Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Henry Stripling was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
Okay. This is an audio recording for the Veterans' History Project. We are in Seattle, Washington. Today is October 22, 2001. The person being interviewed is Henry Stripling. He was born May 15th, 1916. We're at 7938 20th Avenue --
No. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia.
Atlanta, Georgia. -- 20th Avenue Southwest, Seattle, Washington, 98106. Specifically, during World War II that we're interested in, he was working for Boeing Aircraft Company, which supplied many of the planes that were used overseas. My name is Stephen Miller, I'm Henry's grandson, and I'll be conducting the interview.
Just for the record, could you state your name?
Henry Stripling.
And how old are you today?
85.
Where were you born and raised?
Atlanta, Georgia. I grew up there. I left when I was 23 years old to come west.
What about your family background, your mom, your dad?
How do you mean? I had a mother and father and ...
Well, were they both from Georgia?
Yes. They were both born and lived all of their lives in Georgia.
Okay. And they were both of what descent, would you say?
Oh, Angelo Saxon and Scottish. My mother was a McCollum. She was Scotch --
Scotch-Irish.
(By Mr. Miller) Okay. And --
And your father's English.
Well, Anglo Saxon, whatever you want to call it.
(By Mr. Miller) What is your educational background?
I think I finished -- I just finished the eighth grade.
Eighth grade?
Yeah.
Before -- what year was that?
Hmm --
Well, you started school probably in about 19 --
I really don't remember.
-- 22.
This was 70 years ago, you know.
Right.
I'd say about 1930, '31.
About -- let's make it '32.
(By Mr. Miller) Now, at the time of the war, when -- when were you married?
1941, August 17th.
So that was right before --
Right before --
Pearl Harbor.
Three or four, five months, something like that.
Where were you married?
Metford, Oregon.
What was your spouse's wartime occupation?
She worked at Boeing, too.
So you both worked at Boeing?
Through the war, yeah.
Well, Steve, I was teaching school when the war broke out.
Well, he doesn't want that part, I don't think.
Well, he said during the war. I was teaching school when the war broke out, and I came up here in '42. And I went to work for Boeing that September, so that would be September '42, until your mother was born.
(By Mr. Miller) And when -- you had a child before the war ended; right?
Yes.
Yes.
(By Mr. Miller) What year was that?
'44. September 5th, '44.
Okay.
Why don't you keep your finger on it down through there and you can -- you would keep your space, your place, couldn't you?
Yeah.
(By Mr. Miller) Okay. So where was it exactly that you lived and worked during the war? And just feel free to sort of describe ...
We lived in a government housing project called Holly Park in South Seattle.
It was built specifically for war workers.
(By Mr. Miller) What was your main wartime activity, working?
First I was a mechanic, and then later on I was an inspector.
In the final assembly inspection.
(By Mr. Miller) A mechanic for?
Mechanic, helping build --
Putting the planes together.
-- them to start with, and then --
(By Mr. Miller) Which -- which plane?
The B-17. We worked -- we worked on the B-29.
It's called the Flying Fortress, Steve. It was -- figured big, you know, in the war on Europe. The Flying Fortress was the main battleship.
(By Mr. Miller) How did you come about this work?
When I -- I was in Metford, Oregon, and they were giving classes in sheet metal. The government was financing this to get you -- get you prepared to work on aluminum. You -- you riveted and drilled holes and messed around with aluminum. And after you passed the course that they had, then Boeing or Lockheed, one, would send for a certain number of people. And when your time came up, why, you went to wherever, whoever was asking for some people. And after a physical, they just put you right to work.
So it basically depended on which place was hiring in the rotation as where you would end up?
Right. In Metford, the only two places were Lockheed in California and Boeing in Seattle. And sometimes it would be one and sometimes it would be the other.
What was your title, actually?
It was just mechanic, airframe mechanic, and inspector, final assembly, where you checked all the work that everybody else had done. You had to -- you had a little stamp with your number on it and you had to stamp everything as good. In other words, finally you had to say that it was -- everything was ready to go.
So you were promoted to that spot?
You just kind of drifted up to it, I think.
So did you work on all aspects of building or was it something in particular, like the engine or?
No. It was a fuselage.
You worked specifically on the fuselage --
On the fuselage.
-- of the B-17?
Yeah.
Who was your supervisor?
I can't remember his name, but they just called him an assistant manager.
For the plant?
For the -- no. For this shop.
Okay. What was the work environment like? And just sort of describe it.
A lot of noise.
It was a lot of noise, you know, with -- riveting guns make an awful lot of noise. And it was a good environment. Everybody was real patriotic and they just worked harder -- hard as could be, you know. And toward the end of the cycle of the B-17, the people were doing such good work -- they'd been doing the same thing, you know, like you was -- you just put in this bracket, you put in this bracket, and maybe two or three brackets. And you got so good at it that we hardly needed an inspector. So at the end, you know, there was hardly ever anything wrong with it, and ... but everybody worked hard.
And did you have a half hour lunch or ...
Yeah, we had a half hour lunch. Don't you remember, you'd come and --
Well, I'm --
Yeah. A half an hour lunch, which, I -- it's been so long, I can't remember, but I think it was included in the workday because the shifts all came out even, you know. I mean --
It was four or ...
I think it was four to 11.
Because we went to work for the swing shift at four and got off at midnight.
11. 11.
Four to 11 is seven hours.
11 -- 10 to 11. Four -- yeah, four to 12 and 12 to --
Eight.
And eight to --
Four.
Right. -- four. And ...
Steve, can I tell you one little thing?
Well, she didn't -- you don't want to monkey this up. Why don't you just wait?
Well, he cuts out what he doesn't want.
Yeah. But he's -- he's using up his tape.
Oh.
Tell him --
I have plenty -- I have plenty of tape.
Tell him afterwards.
One -- one time F.D. Roosevelt came through our plant. So they had everybody go out where Clyde was working to gather around to see him, because he's coming along in a little motorcade. And when he -- you know, he'd always -- had that hat on that was kind of saucy.
And a cigarette.
And one guy yelled out, Hi, Frank. And President Roosevelt said, Hi. I'll always remember that. That was one of the few presidents that we've actually seen.
Oh.
Him and --
Carter.
-- Mr. Carter we met on an airplane flying from Georgia to New York.
(By Mr. Miller) So how -- how big was it, the plant?
Well, you can still see it down there. It's Plant 2. Oh, it was a gigantic thing. It's kind of hard to describe how many square feet it was, because I don't know that I ever knew. But it was a gigantic thing. They -- in one department they'd make wings and in another department they'd make the fuselage and they'd --
They'd bring whole planes in.
-- bring in the motors and --
They rolled them out right on the flight apron, they called it, about one a week, one Flying Fortress a week.
What are you talking -- you're crazy. They was running out 20 a day.
Okay.
Well, there was a lot of them anyway. They -- it was more than one.
(By Mr. Miller) What special rules or conventions did you have to follow for working at Boeing?
Nothing that I know of. You -- I think we had to join the union, didn't we?
Yes.
Yeah. You -- it was -- you had to join and belong to the union or you couldn't work there. But that was all.
(By Mr. Miller) So everyone was part of it?
Yeah.
Do you remember the name of the union?
The Aircraft Mechanic Union. Just a minute and I'll --
I thought it was the Local 587. No?
Yeah, I think that was it.
No. Yeah. We'll just keep going, and we'll ...
(By Mr. Miller) How did you feel about the unions in particular? I mean ...
I was kind of ambivalent about it. They -- I had seen how my dad had worked without unions and how lousy the workers were treated. So I was in favor, I think you would say.
Honorary Retirement Card, National Association of Machinists. And that's when I retired, they gave me that. So when I joined, if I wanted to go back to work, I wouldn't have to pay --
Initiation fees.
Oh.
Here's -- Local 751, Aeronautical Mechanics Union.
That's the same one. That's still the union down there.
$25 initiation and $3 assessment. Probably just going to throw this away and I kept it. During the war we had the mileage rations and gasoline.
(By Mr. Miller) Oh, yeah. I'll ask about that. Did you have many friends at the plant?
Yeah. Most of the people you worked with, you know. It's just like anywhere else, some of them you saw outside the environment, you know. But we worked, as we've said before, the four to 11 swing shift.
Sure.
I just kind of liked it, for one thing. And that's what they put me on when I went there, so. It was -- it was nice during the war. They had bowling leagues that started at 12 o'clock at night. And you'd go from work downtown to the -- and bowl in a league, you know. And they had dances at 12 o'clock at night for swing shifters and all those kind of things.
Was this all at Holly Park?
No. Most -- most of this was downtown. They had the bowling alley that was downtown and the Trianon, which was down at Third and Wall, was the dance hall at that time, great big place and all these -- Glenn Miller and all these things would -- guys would come through, and it was quite a deal.
You're right. (Tape recorder turned off.)
Segment four. Life during wartime.
(By Mr. Miller) How did you feel about the war in particular, from what you saw on TV or read and heard on the radio?
Well, I think everybody was for the war, you know, because it started in such a bad way with the Japs.
You mean as far as our involvement --
Yeah.
-- after Pearl Harbor?
Yeah.
How did you hear about it before that, maybe, is what he was ...
Oh, it was -- almost everybody was antiwar before Pearl Harbor, very passivist nation. Nobody wanted to get in another war in Europe.
(By Mr. Miller) What about your guys' families or friends' feelings? Was anyone adamantly against it during the war?
I don't know that I knew anyone during the war that was really against it.
We didn't -- we didn't know enough people around here. There might have been conscientious objectors then, as well as in the Vietnam war. You know, a lot of people went to Canada then.
(By Mr. Miller) But in what ways did the war change your activities or habits, like day-to-day things? How did all that change?
Well, it -- you know, there was rationing everywhere, so didn't have enough butter and you didn't have enough meat and you didn't have enough gas. So you didn't take any long trips, you know, in the car because you were rationed. When you drove your car to work, you got some extra, I don't remember exactly how much more, but it was -- it was enough to cover you. They figured how far you lived from the plant, and then you got enough rations to cover that. Then you still kept your two gallons a week or three gallons a week or something.
I've forgotten how much it was, but I know you could save it up.
(By Mr. Miller) What kind of things did they ration?
Practically everything, you know, tires.
Butter.
Butter, meat.
(By Mr. Miller) Gas?
Gas.
What were some of the first changes that took place when the war started? I mean, how did people act differently; how did people live differently?
Well, I think it's just like we just said, you know, you -- you quit taking trips and you stayed closer to home. And I think most people saved more money, you know, because you didn't -- you weren't spending so much on other things.
Did you take any trips during the war?
We went to Canada.
We -- we'd go up to Canada. They wasn't -- they wasn't rationed up there, you know. You could --
You could buy gas.
You could go up there and buy a steak that would cover a plate, you know, for a buck.
And you couldn't get any here.
And, you know, and we was rationed here. And also, gas wasn't rationed up there, so all you had to do was just have enough to go, get to the border, and then you could fill up, and fill up just before you came back in, you know, with gas. (Telephone interruption.) (Tape recorder turned off.)
(By Mr. Miller) You said that you had gotten married right before the war?
Yeah.
Did you know anyone that got married during the war?
I don't -- I don't think we --I can't think of knowing anybody, but --
Wasn't --
There was a -- yeah, her youngest sister. But there was a flurry of marriages, you know, as guys were going off to war.
And I'm sure Alice married a fellow down in Los Angeles when she was working for the shipyard.
(By Mr. Miller) What were the weddings -- did you go to any weddings during the war?
I don't think so. I can't recall one.
No. Well, not during the war, but ...
(By Mr. Miller) Okay. This is something that is actually pretty important, at least to me, anyway, because, you know, in retrospect, it just seems like we were -- we've all been taught that we were going to win. But did you ever worry whether or not -- what the outcome would be like?
Oh, yes, especially at first, you know. They -- they practically decimated our fleet, you know, and -- and the Japanese just swept right down and took Manila and Corregidor and on down all of the -- Indonesia and in there. They occupied all of it.
Guadalcanal and then all of --
It looked pretty bleak. And then when we finally started moving in on the Pacific, you know, it -- it was terrible, those battles, the Guadalcanal, on some of those islands, you know --
The only thing that saved us --
-- and Iwo Jima.
-- was all of our aircraft carriers were out at sea, so they didn't destroy any of our carriers. They just got those huge battleships that were all lined up at Pearl Harbor.
(By Mr. Miller) Of personal interest, were you worried about one side or the other, or did you even look at it in those terms? Was it just the Axis? Were you worried more that the Germans might take over England or the Japanese might --
Oh, the Japanese looked to be the most menacing to start with, because we were putting most of our stuff, you know, armaments and money and everything into the European war. So they finally just kept us on hold back here, more or less, until they got to VE Day.
Did you have any worthwhile experiences because of the war? What were some things that happened that you think were positive that wouldn't have happened otherwise?
I don't think I can think of anything that really made much difference right down in the nitty-gritty land, because life just went on, you know, just about the same. You were -- like we was talking about, the shortages and everything. But nobody was starving to death and there was enough coal to heat the house and all those kind of things and enough gas to get to where you wanted to go.
Actually, it didn't upset America like it did Europe, because we never had those bombs falling on us like London.
(By Mr. Miller) What was your most memorable experience during the war?
I -- I can't think that I really had one.
Too long ago, Steve.
Yeah.
Well, of course, VE Day was memorable, you know, as a time for celebrating. Everybody was celebrating, parties and --
It just lifted you. Somehow or other it felt like you were in a brand-new world. Remember, Clyde, we were taking a drive down towards (unintelligible) and it just -- everything just lifted off and you felt free again, you know, after VE Day. I felt that way, anyway.
(By Mr. Miller) Who's the most -- ah, here's an interesting question. Who is the most memorable character? I don't know much about northwest politics during the war, but who's the person --
Is that when Magnusson and Jackson were in office or was ...
Seems like that was later on. This has been so long ago, Steve, that I don't know as we put much stock in politics at that time, you know, because they were a secondary thing.
(By Mr. Miller) Right.
Everything was frozen, you know, wages and prices and everything. And so it didn't make much difference who was in there, they -- everything was the same.
Well, didn't they have a lot of war effort drives and things --
Oh, yeah. They had -- they bond drives all the time. And movie stars would come around and Glenn Miller's Band, the'd come around and they were --
Kind of --
We'd get --
-- upped your spirits a little bit.
We'd get directives from the War Department back in Washington DC begging us to build planes faster and all that kind of stuff.
(By Mr. Miller) Tell me in your own words what you thought about FDR.
Oh, he's -- I've always felt that he knew that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor, but he figured that that was the only way that you could get the American people into the war. And in hindsight, it was a good thing, because if we had waited much longer, Hitler would have had the atom bomb and we'd all be speaking German. We just barely got in in time, you know.
Have you visited any memorials or participated in any commemorations of the war?
We've visited -- overseas we've visited several places. We went down to the Normandy landing and went out and saw the pillboxes and the wire and all that. It's still there.
(Unintelligible.)
Oh, that's right. You was along, wasn't you? No, that was the girls, yeah.
Yeah. And we went to a memorial there, and on the ...
In Hawaii, they've got a great big beautiful memorial.
You know where the Arizona was, Steve, that went down, was sunk? It's a huge memorial.
Well, did you go -- did you go over there --
You've been there, haven't you?
-- when you was over there?
(By Mr. Miller) Right. Yeah.
Well, we went to (unintelligible). Where else did we go? I started to tell about the one down ... (Tape recorder turned off.)
(By Mr. Miller) Things in the news. What kind of news information did you receive about the war?
They had -- it was pretty well covered. They had the correspondents everywhere, all the major news medias did. And of course, we didn't have television back then. But the radio and the newspapers covered the war pretty good.
There's a couple of specific questions about the news that I wanted to ask you. What kind -- what kind of information were you given regarding the other world leaders?
Churchill?
(By Mr. Miller) Including both the Axis and allied side?
Of course there's a lot of -- a lot of Churchill was in the news all the time, you know, because he was -- he was the -- the active leader for England.
There were three, though. Who was the other one?
Well, De Gaulle.
Oh, yeah.
He was the free French, they called him, leader, you know, and he was kind of a pain in the rump because he was --
Arrogant.
-- a Frenchman. He was just an arrogant Frenchman, you know. But they were in the news all the time. And of course, FDR was in the news all the time. And he was -- he was extremely popular. Practically everybody was for him.
We visited, Steve, just for your information, in Yalta where they have one of the big conferences for the leaders. We got to go in the very room and see the table that the leaders sat around down in Yalta.
(By Mr. Miller) What about Stalin, what kind of press was he getting?
Well --
He was on our side.
-- he was on our side supposedly. And he was getting -- Uncle Joe, you know, they called him Uncle Joe. He was -- as long as they were with us and helping try to -- but after the war, he -- he got bad press, you know, because he was a -- he was a mean son of a gun.
That was the eastern front and we were the western front, so we were pinching Hitler right in the middle, see. And if it hadn't been for Russia, they'd have lasted a lot longer than they did. They went over there and thought they could do in those Russians and they froze to death. Just like the -- Napoleon did back in 1815.
(By Mr. Miller) But what about the Axis leaders?
Well, Mussolini and Hitler was -- of course, they were in the news a lot. But then, you know, Hitler was always giving speeches, and Mussolini, too. He was a grandstander. And so they -- they were in the news a lot.
He was named Times Man of The Year before the war broke out, I think in '32.
Who? Hitler?
(By Mr. Miller) Hitler.
Well --
Yeah, well, he's -- he had a lot of people fooled, you know. And he was making things move, you know. He was -- it was unbelievable that a country no larger than that should have amassed such a war machine. It was unbelievable, that's all.
Well, Germany has always been one of the biggest war countries.
I know that, but I'm talking about the area. Yee gods, it was -- wasn't any bigger than what, Wisconsin, probably.
Prussians on down.
(By Mr. Miller) So you think it surprised people how strong they were, once again, during the war?
Yeah. Yeah. It surprised all of us people that didn't know, I'm sure -- well, Chamberlain went over there, you know, trying to negotiate --
Peace in our time.
-- peace in our time, and he didn't do very good at it. But Hitler had a lot of people fooled. And he just kept nibbling away, you know. He ...
Well, he was crazy.
Well, of course, but.
Not much doubt about that.
If he --
But he was crazy in a way that --
They would have won the war if he'd have let his -- his generals and admirals and all run it instead of him running it.
(By Mr. Miller) What about Hirohito and Hideki Tojo, the Japanese theatre, what kind of press did they get --
Well --
-- what information did you have?
Well, they -- they, of course, they were the bad guys, you know, and there were a lot of bad things said about them. That was one of the ways they whipped up enthusiasm to buying bonds and that kind of stuff, you know.
Well, see, Japan was not a democratic country at that time. The top guys, Tojo on down, told the rest of them what to do.
(By Mr. Miller) So was one side viewed as worse than the other?
I think we viewed Japan worse to start with because of the bad thing they did at Pearl Harbor. But as things began to filter in about the death camps, the Germans turned out to be the bad, the real bad boys.
Did you know anyone who was either just immigrated from Germany or of Asian descent when the wore broke out?
No, I don't think so.
Did you know any --
Toby, that I rode on the bus with, had been over here, but she was still -- you know, you could just read between the lines. She was still kind of proud of the mark that Germany was making over there, even though she was German American. But I could just read between the lines, kind of, in the way she talked. She thought the Germans had come a long way.
Oh. Well, by God, they have.
(By Mr. Miller) What was the ethnic breakdown of where you worked during the war?
I don't know as we paid much attention to it. Most of the people were white, but there were colored people working, too.
Were there any Asians working at the plant?
I don't know -- I can't -- it was, like I say, this --
Well --
Yeah, I -- I know.
-- you know what happened to the Japanese.
Well, I'm going to get to that.
They were out of here, so --
I'm going to get to that.
-- we didn't have any of them.
No, I don't remember any.
I don't either. I can't remember any.
I don't think it would have made --
Of course, it wasn't near as many here then, as there are now.
I don't think it would have made any impact on me.
(By Mr. Miller) Okay. Now, the Jewish situation, how was that covered? I've read some accounts and studies of what people have shown, the kind of news information they'd gotten and how many people were kept in the dark. Sort of trace, as the war went along, what you knew about the Jewish situation in Europe during the war.
Well, that's what I say. As the war went on, they got up more and more information coming out on the death camps, you know and all. But I don't know as we ever knew a Jew.
Well, they rounded up all of the Jews all over Europe, Steve.
Yeah, we know that, but --
I'm just saying --
(By Mr. Miller) Well, what did you know, then? Like in 1941, did you know what was going on?
No, no.
Well, somewhat. You remember they had the -- all the people in Denmark, I believe it was, put a Jewish thing on their arm --
Star of David?
-- in cooperation with the poor Jewish people. And there was one man up in Sweden who did a lot to rescue Jews, you know, but.
But that's not what he was talking about. He's talking about what we thought or knew about it.
Well, we just heard from the news. I remember reading about this man in Sweden, he was a prince of some kind.
When did you read about that?
Well, during the war.
In the beginning or --
Well, I don't know when it was, but anyway he was slain.
(By Mr. Miller) So when did the information about the death camps begin to filter out about --
Well, it was -- it was getting pretty late. I don't remember if there was anything, before, say, '44, somewhere in there.
I don't think it was really revealed until we went in --
Of course, nobody -- nobody knew that it was as bad as it was until they finally went in there.
But we knew they were rounding them up over there --
Oh, yeah.
-- and putting them in these camps.
You didn't know but what they were work camps.
And a lot of them, they did work, the men, they worked, but others they put them in the gas chamber.
(By Mr. Miller) So you knew they were rounding them up --
Yeah.
(By Mr. Miller) -- you knew the policies --
Yeah.
-- the policies --
Yeah.
-- but you didn't know what they were doing --
No.
-- once they rounded them up?
No. They -- the -- at first, the idea was that they were just going to slave labor camps somewhere. And a lot of them did, you know, dug coal and all that kind of stuff.
Well, Hitler rounded up the Gypsies, the homosexuals, and the mentally unfit, and the Jews.
(By Mr. Miller) Okay. Now, being that you lived on the west coast, something that became very important was the Japanese internment. It was a presidential order that was signed.
Yeah. In retrospect, of course, you can see it was a bad idea. But when -- if you lived here at that time, it seemed appropriate. Because there was all kinds of rumors floating around that a Japanese sub was firing on the Oregon coast and -- and here our fleet was all gone and they'd leveled Pearl Harbor, and we didn't know what was next. And I think they proved over there --
They thought there might be spies --
-- in Pearl Harbor that the Japs, some of the Japanese on the ground there had helped them with, you know, lights or navigation systems or something. And so, as I say, I tell you, it was kind of -- it was a bad deal. But at the time, it didn't seem all that bad to me.
Did you know, Steve, that the 442nd -- (Tape turned off.)
(By Mr. Miller) Was the news -- I mean, was that daily conversation? Did it -- did it come out every day as you were working --
About --
(By Mr. Miller) -- or afterward?
About them being interned?
No. About the war.
Oh.
Oh, well. Well, it was in the paper all the time, you know.
Oh, yeah.
They'd -- so, you know, tell you how the war was going in Japan, over in the islands and the Pacific, and how it was going over there. And of course, probably sometimes they jazzed it up a little bit. Maybe not, but.
(By Mr. Miller) Did you find that people talked about it a lot?
Oh, yeah. Everybody was -- was interested because we didn't want to lose, you know. It was an important part of your life.
Now, post-war experiences. How did you feel when the war was completely over?
Oh, everybody was relieved; everybody was happy. Something that stuck in my mind was that I had -- the next day, I just drove into a service station and filled up the tank. And I just thought, yee gods, isn't this great?
I mean, they'd give you all you wanted the day after.
Oh, yeah.
(By Mr. Miller) Now, what did you think about -- about not only the death of FDR but the assumption of the presidency by Harry Truman?
Well, everybody thought Truman was kind of a dunce. And he was one of the most brilliant guys we ever had in the office, as it turned out. He was -- he was a good guy.
Harry was down-to-earth and yet, he could see things right.
Oh, he was -- he was a brilliant guy, he really was.
I don't --
He didn't look --
-- think I would characterize --
He didn't look like it.
-- him as brilliant, but --
Didn't look like it and people didn't think so, but he was, he was a smart guy.
You know what he was before the war?
Hmm --
Haberdashery.
Oh; right.
(By Mr. Miller) Let's see. Where were you on Victory in Europe Day? Where were you exactly, what -- sort of describe the mood.
I don't remember whether we heard about it while we was at work or not. But that was -- did they take the next day off? Because we had a big party there.
I don't remember the day the war was over as well as I remember the day Roosevelt died.
Yeah, well, that was a ...
And that made a big stir, too, you know, because it was only a short time before the war was over.
But the details are kind of vague about exactly when we heard of VE, except I remember -- well, so, we was on the swing shift, so we must have took the -- they must have given everybody a day off or something because, you know, they had -- in the project, they had a great big party, you know.
I probably got to stay home with Joyce while you got to go to the party.
No. The party was at our house and next door and across the street and all these people drinking and whooping it up.
(By Mr. Miller) So did you keep your job or continue with other wartime activities after the war?
No. After --
After VJ Day --
After VJ Day, of course, Boeing kept saying, you know, we're going -- we're going to stay in business and all that kind of stuff. But just a few days after VJ Day, they came over the loudspeaker for everybody to take their tools and anything else they had and go home. They were closing down.
The war was over.
Closing down the shop.
(By Mr. Miller) So what did you do?
Oh, we did something kind of foolish. We -- we'd, with an old car with almost bald tires on it -- and you couldn't buy tires -- we took off for Georgia to -- we was gone for about six weeks.
Took us -- about a week after.
And then when I came back, I -- I went to work for the transit system.
(By Mr. Miller) Is there one thought about your wartime experience that you want to share? Anything important you want to say or just anything in general, just something that you --
No. I just -- I felt good about working down there. You know, some people could say you was draft dodging, you know, but I was deferred. And I could see what I was doing down there. And all around on these hills here there were antiaircraft batteries, you know. And so I could see these guys out there, just sitting out there drinking beer and chasing women and -- and they wasn't doing anything for the war effort. There never -- never was a plane over here, and I could see I was doing something. So I never felt guilty about it at all.
Okay. Is there anything else I should ask? I know there's a lot of material covered and to be covered.
That -- that seems pretty thorough to me.
Nothing else on the subject then. I'd like to thank Henry Stripling and his wife, my grandma, Marie Stripling, who added some very helpful information. Thank you very much for your participation in this project and a grateful nation thanks you both. (Tape turned off.) (Continued interview.)
Then the Sea-Bees --
That's her brother-in-law --
-- construction --
Her twin sister.
-- and they built airports, air steps on all these islands as we overtook them on our way to Tokyo. And so he could send little V mail, and we could send mail to them without any charge. All you had to do was put "Serviceman" or something like that.
So anyone you wanted to send mail to in the service, you could send that mail free of charge?
Yes.
That was a government --
Uh-huh. And my brother, you know, was on an aircraft carrier, flying planes off the aircraft carrier.
Hmm.
Or did he fly those huge concourse --
Yeah, it wouldn't -- he was too -- too tall --
He was too big to fly off there.
-- to fly a fighter plane.
Oh.
But he had -- flew these huge CBYs, is that --
PBYs.
PBYs.
Catalinas, they called it.
Yeah, Catalinas. And so. And my other brother was also a mechanic on a aircraft carrier. So.
Well, what did you say about the mail that they sent to you?
Well, it was called --
V mail.
-- V mail.
Victory, I think that's what ...
But anyway, I've still got one I saved from both Roland and my brother. I just kept them as souvenirs.
(By Mr. Miller) But they censored the mail?
Yeah.
(By Mr. Miller) Explain that. What do you mean?
They had a -- when you -- when a serviceman wrote a letter, it had to go through a sensor and he sealed it and sent it. You couldn't -- you couldn't mail a letter yourself. See, you might tell something, where -- where you were. And you're not supposed to know where you were.
So it was for security reasons?
Security reasons.
Yeah. But I don't think our mail was censored that we sent to them, was it?
I don't know.
I can't remember.
Well, you don't know. You wouldn't know.
Well --
It might have been?
-- would they open it before they gave it to the serviceman?
Well, that's what I say, you don't know.
That's possible, yeah.
Okay.
(Interview concluded)