Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Thomas Atchison 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.
Today is November 11th, 2019. My name is David Winer, W-I-N-E-R. I am honored to be here with Thomas Atchison, A-T-C-H-I-S-O-N. Tom, do you want to tell us your birthday?
[redacted].
Present with me is Tom and a court reporter. This is an interview with the Lake County Veterans History Project. Tom, can you tell us what branch of service you were in?
I was in the U.S. Army.
And where were you born?
I was born in Evanston, Illinois, born and raised there. I went through the Catholic school system. I graduated from St. George High School, and at that point, the war was on and everybody wanted to get in. I had applied for the Navy Air Force -- the Navy, yeah, flying. My father wouldn't sign the paperwork so I went down to the draft board and said when I was getting out of school, and they were very glad to get me.
How old were you then?
18.
So you had not received your draft card yet?
No.
What kind of work did your father do?
He was an independent insurance agent.
And your mom, did she work?
No. She was a housekeeper.
Do you have any brothers and sisters?
I had an older brother and a younger sister.
And was your brother drafted?
After the war, actually. He was working in a defense plant.
Okay. And when you tried to sign up and enlist, why did they not take you?
No, my dad wouldn't sign the paperwork because it was a three- or four-year enlistment in the Navy at that point.
And why did you try to get into the Navy?
Well, because I wanted the Navy rather than the Army.
For what reason, though? Was it because it was safer, did you like to fly?
Well, yeah. I like the water, too, but neither here nor there.
So ultimately, did you get your draft card in the mail? Do you remember that?
Yeah, somewhere along the line, it came, yeah, but they shipped me off up to Fort Sheridan for a day or two, got our beginning of the uniform changes and what have you. They loaded us aboard the old railcars with the hard seats and what have you, all of us, and we sat down in the middle of the stockyards in Chicago till it got dark.
Was it full of young draftees like yourself?
Oh, yeah, everybody was. You know, we were all green kids, 18 years old.
What year was that? Do you remember the year?
'44.
Was it in July of '44?
Yeah.
So by that time, D-Day had already been going on for a little over a month?
Yeah.
So where did they take you for your basic training?
We went to Georgia, Camp Wheeler, Georgia. It was in the middle of nowhere.
When you arrived there, were there people from all over the country there?
Yes, yes. Most of them were southern boys. One of them said he thought "Damn Yankee" was one word until he got in the Army. And that's the truth.
When my father arrived at boot camp, he had never met anybody from outside his neighborhood, let alone on the other side of the country, so tell us what your feelings were when you arrived and you saw people from all over our country with different personalities.
Well, we were all green kids. Nobody knew anybody from anyplace; we were all from different backgrounds. Of course, it was an all-white Army in those days, and my name starts with "A" so I got all the details right to start with, you know, the first one on mess duty and first one on this and all the dirty duties.
How were the relationships with the people from the different parts, the southerners and northerners?
Well, as I said, it was pretty good. They pulled some tricks on us. I mean, I never had persimmons, didn't know what a persimmon was.
It's a fruit, isn't it?
Yeah, but the thing is we're walking down the road and these kids are eating stuff off the trees, and I'm like, "What the hell?" "It's a persimmon." "What the hell is that," you know. They're about that big around, and I popped one in my mouth, and it's sour and bitter, and they're sitting there laughing their rears off because you don't eat them till they get pink and with berries. And they thought that was -- that dumb Yankee, you know.
How long was your basic training for? Was it all at one base?
16-week basic training.
Did you do the full cycle of basic?
That was that 16 weeks.
And tell us about what you thought about in terms of the difficulty of it, you know, the marching, the physical part of it.
Well, as I said, I was an 18-year-old kid full of piss and vinegar. Excuse the terminology.
I think she can handle it.
She's heard things before. No, we were all in the same boat together. We had some good times and bad.
Did you find it easily manageable, at least the physical part of it?
You didn't have any choice.
And how about firing a gun? Was it the first time you had ever fired a rifle before?
Well, I had a .22 as a kid, but yeah, firing a real rifle, I'd never done that before.
Did you train on the M1 Garand?
Yeah.
It's a lot different than a .22. How did you do on that?
I did marksman or whatever the hell it was at the time, yeah.
Everybody in your group was infantry?
Yes. It was an infantry unit. It was basic training for infantry, that was all it was.
Okay. And so if you entered sometime at the end of July, when did you finish your basic training?
16 weeks later.
Okay. And then were you taken on a train up to the East Coast then?
No. We had 10 days on the land route to get to the East Coast.
How did you get there?
You took the train back to Chicago, you had a couple of days at home and then back to Bellmore, I think, it was. Anyway, on to the East Coast.
Is that where you got on a troop ship over to --
Yeah. We went up to Camp Kilmer, I believe, and got on a Liberty ship, brand new out of Kaiser's yard. Oh, one thing. Basic training, you asked about the hard times. It was 100 guys in the line, and they said, "How many of you guys are barbers," and about three guys raised their hands. "Okay, you're the Barber." They take the next ten guys, "You're barbers." We walk through the barracks, and everybody gets everything taken off, they're bald. You walk out this building, you walk into the next one, and they give you shots. There's a medic on both sides going bam, bam, and oh, jeez, you know. There's an old sergeant -- true story -- reading a comic book, and the guy hands him the needle, and he looks up. Bam.
Wasn't even paying attention, just giving everybody shots?
Right, 100 guys getting in a line.
That's funny. According to your discharge paper, you sailed on December 26th of 1944. Is that when you left the East Coast?
I left before that, but that's a guess of when we sailed, yeah. We were aboard ship before that, but that's when we left.
Right. And then when you took the troop ship across, was it full of just standard infantrymen?
It was packed solid. It was a new ship right out of Kaiser's yard. We were about, I don't know, six high. You had that much room; you rolled in the bunks. And the North Atlantic in December was very rough.
I was going to say, did you go in a convoy?
It was all convoy.
Was it protected by destroyers on both sides?
Yeah, way out. We weren't supposed to be up on deck, but that's another story, but yeah, way out on the perimeter. The troop ships were mostly in the middle of the convoy, and they were further out. But everybody was seasick so the vomit was about that deep, slushing back and forth across the floor.
At the bottom of the hull?
At the bottom of where you're sleeping. I can't eat them little, round --
M&Ms?
-- M&Ms to this day.
Why is that?
That's all that was floating around down there.
So somebody had M&Ms, and they were floating around at the bottom of the ship? Were you concerned about submarines at all?
One time, they were dropping depth charges. We could hear the depth charges, you could hear the concussion, and they locked us all down in the hole, and there's a guy standing up on the top of there with a submachine gun, you know.
When you say "depth charges," the destroyers on the perimeter were dropping depth charges?
Yeah, somebody was. I don't know who it was.
How long did it take you to get from the East Coast over to England, do you remember?
Six or eight days, something like that.
How did you feel? I mean, what was the trip like just physically in terms of the rolling waters?
It was bad news, it was bad news. The ship was -- they claimed it was brand new just out of Kaiser's yard, and it would come up and the whole ship would shutter, and you couldn't figure out why. I had found an air chute that I climbed up, -- it was up on the deck -- and the ship ahead of us, you could see it. It would come up, and the prop would come partway out of the water, it wouldn't catch and spin and then settle down in the thing. That's what ours was doing, too.
Is that because of the waves?
Yeah. It was rough, and the whole ship would come -- the prop would come out, there would be no drag on it, and it would spin.
Right. So did you get sick on the trip?
Yeah. Everybody got sick.
Were you throwing up and everything?
Well, I was up on the deck as much as I could. There was a big air chute, and I had that ladder in there.
But it must have been freezing. It was December.
It was better than down in the hole.
But December of '44 was really, really cold. It was kind of known as one of the coldest winters in, like, 30 years.
Yes, it was. It was rough, too.
And on that troop ship, was it people from your basic training, or was it people from all different bases?
All different bases. Now, there was a whole bunch of guys from ours, but they were all over. We had one great big hold like this thing, you know, just stacked solid with people.
Right.
And then there was the next compartment, and they had them stacked just as thick.
And you weren't assigned to any division yet; you were just basically going over there?
No. Just replacements.
And then so when you landed in England, --
We didn't land in England.
Did you land in France? Did you go directly to France?
No. They claimed that there was a submarine, and they put us inside the harbor in England somewhere. I can't remember. We stayed there inside the first barrier, and then the next day, we pulled out and we went to LaHavre. They claimed that we were the first ship that would be the first one direct from the States.
So you never got off the ship; you went basically directly from the East Coast to LaHavre, France?
Right, and it was all destroyed still. They had a gangplank off the front quarter, and we just carried our gear down a hill, and there was a long road up a hill. And the camps were named after --
Was it Camp Lucky Strike?
Yeah, there were three or four of them named after cigarettes. I don't remember exactly which one we were in.
And so when you landed at LaHavre, did you go to one of these replacement depots, they call them repo depots?
Yeah, went to that, and then they assigned us on trucks. We were there for maybe a day, two days maybe, and we were assigned on the trucks that went up and -- open trucks. It was cold as hell, and we got up to a point, and they dumped us off at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere and they said somebody else would come by and pick you up.
So when you were at LaHavre, you were there for about a day and they called out a lot of names?
Yeah.
And put you on a truck convoy?
Yeah.
And how far did you drive into France on that convoy?
Quite a ways. Somewhere up here, up past -- on the way up, somewhere along about there.
Okay. So you basically drove in the area of Rheims, R-H-E-I-M-S, in France?
Right.
Drove through there, and then you went a little bit north towards the Bastogne area?
Right.
And that's where the 87th Division was?
Right. They were ahead of us now. You know, I'm just a green replacement.
Did you know where you were going, though?
Hell, no.
Did they tell you what division, what area?
No.
Any idea where you were going?
No.
Did you have your rifle then? You had your full pack, your rifle and everything?
You had a rifle but no ammo.
Okay. So how many trucks were in your convoy?
I have no idea.
So when you got there, where did they let you off? Was there somebody to greet you?
Nope. Dumped us at a crossroad.
All by yourself, standing there?
There was a dozen of us or so, and they said, "Somebody will come along and pick you up."
And so all 12 of you had absolutely no clue where you were going, who was going to pick you up or anything?
No, and you could hear the artillery in the distance and see the flashes so we knew we were getting close.
How long did you wait at this crossroads?
It was a couple hours. Some guy came up, picked us up.
And that's when you were officially kind of part of the 87th Division?
Well, they weren't the best record keepers in the world, but anyway, yeah, somewhere in there, I guess that's when they assigned me. And then we got up to a little headquarters and they called us again by name, me with Atchison, the first ones, and sent us off with a sergeant and gave us the ammo, and off we went.
And was it at that point that you were put into L Company, Love Company?
Yeah, yeah, but I didn't know it was L Company. We just go with the sergeant.
Now, you went with a friend of yours by the name of Robert Brooks from Waukegan?
Right.
You had met him in basic training?
Yeah.
And you two stayed together all the way until --
That part.
-- until you got into Love Company?
Right.
Were you two friends and knew each other?
Well, we knew each other casually, but, I mean, we were not -- you know, somebody to talk to.
Right, but, I mean, you were together, and ultimately, you both wound up in L Company of the 346th Infantry Division of the 87th Division; is that right?
Yes, correct.
Now, tell us what it was like. Here you are, a young, green replacement. You're obviously replacing somebody that's been wounded or killed, and you are put into a company, in a platoon, in a squad of a bunch of veterans?
Right.
And tell us what your thoughts were in terms of your relationship. How did the vets treat you, what were your feelings about all of a sudden you're near a combat zone?
Yeah, there's a story in here. I don't know if I should tell it or not.
Go ahead.
They were taking us up to a line company, and we were coming down this -- it was night, and all at once, I heard some noise in the woods, and I turned and looked, and there was a German soldier laying there dead, and there was a hog eating him.
And that was right when you arrived?
A green kid out of the big city.
And it was in the middle of winter, right?
Yes.
And when you first met your platoon, what platoon were you in, do you remember? There were three of them, probably First, Second and Third Platoon.
I'd have to look it up.
And so when you were first introduced to your platoon with Robert Brooks, tell us about how the fellow platoonmates treated you because they had been in battle by that time.
Yes, they had been. I think there was, like, six guys in the squad out of the 12 so they put us in, and the first thing the sergeant did is take -- we all still had the gas masks. He took the gas masks out, cut the tubing off, threw the gas mask away and said, "You'll never need this again." They took the tubes on the gas masks, and that fit over your dog tags, fit right over the dog tags so the dog tags didn't rattle, didn't make noise.
That's something you learned in combat; you don't learn that in basic training. Tell us about how the other veterans treated you. I've talked to other veterans where the combat veterans looked down upon them, other ones embraced them. I was curious how your introduction to your platoon was.
Most of them were a little ambivalent. They didn't make a lot of friends because the turnover was so great. My L Company, one of the guys after the war did a history about them, and we had, like, 123 percent replacement or something like that.
Yeah, but combat changes a person. So you show up with people that have been in combat. Like, in terms of the way they behaved, I mean, you said you were green and full of piss and vinegar. You go through a couple of days of combat, and you're a different person.
That's true.
I was curious what your observations were about how these veterans behaved. They were all the same age as you.
No. A few older, a few. Bob Brooks was older. He was an old man.
Right, but the guys that you saw there.
He was 22 or something.
Right, but the guys that you saw there, I mean, did they behave differently, or were they friendly?
Well, "How are you" type thing, but they weren't really friendly because they had seen too many turnovers. They didn't make friends and lose them real quick.
And when you arrived, where was your division in the line? Was it behind the line, where was it?
It was in the line. I was in the line company, and we walked up to it. It was an observation post where we were on the first night. It was a house. The roof was all blown off, but we were down in the basement and we had guards out and what have you.
So you were immediately put into a line company that was active in the front line?
Exactly, exactly.
And do you recall, was it before or after Christmas of 1944? Do you recall?
It was after Christmas.
It was after Christmas?
Yeah.
Was it, like, a week or two? Do you have any recollection of that?
Yeah, somewhere in there. It was after Christmas, though.
And do you recall where your unit was stationed, like, any towns or any crossroads?
Not at that point.
Do you remember -- because the Battle of the Bulge had started probably a week or two -- a week or so before you arrived.
Yeah, we were moving the German Army back at that point or just holding them and trying to move them back.
And when you arrived there, I mean, the Battle of the Bulge was kind of in full swing right there.
Yes.
Were you aware at all or given any information about what was happening during the German attack, or were you just dumped there?
Dumped there, period. We were cannon fodder.
But did you have any idea that the Germans had broken through the American lines?
Well, we heard the stories. Yeah, we heard the stories.
Tell us about the first couple of days on the line, like, what you did, your thoughts.
Well, the first night, we slept because we were dead tired in the basement, and then the next day, they put us, like, on little outposts just kind of guarding the little area we were at. They had an artillery observer up on the second floor, and he was back quite a ways from the wall so they couldn't see the glasses, but he would be calling artillery from the second floor. I talked to him for a bit and what have you, but he didn't want any part of me, either, you know, "Get out of here, kid." And then that night, we went on the advance-and-draw fire mission. They put a fancy name to it. They called it tiger patrol, and went out with about, I don't know, six or eight guys.
In the middle of the night?
Yeah.
How long had you been on the line before you were ordered to do this patrol?
A day or two, one day.
So after one day, this patrol, it was basically a probing patrol to see what was in front of you?
That's right. Yeah, yeah.
And how far would you go forward from the front line?
Well, actually, that's a whole different story. We went down. It was a draw and kind of up the other side of the hill, and the sergeant says, "Okay, kid. You stand right here and guard this, but for God's sake, don't shoot us when we come back through here." And we all had passwords type of thing, and I found a hole where I could crawl in.
Do you remember any of the passwords?
Hell, no. They had different ones every night.
Okay.
And so I laid there in the cold all by my lonesome in the dark.
And did they come back?
Yeah, they came back, and we gave the password and the whole ball of wax.
Where did you sleep? I mean, it was in the middle of winter. Did you sleep outside in a foxhole?
Quite often I did, yes.
Tell us how you dealt with the cold because, I mean, people don't realize that infantrymen especially in the Battle of the Bulge slept outside in 20-below weather. So tell us how that was.
To start, now, you had two pair of long johns on, two pair of ODs.
Is that socks?
No, no. Uniforms.
Your uniform?
Wool uniforms. You had a sweater and a field jacket and sometimes a raincoat, and then you had your ammo and your bandoliers and all that kind of stuff, and then you had diarrhea.
Which must have --
I'm serious.
Did you sleep outside, like, almost every night?
Quite a few nights, yeah.
And would you sleep, like, in a foxhole, on the ground?
Yeah.
Where would you sleep?
In a hole somewhere if you could find one. And that area had been fought over back and forth so you could find some little holes whether it was ours or the Germans' or what have you just to get out of the wind.
I mean, tell us what your reaction was to the cold. I mean, it was day after day after day of freezing weather.
Yeah, it was miserable, it was miserable.
Did you ever have trench foot or anything?
Yeah, had trench foot, too. First they issued us goulashes, you know, the old buckle shoes, only by the time they get to me, I had a pair that big. Well, I wore them about two hours and threw them away.
They were so big?
Big and sloppy. You couldn't walk in them so I threw those away. And later on, they came out with what they called the snow pack. It was a rubber boot and they had two felt liners inside them, and they would have been great if you could have taken them off and dried out the liners and dried the felt, but your feet sweat, and now that felt liner got wet.
It got frozen?
It got frozen, and you still wore them.
Was there any way of getting away from the cold like fires, going in a building?
Very rare. They pulled us back one time for a rest and we got in a nice barn, and that was warm, yeah.
Now, when you were on the front lines, was there any contact with the Germans at that time, or was it pretty static?
At that point, we were moving forward. We did night patrols two or three times, then the bad story. Anyway, we came back one night, and the sergeant says, "We got some fresh fruit." Oh, great. Each one of us got a quarter of an apple. So we go back, and the sergeant says, "Now, we're going back to report to the CO. Do not say a word. Just stand there." Okay. First time I'd seen an officer. Anyway, we get in, and he's sitting behind the desk. He's got a little camp stove going, and he's got four apples sitting behind him and he's eating on one. We had come back and had a quarter of an apple. I lost some respect for the officers real quick.
Because they didn't share?
Christ, no. Oh, God, no.
What was the story? You said there was a story that happened there.
Yeah.
What was that?
We never saw him. Saw very, very few officers. The sergeants were leading the groups. I don't know. A lot of units didn't be that way. Ours was just -- I thought was very poor leadership, but that's neither here nor there.
Why do you think that's a bad story?
Well, I've heard some guys with good stories. Some units from what I heard after the war knew that all us green guys were pulled back out right away and did some more advanced training with them, but ours didn't.
So basically, you're saying that your officers, lieutenants, captains, majors, they kept a distance and had very little contact with the front-line soldiers like yourself?
Exactly.
So you felt a little bit isolated from them?
Oh, yeah.
And your sergeant was really your only point of contact?
That's right.
Now, when you would go on these patrols, you're there in the middle of the night and you have no clue what's around you, there could be a guy behind a tree waiting to blast you.
Right.
Tell us about kind of the fear and, like, just your attention span during those patrols in the middle of the night.
The veneer of civilization wears off pretty quick. The German cigarettes were stronger than ours, and if one of them was silly enough to smoke, you could smell the smoke. The slightest noise, the slightest movement, you're all spread out, you're very tense all the time, and sometimes you drew fire and sometimes you didn't. I think a lot of times, like the first time when they dropped me off, I think those guys just went 50 feet down the road and went to sleep, and that's near here nor there.
Tell us about your senses because when you're out there, it's very animalistic. I mean, you're there to survive.
That's right.
They're there to kill you, and you're there to kill them. Your hearing and eyesight is attuned. Tell us the transformation that happened to you because it happens to combat soldiers.
It comes real, real quick, or you don't survive. Your hearing gets better, your eyesight gets better, you get used to walking in the dark, you smell better, you know, and you're looking for footprints or broken branches. As I said, the veneer of civilization wears off real quick.
And do you feel like the instinct of combat got in you very quickly?
That's right.
Just through the quick experience?
Yep.
And when you were on these patrols, what were your feelings about your other soldiers? Were they brave, were they afraid? What were your thoughts about the people around you?
No, no, no. You depended on the people around you. That's all you depended on. You didn't know anybody else. I mean, you didn't know who was on your right or who was on your left, really, most of the time. You had to depend on that small group that you were with because you didn't know anybody or where they were or what they were. You didn't know where you were most of the time.
Right.
We didn't know whether we were in France or Belgium or Luxembourg or Germany half the time.
Right, but the squad that you were with that you would go out on these patrols, did you guys become closer as time went on?
Not really because one by one, they got hit, removed, and I left, you know.
And when was the first contact you had with Germans? After you were dropped off, when was the first time that any firing or any artillery came your way, how long were you there?
Oh, about the second or third day when we were in that house up there on the hill, we had a couple of mortars come in at us so we knew the Germans knew where we were.
Tell us how you reacted the first time you were involved in any kind of rifle fire -- because artillery is far away -- when it got more personal.
Rifle fire? Well, you shot at anything that moved, really. You know, the front line was the end of my rifle so anything out there was bad.
Well, did you ever have situations where you saw Germans ahead of you, or were they that far away that you couldn't see them?
The Germans had black boots, and we had brown boots. That's how we told the difference sometimes.
Right, but a lot of times, when you're involved in gun battles, it's very difficult to see where the enemy is. Tell us about what you recall, like, when you got into some kind of fire fight, like, how far away they were.
A couple of times they were very close, but most of the times, it was quite a bit of distance, and a lot of times, very honestly, you fired at the gun flashes on the other side. They all had camouflage uniforms, white. If you ever go out to the house, I'll show one. Anyway, we had somebody's sheets that we stole off some civilian's bed to wrap around us because it's dark and you're in a brown uniform, green uniform.
Did you ever come across any German prisoners or wounded Germans prior to getting yourself wounded?
Yeah.
Well, tell us about wounded. Did you ever come across any wounded Germans?
Yeah, we did. When I was back in the hospital, they brought a whole bunch of them in one time.
I'm talking about on the line. You were wounded end of February, but prior to that, had you ever come across any wounded Germans?
Right.
How were they treated by the Americans?
Once they were wounded, they got treated good. There's all sorts of stories about taking them down and shooting them, but I don't think it ever happened in my unit, although towards the last, if they had the black symbols on, --
The SS symbols?
-- some of those guys disappeared.
Do you know who you were fighting? Were you fighting regular Army or SS?
Regular army, the regular army, the Panzer Lehr, --
That's L-E-H-R.
-- Panzer Lehr Division.
Is that the division you were fighting?
Yeah.
And how about German prisoners, did you ever either capture one or see them or come across German prisoners?
Oh, yeah. We had a couple of them surrender to us here and there along the line. Once they surrendered, we didn't shoot them.
What was your impression about them? Because some units ran across very hard core soldiers, other ones ran across 16-year-old kids that were scared to death.
It was the end of the war that you had the 16-year-old kids. That was the worst part of it, at the very end. Everybody knew the damn war was over, and there would be a couple of those 14-, 15-year-old kids with a machine gun laying in some crossroads.
What were your impressions, like, your first time you saw some German prisoners, what was your impression?
We got them. At least that's two less that we have to play with, you know.
I mean, did they appear to be hard core soldiers, were they eager to give up?
No, no. The German Army in 1944 was not the German Army of '42. They had an awful lot of old men, young kids, wounded guys out of Russia, those type of people. They had a lot more combat experiences than we did, but I think for the most part, once we got through the Siegfried Line and across the Rhine, they knew it was over, you know.
So when you landed in the Bastogne area, were you then sent further north to St. Vith?
Yeah.
So you were in Bastogne somewhere in the, like, first couple weeks of January of 1945?
Yes, and then we went around and up St. Vith.
V-I-T-H, and that's on the border of -- I think it's in Belgium --
That's Belgium.
-- and Germany, near the border of Germany?
Right.
And so when you were in St. Vith, what happened at St. Vith? Were you stationed and held for a while?
No, no. We came in. There was an armored unit that came in ahead because there was an armored unit that got run out of there, and we came in on the bottom side, and they were working their way in at the time and we were working our way in this way.
Do you have any idea what armored unit? Was it the 7th or the 10th?
I think it was the 7th at that point. Yeah, it was the 7th.
And how did you get to St. Vith? Did you walk?
We walked most of it. Some of it was trucks, but most of it, we did a lot of walking.
In the middle of winter?
Oh, yeah.
And when you arrived to St. Vith, that was a staging point to go into Germany where the Siegfried Line was; is that right?
Right. And the next town up -- yeah, okay, it's on there somewhere.
Was it Ormont? Ormont is where the Gold Brick Hill was.
Up that way, yeah.
So when you're in St. Vith, did you have any idea of the larger picture about the Battle of the Bulge, about where the German advance had stopped?
We knew that we were pushing the Germans back at that point. The St. Vith story, we was up there and walking along, and there's a Jeep sitting there, and it had a -- I don't know -- a submarine gun, Thompson sub --
Submachine gun?
Sitting in the Jeep. And I'm thinking, "Oh, shit," you know.
You grabbed it?
Of course I grabbed it, but I carried it for, I don't know, about three days. Heavy, clumsy, and I couldn't get ammo for it. I traded it for a case of rations.
Did you carry both rifles, the M1 Garand and the Thompson submachine gun?
Yeah, yeah.
Ultimately, you gave the submachine gun away?
For a case of rations from a tanker.
Prior to arriving at St. Vith, how much action did you see from the time that you landed near Bastogne until St. Vith?
Oh, a lot of patrol work, not much action. Actually, a lot of patrol work, small stuff, but nothing really.
Before you went to St. Vith, is there anything that sticks out in your memory about any kind of engagement, any people, anything you saw?
No. The kids in St. Vith, the other guys, "He's from Chicago. Look, he's carrying a submachine gun."
Was your friend, Robert Brooks, with you the entire time?
Yeah, Bob was with. All the kids were scared to death.
So when you got to St. Vith, you were with the Acorn Division, right?
Yeah.
The 87th?
Right.
Were there any other divisions near you, or you only recall your division?
Look, I didn't know anybody 100 yards on either side of me. This is the whole thing. Maybe 50 yards on either side of me, the whole thing.
And how long were you in St. Vith for?
A couple of days.
Was St. Vith already liberated, or did you guys --
We liberated it. The 7th Armored was in there on one side, and we came in on the other side. The 7th Armored got all the credit as far as I know, but we were there.
Did you fight in St. Vith, like, house to house at all?
No, no. On the approaches, we did. The Germans pinned us down a couple of times.
Here's our camera man. Take a little break here. (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
Let me ask you this. When you were there, did you stay in touch with your family at all or did you write any letters or did you have any communication at all with them?
Very, very few letters. We had what they called V-mail, little, short things, no postage on it. They censored everything, and actually, we were too busy surviving.
How often? Maybe once a month, or how often would you have any type of communication at all with your family?
Well, once in a while. They'd bring up the mail every couple of weeks or maybe once a week or something somebody would bring the mail up.
And what would you tell your parents? Would you weed out the difficulties?
No. I was having a gay old time in Paris.
Would you sugar coat everything in your letters to them?
Oh, of course. My mother would have had a heart attack.
Did you ever carry anything for good luck? Did you have any good luck charms maybe?
No. I had a couple of medals that my mother gave me.
Like, religious medals?
Religious medals.
And before you went to St. Vith, did you ever have any breaks at all, were you given any leaves, or was it just solid all the way there?
No. It was solid all the way there.
So when you're at St. Vith, how long were you at St. Vith before your division made the attack on the Siegfried Line?
We went to another town first farther north, over, and they pulled us out of the line and into a rest area and in reserve, actually. And at that point, we were sleeping in a barn and what have you, and they were firing 105s over our heads behind us. So, I mean, it was just a reserve unit, but it was warm and dry and the food was terrible, but at least it was warm.
So how long were you on the front line before you were taken off into reserve?
Oh, I don't know. Several days.
And so after you were in the reserve, was it then that you made the push over to the Siegfried Line?
Yeah, yeah.
And was it a forested area? What was the terrain like?
It was rolling forest, and they had a lot of years to fortify the thing. You know, they had little bunkers all built, real camouflaged, but they didn't have enough forces to man them fully, I don't think. That hill that they had called Gold Brick Hill, that was the high point in the whole area, and they did that just for an observation point because once they took that, they could see the next valley over.
I want to back you up a little bit. So when you were at St. Vith, your division then advanced over to the Siegfried Line. Did you see -- do you know what the Dragon's Teeth are?
Yeah, we saw the Dragon's Teeth.
So were you on the Belgium side of the Dragon's Teeth, or were you on the German side?
On both sides.
On both sides?
I was on both sides.
Were the Dragon's Teeth defended at all, or was it just that row of cement teeth there?
It was the cement teeth. They didn't defend -- well, there was positions, but they weren't defended or at least somebody else had gotten there before us.
So when you basically got up to the line of Dragon's Teeth, you essentially walked past them?
Right.
And what did you think about them? I've seen them, and to me, the amount of energy that went into building those things was incredible. They really didn't do much. What was your impressions? Hang on one second. (Whereupon, a discussion was had off the record.)
The underbelly of a tank is much, much thinner, and they got hung up on these Dragon's Teeth and then they could hit the belly of the tanks. That was the thought of the Dragon's Teeth.
So when you arrived, the Dragon's Teeth were right on the border of Germany and Belgium?
Well, they were back a couple of yards, yeah.
So by the time you arrived there, that border with the Dragon's Teeth had already been cleared or perhaps the Germans retreated?
Yeah.
Okay. And then your unit was ordered to attack Hill 648 which was later known as the Gold Brick Hill?
Gold Brick Hill, that's all we knew it as, yeah.
Did you have a name for it before you attacked?
No. All we knew was take to high ground.
Prior to assaulting this hill, it's kind of a famous action of the 346th Infantry Division that they were ordered to attack so could you describe -- could you see the hill before you attacked it?
No.
Did you ever see it?
I didn't, I didn't. We came out of a forested area, and there was a swale, an open area, and then the forest was on the other side, and the hill went up from there. The hill was off to my left.
So you were camped out in the forest, right?
We marched through -- we came down through the forest, stopped at the minefield, and you could see the hill up off on the left side from where we were.
How did you know it was a minefield? Was it marked?
No. You could see it. They were what they called a stock mine.
Describe what those are.
They're a mine about that big.
About the size of a large coffee can, would you say?
Well, not that big; that big. They were sitting on posts like the old Bouncing Bettys.
If you were to describe, think of something how big they were. Were they big as --
About that big.
About, like, 4 inches, round?
Yeah.
And how tall would you say they were?
They were about that high.
About 8 inches high?
No, no. Off the ground.
Right, but the mine itself.
Oh, the mine itself, yeah, 8, 10 inches, whatever.
It was a steel mine, it was on a stick stuck in the ground?
On a wooden post, yeah.
Was it on top of it and you could see it sitting there?
Yeah, you could see it, and it had wires strung out from it. It had, like, four wires strung out from it.
Were they connected to other mines?
They were all connected to the other ones.
Okay. So basically, it was a trip wire?
A trip wire and a whole field full of them.
I see. So if you pulled that wire, the mine would blow up?
Right.
Did they have engineers come and try to clip the wires, or what kind of preparation did they do?
We didn't get shit, -- excuse the language -- and that was a mistake because that was the bad part for my particular unit. Some of them further down the line did find a path through the minefield.
Right, but as you were walking up this minefield, you said you were able to see them on sticks with wires?
Right.
So why weren't your sergeant or anybody --
They kept saying, "Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving."
Right through the minefield?
Yeah, which was dumb, dumb, dumb.
And when you say "moving," how many people were around you? Were there 10 guys, 100 guys?
Ten guys. Cannon fodder.
And so as you went in this minefield and you saw these mines, what were you doing to try to avoid them?
We tried to get around them because I could see that over on the side, there was a path that looked like it was clear, and I was trying to work my way over that way when somebody tripped one over here.
Okay. So all you guys were trying to navigate through this forest of these mines, these stock mines on sticks?
Which was stupid.
Right. And how far apart were they? I mean, were they close, like, 10 feet? How far apart were these mines?
Ten, 15 feet. I don't know.
It was that plentiful that they were that visible?
Right.
And so tell me what happened. So when you were going through this minefield, one of your squad mates triggered the mine?
Yeah, yeah.
And how far away was he from you?
I have no idea, really.
Well, when you heard it explode, how far do you think the mine was from you when it exploded?
I have no idea. I wasn't looking. I was going that way, and the thing was over here.
Okay. So was it behind you, to the side?
To the side.
And so you were essentially going through these woods with the intentions of setting up and then going up to the Gold Brick Hill?
We were fighting our way up the hill.
Right. Was this part of the hill where you got wounded?
Yeah, at the bottom of the hill.
Oh, I see.
At the bottom of the hill, and there was machine gun nests and Germans on the other side.
I see. So you were actually more, like, at the base of the hill prior to the assault up the hill?
Starting the assault.
I see, I see. Okay. And was there any firing at you at that time?
Yeah. German machine guns were firing at us at the time.
I see. So you were going through the minefield under fire at that time?
Yeah.
And tell us how close these bullets were. Were they whizzing by you, or how close were they?
Well, you could hear them snapping by.
How does a bullet sound?
They crack. Depends how close you are.
Tell us different sounds because there's different sounds of bullets depending how far it is from you. Were you able to distinguish the different sounds of them?
I could distinguish all the different German weapons at one time, what they were firing.
Tell us what the sound is like.
Oh, I don't remember. I don't know.
Well, you said it was like a crack?
Yeah.
And it would crack by you?
Yeah.
And so this incident that you're talking about happened on December 27th of 1945?
Somewhere in there.
No. February 27th. And when this mine went off, tell us what happened to you and your squad mates.
Okay. I got hit, Bob Brooks got hit, and another guy got hit, three of us with the one mine type thing.
Where were you wounded exactly?
Where was I?
Yeah. Where were you wounded?
My hand and wrist.
By shrapnel?
Yeah.
From the same arm?
Right.
Were you able to still use your hand at that time, or was it --
Yeah, but the shock is there and you don't -- you know, the pain hasn't started yet.
Right. I mean, did you feel concussion?
Yeah.
I've felt concussions before. Tell us what the concussion felt like to you in your ears.
Just a pressure wave. It's just a pressure wave.
How about did it affect your ears at all?
Well, a lot of other things affected my ears a lot more. I'm hard of hearing now, but that's neither here nor there.
Tell us, when you got hit, what did it feel like? Did it feel like somebody hit you with a baseball bat?
No, no. Actually, it hit the stock of my rifle which deflected some of it, but at that point, I knew I was pretty useless, and Bob was hurting, and I helped him back.
Were you able to use your arm then, or were you stuck using the one arm?
One arm. Well, we all had first aid kits, you know.
And "Bob" would be Bob Brooks. He's the gentleman from Waukegan who you had known throughout your entire basic all the way up until that date?
Right.
How badly was he wounded?
His legs. He got it in the legs, if I remember right.
Because he put you in for a commendation for a medal, and he said that an enemy bullet went through his leg. Do you know whether he was shot or whether he was hit by shrapnel or both?
Both because there was a machine gun firing on us at the time so lots of noises and lots of . . .
How bad was Bob hurt?
His leg was torn up pretty good, if I remember right.
And what was he doing? Was he yelling for your help?
No, no. He was laying down. I helped him out of the -- in those days, if you got hit, you know, you move them out because you'll get hurt again. If you got hit in that spot, you're going to get hurt in that spot so, you know, you grab them and move them out.
So when you saw Bob laying on the ground, tell us instantaneously what you did.
I just walked over and helped him, picked him up and carried him, and he halfway walked.
Was he able to walk, or did you throw him over your shoulder?
A little bit of both and he was on one leg, and we got back to an aid station.
How far back did you walk with him?
Not far. The medic was back there, and, you know, a shot of morphine and sulfa powder, and away you went.
Did you help bandage Bob?
No, I didn't; the medics did.
And did you help with any of the morphine, or you just took him back there?
I didn't help with the morphine. The morphine came in a little tube like a toothpaste tube in those days.
With a little needle at the end?
Yeah, a little needle at the end. I carried it for the medic at one time, carried it under my shoulder so it wouldn't freeze.
And was your friend, Bob Brooks, conscious during this entire time?
Oh, yeah.
And how was he behaving, was he screaming, quiet?
He was hurting bad, he was hurting bad.
That was probably the first friend you had known or been with that got hurt?
Right.
I mean, how did that affect you? Because the guys around you got injured, but you didn't know them.
Right.
This is a guy you had been with the whole --
I knew he was hurt. I didn't know how bad he was, but in those days, you used to call it a $1,000 wound. You get a little, light wound, you get shipped out of the line.
Right, but Bob didn't have a $1,000 wound. It sounds like his was a lot worse than that; is that right?
He ended up in England in the hospital.
How did you feel seeing a personal buddy of yours getting wounded?
Well, I felt bad for him, but I knew he was going to survive, and wherever he was surviving, it was better off than where he was.
Were you concerned at all about his health, that you thought maybe he wasn't going to survive or lose a leg or anything?
No. I knew he'd survive. The wound wasn't that bad.
So after you took your friend, Bob, back to the medic, what did you do from there?
The medics bandaged me up, too, and we went back to the next hospital back and they worked on me there and then the next hospital back, and I ended up in --
Let me stop you for a minute. When you brought Bob back to the medics with his injury, was there another guy that was wounded?
Oh, yeah. There was a whole bunch of them wounded.
And did you help any of those, or did they get back on their own?
Different people brought them back. The medics had stretcher bearers and those kinds of people.
And so the person you brought back was Bob Brooks?
Right.
And what about the bleeding? Where was your wound exactly on your arm?
See the scar?
Yeah. Right across your wrist.
And I had that knuckle there.
So basically, it went through, like, your wrist and the top of your hand?
Yeah.
And was it bleeding a lot?
Yeah.
And when people get hit, I think the pain shows up a lot later. When did you start realizing the extent of your injury?
We all had a first aid kit which had a bandage in it and the sulfa powder.
Who took care of you?
Well, I did my first -- you know, I stopped the bleeding with -- poured the sulfa powder on it and tried to stop the bleeding, and then when you get back to the aid station, they re-bandaged it and re-did that and then you go back two or three steps along the line as you go back.
What were your thoughts about medics? I've always looked at them as pretty brave people. I mean, they're pretty close to the front line. What were your thoughts about the medics?
They were all good as far as I know. We had a couple of very good ones, I know. We had a German medic for a little while, picked him up somewhere. He was pretty good.
So after you took Bob Brooks back and you got your hand bandaged up, did you go with Bob over to --
No.
So did they take him away?
They took him away first. He was worse. You know, I'm walking wounded.
Was he able to walk on his own, or did he get back --
No. They put him in an ambulance and hauled him off.
Was it a Jeep with a stretcher on it?
I don't remember. Most likely.
And so after he left and you were standing there with the medic, where did you go?
I went back to the next hospital unit and then another hospital unit, and I finally ended up in the 95th General Hospital in Bar Le Duc, France.
So before you wound up in an actual physical hospital building, what kind of treatment or care did you get along the way for your wound?
Well, I got it bandaged and sulfaed and morphined and all those things.
Was it stitched up at all, or was it just a compression bandage to control the bleeding?
The two first places, they just compressed it, and they sewed it up later.
And then you wound up in a regular hospital?
Right.
Did they do any type of surgery, or what did they do to your -- what did they do?
Yeah. You can see the stitch marks still. They're pretty good now.
And that was done at the hospital?
I think that was done at the last aid station or at the hospital. I don't even remember.
And just for clarification, just for the record, the Gold Brick Hill was the hill that was called Hill 648 which was assaulted February 26th of 1945, and Tom was wounded on February 27th, 1945 at the base of the Gold Brick Hill which is located near the town of Ormont, Germany. The hill was ultimately taken by the 346th Infantry Division of the 87th, and it was one of their most famous battles. Am I right about that?
Yeah, yeah.
So when you were at the hospital, how long were you there for, the one in France?
Couple of weeks.
And what was the status of the wounded? Were they walking wounded like yourself, were they very severely --
Most of the ward that I was on was walking wounded. We all came down with jaundice, we all turned yellow.
How?
Nobody seems to know whether it was just the lack of food or what have you, but I've not been able to give blood all the rest of my life because nobody wants it.
Because of the jaundice?
Yeah.
What did the jaundice do to you?
It turned your skin yellow and your eyes yellow
What did it do to you physically? Did it make you weak?
Well, hell, I was laying in a nice, warm bed. I didn't care.
Tell me what it was like because you had been out for what, maybe about a month and a half, two months out in the freezing cold weather sleeping outdoors.
It was great.
What was it like the first time you actually laid in a bed with a blanket? What was that like for you?
It was wonderful. That was wonderful.
And how long were you there for?
A couple of weeks, I guess, because they operated on me there so that's when they must have fixed it. And then the nurse had -- all of us were sitting there with our feet out in the air because we all had trench foot so she'd walk by, and you had your feet up in the air.
What does trench foot do to your foot exactly or what did it do to your foot?
It turns it all wrinkled and white and black and the skin starts to come off, and you can just take the skin and just pull it right off.
And that happened to your foot?
Yeah.
And did it heal at all when you were at the hospital?
Well, yeah, a little bit, yeah.
And so how long did you stay at the hospital in France for?
A couple of weeks. I don't remember exactly. I could look up the orders somewhere.
And where did you go from there?
Back to my unit. Oh, back to a repo depot.
Was that in LaHavre?
No, no. It was back in Germany -- France or Germany. I've forgotten where the hell it was.
So you were at this hospital. I mean, from the time that you got wounded to the time that you were sent back to your unit, how long were you, I guess, healing?
How long was I what?
Healing from the time you got wounded, you went to a hospital.
A couple of weeks.
Okay. And then when were you brought back to your unit?
As soon as we got out of the hospital, we went back up to another replacement depot.
Were they intending on send you to another division, or how did you wind up back with your unit?
You had orders to send you back. Well, they sent you back to your own unit, really.
And when you went to your unit, where were they located at that time?
They were three-quarters of the way across Germany by that time.
And how did you get back there?
Well, I rode a horse for a while.
You rode a horse?
Well, that's another story.
Did you go AWOL and get back to your unit on your own?
Partially, yeah.
Tell us about that. How did you get back there?
Well, they put us up in a replacement depot. War stories. And, of course, as I say, my name starts with "A" so I got every shit detail, and they had me guarding a couple of American prisoners one day, and then one day, they had this big latrine for the officers. We dug the damn latrine for the officers with a canvas thing around it, and on each corner, like here, they put a little stick about here to hold the seats up. So as soon as two guys sat on it, they were down in a hole.
It was, like, a prank?
Prank, hell. Deliberate.
Did officers fall in?
On general principles.
So you basically booby trapped the latrine so an officer would go there and --
You've got it.
-- take a dump and they'd wind up in the latrine?
Sure.
I like that. So how did you wind up making it back to your unit on your own? It sounds like you took it in your own hands to get back there.
Well, I rode a horse for one day or something.
No, but how did you leave?
Just walked out.
You just walked out completely on your own?
Yeah.
Did you have any orders?
No.
How did you have any idea where your unit was at that time?
Well, I stopped and asked somebody along the line, you know, and everybody was going that way, and finally, I picked up somebody and hitched a ride on some trucks going that way.
So you're at this repo depot, you're sick of what you're doing, and you want to get back to your unit. You essentially just walked out on your own?
Sure.
God bless you. I like it. Was it just you, only you all by yourself?
Yeah, myself. I'm free, white and 21. I didn't care. Well, I wasn't 21.
Where did you get this horse from? You grew up in Evanston. What did you know about horses?
Didn't know anything about it. The German army had a lot of horses. A lot of artillery was still horse drawn so there was a lot of horses around.
So when you grabbed the horse, how long did you ride it for?
One day. I turned it loose to some farmer.
And how many miles do you think it was from this repo depot to where your unit was?
I have no idea.
Do you know how many days it took you to get there?
Two. As I said, I picked up some truck driver, you know, and he took me down the road quite a ways and transferred to another one, and down the road I went.
So you kept on basically hitchhiking all the way till you got to where the 87th was?
Yeah.
Did these people know where the 87th was, or was it dumb luck?
Somebody did. They knew, you know.
And did you have your rifle at that time?
Yeah, I was caring a rifle at that time.
And at some stage, you showed up miraculously all by your lonesome self?
I walked in and I reported in.
And were any of your officers expecting you or did they have any clue how you got there?
No.
So what did they say when you showed up?
"Where the hell did you come from?"
And what did you tell them?
I said, "I walked here. How do you think I got here?"
Were they surprised or think that you were --
No.
The MPs could have got you for something like that.
Well, I'm most likely still AWOL from somewhere.
So when you got up there, when you found your unit, where were they then when you ultimately got to them?
They were fairly close to the Czechoslovakian border.
This would have been in spring?
Yeah, spring.
April or May of 1945?
Yeah, it was nice. And we got up on the Czech border. Actually, we were in the Russian zone, and we waited three days, firing red flares up.
I want to back you up a little bit. On the way there -- so you basically went from France all the way to Czechoslovakia by your own, it took you several days to get there. Did you pass through German villages?
Sure.
I mean, what were the conditions of the landscape, the towns, in terms of, like, signs of war, things like that?
It depended. A lot of the little villages were left pretty much alone. The bigger villages were -- if they were worth bombing because towards the end of the war, everything was bombed out so much that they didn't have any more targets left, and the French women would be sitting on a doorstep weeping, and a German woman would be out there with a broom, sweeping the dirt away.
That's exactly right. So when you finally wound up with the 87th, were you put back into the same L Company?
Sure.
And when you were sent back to your company or platoon, did you know anybody, or was it a completely new group of people?
One guy. I knew one guy.
Was every single other person a replacement by that time?
Yeah, or moved on or something like that.
Do you remember the guy's name?
No.
Did you know him before you had left?
No.
And so what was it like for you?
I'm the green recruit coming in.
But you weren't green. You had seen combat already and you had been wounded, and you show up basically to your old unit and you don't know anybody. What was the new unit like?
They had been replaced along the line and picked up. Some of them had been with them for a long time. Somebody replaced me, you know.
So you could have made your own personal replacement when you were there?
Exactly, exactly.
Now, your hand, I mean, tell us about the function in your hand. I mean, the scar you have on your wrist looks pretty long. How well were you able to use your hand?
I could use it pretty well. They did a nice job. One of the tendons had been so long, they couldn't catch it so they tied them back up somehow. One of the tendons up here they pulled down and they tied it to this finger. So for a long time when I was in the hospital, they would make me move that finger and everything to get that finger to work.
Do you have any effects now from it?
No.
Do you have any effects when it gets cold, or does it have any effect?
No. My feet get bad.
I mean, were you able to still carry a rifle and function like a normal soldier despite the wound that you had?
Sure.
And if you had not gone back to your unit, what do you think would have happened to you? Do you think you would have just stayed in the back the rest of the war and just kind of guarded things?
No, no. I don't know what they would do because all the hospitals were -- they would have shipped me somewhere.
So when you wound up with your unit in Czechoslovakia, what were they doing? Because the war was --
The war was almost over.
Because this would have been in early May 1945. The war ended on May 8th.
Right, and we were in -- we went actually too far. We were in the Russian zone and we sat there for three days, and they threw up red flares at night waiting for the Russians to show up.
Were you near the Elbe River?
No. We were south of there. And then we were on a little checkpoint, a little dirt road on the side, and a German started to surrender coming in.
Coming towards you?
Towards with a white flag.
Was it just him, or was it other guys?
Just one German coming with a white flag and what have you. We talked to him a little bit, and three or four more of them came in, and pretty soon, we sent them back, but there was only, like, four or five us of us there.
So you were basically at, like, a dirt road and four of you were sitting there, kind of just sitting there, like, a checkpoint?
Yeah, a checkpoint.
Were you in foxholes, or were you standing?
Well, we had a little dig-in, but the war was over. Anyway, pretty soon, more came in, and it got to the point where we just said, "Throw down your weapons and go home."
I mean, how many guys came toward your checkpoint surrendering, how many Germans?
Hundreds.
And it was just you four guys?
Yeah.
And would you disarm them, would you take souvenirs? I mean, I'd probably fill my pockets full of stuff from them. What did you do?
We said, "Throw your weapons in the pile," and we had a pile of weapons this big in the middle of the road.
Like, how many? Like, hundreds?
Oh, God. I don't know. And, "Go home." What are we going to do with them?
Did you guys search them, did you take anything off of them?
No. What for? The war was over. Come on.
Souvenirs. Americans are known for liking their souvenirs. So after all these guys passed through your line, did you ever come across any Russian soldiers or did you ever see any Russian soldiers?
Yeah, in the distance. We didn't know that they were there, actually. There was a German gal coming down the road on a bicycle, and we saw her coming, and, you know, that was a common way of transportation, and all at once, we saw three soldiers jump up. They went to grab her. One of the guys with me put a couple of rounds in the air in that direction, and the Russians jumped back in the ditch and the girl went by and we waved to her.
So the Russians were in the woods ahead of you?
It was actually pretty open, yeah, but they didn't . . .
So did you ever have any contact with Russians at any time or talk to them?
At the end of the war, there was a DP camp where they had a whole bunch of the Russians, and they turned them all loose, and they were trying to pillage everything. My squad got detached, like an MP unit, and we had a couple of Jeeps with machine guns mounted on them and rocked the side of the buildings a few times and calmed them all down. And then they had --
Were you in the DP camp?
No.
You were told to find the guys that had run out of the DP camp?
Yeah. They were all over. They were all swarming. We went down to the DP camp, and there was a railroad car there, and they told us it was buzz bomb fluid which was basically potato alcohol, and the Russians were just going crazy. They were drinking this stuff so some of them were dying, I think.
Did you have contact with any DPs or any concentration camp survivors or anything during your time there?
A bad point of American history. Somebody made an agreement with somebody that they would all go back to Russia. Now, they had been in German camps, but they were afraid to go back to Russia. I even had a woman offer me her baby rather than go back.
Was this a Russian from the DP camp?
Yes. Anyway, the American Army forced a whole bunch of them on trucks to haul them back into the Russian-occupied zone.
Did you capture DPs and turn them over to these truck drivers, or what was your role in this?
Our role was supposed to be guarding them, but when we saw the conditions and what have you, I figured those people had enough privation, they didn't want to go back to Russia.
What kind of condition were they in?
Very poor, ragged clothes, hungry, dirty.
You've seen movies of concentration camp survivors. Were they like that?
Men, women and children. Yeah, some were in pretty bad shape. Most of them had been workers. Anyway, we got down the road quite a bit and stopped the convoy for everybody to relieve themselves, and the sergeant ahead of me and I were looking at each other, and we said, "Okay, we're looking that way. We've got to relieve ourselves." Half of them jumped off and ran out in the field.
You're talking about the DPs?
Yeah.
So you were trying to corral these DPs who were basically running all over the place and take them somewhere?
Back to Russia.
So they could get back to Russia?
And they didn't want to go.
Right. So it sounds like you and your sergeant turned back and said, "Okay, we're going to go take a pee, and you guys can make a run for it." Is that what happened?
No. We just said we were busy, we were occupied. We wouldn't let anybody go like that.
Right, but did you implicitly allow these people to take off?
Is this a court marshal?
No. It's a question because it's an honorable thing you did.
Of course we did.
You knew these people were going back to somewhere which is not good.
Well, the condition they were in and they were afraid to go back, come on, there's got to be a lot worse.
How did you communicate with them? How did you know what their feelings were about going back, and what did they tell you?
You couldn't communicate. Didn't know the Slavic languages, of course, but as I said, I had one woman offer me her child.
And did you let her go and let the other people go?
She disappeared when my back was turned.
And do you think the soldiers around you were generally sympathetic toward the DPs?
I think so, yeah.
What were your impressions about the German civilians that you came across? Because my feeling is this. In the beginning of the war, they were all Nazis, they believed in Hitler, they were fanatical about him. As the war went on, a lot of them kind of changed colors, and when the American soldiers showed up, American soldiers were essentially good-natured people, I don't think they realized the horror of what Germany had done, and I was curious what your opinion was about the German civilians that you came across.
It depended upon the town. If you came in the town and all the white flags were flowing toward the end of the war, the burgomaster would come out to greet you, that would be fine. If we got fired on, we destroyed everything. I mean, the American Army was no angels, you know.
When you say "destroyed," were they just loaded up with artillery?
Thermite grenades.
And how often would you say if you were going through a town or a village that it would give up or it would get destroyed?
Most of them at that point, they knew it was over and there was no real front lines anymore, and we'd go screaming into town and they didn't know who we were or what we were, you know.
And did you at any time come across any concentration camp survivors at all?
Oh, yeah, but they had not the great big camps that you see in the movies but a lot of the factories and armament plants. A lot of them had a compound alongside the factory and they had, like, 100 or 200 people in there.
Right. Did you see Band of Brothers? Did you watch that?
I saw it.
There was an episode where they came across a small camp with several hundred people.
Right.
That's what you're talking about? It was kind of like a little prison camp to service a particular factory?
Exactly.
Did you ever come across any of those?
Yeah. We just blew the lock off and kept going.
I mean, did you have any contact at all with the inmates, or do you just keep on going?
We kept on going, we just kept going. You wouldn't stop for nothing.
Did you ever come across any guards there, any German guards?
No. Most of them knew. They took off.
Well, what about the inmates, what did you do with the inmates? Did you see the inmates at all or spend any time with them?
Some of them, if you had some extra rations, you might have thrown some rations at them, but we were moving. We weren't there to --
Right, but I was curious what the conditions were for the DP, displaced people, as opposed to these prisoners in the camps, whether you saw a big difference in the kind of condition they were in.
Well, again, I think it was who the commandant was and how they were treated and whatnot. And remember, the Germans classified them in a million different ways. I mean, they weren't just all Jewish or weren't all just Polish; they were mentally retarded or physically retarded. They destroyed everybody. They didn't care.
What was your opinion about -- the German army was broken down into a lot of different kind of units and attitudes. I mean, on one hand, you had your hard core SS guys that were stone cold killers.
Right.
On the other hand, you had a clerk at a desk working. So as you came across German prisoners along the lines, what were your feelings about the German soldiers that you would see?
Well, a lot of the old men had been in World War I. They were old and tired and worn, and they knew it was over, you know, good-bye, go home, you know. The young kids, fanatics in some little hole in a curve in the road that would kill one or two Americans, well, they got destroyed.
I've interviewed veterans that shot SS guys because they were hard core. How did your unit or platoon or company treat SS as opposed to, like, regular army soldiers?
I never personally met any SS troopers.
Did you ever see any shot?
Not really. I saw one dead on the side of the road one time, but I don't know who or what or why.
And how about the Germans that you came across as prisoners, did they appear just to be docile, or what was their personality?
They knew that the war was over. At the end, they knew it, and they were just trying to get away from the Russians. They didn't care. All they wanted to do was get away from the Russians.
Did you get souvenirs along the way? Did you ever pick up any souvenirs?
I've got a few things, yeah.
What did you get, and how did you get it home? My father mailed three rifles home in the mail so I was curious how --
I don't know how they did that, I really don't, because we weren't allowed to take anything theoretically.
What were the rules on souvenir collecting?
Officers could take anything they wanted home; enlisted men couldn't take a damn thing.
What about putting something in your pocket like a medal or some little thing you found?
Well, we weren't supposed to have that, but we did.
Were you able to get anything?
I've got a few things at home.
And did you carry it with you all the way, or did you mail it?
No. We carried it all the way.
And I'm going to jump again to Czechoslovakia. So how did you learn the war actually ended because it ended on May 7th and May 8th. So how did you learn that the war ended?
Well, they told us the war was over, and they pulled us back.
Where were you when you heard it? I mean, I remember where I was on 9/11; you probably remember where you were.
I was on the Czech border taking the Russian surrenders or German surrenders.
And how did you learn? Did someone come up and tell you?
"Come on back, the war is over."
And so once it ended, what did you do then?
We went back. They formed up the unit and put us all in pup tents and took all our ammunition away.
And this is all near the Czech border?
Yeah. Plauen, I believe it was.
That's P-L-A-U-E-N?
Plauen. And they took all our ammunition away, and the next day, all you heard was gunfire.
Was that shooting in the air, like, just --
No.
What was it?
Everybody knew there was a round in the chamber all the time, and every weapon was treated that way. Now they took all our ammunition away, and everybody was shooting the damn -- picking up a weapon and firing it.
For what reason, though?
Accidentally. They thought it was empty, you know, didn't check.
Can I tell you something? My dad was in Okinawa, and he helped bury eight guys that were shot after the war from loaded weapons by accident. It was dangerous then.
Yeah.
So is that what it was, people were, like, shooting the guns because --
Well, picking up the weapon or moving it around or what have you.
So how long did you stay in that area before you headed back?
A short time.
Was it about a month, give or take?
No, no, no. A couple of weeks at most, a week maybe at most.
And so you were taken from Czechoslovakia. Where did you move from there?
Went all the way back to France.
You went back to Rheims?
Yeah.
Because according to the records, you arrived on June 15th of 1945 at a place called Camp Oklahoma in Rheims.
Okay.
Did you move with the whole division? Was this a gigantic convoy of trucks and tanks?
Yeah. Well, there was no tanks but infantry, but yeah, all the truck convoys.
It must have been a lot of people because the division was almost 10,000 people.
Sure.
And do you remember a camp being called Camp Oklahoma, or do you just remember arriving there?
Arriving there.
And then according to the records, you stayed in Rheims from June 15th and then you arrived at LaHavre which is the port city in France on June 29th, about two weeks later.
Right.
And you went to Camp Lucky Strike, and then you were put on a ship called "SS America." Do you remember that?
I remember getting aboard the ship.
And what did you do from the time that you left the German-Czechoslovakia border and went into Rheims? Did you have any R&R, days off, furloughs?
I got an 18-hour pass to Paris.
Yeah? Did you go?
Yeah.
How did you get there?
A truck. Two cartons of cigarettes, period.
And you'd probably never seen a city as beautiful as that. What was it like being in Paris?
Well, we get there, and actually, a long story. We saw the cathedral. They were taking all this stuff off the big rose windows, cleaning it all up, and I was with another guy and we were going around. We got on the subway and got lost. We ended up way the hell going somewhere and came out, "Where are we," you know. We're way out at the end of the subway line, and we came up, and a couple of Frenchmen look at us, and we weren't in the area where normally GIs were. Anyway, we were treated royally with lots of vino, and finally, we staggered back and got back on the subway and went back.
You got drunk in Paris?
Yeah.
So, I mean, did you see the Eiffel Tower?
Oh, yeah, we saw the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe and all that stuff.
Was it full of Americans strolling around? Because there must have been a million guys walking around.
They were all doing the same thing. We had 18 hours. Come on.
Right, right. And so you then left there and went back to LaHavre?
Yeah.
And did you do anything notable from LaHavre before you left, or was it just basically sitting around?
We went swimming in the North Atlantic. Colder than hell, if I remember right, the water was, but it was different.
And then you guys all got on a troop ship, like, more or less the same kind of ship you arrived there?
No. A bigger ship. It was a much bigger ship, nicer ship, nicer.
Were the conditions better on the way back?
Oh, yeah.
So when you had arrived at that same port, an 18-year-old kid right out of basic, very green and you were getting on that ship, having seen combat, been wounded, saw a lot of death, saw your friend get hurt, tell us about the changes in you. You must have changed enormously on your way back.
Well, you do a lot of growing up real quick. Your outlook on life has changed a great deal. Looking forward to forgetting the whole damn thing, you know.
Yeah, but were you relieved you were going home, were you going to miss your buddies? What were your feelings as the ship pulled away?
We had 30 days leave. We reformed down in Fort Benning, Georgia.
Right, but as the ship was pulling away, you were just involved in very momentous personal --
I didn't miss a thing in Europe, so no. We were scheduled to go to Japan. We were one of the early divisions. So we get down to Benning, the war in Japan ended.
What was it like pulling into New York?
We came into Boston.
Oh, you came into Boston?
We came into Boston.
When your ship landed, were you greeted at all, or what was your homecoming?
I don't remember any fancy greeting. I remember walking off the ship, but, I mean, you know, I don't think there was any bands playing or anything.
Right. Did you go straight off the ship into trucks and to a base?
Yeah, one of the bases.
And, I mean, had you made any other friends or close colleagues by then?
No, no.
How about Brooks, did you keep in contact with him while you were --
No. I didn't meet Bob until after the war was over, and I contacted him because I knew he was in Waukegan.
And how long after you returned did you contact him?
Shortly.
Did you call him up?
Yeah, I think so.
And did you go see him?
Yeah, I saw him. He was home, he was married, had two kids. In fact, they came up -- I've got a cabin up in Eagle River, Wisconsin, and his wife and kids came up to the cabin for two days.
What was it like seeing him for the first time?
It was great seeing him for the first time, but again, we had nothing in common anymore.
Well, you helped --
Yeah, but different lifestyle, totally different.
Did he appear to be affected by his wounds at all --
Yeah, he was.
-- or did he seem to be completely healed?
I was kidding him. "Being a barber with a bum leg, how do you stand up all day?"
Did you keep your friendship going with him?
Yeah, for quite a while, and as far as I know, he went to Florida and I lost track.
How long ago was that?
Oh, God. Back in the early '50s.
At some stage when you arrived back at Fort Benning, the 87th was disbanded and you went home?
Right.
So tell us about your homecoming because a lot of GIs just showed up and knocked on their parents' doors.
I didn't go home. When we got out on a point deal, I went down to Camp Blanding in Florida and I worked at what they called the outgoing records section where all the paperwork was put together and then the discharges were given, awards were given and all that stuff. And I worked there for a couple of months. That was great duty.
So you never went home then to your parents' home?
Well, in the meantime, I had a 30-day delay en route when I got off the ship, then went to Benning. From Benning, I went to Blanding in Florida.
So when you were in Florida, you had not been home yet to see your parents?
I had been the 30 days at home.
Right. So what I'm asking is what was it like when you arrived home after the war. Granted you may have had to leave again, but what was it like, your homecoming, seeing your parents, your family members? How were your parents reacting?
They were crying. They were crying, yeah.
How was your mother?
Oh, she was weeping and whaling. She had been saying her prayers for me every day type thing.
And how about your dad?
He was worried stiff, he was worried stiff.
Did he cry like your mother, or did he keep a stiff upper lip?
No, no. He was crying.
And prior to you seeing them, did you call them and tell them you were coming home or just knock on your door?
Actually, my dad was working, and I walked in the back door and met him where he was working.
So did they have any idea you were showing up?
No.
You just showed up out of the blue?
Yeah.
Were you in uniform then?
Sure. Everybody had to be in uniform in those days.
Why wouldn't you call them or send a letter or something like that?
I was going to be there before the letter got there. Come on.
That's unbelievable. How about a phone call? Why didn't you call them on the phone then? Did they have a phone?
Oh, yeah, they had a phone.
So why would you surprise them as opposed to a phone call?
I never gave it a thought.
And prior to you walking in your door, when was the last communication? Whether you sent a letter to them or you got a letter from them, when was the last time they had any communication at all from you?
Somewhere in Germany.
So that was probably about a month ago, a month before?
Yeah.
And then you had 30 days and you went back to Florida?
To Benning.
To Benning.
They deactivated the unit at Benning, and I went down to Blanding in Florida.
You basically did a lot of paperwork then on your base?
Yeah.
Were you not mustered out because you didn't have enough points?
Right.
Is that why you were kept on?
Yeah.
Did most of your division and everybody get to go home and get discharged?
A lot of the guys didn't have enough points.
So how long were you stationed in the States before your official --
A couple of months.
And that was the end of it?
Yeah.
And when you were discharged, they just basically take all your gear and leave you with a uniform and send you home?
Yeah.
And when you got home, how old were you, 20, 21 give or take?
20.
And what did you do when you got home? What was it like the first -- you're done with the Army, you're gone and you have a civilian life ahead of you. What was it like the first couple of weeks being at home? What was your impression of civilian life?
Well, a lot of calming down to do, I think, and I got a job real quick, within two weeks.
What do you mean by "calming down"?
Calming down, calming down, you know.
Like what, though?
Just relaxing, you know.
You read a lot of reports that -- you know, you talked about your senses being heightened and it doesn't go away overnight so when you got back --
It never goes away.
That's what I was going to ask you.
It never goes away.
When you got home, did your senses play an effect on you and did you manage it or deal with it?
Well, I'll tell you this one. I was dating a gal and we were up on the "L" tracks in Chicago, and a loud boom came along and I felt a concussion wave, and I'm down flat.
So you hit the deck?
On the deck and went 3 feet in the air.
You hit the deck because of the noise?
Yeah.
Did you feel experiences like that a lot where you hear something --
Oh, yeah.
-- or you hear a rustle in the corner and your instincts would take over?
Sure.
Did you feel those kind of reactions slowly, like, calm down a little bit? That's what you mean by "relaxed"?
Yeah. I had a bad night's sleep last night thinking of this thing.
Yeah? Why?
Brought back too damned many memories.
But when you were at home, I mean, you're at home in your bed and, like, trying to sleep and going through such a drastic change in scenery, like, how did you just finally start feeling calm and adjusting?
Oh, I don't know. Just got on with my life.
Does it ever leave you, though, to this day?
No.
Like, as you sit here today, you're 93 right now. What effects do you think the war has on you or --
As I said, I had a bad night's sleep last night thinking of this thing.
What do you mean by "bad night"? I mean, were you nervous about it?
Yeah, telling this whole big, long story that I'm telling today.
I mean, what we spoke about, do you ever tell anybody about these things ever in your life?
Most of them not, no. My family doesn't know. Some of them may know, but not most.
Why would you be reluctant to tell them? What would that be from?
I don't know.
I mean, do you look at it as something that's, like, scary or painful for you?
It was a dirty job, you got it done, and it's over with.
And, I mean, when you look back at it now, do you feel that what you went through is an era in your life that's over with and you're proud of it?
Yeah, yeah.
And like your generation, you got a job and you moved on?
That's it.
And what was the first job that you got?
First job, I worked in a flower store. Anyway, that didn't last long.
Did you keep in touch with anybody at all?
No.
Nobody?
Nobody.
Were there any reunions at all?
There was a bunch of reunions. I didn't even know they were going on.
Were you ever contacted, get a letter or something like that?
Yeah. They had a reunion in Chicago way back when, and there's an organization. Somewhere in here maybe. That's the last reunion.
I'm going to look at this later. This is interesting. What does your wife know about your experiences?
She knows quite a bit of it, not all of it. She's made a hero out of me.
You have kids and grandkids, obviously. If you ever told them, what are their impressions about all of this?
I've told them a few stories.
Are there any stories you haven't told me that would be of interest?
I've got the whole Korean War yet.
I forgot about that. When you returned home, you were reactivated and called back to the Korean Conflict?
Right.
And that would have been in September of 1950; is that right?
Yeah.
So you were home for about five years, and then you got called back?
Right.
Did you have any clue that you were going to go back into military service?
No. I signed Reserve when I got out the first time.
Why?
Free, white and 21. I knew I was going to get caught again, if it ever happened, I'd go back with rations and quarters and pick up my old rank and everything. I never attended a meeting, I never did a damned thing.
So you were kind of hedging your bets is what you were doing?
Exactly.
So you think you were being real smart, but in the meantime, you lost the bet and you got recalled?
That's right.
So September 1950, did you get a postcard in the mail, or what happened?
I got a letter in the mail to report to Fort Sheridan for a physical. I was working at Fort Sheridan at that time as a civilian.
How old were you by then? You must have been in your mid 20s.
Yeah. I had a wife and child and the whole bit.
So you would have been 24. So you were married with a child then?
And another one on the way.
Wow. Okay. And then you --
Then we went to Sheridan, I think, on a Friday. Everybody had a physical. There must have been two or 300 of us, and they started about, I don't know, 8:30, 9:00 o'clock with three doctors, and by 11:00 o'clock, we had all passed the physical except two people. The one had a big, silver plate still in his head, and I don't know what the other one had, but everybody else passed the physical.
I mean, here you are, you're at home, you saw combat, you got wounded, you're married, you have a child, you have a stable job, and all of a sudden, your whole world is turned upside down. What were your thoughts about going back in?
I was very unhappy, but I didn't have much choice, either.
What did your wife say about it?
Oh, God.
She must have been flaming mad.
Oh, yeah. That was a bad time for us at that time. The whole system wasn't -- they didn't have any records on us at all. All they did have was a bunch of names and serial numbers when they called us up.
Did you earn enough money to keep your family?
No.
How did they live?
And they didn't have any allotment set up or anything else.
So how did your family --
My wife and the family moved back with her mother, and when I got to the West Coast, I shipped them two $50 money orders.
So pretty much you'd send your salary back home to help your wife who was pregnant at the time?
Yeah. The baby was born when I was on the way to the West Coast.
Because the Korean War started right around there.
Yeah.
Was it going on when you were --
Yes.
And were you assigned to the 87th again, or what kind of unit?
No, no. At that point, when they asked us what we had all done, I said I was an administrative NCO.
Smart.
Right? Okay. I think later that the Army in their wisdom thought that Korea was just a side show so all the weapons people got shipped to Europe, all the weapons people got shipped to Europe, and all us oddballs ended up going to Korea, and me as an administrative NCO and what was your profession, engineers, because I worked for the engineers, I ended up with the third TMRS, Transportation Military Rail Service.
What is that, the trains?
The trains.
Like supply trains?
Like a steam train.
But, I mean, it was supply trains, right, that carried supplies up and back? Is that what it was?
Yeah. So I didn't know one end of a train from another.
But I'm sure you faked it, right?
I've driven a train. I've learned a lot of things.
So what did you do in Korea? There's a lot of battle there so where were you?
Well, they shipped us up north, and I was doing damage control, damage assessment on the railway. And we were working up that way, and there was a little, narrow-gauge railroad running up to the reservoir, and we started up that way, and then they told us no, to come back, they were retreating.
That was the Chosin Reservoir, right?
Right. We went back down there and we were destroying all our equipment, bringing everything back and destroying it rather than giving it to the Gooks, the Chinese. I'm sorry. Not politically correct.
It's okay with me. So that was a bit of a winter. The Chosin Reservoir was freezing cold.
Did you ever see those movies at the end of the reservoir, I mean, when they evacuated the harbor?
Yeah. It was, like, ice. It was freezing.
The big, long explosion across the end, that was 31 brand new, never-used Army refrigeration cars, brand new, off the ship. We repacked the journals -- that's the bearings -- and sat there, and then we put 5-gallon drums of jet fuel in each one and the engineers came and blew them up. And that was the last thing you did.
That was part of your training? Were you evacuated out of there?
Yeah.
So let me get this straight. You were on a train line heading towards the Chosin Reservoir to drop off supplies. When you got there, --
No, no, not drop off supplies. We were doing damage, how bad the railroads were, what had to be repaired, what had to be fixed.
Okay. But either way, when you got there, that's when the Chinese were flooding the area, and you just basically high tailed it back?
Yeah.
And then when you got back, --
Bit by bit, we destroyed a bunch of equipment. As the trains came back, we destroyed them all. Some of them we dropped in a ravine, some of them we set on fire.
And did you jump on a ship then, or how did you get out of there?
I came out on a freighter that had a load of coal they were unloading, and my group, we pushed the coal onto one side and we slept there on the coal pile. And the front of the ship had a bunch of sandbags in it and they had it open and the rain got in it, and the things caught fire.
Sandbags?
Yeah.
Full of what?
Well, you know, they were empty sandbags. They're just bags, you know. Anyway, there were guys up there with ropes hauling them up and throwing them over the side.
Once you left -- is that Puson?
Yeah, Puson.
That's where my dad landed in 1945. So you were leaving, and my dad had been there five years ago. So when you left Puson, where did you go from there?
We set up on the side of a hill, and it had been an American unit of some kind before that. Anyway, they had to build an outhouse. We had a tent holder, and during World War II, they had a bunch of buildings with, like, warehouses, open top and bottom, just corrugated metal, but if you put them together, you could make a building out of them. We had this tent holder, a nice one. We cut drums in half, had doors in the back and pushed it all in, had it all fixed up very nice, very clean. And we had a house boy. They were men, but we called them house boys. And what were they were going to do with it? So he said he would take care of it. So pretty soon, there's a farmer in there with his ox cart and his honey wagon and they're talking and talking and talking, and finally, he says yes, would he take it all. So okay. I told him be sure to keep the place clean. So he comes in there about the second day with his rice straw and takes the barrels and he dumps it all out and dumps it in his honey wagon and takes it off. The CO comes out and says, "When are you going to open that tent?" I said, "Sir, it's been open for two days. I was just in there. It's all nice and clean." I said, "Sir, you gave me the job, let it go." "You damn reservists," and he stomps off. Anyway, this goes on. Then at the end of the week, he gives me a handful of won, like, 2 cents each week. Pretty soon, I'm handing this stuff out to everybody and his brother. Pretty soon, I don't know, maybe a month later, three weeks, the farmer is up there screaming with the house boy and they're screaming at each other. "Stop, stop, stop. What's going on? The farmer says, "GI shit too strong. Burns up all the crops. Man want his money back."
So he bought fertilizer that wound up not working right? Good old American poop not like that Korean poop. How long were you in Korea for?
Just a short time.
And then were you there during the duration of the war and just were shipped back?
No, no. I had put in for a hardship discharge on my end. My wife had put in one on her end.
Is that because your wife was pregnant and you had a new baby?
She had the two babies, and the one child was born with a tumor on its arm, the other one had pneumonia. Anyway, long story. They had a movie, I think the first movie. So I was sitting there. I had a chair. Half the guys were sitting on the ground. "Hey, Sarge, they want you up at the orderly room." I said, "Bullshit. Go sit on the ground with the rest of them," you know, but a third one came up, "Yeah, we got papers. You've got to get out of here." "Why?" They said, "Your wife is dying." I said, "What?" "Your wife is dying." "Oh, God." The first sarge says, "Nobody gets out of Korea." I said, "Well, get me the orders." He said, "The last plane is getting ready to leave." So we ran out, grabbed the aircraft, and some officer says, "Well, you can't get aboard this thing." Well, it had a one star on it. In front of the general, said, "What's going on?" There was three of us. We gave him the hard luck story, and he says, "Oh, let them come aboard, but keep them up front. They smell bad." We were ripe. That's polite. Anyway, the weather socked in, and we ended up -- another war story -- up in northern Japan at an Air Force base. Don't ask me where. They didn't know what to do with us. We slept on the floor of the operation shed. The next morning, we said we were going for breakfast. We walk into breakfast. Beautiful mess hall, white linen cloths, Japanese girls waiting on the tables, clean, everybody's in a dress uniform, you know. We walk in, "I'll take a quart of milk, three eggs." We're sitting at the table eating, and a nice Air Force officer all dressed up comes walking up and he said, "Pardon me, gentlemen. You know you can't carry a weapon in here." The sergeant looks up at him and says, "You going to take it off me, sir?" He walked away.
Was this some kind of big, fancy officer's dinner you were at?
No. It was a regular mess hall.
So from Japan, you then went home after that?
Then we flew down to Japan. They didn't know what to do with us there. We ended up in MacArthur's headquarters right across from the Emperor's palace.
So you were in Tokyo?
Yeah. The second trip, the second trip, we did the same thing.
Was it damaged? I mean, what was the condition of Tokyo then? It was five years after the war.
Oh, it was in beautiful shape. Anyway, we walk in there, and they're all 6-foot-tall MPs with chrome helmets and shined shoes and all this crap. We're walking in there, and some little sergeant comes down and says, "Who are you?" We had the orders. Okay. He calls some corporal down and he says, "Take these three guys upstairs and give them new uniforms and burn every bit of clothes they've got on after they get out of the shower."
You guys smelled that bad? When did you finally get home?
We flew home on an old Connie, Constellation, and got to Frisco and I called my wife. I called home, and my wife answered.
Did you really think she was dying, or did you think this was, like, a big ruse to get you home?
No, I didn't. I thought she was dying.
It wound up being a ruse?
No, it wasn't. Somehow, the orders got goofed up. The new baby had pneumonia, and they were thinking she was going to die. My wife called the local priest and he came in with them, and he made some deal with somebody through the Red Cross somehow and they got some emergency orders through.
So it was your baby that was actually sick, not your wife. I see. So they got the baby and your wife mixed up. So did your child make it?
Oh, yeah. She's all right, she's fine.
She must be in her 70s now, right?
Yeah, and we're going there for Thanksgiving.
How many grandkids do you have?
Grandchildren?
Yeah.
Oh, God. The Christmas list is 47. I've got great-grandchildren. I mean, come on. My children are retiring.
Right. What are your thoughts about, like, society now? I mean, you and I talked about this a little while. There's such a difference in the way people behave, and your generation lived in a very unique time. What are your impressions about society and people, at least Americans?
Well, I think the current President is horse shit, but that's neither here nor there. I don't believe a word he says. I think he's divided the country.
The FBI will be knocking on your door. What do you think about the people, not so much the President? I'm talking about the people in general because I happen to think people are very soft now, I think they don't respect service.
That's why most -- you've got a lot of southern boys and a lot of blacks and Spanish in the military today because it's a little better life than they have otherwise, and they stay in. So you get 12 more guys out of Louisiana for every half a guy you get out of Chicago. The South has got more of a military culture. The South will rise again. There's no privation. You know, I grew up in the Depression type thing so we grew up hard, and we were happy to get what we had and each one of us tried to give the next generation a better life, a better deal, a better education because for the peasants, education was the only way to get up and out.
I mean, do you feel that the Americans have gotten too soft and too complainy or whiny now?
Yes, absolutely. They complain about everything and sue everybody for the lawyers. We have more lawyers per population than any other country in the world.
But every time you turn on the TV -- your generation, you did what you had to do, you got the job done, you moved on, and that was it. Nowadays, everybody seems to be complaining about everything that goes wrong, and I was wondering, you know, coming from your generation, looking at kind of the state of our society now, what --
Oh, yeah, politically correct for everything they say and do.
Is there anything you can think of? Because I kind of asked you all the questions I wanted. I don't know if there's any thoughts you had.
What thoughts have you had? You've been sitting there smiling. Come on, a different perspective.
There's no privation today. There's always a job that if you wanted to work, there's always a place, you know. I could always find work, and these people that are on relief all their life three or four generations, there's got to be some way of doing some service. And I don't care if you're picking up paper on the side of the road, but if you have to get up in the morning, court ordered, get up in the morning, 30 days work, be there at 8:00 o'clock in the morning and go home at 4:00 at night, but to sit home and watch the boob tube and collect and do nothing . . .
What are your impressions about your generation? Now that you're older and you can look back at it, I'm of the opinion they call it the greatest generation for a reason, but I'm curious on what your thoughts were about the generation you grew up in.
We were the end of the Depression era so we grew up lean and mean, if you want to put it that way.
That's true.
Everybody was in the same boat. You didn't realize that you were poor. We didn't have the clothes or anything else that we have today. I had my older brother's hand-me-down clothes most of the time, owned my first suit when I got married.
And I understand that the Depression guys were lean and mean, but the American soldier to me really stepped up and served very well, especially -- you're classic. I mean, you're green and you're facing off against guys that have been fighting for five years.
That's right.
And they were well armed and well trained, and guys like you get off the boat, and before you know it, you're in the front line against these guys, and there's a certain character to that. So why do you think the American Army did so well? I mean, our Air Force blew them out of the sky, our Navy blew them out of the water, and our land forces blew them off of Europe. Why do you think the American soldier was so good?
We had more manpower and more material. And you forget, the Russians did most of it. The Russians had more casualties than all of us put together. They destroyed much more of the German army.
There's no doubt about that, but the Americans, they may have played a smaller role, but they still kicked some ass, and I'm curious why you think the character of your generation did as well as they did.
It was just a job to do.
And do you think that the privation that you experienced as a kid helped you sleep outdoors for two months and, like, not complain and get through it?
Oh, we complained, did a lot of complaining. Didn't do any good.
Right, but you know what I'm saying. You didn't run away. You had a job to do as cold and as hungry as you were.
Well, some guys ran away, there's no question about that, but most of them didn't. Very few.
And do you think it was that character of coming out of the Depression lean and mean, you know, responsibility and a job to do?
Yeah.
Is there anything else you want to say, any thoughts you have?
Nope. What's your thoughts?
Oh, come on.
Well, listen. It was a pleasure interviewing you. I thank you for your service. I know you were drafted and you didn't go there voluntarily, but you stood up and went nose to nose.