Aymer Nelson
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
(Disclaimer: To the best of our knowledge, the information provided in this oral history interview is accurate. We do not make any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the information.)
Oral Interview with Aymer Emanuel Nelson
Conducted by Dan Hartman, Veterans’ Memorial Hall Program, St. Louis County Historical Society
Recording Date: December 28, 2010
Recording Place: Board Room, St. Louis County Heritage & Arts Center, Duluth, Minnesota
Transcriber: Patra Sevastiades, Veterans’ Memorial Hall Program, St. Louis County Historical Society
Transcription process funded by a grant from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation
DH: Today is December 28, 2010, and today we are interviewing Mr. Nelson. Can you say your full name?
AN: Aymer Emanuel Nelson.
DH: How do you spell your first name?
AN: A-Y-M-E-R.
DH: A-Y-B-E-R?
AN: A-Y-M-E-R.
DH: That’s what I thought. How do you spell your middle name?
AN: E-M-A-N-U-E-L.
DH: And then Nelson is N-E-L-S-O-N?
AN: Yeah.
DH: What year were you born?
AN: 1912.
DH: I heard someone earlier say that you are 97, then. Is that fair?
AN: I had my 98th just in November.
DH: Well, congratulations on that.
AN: What?
DH: Congratulations on the birthday.
AN: Yeah.
DH: What war did you serve in?
AN: World War II.
DH: What branch of the service were you in?
AN: Chemical warfare.
DH: Was this in the Army?
AN: Army.
See, we were, in case—I don’t know if you heard about what they used, a very bad gas, during World War I. And it killed a lot of people. A lot of people they got this in their lungs and they were out of . . . couldn’t . . . I can remember where some of the old World War I veterans that had been gassed . . .
But anyway, that’s what we would be doing: If the Germans started using gas, we would retaliate.
DH: And I’m going to ask you more about that later. I’m actually going to go back now and I’m going to start asking about your childhood here in Duluth, is that okay?
AN: Yeah.
DH: Okay. I like to keep my interviews in order. So, I’m going to start when you were young and then slowly progress to the war. Is that okay?
AN: Yeah.
DH: What were your parents’ names?
AN: My mother’s name was Hilma—H-I-L-M-A, I guess, Hilma—I guess that’s the way you would spell it.
DH: And what was her maiden name?
AN: That was Hilma, that was her maiden name. Her last name, what they call Fohlin, F-O-H-L-I-N.
DH: Okay, and what was her ethnic background?
AN: Swedish. She was born and raised in Sweden.
DN: Oh, so she came over?
AN: She came over here when she was, I guess, around nineteen years old when she came to the United States. ’Cause there was nothing for anybody, over, really, for anyone over in Sweden. She did domestic housework for several of the big shots who lived in town here.
DH: She came almost straight to Duluth?
AN: What?
DH: She moved almost straight to Duluth from Sweden?
AN: Yes. At the time, Duluth was a booming city, and that’s why my dad came here. ‘Cause they were building all kinds of things, things growing here, so there was a lot of work available here at that time.
DH: Do you remember any of the families that she did housework for?
AN: I did, there was a family, the Sellwoods. She always talked about the Sellwoods. There were several other people that she worked for, but she was mostly with the Sellwoods.
DH: And how about your father, what was his name?
AN: Anton.
DH: What was his—his last name was Nelson, I would imagine?
AN: Yeah. He was Nelson, Anton Nelson.
DH: And what was his background? Was he Swedish, too?
AN: Yeah, yeah. He came over here and just as he . . . well, he enlisted in the Navy right away when he came as an immigrant, and he got his U.S. citizenship, and then he joined the Navy. And they did do some, have some action . . . actual shooting . . . like . . . with the Navy guns. Anyway, it was a good, it was a good thing to get, to feel that he was an American citizen, and he did it as a veteran in the service.
DN: Absolutely. How long did it take for him to move to Duluth?
AN: To what?
DN: When did he move to Duluth?
AN: I’m not sure. But when he came over, he worked in New York City. And then he heard there was a building boom in Minnesota. They were building a lot of buildings, and grain elevators, and other buildings. And Duluth had promise early: It looked like it was going, in the future, was going to be a big city, Duluth. Of course, that never really developed—it was going to be a big city, like Chicago. But, anyway, there was a lot of work to be done. So he came up here to do carpentry work.
DH: So he was a carpenter by trade?
AN: Yeah. He was, not me.
DH: Did he work by himself, or did he work for another, for a group of carpenters?
AN: He worked for different contractors.
Like that . . . the Marshall Wells Building? He worked quite a long time on that building, on the Marshall Wells Building. And then he did, he worked for a contractor that built grain elevators. So they built—several buildings were built here. And then that same contractor got some bids on jobs in Canada, grain elevators, so then he spent quite a bit of time up on the—in Canada, where they were building grain elevators there and other buildings.
DH: What religion were your parents? Were they Lutheran?
AN: What?
DH: What religion were your parents?
AN: Protestant.
DH: Protestant. Were they avid churchgoers?
AN: Yeah, they went to church every Sunday.
DH: Okay, and what part of Duluth did they live in?
AN: In the West End.
DH: In the West End. Do you remember the address, by chance?
AN: Oh, yes. It was 2720 West Michigan Street.
DH: Michigan Street?!
AN: Yes, that’s the whole area that’s torn out now.
DH: Yeah.
AN: They took every building that there, ripped them all out, ‘cause we needed commercial property. And, see, a lot of our business went up over the hill, you know, there, all our stores and other business went up there.
So then there were a lot of houses down in that area, between 25th Avenue West and all the way west, but they needed more commercial property, because they wanted it up one side, and over the hilltop they wanted to have some more commercial property, so then they bought all the houses and tore them all down. Some were in good condition, quite new, most of them were old.
DN: Did you guys get kicked out of your house then?
AN: What?
DN: Did you guys get kicked out of your house, or was this long after you left?
AN: No, it was after I left when they tore down all the buildings.
DH: So, how was it growing up in Duluth as a child? Was it kind of fun?
AN: I don’t know, it was . . . I guess it’s just like anybody else—kids, you know. We had our own hobbies and stuff. We usually spent a lot—in the summertime, we spent a lot of time down by the water, down by the bay.
DH: What would you do?
AN: Oh, we built all kinds of rafts. Then we were making, as kids we were making paddle wheels, to propel the thing around there . . .
DH: Really?
AN: Yeah, we had all kinds of contraptions made. It’s funny nobody got . . . well, I was out . . . We made a thing that we could paddle on with a bicycle, something that went over, a propeller in the water. Of course, that didn’t . . .
But the first, I took the first trip out, out there, I went out and took a paddle around. And the next kid—I couldn’t swim at the time—and I went out and brought it back in. And it was propped on two long pieces of pontoon. And then you’d sit in the middle and could paddle that, but it was very poor construction, but it got in the water, and it began to move. Some of those connections that we made gave way, and the guy that was on it, he went down, and the two parts of the pontoons went! But lucky, he could swim.
DH: It sounds like a lot of fun.
AN: Yeah.
DH: But you made a little bicycle pontoon raft, then? Where’d you guys get the pontoons at?
AN: Usually had some logs and we had some barrel outfit that we could use. And then there was a blacksmith down at 20—was it 22nd ? —or something, there was a blacksmith shop down there, anyway, and he’d make me some parts that we’d need for our, to propel that boat.
DN: That sounds actually like a lot of fun.
AN: Oh, yeah. We spent a lot time with that, coming up with different ideas. But the problem was, with a thing like that: You push the pedal down, and then there wasn’t enough momentum to bring it around to get your other foot out of it. So we just had to mmph, mmph, instead of going . . . If it would’ve probably had a different gear ratio, so that the propeller would turn, we’d just push down, then push the other pedal down. “Do something with that bicycle that you’ve got,” that was the saying, that was, pedal this thing.
DH: Wow, that’s really cool, though. You guys played around a lot in the water, it sounds like. Did you play any sports?
AN: What?
DH: Did you play any sports, like baseball or hockey?
AN: No, just a little, like we used to call, play tin-pan alley. Like the alley between the houses, there was an alley where they kept tin cans that we used for a puck, and then we’d play hockey there. ‘Course, a little baseball, too.
DH: Where did you go to elementary school at?
AN: Duluth here.
DH: What was the school called?
AN: Monroe. See, that, that was standing here until, oh, I don’t know when, ten years ago. The kids used to get in there and play around in the empty building. And it caught fire somehow and burned down. Or maybe, maybe somebody convinced someone to set it on fire, ‘cause it was a two-story brick building.
DN: How was it as an elementary school?
AN: Ordinary, I guess, ordinary.
DN: Any fun stories from when you were a kid there?
AN: No, not much. Oh--just a bunch of kids.
One thing they had was an Opportunity Room for some that were, uh, oh, well, probably not just right. There were several there.
That was the thing, if you got into . . . Well, the principal, his name was John Anderson, he had a big razor strap. And the first offense for something, you got one rap. The next, if you got called in again, you got extra raps. He was a one-armed principal, and he came up and wham! They could do that in those days. Any time you got in trouble, you had to go over to the principal’s office and get your raps.
DH: And what happened in the Opportunity Room?
AN: Well, they had, like, Special Ed, that’s about what you could call it. And then, they, somebody misbehaved, then they sent them to the Opportunity Room with the Special Ed kids. That was a terrible thing, if you had been sentenced to have to go maybe a couple weeks in the Opportunity Room with these other . . .
DH: How did you handle the winters growing up here in Duluth?
AN: Oh, as kids we had lots of fun. There’s skiing. But we didn’t have any hills, with the flat area. But we used the part of the Miller Creek, where that comes through. And there was kind of a ramp there that would come down to the water. Of course, now it’s all covered over.
DH: But Miller Creek used to be open then? And there was a ramp? And did you sled down there?
AN: Yeah. From Michigan Street, it took, made quite a little drop. And us kids, we’d always have—if the creek was open, we’d ice it so it would ice and go down there on skates. The kids—oh, some kids were really good at that. By the way, as kids we always had a little, my dad always made a little skating rink for us in our back yard. Then he’d . . .
Course, then we’d go up to the big rink, Harrison Rink, that was up on 29th and 30th, it’s still a park right there . . .
DH: Yep, still there.
AN: . . . on 3rd Street there. In the wintertime, we spent a lot of time over there. And in the wintertime, they had, they usually had some kind of music out there. See, at that time, there was no TV, no radio at that time. So that Harrison Rink, there was mostly grown-ups, ‘cause there was nothing else to do, just skating around. A lot of people would be out there skating. At 9:00 o’clock, they kicked, kicked all the kids out.
DH: So you were a fairly young kid, actually, a teenager, during the Prohibition.
AN: Yeah.
DN: So, do you remember much about Prohibition?
AN: Oh, yeah. No, I was . . . the last part of Prohibition I was working at a hotel in Duluth, there. And, course, that was . . . We . . .There was a lot of liquor being sold.
DH: Was that your first job?
AN: At the Spalding Hotel, and that was on 5th Avenue West and Superior Street.
DH: So, can I ask you: What did you think of the Spalding Hotel? Was the Spalding a beautiful building?
AN: Oh, yeah, for its time. It had a beautiful, big ballroom. It was the biggest and best ballroom in town, so we got a lot of conventions. And then they’d have, Saturday nights, they had a dinner dance, and that, that went over big for quite a few years, we had this dinner dance. I don’t remember what you had to pay in there, but you had a dinner and they always had some little—there were some pretty fair local bands at that time. See, at that time there was no TV, and radio had just started coming in. So there would be a real good band. We had some pretty good bands here in town.
DH: Do you remember the names of any of the bands?
AN: Oh, yeah. There was one, Nichols—the guy was Nichols—Nichols and Dimes and Small Change. That was their moniker, anyway. Nichols and Dimes and Small Change. Anyway, he was pretty fun. Then there was another guy, Swedish, a guy, he had a pretty good band. He had a pretty popular band—good, pretty good musician. I can’t remember his name. They had . . . But there were more dance halls then, there were several, just around—just in the West End there were two.
DH: Where were those dance halls?
AN: There was a . . . I don’t know if . . . there was a Woodman Hall on 21st Avenue West—or was it 22nd?
DH: Woodman Hall?
AN: Woodman Hall, yeah. It was a pretty good-sized building, a good-sized dance floor. Then they had another dance floor upstairs of, oh, it was on 21st and 3rd Street, there was a dance hall upstairs in the building there, I guess there were stores in the bottom of the dance hall upstairs. That was two of them. Then at the time they had 22nd and Superior Street, they were—the upstairs of that building, on the northeast corner, they had—it was a dance hall upstairs. So there were, they had quite a few dances in different parts of town.
DN: So tell me a little bit more about the Spalding. Are there any stories from the Spalding that you remember?
AN: There was . . . Not much. It was just the usual experience that you’d find, find with . . . problems. We’d give information to people, when people would come to town. Sometimes I, when I could fit it in, we’d drive people, they’d want . . . I had an old car, I bought an old car, and in the afternoon or evening I would go out and drive them around. Course, a lot of people, there wasn’t so much auto traffic, a lot of people came by train, and they’d like to see the town, so then I had a pretty good run along the boulevard, the zoo. And I don’t remember what we charged. Nickel tours, up around the boulevard, and the zoo, and . . .
DH: How was the zoo back then? Was the zoo a pretty good place to bring people back then?
AN: Oh, yeah. We did that quite a bit, and then a lot of times we’d drive people . . .
I remember one time we, I had to drive the guy, he was, I think he was a chief, a justice in the state Supreme Court, anyway, attorney general. And they were, there was some kind of a clubhouse north of Two Harbors, I don’t remember exactly where it was, but it was that, a fairly large building there, it was kind of a meetinghouse. They rented it out to different organizations.
Well, anyway, he was going to make a speech, a talk, at the Rotary Club. And it was late. And he asked if I could drive him up there. I said, Sure. Well, I started going down London Road, you know, maybe sneaking, sneaking about 5 miles an hour over the speed limit. He said, “Go ahead, drive as fast you can, don’t worry about a ticket, I can take care of it.” So I put the pedal on the floor and went down London Road. We passed everything. We got up there just in time when they called the meeting to order. And, so, I was thinking here of me going down London Road, you know, wide open.
DH: Do you remember his name, by chance?
AN: What?
DH: Do you remember the judge’s name?
AN: I think it was Delaney. I don’t know if it was . . . What was it? Anyway, he had worked for the State Justice Department, anyway.
DH: What do you remember about the Prohibition in Duluth? Were a lot of people drinking?
AN: When television first came out, I remember, the one had, the one fellow had a radio shop in the West End, and he got the first TV that most of us got to see. And then he set it up in the window so us kids could watch, watch the TV, and oh boy, that was great in the evening! A bunch of kids would come there just to watch that TV. Course, then it popped up all over, people buying their own TV. But that was, I remember, the first one that we saw, that one shop there, and he had it in the window.
DN: Do you remember Prohibition much?
AN: Oh, yeah.
DH: Were a lot of people drinking, still?
AN: Oh, yes. There were more . . . what we figured, there was four or five places where you could buy a bottle of moonshine or gin. Between 4th Avenue West and 5th Avenue West, there were five different places where you could buy. And in fact, even the drugstore. The guy that owned the drugstore, he got liquor that was sold for medical purposes only.
DH: Yeah.
AN: And that druggist could get all you want, liquor, for medical use only.
DH: So, pretty much where we are, here [gesturing out the window], this is where you could buy moonshine? Was it the old Bowery district?
AN: What?
DH: Was it the Bowery? What was 4th and 5th Avenue West called?
AN: I don’t think it had . . . But it was a kind of a hangout . . . See, the Bowery was where the new library is, both Superior and Michigan Street. Some cheap flophouses, and there was prostitution, right on the block. There was one right on the corner, 5th—5th Avenue West and Superior Street. There were several. Where the Incline came down, there was, right at the bottom, just to the right, near the Incline, there, was the first hotel, a commercial hotel, and of course, that was prostitution.
So, anyway, I got to know how the system worked. They were illegal, but not . . . on the books. The policemen knew, the . . . what’s his name now?—Anyway, there was the police department policing prostitutions . . . Some operated all the time. I got to know because one, one of the ladies that operated that one right by the Incline railway, she was, I think, either a relative or close friend of one of the guys I worked with. And we found out how the system worked: Once they had one man who was kind of a pay-off man for the police department for the gambling that was going on, that was illegal, and the prostitutions were illegal. But they all operated. They were still working.
DH: And that was really close to here?
AN: What?
DH: And that operation was right near here?
AN: Oh, yeah, on the Bowery between 5th and 6th Avenue West.
This one fellow I worked with, there was a woman—I think they were somewhat related, listening to their conversation. But anyway, she was the one that operated the place. She’d come to visit him, nice looking lady, visit the guy that I worked with. She’d come in to visit him.
And one time she invited me over there for Sunday dinner. And I shoulda gone, but I thought, I didn’t want anybody seeing me coming out of there.
DH: How old were you at this point?
AN: I don’t know, about eighteen, I guess.
DH: Did you go to a lot of movies later on?
AN: What?
DN: Were there are a lot of movies out here at all in the 20’s?
AN: No.
DH: I’m going to show you this photo, before I forget. Is this your old house at 27th?
AN: Yeah. Between 27th and 28th. That’s the neighborhood—they wiped out the whole neighborhood, from Superior Street all the way down to the waterfront. Twenty-five foot lots, a lot of homes gone. Then they decided they needed more commercial property.
So the city bought all of those houses. Every one of them and tore down every one of them. There were three streets that were loaded with houses: from Michigan Street, Huron Street, and Railroad Street. And there was slabtown [??] across the railroad tracks. So then they took down all the houses down there, every one of them.
DH: So let me ask about this picture. Where is this?
AN: That’s down on Park Point. That’s my aunt and uncle from Chicago. And we’re down on Park Point.
DH: Does that mean the very end of Park Point?
AN: No, as far as the, no—we went as far as the street went. Usually everybody—because there was a streetcar. But there were a lot of entertainments down there then. You could slide down into the water. Or you could rent canoes. Several other things. There were a lot of people went down there. Sunday, Sunday there were a lot of people down there, nice Sunday afternoons. They had a little dinky streetcar that you had to transfer, go across the bridge, and then you’d take another dinky streetcar.
DH: Were they pretty slow?
AN: What?
DH: Was it a pretty slow streetcar?
AN: The street was too narrow. No space to turn [the streetcar] around. It was double-ended. One time you’d operate it from the front; on the way back, you’d be at the other end.
DH: Kind of like in New Orleans. And is this on Park Point too?
AN: Yes. Right by the Aerial Bridge. The footings for the ramp. I guess that’s all changed now. That’s just on the south side of the driveway, and, kind of the footings for the bridge.
DH: Earlier—you said you had a car earlier. Was that the car [showing photograph]?
AN: Yeah.
DH: So I have to ask, what were you doing for a living that you could afford a car?
AN: I don’t know if it was this car. I used to . . . We’d go to the city dump. There were dumps all along. We were always looking for copper. And we’d look, and sometimes we’d find a copper kettle, copper boiler, something like that. We didn’t collect any junk but copper and brass. And they had a junkyard down on 22nd and Michigan Street, 15 cents a pound, and where you’d go in there, and they gave you 15 cents a pound for copper, brass, or lead. And they had 15 cents a pound. Sometimes we’d make a couple of dollars on good-sized copper pieces.
DH: You eventually bought a car with that?
AN: Oh, yeah. I had pretty good money I saved. And a little I had made. Oh, yeah, there was a guy, he worked out at the steel plant with—my brother-in-law knew him. He wanted $150, he wanted to borrow, he couldn’t—no one seemed to wanted to loan it to him—the guy must’ve been know for . . . Anyway, I had that $150. So loaned it to him the $150. And I got the car, but I couldn’t use it, so I put it in a garage and kept it there. And eventually the time came when I wanted my money back. And he said, “I don’t have the money.” So I said, “Then I’ll take your automobile, then.” “Well, okay.” It was a ’28 Chevrolet. It wasn’t that old then. I had it in the garage for a while. But I wasn’t old enough to get a driver’s license yet.
That was my first car, four-door ’28 Chevrolet. I wasn’t old enough to have a driver’s license yet. So I had it in the garage for a while.
DN: You must have been one of the few people you knew that had a car.
AN: I was one of the few kids in the neighborhood who had a car, but I couldn’t drive it. I suppose I had to be sixteen, I don’t know what the rules were.
DH: I apologize, I keep to forget asking questions. During Prohibition, were there any famous people you knew who were drinking?
AN: Well, Kid Paul was the big Al Capone of Duluth.
DH: Kid Paul?
AN: Kid Paul, yeah. He ran all the illegal gambling. I guess, I suppose a lot of the [illegible]. Anyway, he was kind of the kingpin of the underground gambling world, illegal gambling joints. Course everyone was kind of afraid of Kid Paul, he was the big Al Capone of Duluth.
DH: No idea why he was “Kid” Paul? Was he a young guy?
AN: I don’t know. Anyway, maybe it’s a lot of stories that people put together about what Kid Paul did.
DH: But people were scared of him?
AN: Oh, yeah, cause he was kingpin of the underworld.
DH: Did you ever meet him?
AN: I’ve seen him. I didn’t actually meet him or talk to him. I didn’t meet him, but I’ve seen him. He walked down the street and he was kind of a big shot, I don’t know . . . everybody knew, I don’t know . . . kind of the Al Capone in town.
DN: Did he make a lot of his own booze?
AN: No, I don’t think so.
DH: So he would just bring it in town?
AN: Yeah. Of course, there were four or five liquor joints between 4th and 5th Avenues West, and there were only two legal, and there were five during Prohibition.
DH: Do you remember the names of any of these stores?
AN: What?
DH: Do you remember the names of any of these places that sold booze?
AN: Yeah. One was a pool hall. They were . . . They hung around that pool hall, but their main thing was selling. And then there was another guy out on 5th Avenue West and Superior Street, he was selling booze to anyone that came along. There were always taxicabs around the Spalding Hotel, both on the front and on the side. And when he was out there, the cabbie wanted some booze for somebody or something, they went to this guy. Every day he stood, hung out at that corner.
DN: Do you remember his name, by chance?
AN: Red something. I did know his name. Anyway, he stood on the corner, hung on the corner, go and sit in someone’s cab for a minute. And back on the corner.
And the drugstore was another place where you could buy.
DH: Are there any other stories of Duluth during the 1920s that you want to talk about?
AN: No. Can’t think of anything.
DH: If not, then I’ll start talking about the 1930s, is that okay?
AN: Yeah. The 30s.
DH: Do you remember when the Great Depression happened?
AN: Oh, yeah, that was . . . See . . . I can remember 3rd Avenue West, there was a bank there at the corner, and those people were lined up at the door, and the line went up the hill, almost to the alley, people standing there trying to pull out their money. They had postal savings at the time. People got their money out and put their money in postal savings. A lot of people pulled their money out of the bank. Every bank where people were . . . I found out later . . . One guy—the banks didn’t have a lot of cash on hand, and here was a whole line of people wanting to draw out their money. So they got hold of this guy who had an airplane. He flew to St. Paul for, what do you call that? —government money to give to that bank. Anyway, he flew $2 million each trip. Whoever was in charge of the idea, he flew $2 million each trip.
DH: Back and forth?
AN: That’s all that he could carry, otherwise he’d crash. Yeah, so everyone that wanted to draw their money out, could.
DH: I heard earlier that you owned some airplanes. Is that true?
AN: What?
DH: I heard that you had some planes.
AN: Yes. That was in the 30s. I think I sold the last one in ’37.
DN: And what were the names of the planes?
AN: Oh, yeah. They were small and open. You’ve seen these little Cub deals. I had one like that, it was—two people could sit in. Good for training students.
DH: So how did you get into airplanes? How did you . . .
[Tape 2:]
DN: . . . from building rafts in the harbor, to flying airplanes?
AN: No, just, adventure, I guess! It looked good.
DH: Okay. And where—did you fly out by the airport, or did you fly out of Park Point?
AN: No, airport. There were half a dozen small planes around up there then.
People, of course, like . . . There was Cavour and Gil Hartley, they each had a pretty good airplane. And, course, they flew their airplane ‘cause they had real estate in Boston, and then they had land out in, somewhere in the Dakotas or Montana. So they’d fly back and forth from Duluth to Boston, and from going west where they had investments.
DH: And did you, did you purchase these planes yourself?
AN: Yeah.
DH: Wow. And did you make that money as a bellman at the hotel?
AN: What?
DH: How did you play for the planes back then?
AN: Well, I had, I guess I—well, I was working too, then, so I, I . . .
DH: At the Spalding?
AN: Yeah. And then there was one guy there, he had what they called a transport license, he could, for training students. And he used my airplane to train students. So.
DH: Okay. And then, I saw this photo here: You also got a motorcycle.
AN: Yeah. This was a trip we made up to Port Arthur, Fort Wil . . . Thunder Bay, now. This was on that trip we went up to Thunder Bay, the two of us, on each motorcycle. Course, in those days they had motorcycle policemen, too. They don’t, don’t have those.
DH: Not too many.
AN: It was only in the 30s they had, policemen had motorcycles.
DH: So how was the—what changed in Duluth in the 1930s?
AN: What took place in the 30s?
DH: What changed from the 1920s to the 1930s?
AN: Uh, gee . . .
DH: I heard a lot of movie theaters . . .
AN: The 20s . . . well—the Medical Arts Building, that was built right in the worst part of the Depression. I don’t know if we had any other bigger buildings, anyway, there were some smaller ones, but anyway, the Medical Arts Building was built then.
DH: And were you still working at the Spalding, too?
AN: The what?
DH: Were you still at the Spalding?
AN: Yeah, yeah. That’s what we . . . A lot of times people would want their car parked, you know. I’d unload their baggage, and then they wanted their car put in the garage. Like in the back of the Medical Arts Building, there was about three levels of storage space down in there. I don’t imagine they even have any now. In the back you go down one flight and then another flight. So a lot of guests wanted their cars put in the garage, so we put them in the garage for them.
DH: Makes sense. And were your parents affected by the Great Depression, a lot?
AN: The what?
DH: Were your parents affected by the Depression?
AN: Oh, yeah. My dad always managed to get some small jobs, but the construction jobs were pretty, pretty few. There wasn’t much building going on at that time. But he got jobs remodeling homes and offices, and so he worked fairly steady. And then they have a, I don’t remember, just somewhere west of the airport there, but the government built a lot of houses up there for, I don’t know, people that couldn’t afford, who didn’t have money . . . Anyway, there was . . . must . . . I don’t know how many houses built, but there were quite a few.
DH: So that kind of brings up another question. Do you remember Franklin Roosevelt pretty well?
AN: What?
DH: Do you remember FDR, or Franklin Roosevelt?
AN: Oh, yeah, sure.
DH: Do you think he did a good job as President during the 30s?
AN: Oh, yeah, considering. Cause that’s when the uh, medical, or . . . what do you call it? But, anyway, we . . . he had . . . he went to Sweden and other countries to study their system of social security. And that’s where a lot of ours, came from the other countries, he got ideas. He went over there, and a commission that went over with him over there to study their social security system. And that’s where it started, under him.
DH: Do you remember the CCC camps?
AN: The what?
DH: The CCC camps?
AN: Oh, yeah.
DH: Did you think that was a good thing? Did any of your friends go on in?
AN: Oh, yeah. I know quite a few. They didn’t have anything to do, no work, so that, that CCC, that was a good . . . They made a lot of jokes about ‘em, that it was, well, people stand around with shovels, but they did a lot of good work for the parks and sidewalks, and I know of several places that they built, like, a stone wall, around the street. And a lot of work they did, bridges and parks. Paid work for a lot of people.
And, of course, then, a lot of the younger guys they went to work at the CCC camps. Well, they had to learn discipline. They accomplished, they did a lot, planted a lot of trees. One place, they were really . . . and I got to know the, the kind of the head of it —they planted a lot of trees, pine trees, cause there was a lot of brush, scrubby—elms and poplar and stuff like that—but they planted a lot of trees. They’d go out, this Caterpillar tractor. The guys planting trees would kind of make a trench for the trees, and they’d drive back there and stick down the little seedlings, little ones, about that big. I’ve often thought I’d like to go up to that place now, I’ve never been up there since that time.
DH: Do you remember . . .
AN: Course, we were up there quite a bit then. They planted, they planted trees, and they made fire roads between some of these areas. There was no protection to get fire equipment in there if a fire got started, they just had that whole northeastern part of it. But there’s one section there that they made, made roads through there just for fire trucks and people so people could get to the fire.
DH: And I’m going to move you a little ahead, now. Do you remember December 7, 1941?
AN: Oh, yeah. Oh, sure! That’s—sure! Yeah, I remember, ‘cause I was working nights at the time. And, I thought, I was gonna . . . Anyway, I heard . . . the radio was on, and I heard that on the radio. Oh, boy! Bombed! Pearl Harbor! Boy, that really, really scared everybody! Because it was something serious, the Japanese are going to take over the whole world, or what? It was . . . People took it pretty seriously, that bombing, course, and then . . . then they started . . .
Course, then they started drafting people.
DH: And did you join the military before that or after that?
AN: No, it was after that. It was in 1942 that I went into the service, in March 1942. But . . .
DH: And did you volunteer, then?
AN: Yeah.
DH: And what made you want to volunteer?
AN: Well, I was a 1-A rating. That was the top rating for—number one—for drafting.
DH: So you were gonna go either way.
AN: They picked the 1-As first. And then they went down to the 4-Fs. They were the ones that were . . . well . . . should have been in the service but they weren’t. Otherwise, the class of 1-As, they picked those out pretty quick.
I wanted to join the Navy, but I went to the Navy recruiter, and he told me that they had a lot of younger guys who didn’t want to go in the Army, they’d heard all these horrible stories on World War I, so figured, “Boy, we’ll go join the Navy.” Well, the Navy recruiter, he said, at that time he had so many waiting and wanting to get in that his quota was full—the recruiters, I guess, must’ve had a quota of how many they had to bring in. But his quota was full, he said he couldn’t, they couldn’t take any more in. I guess they wanted them from different districts around there, didn’t want ‘em from one place.
DH: And so you chose the Army, then?
AN: Yeah . . . Well, I waited until I was drafted. Because I didn’t know which branch of service I wanted to be in, which was the best, so I thought, “Oh, I’ll just wait until they called,” and my number was up pretty quickly, class of 1-A.
DH: So, March of ‘42 was when you got drafted, then?
AN: Yeah.
DH: So how long did it take before you got shipped out and went through your basic training?
AN: It wasn’t very long until I got my, my—what do they call it? —[illegible]—like your friend or something—notice, your call to come in. So then I got my date to go down, and they had Greyhound, they were full Greyhound bus. They were called in from districts; like I came from the West End district. So I knew quite a few of the guys, too.
DH: And where did they bring you?
AN: Fort Snelling.
DH: And then, where did you go from Fort Snelling?
AN: Well, it took a . . . We were, we hung around there for maybe a week before I got assigned to a place to go down to Texas. And I remember on the bus there was one guy, his name was Campbell or something, anyway, but he brought along quite a lot of bottles of whiskey with him, and he was passing that around the bus. And some guys had too much to drink. And then, of course, they had to stop, they had to urinate, and he wanted to stop in the town. And the guys were hollering, “Piss call!” they wanted to get out, but the bus driver wouldn’t let anybody off, because, he says, if he got ‘em, if they got outta the bus in a town, they’d head for the tavern, and then you’d have to round up all of these guys and try to get them back on the bus.
So he wouldn’t stop. He stopped right out on the highway, on Highway 61, between the Twin Cities. Oh, us guys loved it. But anyway he wouldn’t stop, in town.
DH: Yeah.
AN: And, of course, there were quite a few guys who had been drinking too much and the first thing, the military police, they rounded up everyone who looked like they’d been drinking and rounded those up and took ‘em somewhere just to sober them up.
DH: And so where’d you go in Texas?
AN: Marfa, Texas, that’s out towards El Paso. The close big town was El Paso.
DH: Was this your basic training, correct?
AN: What?
DH: Was this your basic training?
AN: Well, we—yeah. We were our own unit. We did go to training camp. We went right into a new outfit that had just been started.
DH: Oh.
AN: That was for chemical warfare. You see, they didn’t have any units like that before that, because in the war with Germany, they were the ones that started the gas, so . . .
DH: So, when did you know you would be put in the chemical unit?
AN: What?
DH: When were you put in the chemical unit, at Fort Snelling or in Texas?
AN: No, we did that down in Texas.
DH: What did you do to train for that?
AN: We did lots of marching! They did, in times between class work. They’d have nothing to do with the guys, so we’d go out and hike a couple times a week, we’d go up to what they called Smith Hill, 22 miles, we walked that thing for, I don’t know how many times we walked it, but they just wanted to get the guys . . . we didn’t have our weapons—all we had was rifles, we did some rifle training, but otherwise, you couldn’t do that all day long, seven days a week, so, and we’d march, we’d march back and forth to Smith Hill.
DH: And so, how did they train you for the chemical warfare? Did you ever have to put the mask on, and what did you do?
AN: Well, they did, but we never used anything with it. But you could fire smoke shells, that was . . .
We did, well, at first, oh, at least the first six months, we didn’t even have one of our weapons to train with, so all we’d have to go out and hike some more.
DH: When they finally did, when they gave you the weapons, what was the weapon?
AN: It’s a mortar. About that high, weighed 90 lbs. and the base part, it weighed 125, so it wasn’t an outfit, anything you could carry around with you.
DH: No. And you were prepared to go if the Germans unleashed gas?
AN: Well, we trained here, we had to go down to train first for the amphibious training for the landing at Normandy. And then we went down to Virginia, and there we practiced with the big landing ships, practiced landing. Spent a lot of time there to practice. And then went to England, and they got a spot that’s quite like the beach in Normandy. They had got, picked out a beach in England, in southwest England, to practice our amphibious landing, how to do it, small craft, and bigger landing ships. It was all done in that spot in southwest England.
DH: Do you remember what year this was? Was this ’42, or ‘43 still?
AN: Must’ve been end of ‘43. We spent eight—anyway, we spent eight months in England before, before D-Day.
DH: And did you participate in D-Day?
AN: What?
DH: Were you part of the landing on D-Day?
AN: Oh, sure, yeah. We all practiced, over and over again.
DH: What was your role in the unit?
AN: What?
DH: What was your role? When you dropped the mortar, or—? What was your job or duty?
AN: I was just regular, but after we got overseas, they had to do a little more planning on keeping everyone supplied, so then there was ammunition . . .
DH: Okay . . .
AN: . . . trying to work with it. Course, like, when you got in combat, some days, like, maybe cover 20 miles a day, and then you might be stuck there for weeks before you could get going again . . .
DH: Do you want to talk about D-Day at all? Where you landed at?
AN: I didn’t come in until D2 or D3. But I did get in on the . . . we took quite a beating because of the confusion on the beach. Course, we lost our colonel, a guy that was pretty well liked by all the troops. Find out, well, he wasn’t killed, but he was wounded seriously and lost one arm, so he never went back into combat again.
DH: Do you remember his name? Colonel—?
AN: What’s his name? Oh, yeah, gee, I should know that—Colonel James.
DH: What division or larger unit were you a part of?
AN: We were a separate battalion. You would . . . when infantries, say, for instance, they see they needed a tank, or couple tanks. Then they called into a tank unit. They were a separate thing, they weren’t attached to any division. Wherever they needed support, that’s where they’d have to go.
DH: Who were you attached to during the war, during D-Day?
AN: During D-Day?
DH: Yeah.
AN: The 1st Division and the 29th Division, for training. And we did a lot with the 28th, too.
DH: And when you arrived at Normandy, do you remember what beach landing you were at?
AN: The what?
DH: Which beach landing you were at?
AN: I don’t remember which part, but we didn’t land where we were supposed to. We were way off from the designated spot.
DH: When you landed, was there still a lot of fighting going on?
AN: It was maybe 5 or 10 miles in at the time.
DH: Okay.
AN: But the first time, our first objective was the city of St. Lo, that was about 30 miles in. That took us, oh, took us about a month to get it.
DH: Because there was a lot of fighting?
AN: Oh, yeah. They were, the Germans were dug in well and well organized with their defenses. It was very slow going. If we made a few yards in a day, you did good.
DH: Did you get shot at quite a bit?
AN: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. They had lots of artillery. They just splattered you, sometimes day and night, the shelling. But it wasn’t always too effective. It was hard country to fight through, because it was, what do you call that? Hedgerow country. It was slow going.
DH: Since you were a part of a chemical unit, and they weren’t using the chemicals . . .
AN: No, but you were always ready for it.
DH: . . . Okay, so, were you infantry then? If you weren’t chemical, were you just infantry, then?
AN: Oh, yeah, we worked with the infantry most of the time, I think it was only a couple of times that we weren’t with the infantry, when we were with a tank battalion. The tanks reached [illegible] where they couldn’t gain anymore, they couldn’t reach the enemy. Then we’d have to come in with our mortars, ‘cause our mortars could fire over, over high enemy lines. We used phosphorus shells, 37-lb. shell, that would explode and spray burning phosphorus all over the enemy troops. So that was one of the weapons they hated the most, was to get the burning phosphorus showers.
DH: Once you had taken St. Lo, where did you move from there? And how did the French people welcome you in?
AN: The French, oh, they were most, pretty happy that we were there. They really appreciated that we came in. Every once in a while somebody would send over a bottle of wine or something. No, they . . . But as far as any support or help, course, that was done by the FFE, they worked behind the lines, blowing up railway tracks, blowing up . . . doing any damage they could do. They were pretty well organized, these things. If you tipped them off someplace, or they tipped us off, some defense point, they were pretty good.
DH: And that was the Free French, correct? The FFE?
AN: Yes, the FFE.
DH: Tell me, where did you go from St. Lo? Did you go to another town after that?
AN: We got . . . It was slow going, a couple of yards a day, to get to St. Lo, but after St. Lo, it was open country, and we finally took off. We went day and night. The Germans kind of, they quit fighting after St. Lo. All they wanted was to get behind German lines to protect the German . . .
DH: . . . country.
AN: . . . were scattered around the front; wasn’t doing much good being scattered around the country. They just abandoned all idea of fighting and headed for the German border.
DH: And so, I bet that was still a lot of work, trying to catch up with them.
AN: Oh yeah, but it was nice going, day and night.
DH: What did you think of France? Was it a beautiful country?
AN: Well, they were . . . I don’t know, they didn’t . . . they weren’t good fighters like the Germans. They had an army, but then they had that Maginot Line.
DH: Yeah.
AN: It was quite an elaborate thing, underground, thick heavy concrete tops, but that whole Maginot Line; but that didn’t do any good at all. To us, it was kind of more of a waste of time that they’d spent building that Maginot Line, but it was well built, heavy concrete guns, they could swing around and fire wherever the officers pointed. But it just didn’t work.
DH: So, did you follow them in? Did you end up fighting in Germany at all?
AN: Oh, yeah, then . . . but we never had any tough going like we did in Normandy. Once we got into Germany, we moved pretty, you might take two or three towns in a day. About every 10 miles there was another town. You could take several towns in one day. Never really any organized . . . You know, same way in Germany, we made good time. Once in a while we’d run into some opposition. So you never knew when you did hit some opposition.
DH: How was the—When you came into these towns, did the French ever celebrate you coming in?
AN: Oh, yeah, yeah, they were waving flags, and oh yeah, they were so happy. Get giddy with [illegible]. Sometimes people were shooting, they were celebrating. People, they were shooting on the road, you’d hear some shot, you thought, Gee whiz, were they shooting you, or were they celebrating?
DH: What about the wine? Was that pretty good?
AN: Oh, there was lots and lots of wine in the towns. You take the enemy country, whatever’s there is yours. Take the barrel of wine, the bottles of wine. You take the whole thing. Even across Germany, when they got into a town, course, that’s the first thing they’re looking for, go find a bar. And then haul out all the bottles. And the owner had nothing to say. People just took it. No opposition at all.
DH: And so, I guess—now, where did you enter Germany at?
AN: Oh, what’s the name of the town? I’m too . . . I can’t, can’t think of the name of the town. But anyway, that’s probably kinda where the main forces went in.
DH: Was it pretty slow moving again there, too, then, once you got there?
AN: What?
DH: Were you moving pretty slow once you got into Germany, or—?
AN: Yeah. When we got into Germany, it was altogether different. There, there, you know . . . a lot of soldiers, they liked to do a little looting when they’d find . . . When they swiped something. Like in France, they called in “liberating” in France, but in Germany they called it “loot.” But they did, there was nothing much. What are you gonna do with it? You got your hands full with your rifle, anyway. Probably in the rear area, there were people that maybe stole stuff, I don’t know.
AH: But was there still fighting going on in Germany?
AN: Oh, yeah.
DH: Were there any moments where you were scared of how things were going turn out for you?
AN: What?
DH: Were you ever scared of—that it was getting too close to you? That you—?
AN: You never knew when you’d run into ooposition. One town was easy. In another town they’d set up resistance. You never knew when you were going to meet opposition. That’s where our mortars came in: You could drop mortars right in town.
DH: I’ll bet a lot of the towns were pretty destroyed, too.
AN: What?
DH: Were a lot of the towns blown up a lot, or—?
AN: I really didn’t get what . . . ?
DH: I’m sorry. Were some of the towns that you went through destroyed?
AN: Sometimes they were pretty badly wrecked. Others, like in Normandy, there you’re fighting a long time in one spot, and there’d be dead cows in the street. It was kind of . . . it was tough going. But once we got rolling, got to open country—once in a while you’d run into tough opposition, but not much. So we got [illegible] pretty easy.
DH: Tell me some of the—what were the differences between Germany and France, to you?
AN: In what way?
DH: Were the people different? Did they treat you different?
AN: Naw, they were . . . The French were like, “Vive la France.” Most Germans would just sit back. In some places they’d try to defend the town, and then they’d built up a barricade for the streets that go in. That didn’t make much sense; then you just go around the town! It seems [illegible] fortified.
In one case it was going good. They found the telephones were working. Somebody called the town ahead, and asked if the town was defended, and they wanted to talk to either the priest or mayor or someone, “Is your town defended?” and if they got, they said, “Yes,” they knew we were in trouble. If they said, “No, we don’t have any defenses here,” march right through.
We had so much stuff: tanks, lots of infantry, artillery. We could burn up the town in short order, throw these phosphorus shells. It would have been foolish to risk . . .
We had trouble with all the slave laborers. Lots of people worked on farms. The men were all in the army, and they had these slave laborers that did all the work. We called them DPs, displaced persons, that we had to take care of them. The DPs, some of them, they got out of hand. And they had been working, say at a farm. And they had been working them pretty hard. And people were upset with . . . Then when they were finally free, American soldiers came, and all of a sudden these slave laborers were free. They burned down the houses. I remember one time I noticed columns of smoke. These people had set fire to the homes of the people for whom they had worked. But anyway, they were out for revenge.
When the war was over, we had to kind of place them, what did they call it? —But anyway, these DPs were causing a lot of trouble and . . .
I remember once place, two girls came out, running out in to the street and flagged us down. They had killed the father and two brothers, and they wanted help. Well, what could we do to help? So I went over to the where I found in the town the military police had set up an office there, so I went over there and told them about the situation, there was two girls stuck alone there and that they needed some help. They started, “Well . . .” [but] didn’t give them any help. Pretty rough—killed the father and two brothers. They were pretty rough—in a way, I can’t blame ‘em, they were out for revenge, but they should never have carried it that far.
DH: Were you married during this time?
AN: [Shook his head.]
DH: Okay. Were there a lot of girls who were trying to hook up with you at this time?
AN: No, not really, I don’t think any, because we were like the rear troops in the rear area, to set up supply offices. As far as the combat troops go.
DH: You guys were moving pretty fast, then?
AN: Nobody got attached to me!
DH: How far or deep did you get into Germany?
AN: What?
DH: How far did you make it into Germany?
AN: Oh, we went all the way to the Czechoslovak border,
DH: Wow.
AN: Yeah, we made a beeline [illegible] and then we went down into Austria. Course, Austria [had] Hitler’s thingy up in the mountains
DH: The Eagle’s Nest? Did you actually go into his house?
AN: What?
DH: Did you go into his house?
DH: Yeah—we didn’t do anything to it, Eagles Roost. They all had nice homes up there. They all got their share. In France, they were steel mills. That was Hermann Göring’s prize. They called them Hermann Göring’s factory.
Another place that we were, the Germans had, not an animal reserve, but a deer reserve. That was Secretary of State Ribbentrop, that was his prize, that was his woods. That was . . . Course, soldiers got into there and saw his venison. So the captain came and told everybody there was to be no more deer shooting, just cut it out! They’d probably get a couple of steaks out of a deer or something.
DH: What year were you in Austria? Do you remember—where you were when you found out Hitler died?
AN: What?
DH: When Hitler killed himself, do you remember that?
AN: Yeah—I don’t remember what year.
DH: I mean, do you remember where you were when you found out?
AN: Yeah, we were probably just about in the middle of Germany when he heard that Hitler was dead.
DH: How much more did you fight? I mean, when did you find that the war was over in Europe?
AN: Well, then we had to police the DPs.
DH: And so that’s when you started policing the DPs.
AN: They were—some of them were really tough, getting their revenge, that’s what they were looking for.
DH: And was that in Austria?
AN: Yeah. Most . . . down around Munich, the southern part of Germany, into Austria, there. In Austria we had—oh, what’s the one you run into? Some opposition from them.
DH: How long were you in—how much longer after the war did you stay over there?
AN: We . . . Not very long. It wasn’t very long. We were . . . We went into Rhiems [Correct?] to the assembly area there, you were processed, and depending on your points for discharge and that, you picked up those guys first. Then we stayed around there for, oh, just a few days, then got all the paperwork done, and they were shipped to Le Havre, got on a boat, and went home. So that they worked it pretty fast. Guys got out of there pretty quick.
DH: When did you go home? Do you remember what year?
AN: I didn’t get that . . .
DH: What year did you go back home?
AN: Oh, September—I think it was September 15th that I got home.
DH: And were you excited to go home?
AN: Oh, yeah.
DH: Were your parents happy to see you?
AN: What?
DH: Were your parents happy to see you?
AN: Oh, I had—it was just my dad, my dad, was all—oh, yeah, they were happy, and friends, to be back home.
DH: Did you take a train back?
AN: Yeah.
DH: Is this the building that you arrived at [the Duluth Union Depot]?
AN: What?
DH: When came by train back to Duluth, did you come to here?
AN: Yeah, we came . . . we came by train to Minneapolis, then took the Greyhound bus home.
DH: Back to the West End, then?
AN: Yeah. It was quite a change of scenery to get back home again.
But . . . I went back to my job; I didn’t lose too much time. Some guys, I guess you had, I’m not sure, exactly, but there was something, you had thirty days that you’re guaranteed to get your job back. And so a lot of people waited until the last of the thirty, the thirty days, in case they couldn’t find anything else, they could get back to their other employment.
DH: Are there any stories from your wartime that you didn’t say that you want to say, that I didn’t ask you about?
AN: It was just, everything was just about ordinary all the time. Not much difference.
Of course, it depends on the time. If you came into an area where they were well armed with artillery, they would really lay down a lot of artillery . . .
Like, we got in one, I remember, they started shelling us at 12:00, about 12:00 o’clock noon, and they kept shelling until 3:00 in the afternoon. That was the worst of it.
Like at night, a lot of times, you couldn’t sleep, cause you always slept in a foxhole, and you could hear the harassing fire. They’d drop a shell here, another one there, another there, to keep up. Constantly to harass you when you’re trying to sleep, dropping these shells, you never knew, thinking they’re going to drop near you in the forest.
DH: Well, you definitely have a great story. Especially, your Duluth stories are fantastic, too.
AN: The what?
DH: Your stories about Duluth. Your history in Duluth is _______. Thank you for telling me your story today. Is there anything else you want to say before I turn the camera off?
AN: No. Naw. Nothing. Every day—course, well, like sometimes we’d . . . they this kind of a Home Guard affair that was supposed to fight like us, too. There was a whole group of them coming down, walking down like they were all hotshots. I remember our captain. Everybody said, “What should we do? Should we fire on them? What are we gonna do?” “No, you can’t fire on ‘em, that wouldn’t be right.” This was during just the last days. So they said, “Why don’t just fire one shell to the right of them and the other one, another, to the left far enough away so no one would get hurt.” And so we fired one shell on the right and one off the left, and I recall 100 percent _________. It’s kind of funny to see them walking off there.
Course, then they had the Hitler Youth, too, at the Battle of the Bulge, there were a lot of these Hitler Youth kids, you know—fourteen, fifteen years old, they come—it was almost like slaughtering them, to send those kids out, you know, to fight the organized troops.
DH: And did you run into a lot of the Hitler Youth?
AN: What?
DH: Did you see some of the Hitler youth?
AN: I . . . We . . . didn’t see the first, initial attack, that’s where the really, kind of a slaughter went on. By the time we got there, it was pretty well settled. Course, we had to fire a few shells into some particular area, the infantry would call for help, but . . . I don’t know. That was a waste of time that you had a lot of people killed on both sides. There was so much stuff against them that they didn’t, they didn’t have a chance to . . . But still they had to get in there and fight.
DH: Wow. Well, once again, thank you for your story again today.
AN: What?
DH: Thank you for your story. Thank you for telling me.
AN: Well, of course, tell all kinds of stories. Every day, like, I remember one time we went in a pretty good-sized town. We were stopped in the street. And here we see soldiers holding cans of sardines, and canned fish of different kinds. I said, “Hey, where you guys getting all that stuff?” “Oh, just go down the street and turn left around the corner there.” So I decided to go around and see what these guys were up to. The front of the line was stopped for some reason, I don’t know why. But anyway, there was the post office for that city, and here I walked in there, and there were these guys in there tearing open those packages. Course Norway was occupied by Germany, and course, they did all the looting they could do of canned fish or whatever. And here they were up there, tearing open packages.
I told ‘em . . . I told our guys, “You guys, get out of here,” because anytime the fed—the government takes over, then you’re in trouble. Up until the time that the military government takes over—before that, it’s, Help yourself; but when the military government moves in, and they had a sign on the . . . Well the first . . . and I told the guys there, “You’d better go, because once the military government is here, you’re in trouble.” They left, and I thought, well, I’d better walk back and see if any of our guys were there. They were all gone, and on the door was a paper: The military government had taken over, and the sentence was so-and-so if you, if you, if you got caught in there when the military government go in. They took over electrical power plants, banks, stuff like that. The government’s . . .
DH: . . . got control.
AN: Yup, they bring soldiers to . . .
DH: It sounds like they were looting a lot. Did you ever bring anything back from your travels over there?
AN: We had a reunion, used to have a reunion every year.
DH: Did you bring anything back? Did you loot anything?
AN: No, just some, just some little . . . well, I got a couple of pistols, a rifle. Course, that stuff was . . . So everyone wanted a pistol to take home with him.
DH: Still, it’s a neat piece, so.
AN: Well, a little souvenir. They like to have little pins and things with a swastika on it, stuff, you know, little trinkets like that. I still got some.
DH: Well, thank you again. I’ll see you. We’ll walk you down.
