{"response":{"docs":[{"id":"apm_marshall","title":"Thurgood Marshall before the court / by Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis","collection_id":null,"collection_title":null,"dcterms_contributor":["Ellis, Kate","American RadioWorks","National Endowment for the Humanities"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, 39.76, -98.5"],"dcterms_creator":["Smith, Stephen"],"dc_date":["2004-05"],"dcterms_description":["Web site companion to a radio documentary of the same name produced by American Radio Works. The site contains an audio file of the radio documentary, a transcript of the program, and essays on Thurgood Marshall, the Brown v. Board of Education case. The site also features a timeline indicating significant events in Marshall's life as well as national points of interest.","The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata."],"dc_format":null,"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":null,"dcterms_subject":["Segregation--United States","African Americans--Segregation","Courts--United States","United States. Supreme Court","Lawyers--United States","African American lawyers","Judges--United States","African Americans--Civil rights","Civil rights--United States","Civil rights movements--United States","Civil rights workers--United States","African American civil rights workers--United States","School integration--United States","Segregation in education--United States","Brown, Oliver, 1918- --Trials, litigation, etc."],"dcterms_title":["Thurgood Marshall before the court / by Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis"],"dcterms_type":["Collection"],"dcterms_provenance":["American Public Media"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/marshall/"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":null,"dcterms_medium":["instructional materials","timelines (chronologies)","transcripts","sound recordings","articles","documentaries and factual works","letters (correspondence)","photographs","black-and-white photographs"],"dcterms_extent":null,"dlg_subject_personal":["Marshall, Thurgood, 1908-1993","Brown, Oliver, 1918-1961"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_597","title":"Oral history interview of Buell Wallace Gifford","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Japan, Naha Air Base, 26.19065735, 127.653682387641","Japan, Okinawa, 26.53806, 127.96778","Philippines, Mindoro, 12.8692137, 121.134575750245","United States, Arkansas, Faulkner County, Conway, 35.0887, -92.4421","United States, California, Monterey County, Fort Ord Military Reservation (historical), 36.65278, -121.80056","United States, Hawaii, 20.78785, -156.38612","United States, Texas, Smith County, Camp Fannin, 32.42367925, -95.2112318132556"],"dcterms_creator":["Gantsoudes, Lillian","Gifford, Buell Wallace, 1924-2006"],"dc_date":["2004","2014"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities","Segregation--United States","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Area","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Ocean","Bronze Star Medal (U.S.)","Silver Star","United States. Army. Infantry Division, 96th","United States. Army. Infantry Regiment, 382nd. Battalion, 3rd. Company I"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Buell Wallace Gifford"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/597"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["streaming video","Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["51:41"],"dlg_subject_personal":["Skelton, Red, 1913-1997"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_209","title":"Oral history interview of Lewis S. Conn","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882","United States, Kentucky, Hardin County, Fort Knox, 37.89113, -85.96363","United States, Louisiana, Rapides Parish, Camp Claiborne (historical), 31.07056, -92.54889","United States, Texas, Bell County, Killeen, Fort Hood, 31.13884585, -97.715048633985"],"dcterms_creator":["Kyle, Glen","Conn, Lewis S., 1922-2010"],"dc_date":["2004"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Lewis Conn recalls his childhood during the Depression in Georgia, as well as his service in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. His father owned a drugstore near Atlanta University, but lost it during the Great Depression and died soon after. His grandfather was given a cabin in which to live in Coweta County (Ga.) by a Mr. Todd. He recalls his education, where he faced segregation and hardship, but also found support and opportunities. He recalls how living near Atlanta University influenced his desire and motivation to get an education. He describes how his principal, Mr. Lewis, helped him get a working scholarship for college. He describes hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor and recruiters who came and took 95% of their young men to Warner Robins. He describes how German POWs could go in to the Post Exchange and the bars, yet black soldiers were barred. He recalls his response to the conditions black soldiers had to face: \"We did what we had to do.\" He also explains that some soldiers rebelled and were sent to prison. He discusses Eleanor Roosevelt's praise of blacks and how it affected their opportunities to go into combat; until that time all blacks were either cooks or in transportation. Even after they had become soldiers, they ceased to be soldiers when they went into town, yet they still felt determined to prove they could do their jobs. No blacks could become senior officers and all black units had white officers; Conn relates that some of them were good. Even aboard ship, segregation continued and he also faced severe seasickness as well as the threat of U-boats. They found a very different reception in Wales, where they did not face segregation. About six weeks after D-Day, they found themselves landing at Omaha Beach after another rough crossing, where he describes the evidence of the fighting that had happened there. He reports that his unit was scheduled to go in to liberate Paris, but was diverted away from the celebration and that many deserted. On coming home, Conn remembers that after fighting for liberty, they still faced the same discrimination. He describes how the Georgia General Assembly would pay the difference in tuition for blacks to go to an out of state college; Conn opted to go to New York to go to school and felt that going to watch the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees was a bonus. He emphasizes the importance of education and family.","Lewis S. Conn was in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.","INTERVIEWER Ok, um, just, uh if you could give me your name and where you are from. LEWIS CONN My name is Lewis S. CONN, and I was, live in Atlanta, Georgia. INTERVIEWER Um, how long have you lived in Atlanta? LEWIS CONN Off and on, approximately maybe eighty years. INTERVIEWER Um, where did you grow up? LEWIS CONN Well, I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. I stayed here until, approximate, around when I was six or seven years old which I lost my father. We, we used to own a drugstore over by the Clark and (Gownan) University Center as we call it now, which around Morehouse College. Well, during the Depression we lost everything - my father did - and then he passed, and my grandfather took over. Well during the Depression, and that you had no security on your money that you put in the bank, so we had no money to run anything. So my grandfather was born in Grantville, Georgia, Coweta County. So my grandfather said, well, look like we can't survive, that's what he told my mother, which I have a sister. Said, well what you all want to do? Say, I'm going back to the county where I was born, and I believe I can make it rather than just eat soup everyday, cause we had no food stamp. So they would bring soup and (rankle) the bell. You came out with your pots and your pans, and that's what you had around lunchtime, and that was the end of that. So that's four hour (prak and raves) in the country, Coweta County, around Grantville, Georgia. But I tell my students, which I'm still instructing, well the state of the day, that I'm a country sheep and a city slick. INTERVIEWER Uh, tell me why you say that? LEWIS CONN Because I have and give you some ideas about how maybe people live in the country, here we call it in the rural area, plus I can give you some ideas what I came back and forth to the city so I could keep up with what was going on in the city, how city people live and what they did. And therefore I have ideas about both city and the country. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me, tell me just a little bit about growing up back in those days. LEWIS CONN Back in those days naturally we were segregated. So naturally going back to the country we were still segregated, and so we had in it noth-, we had nothing. So, my grandfather knew a person he grew up with, which was a white person named Mr. Todd. So going back to the country we had nowhere to stay, but he knew Mr. Todd. So Mr. Todd said, well, Gus - that's what they called my grandfather, Gus (Ond), his name was (Guster Ond) - say, I'll let you have a little one log cabinet on one of my farms. Said I'll just let you stay there, free of rent, cause boy that's when you went to the country, if you had a farm, and you leased it out, normally they would charge you according to how many acres you had by the bale of cottons. No money was exchanged in those days. Whatever you had or whatever you produced then you gave it back to your landlord and you with the run up which you were the leasee, and that's how you stayed on the land. But my grandfather knew, cause we had no money, so he just stayed until maybe you can get yourself adjusted, as long as you want to. So it was a one log cabinet, just one big room. So with my sister, with myself, and with my grandmother, and with my grandfather, we stayed in the one room log cabinet. Now if I give my sister some privacy, I remember my grandmother had some quilts, so I remember her running a little string across to give my sister a little privacy, and that was her little room. And then I had a little place in the log cabinet, plus my grandfather and grandmother. Well we stayed approximately two years in that log cabinet in Grantville, Georgia. INTERVIEWER Um, did you go to school during that time? LEWIS CONN Yes. When I left Atlanta I was in, think the fifth or sixth grade. So when we got to Grantville, Georgia, the nearest school to us was what we called Moreland, Georgia. That's approximately three miles from where we had the little log cabinet. So we walked to school, although we had buses, but buses wasn't for the Negroes, cause we were segregated. So if you wanted to get an education, you had to walk to school. But the Moreland school only went to the fifth grade. So when we finished the Moreland school, and by that time we finished the Moreland school, my grandfather then had moved to what we call Meriweather County, which was right on the border of Coweta County. So when we moved out from Grantville, Georgia, out of that particular area, then I went to what we call the Lutherville Junior High. At that time you went to the eighth grade. And when I finished Lutherville Junior High, which was in Meriweather County, then Grantville had what we called the senior high. But for black people, Negroes, you only went to the eleventh grade. No twelfth grade. So I had three more grades that I want to accomplish. But where we were living it was five miles from where we stayed to where I had to attend the school. So for approximate three and a half to four years I walked from where we lived to Grantville High School, and the first time I attended Grantville High School it was a church. It wasn't a building. They had a church, and they called it Grantville High School cause the high school for the whites naturally you couldn't attend. But we had a bus that would run about a quarter of a mile away from where we lived, but I couldn't ride the bus, cause it was segregated. But we knew the people – my grandfather did – who drove the bus. So on some bad days it would be cold, freezing, raining, and we used to rabbit hunt together. The people who used to drive the bus used to come and use our rabbit dogs, cause we had the best rabbit dogs in the (hearing), so we rabbit hunted together. So they took a little chance and when it was real bad they said, and stop the bus, and it was muddy and raining, whatever it is, and I could stand right on the steps of the bus, and they would said, I'm looking for nobody to say nothing. And I picked up this person or whatever it was, so I got a little break there. But most of the days I walked. And I did that for three and a half, approximate, four years. Five miles there. For doing the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday that my grandfather would let me attend school. When I would leave like in the wintertime and the fall the chickens were still on the roof – people don't know about chickens used to be roostin', they didn't get up until sunup but I was on the road walking, heading to school. When school was out around three or three thirty, by the time I got back home the chicken had gone back to roost. So the only time I saw the chickens when I was going to school in the wintertime was on a Saturday to Sunday. Because other days when I left it was dark, when I got back it was dark. Now remember this, we had no electricity. No electricity. Well I attended the school in Moreland we had just lamps. We had potbelly stoves as they called them. Then sometime you had coal – you may of be lucky – but you more or less went to the woods and you got wood. And burned wood to kinda keep warm one way at cold days. For attending Grantville my last year, they finally put up a little school there, and they called it then Grantville High School. So this is when I finished, and I was only boy in the graduation class. And I do have documents to show where I think we had nine or ten students, but I was only boy, because nobody else wanted to walk. Nobody else had the desire for some reason. And then nine times out of ten they were staying what we called on Lee's farm, so they had to work. They couldn't attend school, cause if they didn't work then the landlord would run ‘em off the farm. Because that's how you stayed, you had to work, and in order to stay in the shelter they provided for you, and that was your rent, and that was the way they provided for you. Some places, rural area, they called ‘em camps, or groups where people stayed together and therefore you stayed on a person's farm, and you stayed there as long as you worked for them. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me why it was so important for you to get that education. LEWIS CONN Well for some reason a little like, by being maybe growing up around the Atlanta University Center as we call it now, I always had the desire to want go to Morehouse. Morehouse, I could see ‘em you know there, developing. So I guess by me being around an education center, it maybe dawned upon me, this is the way to go. And that's what maybe instilled in me, and why I pursue what I did regardless nobody wasn't going to turn me back. And I wasn't going to be and let no segregation or anybody keep me back. I will make my own what desire. And if I had the desire I believe I could maintain it which I was able to accomplish it. INTERVIEWER So you did end up going to Morehouse? LEWIS CONN No. INTERVIEWER No? LEWIS CONN I had the desire coming from Morehouse, around AU Center which we had Morris Brown, also Atlanta University. Now Clark College as they called it then was out from Atlanta, but now they are all in what we call a complex. Now it's Clark Atlanta University Center as we talk about it today. What all the groups was there, then I would always see people from the colleges and we had the little drug store, and so they would come in and that you'd get hotdogs and milkshakes and things like that, and that's how we made our, our living when my father here that in my grandfather passing so it would just make a desire that I wasn't gonna plough mules all my life. I wasn't gonna pick cotton all my life and that's what kept me going and I desired, and that's what gave me that desire to continue. INTERVIEWER And uh, after you graduated, uh, then what? LEWIS CONN Now, after we graduated, least after I graduated, by being the only boy, then my grandfather said, boy, what you want to do, you know we don't have no money. I say, I don't want to plough no mule. He say I go get you another one, I go get another mule. And we'll go lease, what, more land, and we'll grow more cotton and corn. He feel what we have more revenue, we'll have more money. I say, no sir, I say I don't want to do that. He say what you wanna do? So he got in touch with my principle, which was Mr. Lewis at that time. I played basketball (whither) we played, and I was a pretty good basketball player, that's the way they, they said, and I could run track. I'd developed myself running track running rabbits. Cause when I would rabbit hunt, and we only had a few shells, and they was very expensive – they cost a nickel, but a nickel now, back in those days, was like maybe five or ten dollars today. So in order to conserve my shells, then my dog would run the rabbit, once they were running them so long, rabbit get tired, he start out across the open field, I would see him come out the woods, I would outrun the rabbit and catch him. So I'd have to use my shell. And I'd just take and hit his head right on a rock, or hit his head sometime with my fist, then I had me something to eat. So that's how I got that desire. I figure I had some kind of talent. We didn't have much in high school to really offer. So my principle came and talked to my grandfather, said, well I believe he's a pretty good basketball player and I know people at Fort Valley College at that time, that maybe I can get him a working scholarship, but they didn't have the Hope Scholarship that you had then, didn't have the GI Bill, in which I was given after I got out, done, we didn't have all that. So, he say you know we still don't have anything, you don't have anything to wear. I say, well, whatever I have, I just take that. So I had one suitcase. So I had two pair of pants. I had one pair of brogan shoe. I had one pair dress shoe. I think I had two, maybe, maybe two sets of underwear. I don't remember having any toothbrush. We had no electricity. I don't remember having any toothpaste. I didn't even know what toothpaste, I didn't know what it was. I didn't know about, nothing about soap, and we made our own soap, cause we weren't able to buy soap that you sell in the store. We made what you call potash soap. That from lard off the hog, and you put potash in and you cooked it. And after you had soap from that. So what I had would fit in my suitcase. So we went on to Fort Valley, and he knew people, and they asked and they said, well, he's a pretty good student. Don't have all the facility in the school but I think he would do all right. They say, well we'll give you working scholarship, and we have two open for you. Said now one you can help and clean up the buildings once we have the classroom facilities after the class has ended and you can do what they needed. Then in those days they had what you call (nine horse). Now they served food, cause you ( ) food, as we have today. So they cooked the food for the students, served it in the dining room, breakfast, as they called it - lunch, and dinner. They say now he can work in the dining hall, but he have to get up before the sun, because at daybreak we have to feed and serve the student, and maybe he doesn't want that. I said that's what I want. They say why you want that. I say I've been getting up before sunrise ever since I've been big enough to know ( ), because I had to get up and milk the cow, I had to feed the hogs, I had to feed the mules to get them ready so we could go to work when the sun came up, and my granddaddy, boy, said boy go to work. I said that's no problem for me. Then I thought about, that's where the food is. I don't have no money. I don't have nobody sending me any money. How would I have a nickel or dime to go buy anything. But I'm in the food. I'm a have me something to eat. And I hit it just right, cause I had to worry about having anything to eat. So I went to the dining room – that's where I worked. So while I was working there my first year her name was Ms. (Frambroke) which was a dietician, she made me headwaiter. She had a headwaiter, but he graduated my first year. So I was just a freshman. I was punctual, and I was always there, you know, just doing what I need to do, stay late. She said, well you're my headwaiter, so as being headwaiter I was responsible for the whole dining room of operation, along with taking care of what we call when the president had that guest, and I was a headwaiter when the food was cooked, to go to the president's house to serve the guest. And that's what I had, and that's how I got to Fort Valley. INTERVIEWER Um, reading your, your other, the transcript from your other interview, um, it's a very interesting, uh, take on it, tell me, tell me, um, about when you and your friends heard about Pearl Harbor. LEWIS CONN Well, I remember we were in what you call old Jeanes Hall on Fort Valley State College campus. It was a wooden building. It's no longer there. It was destroyed by fire. This was where the men stayed, cause all those other two buildings were for the women. So, they don't have it like you have now, no cohabitation, no, you, co, co-habitating you was goin' on that we have today, so you had only one building Jeanes Hall. And we had potbellied stoves at three levels, and we burned coal on the three levels. So, I remember one evening, I forget when it was, that we finally got the word that we was attacked by the Japanese in Pearl Harbor. And we have thought nothing of it, you know, we just say hey, here's another, uh, country attacking the United States, and, well, everybody went along their normal way, and we didn't even take for granted that nothin' gonna happen. But we said was a long ( ) and wasn't normal before we started seeing they started recruiting you know, and started getting people and having them come and recruiting for the army. And that's when it dawned upon us maybe they're coming here next. And which finally they did. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about how you got into the military. LEWIS CONN Well, they came to Fort Valley State College. And they said, and called out all the men, and said line up. They came from Warner Robins and they brought the buses and trucks cause they say we gonna get you all and take you back, or we're gonna get some of you. So they notified us when they was coming to the campus and we all had to be ready to fall out, you know like we was in the army cause they was coming to recruit us. Cause if you didn't, then you were put in jail. So they came to Fort Valley College at that time, and we all was there lined up, and they looked at our resume for us (men) and saw you know I played basketball, ran track, so ( ) that was the first one they say, fall out, fall out, they figure, you, you goin'. You figure you were in good shape and you were an athlete, whatever it is. But they ended up taking approximately maybe ninety-five percent of the young men off the campus, and taking them to Warner Robins and all what, to recruit them and put them in the army. INTERVIEWER And, and what did you think about that? LEWIS CONN Well, at that time it didn't dawn upon me about what it was all about. I just knew I was a U.S. citizen, and I said hey, I'm a U.S. citizen and I'm gonna fight. And they want me to fight, and that's the law, what can I do about it? If I don't do it, they say jail time, so I said, let's go. And it didn't dawn upon me till a little later on ( ) the army. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me a little bit about your, um en, enlistment, um, and training experiences in a segregated army. LEWIS CONN Yes, this is where I, it started dawning upon me and maybe the other Negro soldiers. We were recruited and when we left Warner Robins then we were went to Fort Benning. And that's where they took us there to give us further examination and maybe to give us what we call a IQ test or other test in order to see maybe what unit they would like to maybe put us in. So when we got to Fort Benning, then naturally that's when it hit us, we saw a lot of other white soldiers, but here we was on Fort Benning, and we went to our little segregated place they had for all blacks. Then we found out in another part of Fort Benning, here you had all the white soldiers. But when we get, and we be goin' through in order for examination, then they had a line for the blacks, had a line for the whites. Even when you went to get your uniform, you had a line for the blacks, you had a line for the whites. And that's when it, we started talkin', say, look, what are we doing, uh, uh what is all of this about? We getting ready now, what, to risk our lives or, they're recruiting us or go fight for freedom as they say, so to speak, and here we just like outside, here we come inside, figure, this is the U.S. army. Should be controlled by the federal government. Why shouldn't it be one for all and all for one? And that's when it started dawning upon us, we got a little problem here. But we figured least we had to do what we had to do, cause I had no other recourse. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me if you would about the instance, uh, with the, uh, German POWs. LEWIS CONN That dawned upon us. We heard about it before we left Fort Benning, but you really hadn't got into a war see too much with the Germans at that time, but once they put us in the unit, which was a tank outfits, then we were sent to Fort Knox, which is in Kentucky. Fort Knox I think is still there, I think is the army unit training center as of today, last time I heard, and where all the gold is placed, that's what I heard too. We tried to really find it but we never could find where they placed all the gold. But we figure that's where all the gold was established and put in Fort Knox. But that was a training ground for tank units. But when we got to Fort Knox, then they had captured a lot of the German prisoners. And when we would go to the PXs, after training, whatever it is, for recreation, or they had the theaters on the fort. Then we saw the Germans with the outfits they had given them to distinguish them from the white soldiers. Then we started asking, who are these people? And they told ‘em these were the German prisoners. Well they could socialize with the white GIs, but they wasn't admitted to socialize with us. They could go to the PX and sit down and drink beer, do whatever you wanted to do with the white soldiers, then they could attend the theaters. Well we still had to go to our little segregated PX. We used to had to go to our little segregated movies. And that's when it started being rebellious against some of the recruits. And we had a lot of men was sent to prison. Lot of them, uh, uh, what, I think, POWs, what it, uh, POA, what, you, in other words they escaped. And they was captured, so when they brought ‘em back they put ‘em in prison. And this ways it dawned upon us in Fort Knox. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me a little bit too about, uh, the idea of, uh, putting blacks into combat units, and, and how that, how you got into a tank unit. LEWIS CONN Well, this came about, I think, and I do have documentation here, which, one of the predominant Negro papers wrote an article which Ms. Eleanor Roosevelt at that time, President Roosevelt's wife, she commended us for being recruited and maybe being segregated, and would have a willingness to maybe fight without being too rebellious at that time. So whoever interviewed her wrote the article, and he named it Eleanor Roosevelt Niggers. And I have the documentation right here to show it, where he went on to express, and she expressed, why can't we let these Negro soldiers maybe train what they should be capable of fighting in tanks outfits, shooting arms, and just like anybody else. So that's when they organized the tank battalion. And I became part of one called seven eight four, seven eighty-four tank battalion. INTERVIEWER Um, at this, when they, when they, uh, formed a tank unit, and you were, you were assigned to it, and you started training, um, did the comradery, uh, you felt with your, uh, fellow, fellow soldiers, start to, um, really make you take a, a pride in what you were doing, placed within the context of that segregated military? LEWIS CONN It gave a little more, I say, desire, because we knew what had happened with other Negroes that were recruited, and they were placed in what were called the cooking units or transportation units. I mean, things that maybe nobody else desired. You figure, they not capable of doing or participating in. So, it say, well, they are recognizing us a little bit. That maybe we are capable if you only give us a chance. So we took it in heart and say, we're gonna do it. But within that whole development of our tank outfits at that time we were still segregated, so all of the officers was white. No black person or Negro could become, in that tank outfit, a captain, a captain, a first lieutenant, a second lieutenant. Now you could become a master sergeant, I will call a technical sergeant. That was your highest ranking at that time. So the people who was over you, who could really control you was still what? White, and we were still segregated to leadership. Well we didn't let that get next to us, cause here we were put in a unit, and we were going to make the best of it, and could we show, and we were going to show, that we could fight and do ( ) as well as anybody else if we were only given a chance. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me a little bit about your opinion of the officers that were placed with you. LEWIS CONN Some as we will have in any situation were very good. They understood, and more or less it was amazing to me, and I can remember Captain, Captain, whew, Captain (Bertstrand), I can remember his name. He was from a, a capital of South ( ), I can remember that very well. So he was from the south. He, he was placed as Captain, Captain over the unit and which he was controlling, so he was, he had a desire and he was pretty gentle. But we had other lieutenants that was in our outfit, and they gave us a hard time. And we had to take it, and we was punished a lot, because what we said and maybe they heard us say, and they took it out on us because they were saying we were violating a ( ) justice. Well we had to go along with it, those who were what they did had to serve time in, in the prisons camps whatever years and they had to put on extra duties and we went along with that. But overall, the captain that we had, he was pretty reasonable, pretty reasonable. Because I figured he said if we had to fight and we had to back him up or back them up then everybody OK had to work the other, and it came out pretty good. INTERVIEWER Um, so they, so you were eventually shipped with your unit over to England, and . . . LEWIS CONN Well, from Fort Knox, then we went to what we call camp in Louisiana, and from the camp in Louisiana, Claiborne, Camp Claiborne in Louisiana, then we stayed there awhile, then we went all the way out then to Camp Hood, Texas. I think it's pretty close to where the President stay in that particular locale as I speak today, but Camp Hood I think is still there. So it was a training unit and ground for tank outfits. They land ( ) and the maneuverability that you did in order to train. And this is where we had our last training at Camp Hood, Texas. Now if we run along again, staying in those very little towns, here again we were segregated. So once they let us go to town we had to quit thinking we was American soldiers. What, we were Negroes, so you had to go what called what? Negro Town, or Blacktown. You couldn't be caught uptown going in any other establishment – you would be locked up, although you had on a soldier. I (swear), as far as they were concerned they were going to enforce the law, although you training to go fight for freedom, to make it free for everybody here to have freedom. But still, they was, they was against you, and that was really hurt us to a certain degree. Same as Camp Hood. There was ( ) weekend, sometime I used to go on, cause you had nowhere to go. Especially little towns, we stayed on the camp, did the best we could, cause nobody would, you under-, it's, it's segregated, and we violated the law. Naturally they going to get the people who let you in. They had a place for you to go round by the back wonder, if you ordered something but you couldn't go, like a restaurant, you couldn't sit out and eat just what you had on your uniform, and that was really tough. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about the first time your unit, uh well, actually just you specifically with your unit went into action. LEWIS CONN Well from Camp Hood we went all the way, and then they, went to New York. Naturally they took us across the Atlantic Ocean. Went on the Queen Mary. I haven't been on it since. Maybe somebody give me a ticket and let me ride it one day. But they convert it to having what? The troops, and putting them in as they could with the decks they had. So, they say we going across on the Queen Mary. I didn't know where, where it was, I know they getting ready to ship us overseas for combat duty. Even on the Queen Mary you were segregated. Going overseas, to fight, for freedom, and we was given no less the lower docks. I didn't ( ) that little ship, never hardly seen one in my life, so all I know, they say, whatever dock, that's where you go. And ( ) whatever it is, a hatch, whatever they had for you. So you can us imagine in the bottom of that ship the, the rocking, the rocking. And I remember it took us three weeks to go across the ocean, cause we had to zigzag, because of the U-boats, cause the German with the U-boat was destroying so much of our shipment plus a lot of transportation cause they found out we were using the ships to transport soldiers and they started targeting them with their submarines. So we hit water one day, and you come out, you had on an overcoat. Two or three days you come out on deck for a little relief. Then you could be in shorts, cause it'd be converted back down into warm water. So I was a sick, and most of us was sick the second day for three weeks on that ship, cause being on the bottom decks you couldn't hold, at least I couldn't, and most of us couldn't, no food. I remember losing approximately twenty pounds. And going across to England. And when we got across, I remember we got off the ship, they put us in little tents first. Then they shipped us all way down to South Wales. Most people never heard of, of South Wales. Most people I talk to about England, they say South Wales, where's that? I say, well that's in England. ( ) South Wales. I think they made a movie called How Green Is My Valley, cause you had a lot of coal mines. I think they might still be digging coal from those mines down in South Wales. So they, that's where we relocated and that's where we had, where we stayed and were going to do additional training until they shipped our equipment over for us to go for the invasion or right after the invasion on D-Day. So we stayed there approximate, I know, three to four months, and we got all of our equipment and train. Well when we got there they had places for us to stay - the people in South Wales which the government had leased out for us. But by being black, or Negroes, we were fascinating to them. For some reason they told them that we were from Africa, cause in England and all over Europe people didn't know they had black people which they had ( ). That's why Africa was in the predicament as we've known here lately, cause if you look at the Africa map, it's broken up into all parts of the European country who controlled them, who controlled them. So they used those people as slaves, not only in America, in all those European countries. England had a part of it. So they looked at us as being part of, coming from the apes, it's what they was taught. So when we got there and this ( ) didn't know about it cause they was taught that. And therefore you shake the hands, but when you see ‘em running around and you see the tail it will come out, and they did it, until we educated them and they became to say, what we have been taught and told, it isn't true. So we stayed there a couple of weeks and the people would come where we stayed and started inviting us to the church, inviting us to some of their affairs, and came to know us as black, Negro soldiers all the better. And so we got a lot of a relationship with the people there in South Wales, which made us feel real good, cause we was helping them, cause they was almost destroyed and they knew that. They had to have help. They had to make, it didn't make what difference what color you looked like because they almost conquered by the Germans. So here we came to their rescue, fighting for freedom. INTERVIEWER Um, just briefly tell me a little bit about some of the actions you saw. LEWIS CONN All right from South Wales I was ( ) what, equipment that we ( ) all the way to where we had the landing docks in order to go across the English Channel. Again one of the worst experiences I've ever, and I, that's why maybe I don't go back now. Water, don't show me no water, cause it's like when I see it I get sick. At that time, ( ) D-Day invasion, we were about maybe six to eight weeks behind the first two or three waves of the first groups before we land, we, we was docked to go across the English Channel. Well that time the English Channel was still really rough far as the sea is concerned, so when we hit the boats again, the second day out, we all became ill again, seasick. Lost a lot of energy and so forth and so on. So when we got, and we did land, our first experience when we got almost to the beaches, and I remember around Omaha and other beaches which we did land, D-Day was maybe about a week or two or three weeks on, but you could see the evidence of the slaughter. You could see evidence of the landing boat torn to pieces and you could see evidence of, just the beaches was just full of all kinds of debris. We didn't see any humans floating as people but we saw remnants of where they had been buried. You could see where people were slaughtered. So, when we hit the beaches, and when we regroup, then that's when we fanned out and ordered to make our desire and get and start the movement of branching out. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about the first time you actually ran into the enemy and were in combat. LEWIS CONN The first time we ran into enemy, I can't call the little towns but, maybe about three or four days after we landed and we got with the second army. That was our support, we were support for our group the second army the seven eighty-four tank battalion with the seven fifty-eight, seven sixty-first. And we were what you call the light tank outfits. And our tank that we had, we had two Cadillac motors in it, very powerful. So that's to penetrate, and they would run sixty, sixty-five miles an hour. But behind us we have what you call the backup units with the medium tanks, with the ( ) only we had the little thirty-seven millimeter. So we were what you would call what, the penetrating group. Go out and make contact with enemy. Hope you make it back. Now if you don't we know the enemy is out there and then we send out the big boys, cause we know the Tiger Tanks are there. So that's when we encountered our first enemy was we spearheaded in the gap going ahead toward Paris. Went up, went up what we call on the right flank following the English Channel. So we were very successful. We lost a lot of men. Naturally we supported the infantry group. And what was so, uh, hurt me so, really, when I saw movie that was made in which Mr. Steven Spielberg, I think it was Finding Private Ryan, I think what, I think that was the name of the movie. Finding Private Ryan. Then he made, and the infantry who fought, and had on that signal, was called the Screaming Eagles. That was the group my outfit supported. And when them Germans would drop those eight-eights and shoot those guns, they had no foxhole to jump in, they'd jump in our tanks for support and jump among them. We were all fighting together. When I saw it in the movie I didn't see anybody that looked like me, just like nobody was there but them. I say please tell them to call me. Please tell me to redo it. Please tell ‘em I got darker ( ). Please tell ‘em I do a little bit more research. We was there. Finding Private Ryan. All through those little towns supporting that group. And when they ventured off to find Private Ryan, we kept on to the right, cause that where I, uh, now we almost got to Paris. We going to liberate Paris, they had told us. But, came from high command, when they found out we was, what number, black tank outfit, we got orders, don't come right, turn left, regroup, and stay on the front line. So when we got the news, we were devastated, cause we thought we going to walk down, what, the Champs-Elysées, we thought we were going to celebrate a little bit. Here we had conquered, had lost a lot of men, had fought, but we were diverted away from the celebration. And it hurt us. We had a lot of young men in our outfit deserted. We never did see them any more. We don't know whether they got with the French people and stayed there or they killed themselves. We don't know. We just had to call up extra recruits in order to fulfill, cause we get up in the morning and call roll call and somebody be missing. We didn't have time to go find ‘em, cause you had what, orders what, to move on. And that's what, ( ) again, here we still fighting, segregated. Here we fought and maybe get a little, what, celebration. Nope, diverted. And so, what are we fighting for? I don't know what desire we had, what desire I had, but I say I got a family, I got to make it back home. INTERVIEWER Um, with, with all the stuff that you went through, not only, um, fighting the Germans but, it seems, fighting your own army as well, would you say that the experiences of black soldiers in World War Two, um, pushed forward social reform at home after the war? LEWIS CONN I think it had a great desire on maybe who maybe looked at what we had accomplished and what we went through. Maybe give ‘em a little more momentum to see, well let's fight just a little harder, because look what they have done. And I'll try to erase what we are here this discrimination and segregation, that we are one for all, all for one. Now's the time don't we are in a lot of trouble. And have a lot of desire we have show that we are citizens of the United States, we should be treated equally, we should given an equal opportunity, those who can do or not. And therefore we had the desire. And ( ) that's we had a lot of men in our outfit like I told you were recruited off predominant black, we didn't call them black universities, colleges then, we just called Negro school. Well, by us having already the desire to want an education, well we wanted an education cause we wanted to come back in the various communities what, to help our other what, brothers and sisters that was denied and was segregated. To uplift ‘em. So it was just in us to, to what, to maintain that momentum, to show that maybe somebody was here somewhere along the line. So that's what gave us the desire in order to keep going. And let's wait and see what's going to happen. INTERVIEWER Um, tell me about, um, how the GI Bill helped you. LEWIS CONN In the GI Bill, I guess I'm a fortunate person, because I've told you about my little scholarship I had running track, playing basketball, working in the dining room, which they don't call as they do like the Hope Scholarship and all like that. And I worked even during the summer, summer school, that's how I made my little, extra money, to buy my little books what I need to buy, cause my people had no money, and they say, you can come home if you want to, stay down at work, which I did. But come home with my GI Bill, that gave me a little momentum. Now that time I had married and had a daughter of my own, my oldest daughter was born. So when I got back my wife was still there in school. So I decide, and that time they gave us an idea that they could get us some barracks and put on the campus, and we could use our GI Bill to further our education. Which I say well here that's what I've been waiting on. That's what I need. So that's what my desire was at that time, to get an education. Here I have something now what, to go upon, to look upon, to work upon without me being ( ) from my family, and have something if I use to the best of my ability and use wisely, then I can make it, and don't have to do what I see others doing by saying I'm segregated, I have no desire, nobody going to help me, and they give up, and they are hurting and was hurting at that, that time. INTERVIEWER Um, thousands of school kids will see this exhibit and this video. Um, what do you want to tell them about World War Two and what do you want them to remember? LEWIS CONN Well, World War Two, you can remember this. It was the United States declaring war on an enemy which they said was desirable in order they want to conquer the world as a dictatorship. It's called a different philosophy now as we have in, like, Iraq. But, this is what I would like for the young people to know. Regardless how you are treated and if you live in the country, do the best you can and do what you need to do to support your country and come back to your country in order to see what do I need to do, that I can help in order to what, work out the evils even in my own country, or uplift it in order that everybody can have what, freedom. And have representation one on one. So that was my desire, and that's what I would tell the young people, don't give up. You can make it and have your desire. You may have a little more difficulty than somebody else but look at yourself first. If you and only you keep you down only you can have a choice to go up or go down. Don't worry about what's around you, because they not going to help you too much. You've got to help yourself. If you help yourself, then other people probably will come to your rescue. But you've got to have the desire. And nothing is too hard for you to overcome if you got the objective, you got the desire, and you want to do it. And you can do it if you set your mind to it. And that's what I would like to give to them as I did my education. You like for me to expound after I left Fort Valley, on my GI Bill? INTERVIEWER I'm sorry? LEWIS CONN Would you like for me to give more explanation of how I got my other education? INTERVIEWER Um, actually, I've, I've got just a couple more questions, um . . . LEWIS CONN All right, OK. INTERVIEWER Tell me, uh . . . LEWIS CONN See what, what, I'm just asking you these questions, I hope we're not on TV. But what became very fascinating, which I think the students or somebody should know, once I left Fort Valley, a predominant black college, a Negro college, how I had to get my other education, and what I had to go through. ( ) I just got through fighting for freedom, and here I came back to Georgia and the United States was still segregated, and the education system and process. And they hit me again. Here I am on the GI Bill. They didn't have to give me anything. All they had to do, open up the door, let me in. Give me an opportunity to further my education. But I was denied, because I was still what, was a Negro. That's how I went to Atlanta University, in which I got my master's degree on administration through my GI Bill. When I finished Fort Valley College I applied Georgia Tech, University of Georgia. They looked at my resume, had to give what, my race, denied. Denied, because of my race. Here I am, born in Georgia, live in Georgia, fought from Georgia for the United States, but came back, here I had the GI Bill. Still, couldn't attend the university systems for further education. So the Georgia general center and the Georgia government said, this what we'll do. In other school you pick out that will accept you, like Atlanta University, and what we charge at Georgia Tech and University of Georgia, for our points, or whatever you want to call what you pay for how many units you want to take. Say for instance University of Georgia say was a hundred dollars a unit, and maybe Atlanta University say it was a hundred and fifty. The Georgia government general center would send a check to Atlanta University for the difference, for me attending, just as if I was attending the University of Georgia, they would pay the difference. And that's how I finished at Atlanta University. I paid just what I would've paid on the GI Bill going to Georgia Tech or University of Georgia, cause the government supplemented the university, and we were still segregated, which floored me again. Then I finished university, and I would call Atlanta University, then I had the desire to work on my doctorate degree, so I applied again. University of Georgia, Georgia Tech. Again I made application – denied. Then the general center passed a law saying that any Negroes that have a desire for further education we will pay the difference in the tuition and give you a one way round trip ticket by train, cause you couldn't ride by plane at that time, and we'll pay the difference that we did here in Georgia to the university of your desire anywhere east of the Mississippi River. Not west, east. So that made me to look out, and I picked out for some unusual reason, which my people at Atlanta University, my, people of my, instructors said, why not apply at Columbia University, Teachers College, cause they had a good administrator program there, which we did, and they filed application, and I was accepted, from Atlanta University, which I applied, they got all the coordinates together which they said. So I attended that for five summers. I said that's all right with me cause that's when they had the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees. So that gave me an opportunity during the summer, after I work and was teaching school, in order to go what, on a summer vacation like, get an education plus what, attend the ballgame, and have a vacation. So that's how I worked and got my six year certificate from Teachers College, Columbia University, which you call up on the Hudson. Wasn't too far from Harlem. And I'm very familiar with the Apollo Theater cause you just walk down on eighth avenue and you were right there at the Apollo. So that's where we'll go for recreation. But that's my educational background and more or less the people who had the desire, if they wanted to get further education, that's what they had to do. INTERVIEWER Um, just two last questions. Um, the first, um, what was the, there were of course a lot of effects on the, on the United States that came out of World War Two. What do you think was the, was the greatest, uh, effect, um, on the U.S. from World War Two? LEWIS CONN My desire from World War Two, where I look back at it and what we had to overcome, and what I was fighting for we called democracy against a dictatorship, but when we came back we had more trouble than the Germans had. For our equality, and for our rights, for all citizens. So I think that made our government take a different view of what we need to do in order to let the rest of the world know that we going to be a leader for what we said democracy, we've got to change our status here. We got to see what we can do so when we get our ( ) do we have what we can come back and say, do you see it, do you see our example, see how it works? I think it had a tremendous effect. And all during the rest of our what, development of our government, I think each time you had an administrator in, we got just a little more rights, a little more rights. Until you know 1968 in which my man ( ) the civil right act, which made everybody open their eyes. What do we need, what do we need to do to be what? And said we leaders, said this a democracy, this how it functions, this the way it should be? And I think all that alone, along with MLK, about him losing his life as he did, had a tremendous affect. And I hope we never get back in that rut again. INTERVIEWER Um, one last question. Why, um, black and white, everyone, why should future generations, um, remember yours? LEWIS CONN I think they should remember, and always, and hope, and really it starts, I say, from the family, mothers and fathers. Hope they would have the desire, because what you look like, what nationality? You should always say I'm human. And we're one. You're born, and nothing going to keep you here regardless how you look. You ( ). So they will look at that and say, why can't we live together, why can't we be one, why can't we treat one another right in our life? If they got that desire, then it starts in the home number one. Starts really in the early grades. You got to instill in these children as being one as a human. And you've got to maybe let the family, and mothers and fathers, whoever are in charge of these children, really come to let them know, this the way it's going to be. And being principle for school, I know they wouldn't want me principle now, I know a school cause, I know they wouldn't be allowed to take me cause even segregated days when I was principle, I was very adamant for what a desire in what I need for my students, regardless of who they looked like, which I was segregated, and teaching, but I got what I want from the board of education, cause I say, I deserve it. And I think that's what should be taught now. And everybody looks alike, everybody is alike, everybody should be alike, in regards how you think what you feel about people, nothing going to keep you here forever. Do let me know, please call me and I say, maybe I live to get old as Methuselah, which he said he lived, what, oh, ten thousand years old, so let me know and I come back again. INTERVIEWER All right, I think that will wrap it up. Thank you very much. LEWIS CONN All right. OK. INTERVIEWER Thank you very much sir."],"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings","Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center"],"dcterms_subject":["Segregation--Georgia--Coweta County","Segregation--United States","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","World War, 1939-1945--Participation, African American","Conn, Lewis Samuel, Sr., 1885-1927","Arnold, Augustus G., 1871-1957","Conn, Dorothy, 1920?-","Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962","Queen Mary (Steamship)","United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944","Fort Valley State University","United States. Army. Tank Battalion (Light), 784","United States. Army. Army, 2nd","Columbia University. Teachers College","United States. 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Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["video recordings (physical artifacts)","Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["1:01:11"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_595","title":"Oral history interview of Marion Brody Glustrom","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, New York, Kings County, Brooklyn, 40.6501, -73.94958","United States, New York, New York County, New York, 40.7142691, -74.0059729"],"dcterms_creator":["Kyle, Glen","Glustrom, Marian Brody, 1916-2007"],"dc_date":["2004","2014"],"dcterms_description":null,"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings"],"dcterms_subject":["World War, 1939-1945","World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American","Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Attack on, 1941","Civil rights","V-E Day, 1945","V-J Day, 1945","Racism--United States","Atomic bomb","Segregation--United States","Yale University","American Red Cross","American Veterans Committee"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview of Marion Brody Glustrom"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Atlanta History Center"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/595"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":["This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["streaming video","Betacam-SP"],"dcterms_extent":["29:13"],"dlg_subject_personal":["Brody, Alvin S., 1923-1945","Brody, David S., 1909-1994"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"geh_vhpohr_174","title":"Oral history interview of Buell Wallace Gifford","collection_id":"geh_vhpohr","collection_title":"Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["Japan, Kadena Air Base, 26.3555999, 127.7675","Micronesia, Yap, 7.556, 146.12854124","Papua New Guinea, Manus Province, Admiralty Islands, -2.2235542, 147.0182858","Philippines, 13.40882, 122.56155","Philippines, Mindoro, 12.8692137, 121.134575750245","United States, Arkansas, Faulkner County, Conway, 35.0887, -92.4421","United States, California, Contra Costa County, Camp Stoneman, 38.00742, -121.92107","United States, Colorado, Denver County, Lowry Air Force Base (historical), 39.72306, -104.89194","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018","United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383","United States, Hawaii, Maui, 20.8029568, -156.310683316022","United States, Missouri, Dunklin County, Clarkton, 36.45173, -89.96704","United States, Missouri, Dunklin County, Malden Army Air Field (historical), 36.60056, -89.99111","United States, Missouri, Saint Louis County, Jefferson Barracks, 38.50283, -90.28039","United States, Texas, Smith County, Camp Fannin, 32.42367925, -95.2112318132556"],"dcterms_creator":["Gantsoudes, Lillian","Gifford, Buell Wallace, 1924-2006"],"dc_date":["2003-10-22"],"dcterms_description":["In this interview, Buell Gifford recalls his service in the U.S. Army in the Pacific during World War II. At the outbreak of war, he had been working on a degree in agriculture. His father owned land in Missouri that the government took to build an airfield; his uncle had to help his father with the tractor payments before the government paid for the land. He was drafted, but deferred a few months because his father was ill, and was eventually called up in spite of it. In Hawaii, he completed six weeks of jungle training in preparation for invasions in the Pacific. He recalls the hardships of battle, including a lack of provisions. At one point, they were reduced to eating raw field corn. He also describes war atrocities on both sides. He remembers their entertainment and receiving packages from home. He describes segregation in the Army and recalls an incident while returning home in which a black sergeant was robbed by two policemen. He describes his work and pastimes after the war and shares his feelings about the United States Marine Corps.","Buell Gifford was an infantryman in the Pacific during World War II.","BUELL GIFFORD VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW Atlanta History Center October 22, 2003 Interviewer: Lillian Gantsoudes Transcriber: Stephanie McKinnell Lillian Gantsoudes: This is a veteran's oral history interview on October 22, 2003. My name is Lillian Gantsoudes. I will be doing the interview. Our veteran today is Buell Wallace Gifford, and his daughter is also with us today, Sandra Gifford. Mr. Gifford, thank you very much for being with us. To start off the interview, if you would give us your full name and date and place of birth. Buell Gifford: Buell Wallace Gifford. And I was born in Conrad, Arkansas, June 19, 1924. LG: Was your family from Arkansas? What was that like, was that where you grew up? BG: No, I left when I was about three years old. I moved to Missouri, my dad and mother were school teachers. And my dad farmed then, on a farm. LG: And so what was it like growing up on a farm? BG: It was hard work, but I liked to farm. LG: Did you have any siblings? BG: Yeah. LG: Brothers or sisters? BG: I had a sister. LG: A sister, what's her name? BG: Rhonda Gifford. LG: Tell me your parents' names. BG: Jessie Gifford and Andy Gifford. LG: Is there anything significant growing up on the farm, going to school, any stories that you'd like to tell us about that? BG: No, not really. My sister was a real smart person, and she's unique because I can prove it because I have her report card. She graduated from grade school and high school and college as valedictorian of her class and made all straight A's. She was in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities, and I can truthfully say that she is as intelligent and wise as anybody I've ever known. And I can say that, and my daughter can tell you the same thing. LG: Well, tell me something about you going to school, what kind of grades did you get? BG: I did make three grades the first year I went to school. LG: When did you graduate from high school? BG: I graduated when I was 16 years old. LG: What high school did you graduate from? BG: Clarkton High School, Clarkton, Missouri. LG: And did you go on to college? BG: No, I took, after I got out of service, I went to college and got a degree in agriculture though. Sandra Gifford: Dad, it might be interesting to tell the story of who you were named after. BG: Named after Buell Gifford, my dad is an orphan boy, and he raised him, and I was named after him, Buell. SG: And tell that story about how he came to live with your father and mother. BG: My father's first wife died when he was young, oh, not very young, 37 years old, and my mother was a school teacher. She was only 24, 25 years old, and he was going to get married, and the guy I'd been talking about, this nephew, Buell, he lived with uncle, he just hated him, and he wanted to come and live with my dad. And my dad said, well, I referred it to my wife, and he said I can't take you in, he went home and cried all the way home. He rode a horse they said through snow about a foot deep for twelve miles ____ and back and my mother told him if he wants to live with us, you go get him and we'll raise him. And he went to Conway, Arkansas, and he became a teacher. LG: How old was Buell when he was adopted? BG: Twelve. Twelve years old. Twelve years old. LG: That's wonderful. BG: And he also, he raised an ____ who was an orphan, his dad got bit by a dog and rabies took over and killed him. LG: So at the time of the war, were you married? BG: No, I went in the service when I was 19 years old. LG: So from the time you graduated from high school, then it was three years before you went in service. Were you working on your dad's farm? BG: Yeah. And I'll tell you about the government took my dad out of two farms, they took it for landing strips for the airplanes to fly around there. LG: Well, tell us about that. BG: Well, they took our farms and they didn't take a cent in, give us any money or anything. Cut down the trees and cut down the crops, we didn't have no money or nothing. And they, we helped move, my dad had bought a tractor and he was supposed to pay for it, a John Deere tractor, and he wrote and told them he didn't have any money and they forced him to, he was going to have to pay for it. And my uncle, at that time, not many years later, he was a millionaire, and he paid that thing off for him. And my dad, my dad bought little outbuildings and farm, I mean outbuildings and a house and a farm for $150. And we moved the thing about four miles away on down the road, three bedroom house. LG: And so the government just came in and said . . . BG: They paid off later. LG: Oh, they did pay off later. BG: Yeah, but we didn't have any money then. LG: And how long did they use it for a landing strip? BG: It's still there. LG: A landing strip? BG: No, it's an emergency landing strip. LG: Did they have a name for this landing strip? BG: No, its just Marlin, Missouri. The field was in Marlin, about ten miles away. LG: Tell me, were you drafted or did you enlist? BG: Well, I was drafted. LG: Tell me the story about getting drafted. BG: Well my dad was real bad off at that time because he worked off the farm and you know he didn't have anybody to help him, and I got deferred for a few months and then they just said they had to have somebody, had no options, had to take everybody almost. And I was drafted then. LG: When was that? BG: That was like I said, in October, no, not '46, '43 or '42, I'm not positive. LG: 1942. BG: Yeah. LG: So what happened, so you were deferred for a couple of months and then did you go to basic? BG: Yeah, I took basic training, went to Camp Fannin, Texas. LG: Tell me about basic training. BG: Well, it was seventeen weeks of infantry training, firing machine guns, mortars, and all like that. LG: What was the, where did you stay, what were the barracks like? BG: They were good barracks. LG: Do you remember anything specific about them? BG: Just a lot of beds in there. LG: What was the food like? BG: Food was good. They always, they served 20,000 people in one mess hall in four sections, and it was real good. I mean you could, you'd, everything was washed and cleaned everyday, I mean after they eat, and mopped the floors and all like that. LG: What were these days like? I mean you could come from a farm and now you're in the army, you're in the service, what was that like? BG: Well, it was pretty good. I met a lot of guys there. I slept with a guy one time, I said, it was an older guy, I said, “what did you do before you went in?” he said, “Hi, my name's Tom. You ever see Tom's Peanuts, that's me.” [Tom Huston Peanut Company, based in Columbus, Georgia] He owned that place. And I made friends with a guy that was in Texas, he was older than me quite a bit, he owned a big herd of cattle there and I made friends pretty well. LG: What were the instructors like? BG: They were pretty good. LG: Do you remember any instructors? BG: Well, I remember one of them, he was a little old sergeant, not a sergeant, a corporal. He said I was doing something bad, infraction, I didn't do it right, _________. I didn't like that, but I learned to overlook that, you know. LG: After Camp Fannin, Texas, where did you go? BG: I went to Camp Stoneman near Richmond, California. LG: And what were you doing there? BG: I was getting ready to go overseas. I got a ship, a brand new ship, we went to the Hawaiian islands unescorted. LG: Well, now tell me, you are in the army, what group were you with? BG: The 96th Infantry Division. LG: And what was your infantry training, what were they teaching you? BG: How to shoot and how to bayonet and karate and how to fire machine guns and how to survive and anything you can think of. LG: Was there anything in your training that particularly stood out? BG: Well, I'll tell you, everything they did was good. You had to learn a lot of things yourself. If you, the way they taught me, I thought just lying the beach and you'd be dead in one hour, but if you use your head, you can survive, but if you don't you aren't going to last. I went through the war, never got a scratch, never got wounded or nothing. LG: Well, that's just wonderful. You left California, you said you went on an unescorted boat to Hawaii. BG: Took six weeks of jungle training. LG: In Hawaii. BG: Yeah. LG: What was that like? BG: Well, it was a jungle there. We had a mock landing on Maui, it's a big island there. And you, of course, did not give anybody any information. If they asked what outfit, a lot of people giving, they get lost, don't give them any information. There was one guy, he asked me one time, he got lost and he was an officer, said “what outfit is this?” I said “It's company X, what the devil do you care.” He didn't like that and he went and talked to the company commander and said, “ ___ that guy over there, you been telling him to keep quiet?” _____. He didn't like it though. LG: After Hawaii where did you go? BG: We went to ____ island on Yap Island and sent some spies in there and the Japanese had left. We waited and fought there, went island hopping to get to Japan so we didn't know what to do, and they went to the Altamonte islands, just right below the equator, 2 degrees below the, closest place on earth near the sun and stayed there for two weeks and planned to land in Leyte in the Philippines and MacArthur . . . LG: So you were supporting General MacArthur? BG: Yeah. LG: Did you see combat? BG: Oh, yeah. LG: Tell me about combat. COUNTER 136 BG: Well, when we went in, there was quite an experience. They told us to drop your full packs and we'll bring them on up to you tonight. Well, they didn't know there was this jungle and it rained all night and they couldn't do it, and we didn't have any food. Well, we didn't have any for five days really. Five days, that's the only time I ever didn't have any food, and they dropped it, parachuted it in and they'd just give you a big spoonful and that was it. I know one time, when I was getting there, I was traveling for the five days, we ate some field corn, just raw, you know, you're hungry, you can… and we had just a canteen of water. And when it was gone, we had to dip it out of the mud and that stuff _____ had ____ on top of it, you'd pull it unpurified with the worms and everything. But it was pure you know. LG: What was your job, what was your assignment? BG: Well, when I went in, I was a Browning automatic rifleman in combat. And that's kind of like a machine gun that fires twenty clips, just pull the trigger and had a ____ full of stuff like that. And that's where I got this silver star here, right here. LG: It shows in that picture? BG: Yeah. LG: When did you get this silver star? BG: It don't tell on there, I don't know. It's in '43. LG: 1943? BG: They've got this wrong, got 383rd Infantry, it was 382nd. LG: We have a copy of this? BG: Yes. I got that for, I, two Jap machine guns trapped a battalion and they couldn't move and I was the only one had something to stop them all and I killed those Jap machine gunners and we, one of the guys in the pictures right here was my, right here, was my weapon carrier. ____ ammunition and there was bullets going all around and they couldn't get him up there, he was scared to death,, he finally got over it though. COUNTER 170 LG: I see five people in the picture, are you in that picture? BG: I'm that tallest one in the middle. LG: And then, so who are the other guys? BG: A guy beside of me, he was the one that weapon carrier, and this one on the end was a sergeant too, and he's the one I named my son after. LG: What's his name? BG: Deville, Sergeant Deville. And this one on the left is ____, hunted for me for fifty-eight years, he had nightmares about the war. We fought together and dug in the foxholes. LG: Would this be a good time to tell us that story, tell us the story about the fellow searching for you? BG: Well, that was the end of that. LG: You've talked about him, just go on and tell us the story. BG: You don't want to talk about it but I'll go back… LG: We'll get back to it. [All talking at once.] BG: He had been searching for me for fifty-eight years and he couldn't find me and he… LG: He, say his name again. BG: Lavoyt Hale. LG: Lavoyt Hale. BG: Tuscaloosa, Alabama. LG: So Mr. Hale was looking for you. BG: And the funny part about it is, my best friend, one of my best friends, went out to eat that day and we was talking about him. He liked to drown in the water, he was a little guy. I told him “____.” I was kidding, you know. And he remembered that, and two hours later he called me, he says he bought his wife a computer, he didn't know nothing about it. And one of his friends said you can find anybody you want to on the computer. In fifteen minutes he found it. And he called me up and said “Did you,” said, “did you fight in World War II in the 96th Division?” I said “yeah” and he told me 382nd Regiment and all that bit. He told me his name and I knew that was him. And he was tickled to death, he had all them nightmares. LG: What kind of nightmares? BG: Well, about the war. But one thing about me that's unique I've never dreamed about anything, I could watch a movie or anything, never dream about it, never, never. LG: Well, you have a newspaper in front of you, what's that, why have you got the newspaper? BG: Well, it was an article was in here. SG: About your reunion. BG: Yeah, fifty-eight years, where is that? LG: With Mr. Hale? BG: Yeah, right down here. And this part, about fifty-eight years. Open it up. SG: The article came out on the anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, and this is my father's piece. BG: Show it down inside there. SG: Also inside… BG: Fifty-eight years. SG: Reunion after 58 years. Veteran… BG: This is me right here. SG: That's in front of his house. LG: What is the date of the paper, and what paper are we looking at? SG: This is the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Friday, June sixth, 2003. BG: And this is a picture there in Tuscaloosa. SG: At his house. LG: So who's in the picture, is that you in the middle? BG: Yeah. LG: And Mr. Hale… BG: Yeah, and that's my daughter over there. LG: That's a wonderful story, a wonderful story. And the wonders of computers. That was a great story, let's go back to the war. BG: OK. LG: You're in combat in the Philippines? BG: Yes. I got that picture you made right there, I got that, a big parade and there was a bunch of people that was given awards, and before we went to Okinawa. We went to… LG: Did you see any casualties? BG: What's that? LG: Did you see any casualties? BG: Man, have I seen casualties, there were thousands of them, thousands of them. LG: What was that like? BG: Horrible. The one thing that I found out, and I want to emphasize it, but a lot of volunteers, some people don't need to be in service, they haven't got the smarts up here. And again, some of them as officers. One of them, when I first went in, he was a sergeant, I'll never forget it. We hadn't went in very far ___ a little hut, and there was three people there, a man and a woman and a young girl, and this guy, friend of mine, said “What do you want to do with this little man?” And this sergeant told him, said, “Get rid of him. Don't you know better, use a bayonet.” He just took a bayonet and run it through him like that. I'll never forget it, the blood just gushed like that. And that guy, he never forgot that, he never did. And then another time, and it was a sergeant that did that, ___ it was an older woman carrying some clothes on her head, and she, he killed that, just shot her because his buddy got killed. He had nothing to do with it. And another time, a different story about this guy was a colonel, I know I was right by a foxhole when he was calling back behind the lines telling them to take that hill up there. He sent three squads out, one squad killed everyone of the, second killed everyone, and third one killed every one of them. And he said, “This general back behind the line said you've got to take that hill at all costs.” He said, “I'm not taking this hill at all costs, it's a suicide, and you can court martial if you want to but I'm not taking it,” and he didn't. They didn't do nothing with him either. But there was a lot of people that's just not fit to be in service. SG: Tell about the man you knew who was supposed to stand guard. BG: Oh, it was a friend of mine that was supposed to stand guard, he was a designer for Ford Motor Company, he was a very brilliant person. LG: Do you remember his name? BG: No, I don't. But he was supposed to be guarding the 8th Army headquarters. We'd been back in a rest area for a while. And he was, it had an outdoor theater, and he went over to look at that and they called him over there. The guards, I mean somebody checked on him and they gave him a court martial, gave him 99 years in the stockade. Nice guy. But I'm sure he didn't serve it all, they do that as an example. When the war is over, it's all over, you know. But they can, there was three, I know there was one four-star general and two three-star generals that he was guarding there. LG: Are there any other memorable experiences? BG: Well, on Okinawa, one time we was digging in on a hill on this, ____ he wanted to dig in holes with me when three of us would dig in, stand guard, and he wanted to dig up on a hill there, and I said “No, the artillery will get us.” And I finally talked him into down below a little bit. And that night, when we was digging, the artillery settled it, right in there, covered us up with dirt. If we'd have been there, it'd have killed all three of us. In fact, we got out of there and I was talking to them on the way back. I said “What happened to the third guy?” He said, “He's probably still covered up. I don't remember what happened to him.” _______. And also they, we got up to the end of the island and they started firing these rockets, flying boxcars called the screaming ____, its like a siren, it's honestly as big as a boxcar coming in the air projected like that. And you could outrun them because they'd just come over and you could run off to the side. But I've got a picture of that, where's that at? SG: This explosion maybe? BG: No, no, no. SG: I'm not sure what you're describing. BG: There's a hole, it's a horrible hole. Well, it don't make any difference. SG: The picture with the hole… LG: Are any of these pictures that you want to show us? SG: You can just go through it and you might just see the one picture. BG: Well, here's one. The Philippines were some casualties, some of them blowed right up in two. LG: That photo that you're showing us, the Philippines. BG: Yeah, that's the Philippines. Here's ___ on Okinawa, we lost about 13,000 people there in our division. We had a general that was killed. LG: Do you remember the general's name? BG: Easley, a one star general. We got a picture of that ____ right here, they had a ceremony there, right on Okinawa. LG: And that's when he had died, this is the ceremony. BG: Yeah. And here's one of MacArthur signing the peace treaty on the battleship Missouri with the Japanese. LG: Were you on the… a picture you took. BG: No, I got this from a war correspondent. This right here is a Filipino, and that's a Jap ____ right there. The Jap had him to climb a coconut tree and when he was drinking the coconut, he took a machete and cut his head off. LG: And is that a picture you took? BG: No. Here's, I don't know whether you want to show that or not. Here's one right here that I, I don't know do we want to do it detailed. I was, this is an uncle I never seen, he was a real intelligent person, he had a Ph.D. in history I think. And I wrote this on April 18, 1945, and I never mailed it. I didn't know it that I had a box that I kept my papers in, and _____ I looked in there, and I never, I hadn't mailed it. And what I figured out, there was an artillery ___ in back and I said “call it a day” and I never mailed it. And that was wrote on April 18, 1945. SG: Why don't you read that last paragraph, or do you want me to read it. BG: Yeah, you read it. SG: It says… LG: I want to ____ show you while you read it. SG: I'll read the last portion of it. “The soil is pretty rich here. They grow a lot of cabbage, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, carrots, and all sorts of vegetables. We've been getting a lot better food here than we did in the Philippines. They have different kinds of foods in the rations that we get than we used to have. The boys all like the new type of rations. We have had donuts several times here also. I sure don't see how Germany can hold out over two more weeks. They sure are getting close to Berlin. There is some Japanese mortar shells landing pretty close now so I guess I'd better get in my foxhole and call it a day. As ever was.” BG: Just recently, about two or three months ago, I opened that box up and seen that. LG: Thank you for that. Did you stay in touch with your family? Did you write many letters home? BG: Oh, yeah, that's one of my most important things for soldiers. People who don't even know anybody, if they want to do something for somebody, I've never seen anybody who was so depressed when they have mail call because it would be a month before you'd get any mail and you wouldn't have any. You know, somebody'd get a bunch of mail and they didn't get any. I wrote everybody I knew, my uncles and aunts and they kept all the letters I wrote. That's really important, though. LG: You mentioned at one point that there was five days you went without any food. Otherwise, did you have plenty of supplies? BG: The supplies, ____ they couldn't get it up to us but they finally parachuted it in. LG: What about the rest of the… BG: I did alright. And you know, tin cans, but I didn't get sick or nothing. SG: Tell about the time a friend got chocolates in the mail. BG: Oh, one guy got some chocolates on Okinawa and they had worms in it and he was going to throw it away. I told ____, I says, “Don't throw it away.” Said I'll eat it. And he did too. LG: Worms and all. What did you all do to sort of entertain yourselves? BG: Well, when we'd get back in a rest area, they had put up outdoor screens, thousands of them, would be setting out watching. And one time, Yokohama back in the rest area, they had that ____ down below and sitting up on the hillside seeing it. And it was pretty good, but entertainment had a lot of people come through, a lot of celebrities even. LG: Any celebrities that you remember seeing? BG: Yeah, I seen, well I took basic training with Red Skelton. LG: Oh, okay. BG: And I seen, I can't recall, but I seen some of them in California. But I know one thing I found out later that they'd been ___ planning on after we went… another thing, now, this is kind of interesting. The black and whites were separated in World War II, and we, when the war was over, we got on, I got the ship to come back on Christmas Eve Day in 1945 and they put all the sergeants in one place and all the privates in another. Because they had a lot of animosity, they'd kill them, you know. LG: And you were a sergeant? BG: Yeah. And they had the blacks with us, but I made friends with a black guy. He was a tech, I mean he was a 1st sergeant. And I never will forget when I was discharged in Jefferson's Barracks, Missouri, I was left there one night and he was taking me, I was riding in a cab, and two policemen stopped us and grabbed him and slammed him up against the, he had a uniform on too, and searched him, and I didn't know what was going on. Found out, I guess we got a lot of mustering out pay, cash about $400 around him, but they didn't bother me, but I thought that was a bad thing to do, to treat him like that you know. But I know one thing about the, what happened was going to happen, we was getting ready to go away to Japan when they dropped the atomic bomb, and they had three hundred of these big shells that would knock a hole, man, that's one hundred foot deep.aAnd they were going to use them on the Americans, and they had _____. They claimed the first day we'd lose a million people, gosh, a million people. ____ everybody that could ____ Japanese did, so that bomb saved a lot of lives, it killed a lot of people, but it saved a lot of lives. LG: What, when you heard that the bomb had been dropped, where were you? BG: I was on a boat going to M___ Island. LG: And what was the reaction of people on the boat? BG: Nothing. The reason why was the guy from Louisiana, he was a big windbag and he's telling how powerful that, bulletin board, he told how much powerful it was and TNT and all that, went yeah, yeah, yeah. The next day when we landed, well, they had found out, you know, they took all the guns away from us and _____, I was telling about the sergeants in danger, they had a, when we was there, a regiment, and they had a guy, I don't know who it was, he ____ strung up four guys while I was there, I called him the ____. LG: Do you remember anything else about Okinawa, or have you got some pictures? BG: Well, this is, yeah, here's… One thing about the Japanese, they really did not try to infiltrate through our lines, and they'd take the civilians and women, put their babies on the back and you couldn't tell who was coming through. And you'd shoot and then the babies would still be there and cry. That really got on your nerves. SG: Dad, would you like me to read what's on the back of this photograph? BG: No, it's too much. SG: On the back, it's April 15, 1945. Japanese civilians on Okinawa waiting to be taken behind the lines to a civilian stockade. Notice how many of them are wounded and have been bandaged up. A lot of the Japanese civilians were killed and wounded from our artillery barrages and the strafing from our planes. BG: One thing about the Americans, regardless of when they ____, they had superior weapons over the Japanese and ___ any of the countries. They had those P-38's, had those five machine guns right in the ____, the Japanese Zero, just flies like that, gone. SG: Tell about how the Japanese tried to trick… BG: They'd yell American names, John, John, help me, help me, help me, help me, I'm bleeding to death. You didn't dare get up, get out. LG: Where were they hiding? BG: Well, they were out in front. SG: And up in trees, would they hide up in the trees? BG: They did in the Philippines, they would, sharpshooters sat there. This is a flamethrower right here, they burned people up getting in the stockade now. LG: This is a picture from where. BG: That's on the Philippines. LG: And what's this picture of? BG: A flamethrower getting in behind a stockade. LG: Are there any other stories that you want to tell about your service before we bring you back home? SG: Dad, tell about the, was it during the battle of Leyte that the sky just lit up like in the… BG: Oh, yeah. No, not Leyte, on Okinawa, when they ____, there was the biggest storm on our ships that ever was settled in the beginning of time, there was five thousand of them. But on the way there something happened and I couldn't hardly believe that we would come in there in the dark. It wasn't very far before we got into a typhoon. It capsized some of the destroyers, you know, that's real slick. But we had a guy that jumped over, I mean fell over the ship and they turned the searchlights on trying to find him and ____ ships the Japanese around, they'd have got us, but that night the Japanese suicide planes got in there. They were strapped in the airplane and they were trying to sink ships with suicide, they didn't intend to ever come back. But they had tracer bullets, and I mean it looked like the sky was just full of red bullets you know, shoot them down. LG: Where were you, were you on a boat during this, or were you on shore that you were watching this? BG: It was on the shore, yeah, landed there. ____ airstrip. LG: So you're looking out at the attack happening on these ships that are out there. Now you mentioned the typhoon, was that before or after this? BG: No, that was before. LG: On a ship? BG: Yeah. LG: What was it like to be on a boat in the middle of a typhoon? BG: I was right in the boat bow, _____, on the top of the ship, and you couldn't eat, you were seasick. Couldn't eat. LG: Was that as scary as battle? Were you scared when that was happening? BG: Well, I'll tell you what, after the war, I'll tell you something worse than that though. And the war was over. No, I don't know anything else to tell you, but, about the war, I can't remember right now. SG: Have you described why you received both the bronze star and the silver star? BG: Well I told them about the… SG: The silver but did you? BG: The bronze star, I carried a guy back that had his insides stuck out like that, and I didn't even remember it, and this guy I see in Tuscaloosa told me I did. There's things I didn't even remember, you know. We got in hand to hand combat, they stabbed him. Another thing in Okinawa there, was it on Okinawa?, yeah, on Okinawa. We were, they were real cruel, they'd sneak up on, they'd put stuff ____, uniform, and I know one time, we was in the foxhole and a guy was standing guard and a Jap come in there, and this guy fired an ammunition, a couple ammunition, he still kept coming, hit him in the head line that, and his insides just felt out like that, right. That's what reflexes, you know, you just keep on going. LG: The rescue, that you did, was that Okinawa or the Philippines? BG: That was Okinawa. LG: Okinawa? BG: Yeah. LG: So you saw an awful lot of battle in Okinawa. BG: Lot of fighting on there. LG: Do you recall that the day your service ended, that they said that you were ____ back home? BG: Yeah. I didn't know, they had this magic, what they call magic carpet ships you go back on those. And you go by your service and your rank and your medals that you won, and that helps you get back faster, you know. They had a priority. I remember that. LG: Do you remember the day you heard that you were headed back, what did that feel like? BG: Yep, I sure did. And I, I never forget when I came back home, I, my Dad still lived on a farm and I came in about 4:00 in the morning, and I told a story. In high school you know, _____. Alright I come to the gate, ____ cause my dad heard it _____ woke up, I just couldn't take it _____ all the teachers, well you're doing really good. ______ what I was doing in the room, that's the dumbest thing. The teacher told us ______, he said, “Mr. Gifford, what did you do when you had to go to the bathroom.” I said, “you dig a hole, get behind the woods somewhere or down behind the hill.” ______. LG: Want to take a sip of your water? BG: Yeah. LG: So when you got back home, did your dad expect you to start working on the farm? Did you work the next day or did you get… BG: No, I don't remember when it was. He ____ medals, and you can't put them things on. I said, “That's just for my parade purposes, you know.” I forgot what I did, but he, I got to agricultural school, four years. LG: On the G.I. Bill? BG: Yeah. LG: What school? BG: Clark in Missouri. LG: And you went for four years. BG: Yeah. And I at one time farmed 400 acres alone. And I got older and had to move, but there's ____. What was I going to say now? My best friend, he farmed about the same amount as I did, but I sold out, I didn't get very much out of it, I didn't own the land, I rented it. But my dad had two farms, my dad and uncle had two farms. But this guy, best friend of mine, went back two years to see him, and he was a millionaire then. He had three machines that cost half a million dollars apiece. He was always lucky though by doing things. You talk about… TAPE 1 SIDE B COUNTER 000 …somebody that has stories, believe it or not, he was a cook in the army, he was a real good cook. He wouldn't, you know him, didn't you see him, you would never think he's a good cook, but he could make the best cake ever was. He got discharged and he was in St. Louis, Missouri, and he bought a suit of clothes and he cooked in a restaurant, and he paid for the suit fifty cents a week. And he came down to see his uncle, lived right close by where I did, and he made a, he got on a blind date, he had a date with the county judge's daughter. She had never been on a date, she was 18 years old. LG: Not allowed to go on dates? BG: Not allowed to go on dates. He married the girl, the first night. And they had the highway patrol and everybody else out there. That's the guy, I told you a millionaire, turned out to be a millionaire. And he raised two daughters, too, they got along real good. LG: Tell me how you met your wife. BG: Oh, let's see, how did I do that? Somebody… SG: Probably from church. Do you think it was from church? BG: No, that's… your mother, my cousin introduced me to her. I'm not… SG: He divorced my mother and now since he's remarried. BG: Twelve years ago. Eleven or twelve years. And my, somebody at church introduced me to my wife now. ____ got a picture, I never showed you a picture of her when she was young since she looked like _______. LG: Beautiful woman. Tell me your first wife's name. BG: Charlene. LG: Charlene. Tell me your current wife's name. BG: Ellen, Ellen. LG: Ellen. BG: And we, she had two, a boy and a girl, and I had a girl, and they graduated from grade school and went to college. I've got a son that works at Emory, he's a ____ university boy, got a Ph.D. LG: Has he got your brains? BG: Yeah, he's smart. But my sister's boy's smarter than that. I had an aunt that taught school for 48 years. My mother did 18, my dad, I don't know how many years he did. My dad was very intelligent too. LG: Let's talk about after the war. BG: After the war. LG: What did you do as a career? You said you had a farm for a while, but then you went to Arizona. What did you do in Arizona? BG: I worked at _____, one of the largest aluminum plants in the world, for 32 years. LG: What did you do for them? BG: You name it, I did it. I worked in a department where I could do any part of it. Well paying job and good benefits and I could have been a, I was offered jobs as a foreman but I didn't want it because you had no protection and you could, you know, you get in and ____ and lay you off. And I worked there 32. I worked, it was the largest aluminum plant in the world. I worked there until the last piece of metal come out of there, I worked there. LG: When did they shut the plant down? BG: In 1958, no ‘70's, '78. But I worked where if you worked 20 years they had a guaranteed ____ if they close it down, I got seventy percent of my wages for half and I've got an insurance policy and I've got insurance for that and if anything happens to my wife, she gets it as long as she lives. I _____ and it's in, they sold out to Alcoa, they're the largest in the world, but they've got a trust fund and I don't have to worry about jobs or anything. LG: Prior to starting the interview, you and I were talking about baseball. Tell me about your baseball. BG: I managed a team in Arizona for thirteen years. LG: What was the name of the team? BG: Well, we had different names. I had one that was the Red Sox and one of them the Cardinals. It was mostly a Jewish community and there was seventeen teams there and won the first place every year that I managed, and I got a second place in the state in a tournament in 1950… 1960… what was it, '63. '63. I went to Denver, Colorado. Flew us up there to play ____ Airforce Base. We played ____ Colorado, we beat them and played San Jose and they beat us 3-2. LG: What level baseball was that? BG: That was senior little league, I had a pitcher that was 6'3” weighed 220 pounds. Boy, he could throw that ball in a bullet, had my first baseman, and this boy I'm talking about, he played for me, Cary, ____ that's the one that works at Emory, he struck out in a tournament one time, we played seven innings and he struck out, let's see, he faced 21 people and he struck out 17. And I knew a guy when I was living on a farm that played baseball, played for the Cardinals, and my son was a pitcher and he was just as good as Gary Murdoch. But I enjoyed that more than anything, I liked baseball, my hobby, ____ she can tell you about that. LG: Well, all of this story has been taking place in Arizona, yet you're in Atlanta now, how did you…? BG: Well, because she had little girl and a boy, and I have a son who's here. And she's got a little girl that's 15 years old, smart as a whip, pretty as a doll, five feet nine and a half. She sang ____ opera, she sang in Norway, and _____ was a thousand years old that summer. SG: Church… BG: Church, yeah. My daughter, one thing about her, I can't think of anything bad to say about her, and I can truthfully say that, and she taught at church and school ever since she was old enough to do it. LG: So being closer to your daughter's family brought you to Atlanta? BG: And my son, too. LG: So they're both here. BG: Yeah. LG: When did you move to Atlanta? BG: I've been here twelve years, isn't it. I was talking about my hobbies, rocks and minerals. LG: Tell me about your hobbies. SG: He had to sell furniture when he moved out here in order to hold up all the rocks… BG: They weigh too much. _____, Sandra knows her. My wife didn't like the rocks for a long time, boy, she likes them now. I used trading and buying all I got, she don't want to get rid of any of them now. But she said, “I dreamed about that you had a, you died and they dug a hole, and outside the hole, _____ all your rocks.” I got twelve ____ full of rocks in my basement. Some that's old as thousands, millions of years old, rocks, and I got a that big around, red ____, not red but rainbow colored, those are ____ from Arizona. I've got some green, _____ anybody got anymore like them. SG: And you've shared your collections on many occasions with elementary schools in the area. LG: I would think Fernbank natural history museum might like to know about this collection. SG: Yes, would love to probably. I mean it really ____ pieces in a museum. BG: I know one time the first that showed you, you said something about choosing kindergarten teaching, and she said, “Dad, you might bring your rocks on, and ______ if they don't like them, they'll just walk away,” but they did and they all ranted and raved about it. How many teachers there, seventeen? SG: Well, I know all the kindergarten teachers were, six or seven classes. BG: The whole school, all them teachers wanting to see them. SG: Well, yes, that was ____. BG: Set it up later and I _____ showed, I put them out along the, when they got ____ about seventeen buses leave and they all _____ looking for rocks. I couldn't even talk. SG: Not for so long. BG: She's talking about the little girl who's fifteen now, about that tall, she kept pushing, pulling on my daughter's dress, said “I got something to say.” This teacher's in there now, she says, “I got a very important message to say. I _____ red socks. I got these red socks at Target on sale.” SG: Christina will never live that one down. LG: We've got about five minutes left on the hour of the tape. Did your military experience influence your thinking about the war? BG: Yep, it sure did. Yeah, I tell you what, the one thing about it, I do _____, the marines kill a lot of people because they are glory happy, and I know what I'm talking about because I fought right along beside of them. If they see a machine gun up ahead, they don't call in artillery, they just send the troops in and they got a picture showing them what they got. And they get out of the army, I mean the marines, that all _____ soldier, I'm a soldier. And they got a guy that's in the marines now, he's related to her, he's just a kid, and I tried to tell him when he was enlisted, that's all you talked about, and he's always asking me war stories. I said, “Boy, you sure got a memory,” I said, “____ you never forget.” SG: Do you think it's made you a stronger person? BG: Yeah. And I feel sorry for the marines, ____ they don't, they're just glory happy. I mean they don't care about people, that's not my opinion, that's a fact. I've seen it. I wouldn't advise nobody to get in that, they glorify it. Every marine that's been in a war know that you know. They're mean, they get a lot of things done but their casualties are triple and that's not necessary. LG: Is there anything that you want to add that we haven't covered in the interview? BG: Well, not, maybe you can answer a little bit. I still keep in touch with this guy that I met in Alabama. I never knew he thought that much of me, you know, when, I tell you what, he called me when I got out of service, his mother and dad called me. I lived in Missouri and he's way down there. I never lost touch and I didn't know he thought that much. One thing he told of me, he _____ says, “Well, who is ____.” He says, “Well, he's a big guy but he didn't cuss.” I've got a lot of bad habits, ask my wife, she's got a list. SG: And that's why she looked him up on the Internet, she said I wanted to meet a man who'd never cursed or anything like that. LG: Alright, well Mr. Gifford is there anything else, is that about it you think? BG: You've got it all, didn't you. LG: It's still running, we're right at an hour. BG: Well, I'll tell you a little about his wife though, it's something. He met this girl, she was 19 and he was 25, she was a little old girl I guess, and she wasn't dumb or anything, she's very intelligent, but he met her and he decided he was going to marry her. And they bought a house, and he gave her some money to pay the mortgage and she went and bought a big frame, a picture frame. And he said, “come back here. Did you pay the house payment?” She said, “No, I didn't.” “Why didn't you?” Said “I didn't have the money left.” He said that ____ down here. He had to go borrow money from his dad to go pay it off. But she's real smart, she's just dedicated. He said one month that she called over 700 people that's lonely in a church all over the country and she's cleaned up in Tuscaloosa, cleaned up the _____ get a bunch of women to get together and renovate the… SG: Yeah, they passed a city ordinance. BG: Yeah, city ordinance to clean up things. She's real nice person, real dedicated. LG: Sounds wonderful. Well is that it? BG: Good enough. LG: Thank you very much. BG: I don't know how I turned out to sound, I had a stroke about two years ago and I kind of slur my speech some times, it seems that way to me. LG: We didn't notice it at all. Thank you very much."],"dc_format":["video/quicktime"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Veterans History Project oral history recordings","Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center"],"dcterms_subject":["Browning automatic rifle","Silver Star","World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Japan--Okinawa Island","Segregation--United States","Baseball","Typhoons","Lightning (Fighter plane)","World War, 1939-1945--personal narratives, American","Gifford, Vonda, 1940-","Gifford, Jesse O., 1886-","Gifford, Amlia, 1897-","Skelton, Red, 1913-1997","Hale, LaVoight Frasier, 1924-2008","DeVito, Unknown, Sergeant","Easley, Claudius Miller, 1891-1945","MacArthur, Douglas, 1880-1964","United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944","Japan. Kaigun. Kamikaze Tokubetsu Kogekitai","United States. Army. 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Licensing agreement may be required."],"dcterms_medium":["video recordings (physical artifacts)","mini-dv"],"dcterms_extent":["1:02:09"],"dlg_subject_personal":null,"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"nps_mlk","title":"Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy of racial and social justice","collection_id":null,"collection_title":null,"dcterms_contributor":["Alonzo Crim Center for Excellence in Urban Education","Georgia State University. College of Education"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798"],"dcterms_creator":null,"dc_date":["2003"],"dcterms_description":["Web site providing lesson plans based on the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta, Georgia. Lesson plans are divided into grade levels Kindergarten through third grade, fourth and fifth grade, and sixth through eighth grade. A separate section provides worksheets and suggestions for teachers visiting the historic site with their classes.","The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata."],"dc_format":null,"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":null,"dcterms_subject":["African Americans--Civil rights","Civil rights movements--United States","African American civil rights workers","Civil rights workers--United States","Segregation--United States","March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington, D.C., 1963","Nonviolence--United States"],"dcterms_title":["Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy of racial and social justice"],"dcterms_type":["Text"],"dcterms_provenance":["Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site (Agency : U.S.)"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://www.nps.gov/malu/forteachers/lessonplansandteacherguides.htm"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":["Copyright 2003, National Park Service, Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site"],"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":null,"dcterms_medium":["instructional materials","learning modules","lesson plans","teaching guides","timelines (chronologies)","worksheets"],"dcterms_extent":null,"dlg_subject_personal":["King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"nps_twhp_travel","title":"Historic places of the Civil Rights Movement : a national register of historic places travel itinerary","collection_id":"nps_twhp","collection_title":"Teaching with Historic Places","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, 39.76, -98.5"],"dcterms_creator":null,"dc_date":["2003/2018"],"dcterms_description":["Web site providing information on locations on the National Register of Historic Places relating to the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. The site provides a map of locations such as churches, schools, homes, and neighborhoods throughout the country significant to the struggle for African American civil rights in the United States. 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Watkins School; a list of activities; and a list of supplementary resources.","The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata."],"dc_format":null,"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":null,"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":["From the Teaching with Historic Places Collection"],"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":null,"dcterms_subject":["Segregation--United States","Segregation in education--United States","Segregation in education--Virginia--New Kent County","National Association for the Advancement of Colored People","School integration--United States","School integration--Virginia--New Kent County","School integration--Massive resistance movement","School integration--Massive resistance movement--Virginia--New Kent County","Civil rights movements--United States","African Americans--Education--Virginia--New Kent County","African Americans--Education","Historic sites--Virginia--New Kent County","United States. 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