that. LYNN LOWANCE: When it was time for you to come back home did you have much warning about that? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well, as the war progressed we were on the point system. You had to have so many points to get home regardless and every battle star was a five point, ten points, whatever. And so, you hoped to get the different battle stars, different medals to give you credit. And of course time overseas – time was something good. So we had a feeling about when it was coming. The thing was we wanted to be careful that we didn't – when we went to Germany that we weren't going to be sent to the east as most of our guys, you know, when they got out they just packed them up and sent them over to fight the Japs and so forth. But we watched it clearly. It didn't come as a shock when we were sent home. We did it gradually so just had to have patience and that was all. The war was over and unless you were going to be assigned to a German town or something like that with your unit you were occupation. LYNN LOWANCE: So you really didn't go home as units; you went home kind of individually? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Yeah. Well, not quite individually. LYNN LOWANCE: Or just a few? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: We came together but we were transferred into different groups because not everybody in one unit was ready to go. LYNN LOWANCE: Uh-huh. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Because of the numbers – because of having assignments they were worrying about what's going on over there. But most of us went together from my unit. Fort Dix is where we got off. It's a shame we were so anxious to get home we forgot to get the names and the numbers and all of the stuff from other people so we could – we were just glad to get home. You know two and a half years is a long time. That's what I tease about the current soldiers. They're over there six months, they're nervous already. Any month is a tough time, but we were there two and a half years and not knowing when would have an opportunity to get home because of the war. So I can understand their unhappiness, but two and a half years is a long time. LYNN LOWANCE: Did many people that you knew over there decide to be career military? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: No, everybody – the only one decided to go career military were officers. The enlisted personnel, I'm out of here. I don't want no part – we just dumped it and let it go and it's just as well. LYNN LOWANCE: Did you stay connected with any of the veterans groups, organizations? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well, I belong – I joined a thing called – what is it? I first joined the Foreign Legion – LYNN LOWANCE: VFW? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well, I joined the VFW, I joined the American Legion, but they had nothing for me. I was too busy trying to make a career for myself and I wasn't [unintelligible] . . . citizens first, veterans second [unintelligible] because we were veterans. We believed in the citizens first, veterans second. [BACKGROUND CONVERSATION – CANNOT HEAR MR. LOWENSTEIN] LYNN LOWANCE: Was that mainly the New York area or were they also -- ? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well, it was mainly in the New York area. LYNN LOWANCE: Okay. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: The civil intellectuals. LYNN LOWANCE: Let me see if – can you think of anything else that you wanted to talk about as far as your experiences over there? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Actually, I consider the fact that I returned alive without any injuries and so forth a very fine experience. A lot of men didn't come back that way but I was fortunate. I didn't place myself. I didn't have a father who was President or Secretary of State or anything like that to put me places so it was all by chance that I got there and that I got to different spots on my own. I worked for it, and I was just the same as anybody else. LYNN LOWANCE: Did you finish college before you left? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: No, I finished two years of college. I got a certificate in Business Management and I have some points from the second year too. But after that when I knew I was going to go in the service I didn't care what points I got. I failed courses and so forth. Now since I've been working for Kennesaw State University for Betty Siegel, the president, I'm going to get a degree from them. And I've asked them if I could get a degree with my two years and the two years credit for business – what they call professional – I forget what it's exactly in. But they said they're going to look into it and see if I can earn it. If they can they're going to graduate me on my 85th birthday, which – LYNN LOWANCE: Did you qualify for a GI Bill? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Not any more. LYNN LOWANCE: I just wondered if there were a time limit on it? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: I think there was. LYNN LOWANCE: [LAUGHTER] I think that's marvelous. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: After 62, I went to Georgia – LYNN LOWANCE: Oh, that's right. You don't have to pay. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Yeah. LYNN LOWANCE: That's wonderful. One of the questions that we have here, do you think that your military experience influenced your thinking about war or about the military in general? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Oh, yeah, I'm sure that it had a lot to do with my feelings. I'm certainly against war of any kind and I think I have the feeling that the war that we went to in World War II was a right war for us to go to where we had a situation there was anti-American, anti everything. And I'm convinced that we did the right thing. The other wars I'm not too sure whether they were right or wrong but if called upon I think that I would serve and do my duties as an American citizen. But I think war is a waste and I don't understand why we ever get involved in it. It's a losing game. Nobody wins. LYNN LOWANCE: Is there anything – we've got a few more minutes. Is there anything that you'd like to tell your wife, your children, just about yourself in general since this is being created for prosperity? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well, no, not really because they know me pretty well and I've got a lot of this kind of material that – I don't mean to brag. I like to show my pictures and my stuff that I collected and talk about it. In fact, as I said, I'm trying to finish this book before I leave this earth and a lot of it will be in there. As far as the first part will be my experiences in the war and the second part will be my experiences as a civilian, and I think it should be fun. I have a printer or a publisher who is interested in doing it and he will do it if I'll only get it done. That's the answer, getting it done. LYNN LOWANCE: If you were going to tell me one thing about yourself that you would describe yourself how would you describe yourself to me? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: How would I describe myself? Outgoing, fun-loving, not overly bright but a decent sort of guy. LYNN LOWANCE: Well, thank you so much for sharing all of this. It will be wonderful to get it down and get you a copy of it. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Yeah, that would be great. LYNN LOWANCE: Thanks. [pause] Mr. Lowenstein has thought of one more thing he'd like to talk about. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: I think that you find that I have a sense of humor and a good feeling about people. Strangely enough it's because of my father or the lack of having a father. Because not having a male to guide me I had to look to others and I had to look to others to get along with people. And to get along with people you can't be a bad guy; you have to be pleasant and nice and everything else. So I think my attitude is because I was brought up fatherless. LYNN LOWANCE: Did your father die? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Yeah, my father died at 38. LYNN LOWANCE: Oh, and how old were you? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: I was about 11 – 10 or 11. So you know, Boy Scouts were my leaders. I loved the Boy Scouts and I loved all of that stuff. LYNN LOWANCE: Did you have any brothers and sisters? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: I had a little sister. She's three years younger than I am. LYNN LOWANCE: Okay. Did your mother have to work after your father – KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: No, fortunately, my father was successful in business and left us to a point where we did not have to worry, neither my sister, myself, or my mother. In fact, all the money he left is gone. It was spent and there goes your inheritance. So the kids approved because they're fairly successful themselves. LYNN LOWANCE: And how old did your mother live to be? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Eighty-seven. LYNN LOWANCE: Okay. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Of course, she was in position up until about 85. She lived to be 87. I would hope to make 85 in November. So we'll see what happens. LYNN LOWANCE: And your sister is three years younger? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Yeah, she's 80. LYNN LOWANCE: Where does she live? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: She lives on Long Island. Great Neck, Long Island. LYNN LOWANCE: And what's her name? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Lorraine. LYNN LOWANCE: Okay. And her last name? KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Well, she's been married twice. Bucksmeyer [PHONETIC] is her last name. She lost her first husband in an accident. A roof fell on him and it was very unpleasant. We've finally gotten back together. We came apart over the years and we've grown to appreciate each other. It's nice to have that. LYNN LOWANCE: Wonderful. Thanks for adding that. KENNETH LOWENSTEIN: Thank you.
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/249
Additional Rights Information:: 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.
Extent:: 51:08
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Contributing Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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