Gail "Bud" Freeman
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
Status: Featured Story
Mr. Freeman was born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1919. He grew up in the Chester Park area, going to the movies on Saturday afternoons and, later, having a magazine route. Mr. Freeman graduated from Central High School in 1937. He attended Duluth State Teacher's College for a year. At the time, he planned to become a mortician.
With his friends' encouragement, he enlisted in the Minnesota National Guard in 1939. They drilled regularly at the Duluth Armory on London Road. He was paid $4 a month. His unit, the 125th Field Artillery Battalion, was federalized on February 10, 1941. The unit then left for training at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, before the U.S. entered World War II. There they trained but had a very limited supply of weapons.
After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, members of Mr. Freeman's unit were mobilized along the southeastern border of the United States. They had only broomsticks as defensive weapons. Later, Mr. Freeman's battalion embarked for Northern Ireland, arriving there on May 12,1942, for further training. They were mobilized to North Africa and arrived at Oran on January 2, 1943. They saw their first combat soon after. When the Africa campaign ended, the battalion was mobilized to Italy, arriving there on September 3, 1943.
Mr. Freeman was injured in two separate incidents in Italy. He suffered a concussion, and shrapnel tore into his leg. He convalesced in Italy, then Africa, and then was sent back to the United States. He convalesced in Italy and then in Africa and then returned to the United States. There, he carried movies from one American POW camp for Germans to another.He was discharged in September 1945. On April 24, 2010, Senator Al Franken honored Mr. Freeman by presenting him with eight service medals that he earned during World War II. Not included, however, was the Purple Heart: all those who knew that he earned it have passed away, so there is no one to corroborate his story.
Below is an oral interview with Mr. Freeman, courtesy of the Minnesota Military Museum.
Minnesota Military Museum World War Two 34th Infantry Division Interview Project
Gail Freeman, Narrator
Headquarters Battery 125th Field Artillery Battalion
Douglas Bekke, Interviewer
Minnesota Historical Society
Location: Duluth, Minnesota
Date: January 16, 2007
Tape 1, Side 1: DB: Minnesota Military Museum 34th Infantry Division interview project with Gail Freeman, 125th Field Artillery in Duluth, Minnesota on the 16th of January, 2007. Mr. Freeman, can you say and spell your name, please?
GF: Gail Freeman, G A I L F R E E M A N.
DB: And your birth date?
GF: August 30, 1919.
DB: And where were you born? Were you born in the home?
GF: In Duluth at St. Luke’s.
DB: You’re born in a hospital?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And was that typical for people in your neighborhood at that time? Were a lot of people born in their homes?
GF: I don’t know of any . . . myself.
DB: Okay. And your ethic background?
GF: I’m Lutheran. We went to . . .
DB: Scandinavian?
GF: Yeah, Scandinavian. Half Scandinavian. My mother was born in Sweden. My father was born in Superior, Wisconsin. He was French and English.
DB: And was your father a WWI veteran?
GF: No.
DB: What did your father do for a living?
GF: He had a drugstore . . . pharmacy here in Duluth.
DB: And was your mother a homemaker?
GF: Yes.
DB: And do you have brothers and sisters?
GF: I had one brother.
DB: Older, younger?
GF: He was younger.
DB: Now . . .
GF: He’s gone now.
DB: In 1918-1919 there was big influenza epidemic. Did that affect your family?
GF: No. It might have affected my dad’s family. But none that I can . . .
DB: You don’t remember that you lost any relatives to the influenza epidemic.
GF: No.
DB: Okay. Did you know your grandparents at all?
GF: Yes, on both sides. In fact, I stayed with my mother’s . . . grandparents on my mother’s side because my mother and dad both worked at that time. So I stayed with them. I had a babysitter during the daytime.
DB: Was that unusual to have grandparents close by or was that typical?
GF: No, I was just lucky, I guess.
DB: It worked out well? Everybody got along?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And where did you grow up in town or in the countryside?
GF: In town.
DB: What neighborhood?
GF: Chester Park.
DB: And how would you describe your economic situation growing up?
GF: It was normal, I guess, or mid-way.
DB: Middleclass?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And how would you describe it compared to other people around you in the neighborhood? Do you think you were better off, worse off, same . . . everybody was about the same?
GF: I think everybody was about the same. Everybody seemed to be working that lived in the neighborhood.
DB: And your father kept his job throughout the Depression?
GF: Yes.
DB: And what kind of a house did you grow up in? Was it a wood frame house?
GF: Well, wood frame the last house we had that they built in 1924. And before that they rented. But they were all wood houses . . . wood frame.
DB: And so they built a house in 1924?
GF: Yes.
DB: And it had indoor plumbing?
GF: Yes.
DB: It had electricity?
GF: Yes.
DB: Hot and cold running water?
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: What kind of a furnace did it have?
GF: It had a coal furnace to start with and then they switched over to oil.
DB: Do you remember where the coal came from?
GF: You mean, what . . .
DB: A truck delivered it?
GF: Oh, yeah. A truck delivered it.
DB: Did you ever have to shovel it?
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: So you had a responsibility for the furnace?
GF: I had some, yeah. I think my mother had most of it. She took care of it most the time.
DB: When you were growing up did you work? How did you as a young man make money? What did you do to get money to do things?
GF: I think I started about when I was 15 or 16 in the drugstore delivering prescriptions.
DB: Working for your father?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Did he own the drugstore?
GF: Yes.
DB: Okay. And before that if you needed money did your parents give it to you or did you go out cash in deposits on bottles or . . . ?
GF: I think they gave it to me most of the time.
DB: You didn’t have a paper route or anything?
GF: I had a magazine route.
DB: Oh, you did? So you got some money from that.
GF: Yeah.
DB: Typically . . . what were you, 12, 13 years old on the magazine route?
GF: Yes.
DB: And what would you make in a month?
GF: Geez, I don’t remember. The only thing I remember about peddling magazines is that one woman never paid her bill. And I kept going to the house and begging her to pay me for it because I had to pay for ‘em before I got ‘em. And finally one time I came in and knocked on the door and she seen me coming, I guess, because she opened the door and said “here’s your damn money” and threw it out on the grass. All small change, she threw it out there like that. And, of course, I had to be out there on my hands and knees to try and pick it up to get my money back for the magazines. But I didn’t deliver to her anymore.
DB: Threw her magazines on the roof or something if you had to.
GF: Yeah.
DB: Did you go to church in your family?
GF: Yes.
DB: Was that an important part of your family life?
GF: Yes, I think so.
DB: Did the church have activities and things that you were involved with?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Beyond Sunday school, there were youth activities?
GF: Yeah, we had some. Not as much as they do now.
DB: Were you Catholic?
GF: No, Lutheran.
DB: Lutheran, that’s right. You mentioned that. And your school, do you remember much about grade school? Where did you go?
GF: We went to Munger School to start with.
DB: Munger?
GF: Yes. It’s closed up. It’s an apartment building up here now. And from there I went to Grant for the sixth grade and then down to Washington for 8 and 9, I guess, and then to Central High School for high school.
DB: Did your family put an important emphasis on school for you?
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: They oversaw your homework and that?
GF: Yeah, I think so.
DB: And was school pretty rigorous for you? Was it challenging?
GF: Well, some of it was, I guess.
DB: Did you have good teachers and they’d expect you to work hard?
GF: Some.
DB: Some did and some didn’t?
GF: Yeah, that’s right.
DB: Were you involved in a lot of extracurricular activities at school? Did they have a lot of activities for you?
GF: The only thing in grade school, I was a school police. Kept the . . . got the kids across the street. Just hold up a stop sign so the kids could run across the street.
DB: Were you involved in sports or drama or anything like that? Any extracurricular activities in school?
GF: Not . . . well, in junior high and high school, I was in art some and the chess club. I guess that’s about it anyway.
DB: Well, what did you do as a young man for social activities, how did you keep busy, how did you entertain yourself?
GF: Well, in the wintertime we were up at Chester Bow which is up in Chester Park area where they had the ski jump and I worked on that . . . marking on the landing . . . marking how far they jumped and stuff like that.
DB: Was that an actual job or was it just something you did?
GF: No. It’s volunteer. And I wanted to ski down the hill but I climbed to the top of that ski slide and put my skis on and got over to where you’re supposed to take off and go down. I looked down and I couldn’t see where you’re gonna land and I said no. I took my skis off and walked back down. That landing is straight down.
DB: Yeah. Did you go to movies? Were there other . . .
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: . . . sources of activities?
GF: That was a great hobby. Go to the Lake Theatre and the Astor Theatre and they had cowboy movies . . .
DB: Serials?
GF: . . . on Saturdays and they had serials with ‘em. I’d sit there and watch ‘em two or three times before I went home.
DB: Ten cents to get or a nickel to get in?
GF: Yeah, a nickel to get in. I spent the whole day in there watching the serial and wait for next week to find out what happened.
DB: Were most of your activities right in the neighborhood . . . the theatres and that? So you walked?
GF: No, I had to walk down. I lived up on top of the hill up there and had to walk downtown.
DB: And that was pretty typical to walk around?
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: Public transportation? If you had to take a bus or a streetcar . . . ?
GF: There were buses and streetcars . . . or streetcars at that time.
DB: Do you remember how much a streetcar ride was?
GF: Seven cents, I think.
DB: Was seven cents hard to come up with to . . . ?
GF: Well, I don’t know.
DB: Nothing that stands out in your mind?
GF: No, I figured I could do more with the seven cents some place else.
DB: In high school, did you have plans or aspirations? Was there something you wanted to do when you got out of high school?
GF: Yeah, I went to start at Duluth State Teachers’ College. And, at that time, I had planned on being a mortician.
DB: Did you get out of school in 1937 . . . you graduated?
GF: ’38.
DB: ’38 you graduated from high school?
GF: Yeah. So I had the first year for a mortician but then . . . then I went into the service.
DB: In ’39?
GF: Yeah, in ‘40 and ’41 you were inducted.
DB: So you were drafted into the service?
GF: No, the National Guard.
DB: Right. But when did you personally . . .
GF: ’41.
DB: You went in in ’41?
GF: I went into the National Guard in ’39.
DB: In ’39? Yeah. Okay. And what . . . why did you enlist in the National Guard in 1939?
GF: Got talked into it by my buddies. There was a whole bunch of us that hung around together and one of ‘em belonged and dragged the rest of us with him to join up.
DB: And where did you enlist?
GF: Here in Duluth at the armory.
DB: And what was the process of enlisting?
GF: They sign a paper that you’re in, I guess.
DB: Well, nowadays it’s a very complex process. They do all kinds of background checks on you, and they check your identification . . .
GF: I know but I don’t think they had anything like that. They might of but it . . .
DB: Did you have a physical? Count your fingers, count your toes . . .
GF: Probably . . . probably did but I don’t remember it.
DB: So nothing that stands out in your mind. Just go down and sign the papers, join up?
GF: No.
DB: Now, you figure you joined in 1939, in September of ’39 WWII started and so you were aware of that?
GF: Yes.
DB: Did you have . . . to say, a strong . . . did you closely follow the events in the world? There’s a lot of things going on Europe. There’s a lot of things going on in Asia.
GF: Oh, I think we did but I never thought it would involve us, I don’t think. DB: But you weren’t particularly . . .
GF: We weren’t . . .
DB: . . . it wasn’t part of your reason for joining the Guard?
GF: No.
DB: Okay.
GF: Or to get the . . . we knew we would get drafted. We thought we might as well get into some place where you know the people.
DB: Do you remember how much money you got for drill?
GF: $1, wasn’t it?
DB: $1 a drill, 0.25 cents an hour. And was that pretty good money . . . $4.00 a month? Could you do something with it?
GF: I guess you got along on it. I don’t know.
DB: But $4.00 a month in those days was something you could do something with?
GF: Yeah. It was . . . it was interesting but another thing . . . when I became the . . . if you got inducted in the National service, we had . . . we were sworn in or had the enlistment exercises or whatever, but I was home sick in bed so I was never sworn in to the army butI still got through it.
DB: That was in February of ’41?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Well, when you first joined the National Guard, you joined the 125th Field Artillery because for many they were a local unit and because you had friends in the unit?
GF: Both, I guess.
DB: And what your impressions of the unit when you got into and started training with them? Did the NCOs seem like they knew what they were doing? Did the officers seem good? Was your time seemingly well-spent in the unit?
GF: Yeah, I think so. We had classes and . . .
DB: And when you enlisted . . . when you enlisted you weren’t sent away to a basic training or anything, you got all your training right in the unit?
GF: Right in the unit, yeah.
DB: And that was conducted by the NCOs and the officers?
GF: Yes.
DB: And where did you drill?
GF: In the armory . . . the Duluth armory . . .
DB: Okay.
GF: . . . out on 15th and London Road.
DB: And what kind of training did you get when you joined?
GF: Hummm, well I was trained as a radio operator right from the beginning.
DB: And . . .
GF: I had to learn the Morse Code.
DB: Did you want that? Were you given a choice?
GF: Yeah, I guess so. I guess they asked if . . . what you wanted to do or . . . I can’t remember if they just told us or asked us.
DB: So anyway you were not displeased to be a radio operator?
GF: No.
DB: That was okay. It was an okay job? How did the equipment seem to you? Did it seem up-to-date? Did it seem obsolete? Did it seem adequate?
GF: Well, it was obsolete then. We didn’t have any even when we went down to Claiborne. Broomsticks for guns.
DB: What was the process of the mobilization? When in ’39 and you got word . . . well, before we go to that? Did you come up to Camp Ripley for summer camp?
GF: No. I joined after the camp was over.
DB: So, you never came here for training? Even in . . .
GF: No.
DB: . . . 1940 there wasn’t any camp?
GF: No.
DB: So what was the first word you got of the mobilization then in 1941 . . . ’40-’41?
GF: I think it was about . . . probably September or October of ’40.
DB: And how . . .
GF: They announced it I think at one of the drills.
DB: And how did people feel about that?
GF: Well, we knew we had to go sometime, either drafted or enlisted.
DB: So there was a lot of mobilization going on, and everyone just accepted the fact that it was coming?
GF: I think so.
DB: So, when you got the word, you just did it?
GF: I think so. It was . . . part of life, I guess.
DB: Yeah. But how did you personally think about it? Was it a disruption of things you had going on or did you see it as an adventure, did you see it as a plus, a minus, or was it just a neutral, you just did it because . . . ?
GF: Well, I think I probably would of kept on going to college at that time. And after going through the war, I didn’t want to be a mortician anymore. That was . . . I’d seen enough dead bodies around.
DB: How did your parents feel about your mobilization?
GF: Well, they were . . . they were . . . my mother was more upset than my dad was, I guess.
DB: How about just the reaction in your neighborhood, in the community? Were people excited about it, wary about it? Did they . . . was it . . . ?
GF: I think they . . . they probably all worried about it.
DB: Did you know WWI veterans in your neighborhood?
GF: Hummmm, well, my uncle lived in the neighborhood and he was a WWI veteran.
DB: Do you remember what his attitude was when war broke out in Europe in 1939?
GF: No, I don’t remember. I think . . . I think by the time I went in to the service, he had moved.
DB: Now, your regular drill schedule when you were in the Guard was four nights a week. Was it one weekend? Was it a combination?
GF: Do you mean when I was in the Guard there or after we got . . . ?
DB: When you first went in?
GF: Into the Guard?
DB: Yes.
GF: It was just . . . well, sometimes we were weekends. Most of the time it was Tuesday.
DB: Tuesday nights? Okay. When you got notice that you were being mobilized in the fall of 1940, how did things change within your unit as far as training or the activities you were involved with?
GF: Well, we got more . . . a lot more enlistments. They needed more in the . . . to bring it up to snuff so they were working hard to get a lot more members.
DB: Was it hard to get ‘em in?
GF: Yeah, I think they . . . they had their limit of people that they put in.
DB: Was there any kind of a bonus for you if you could bring anybody in? Did you get any . . . ?
GF: No.
DB: No? There weren’t any kind of incentives like that? So if you brought two friends in from the neighborhood, thank you very much and that was it?
GF: No, I don’t even think they said thank you.
DB: Were there regular recruiting sergeants and campaigns that were out working or would it pretty much depend on word of mouth . . .
GF: Word of mouth.
DB: . . . in order to get people in? How was service in the National Guard regarded in your community? Was it something looked upon as being prestigious? Was it something looked upon as just being neutral?
GF: Well, I think most of the guys that were in there were probably in there for the money. They needed the money I suppose but . . . which wasn’t very much anyway. You couldn’t live on it.
DB: But it could help?
GF: Yeah.
DB: A supplement which is the same as it is now, actually.
GF: Yeah.
DB: People in the Guard or Reserves.
GF: It helped the families, I guess.
DB: Do you remember . . . Now, what was your duty in the unit?
GF: Radio operator.
DB: You were a radio operator. And were you assigned at the company headquarters or were you . . . between the battery headquarters?
GF: I was in headquarters battery and I was assigned to the liaison section which was connected to the infantry. We had to go up with the infantry under direct artillery fire.
DB: So right from the start you were part of a forward observer team?
GF: Yeah. All the way through.
DB: And what was the team made of? Did you have a lieutenant or a sergeant as the forward . . . primary forward observer?
GF: No, it was either lieutenant or captain and a sergeant and a corporal, radio operator and a driver. And that was it. And there was three sections . . . liaison sections, one for each infantry battalion. And . . . so that made 12 of us. I know that one picture . . . I know you have it down there . . . it was in Clem’s book. There was 12 of us in that picture. I’m the only one living yet out of that 12 guys that were in the section.
DB: When you were mobilized and you went to Camp Claiborne, you mobilized out of the armory here?
GF: Yes.
DB: And did you actually live in the armory then for part of the time?
GF: Part of ‘em lived in the armory and part lived over in the Shrine Auditorium. And we were here about a month, I guess.
DB: And what were you doing during that month? Getting shots? Preparing to mobilize?
GF: Yeah. Getting equipment together and . . .
DB: Did you have to stay in the armory or could you go home at night?
GF: Could go home at night. Some did. Depend on what duty you had . . . guard duty, KP or whatever.
DB: When you left Duluth to go to Camp Claiborne, did you go on a train?
GF: Yes.
DB: Okay. And did you have a big send off in town? What was the departure like?
GF: We marched down Superior Street from the armory down to Fifth Avenue and down to the depot.
DB: Did you have a lot of people turn out?
GF: Ah . . . it seems to me there was.
DB: And do you remember the date?
GF: February . . . no, wait a minute. That was in a . . . I got it here . . . 3rd we left Duluth.
DB: Left Duluth and marched down to the train station . . .
GF: Yes.
DB: . . . got on the train. Was it completely a troop train?
GF: No, it was a regular train . . . passenger train.
DB: Was there only soldiers on the train?
GF: Yeah. Oh yeah, it was all . . .
DB: And what was the train ride like?
GF: It was bumpy. You’re swaying back and forth all the time.
DB: Three days?
GF: I think it was four. We went from here to Chicago and down to St. Louis. Then I got on the southern track going over to the Claiborne. So it took quite a while.
DB: And what did you find when you got to Camp Claiborne?
GF: Mud. Mud and water.
DB: Was the camp . . . were they prepared for your arrival?
GF: Pretty much so, yeah. But the streets weren’t . . . the company streets, say in front of the tents . . . all the tents were out. We had to put canvas tents with wooden sides . . . big four-sided tents. And they had . . . the streets were nothing but muck. And I don’t know how many truck loads of clam shells or oyster shells, whatever it was they brought in, they kept dumping ‘em in the company streets and then we’d spread it out, get up in the morning and it was all mud again. They disappeared.
DB: Soaked in.
GF: Yeah.
DB: And how long did that go on?
GF: Oh, it was a long time. I don’t . . .
DB: A month?
GF: Probably a month.
DB: And how did this seem to you? Was this . . . you’re down there in the mud in Louisiana and you’re living in a tent . . .
GF: Yeah.
DB: . . . was this kind of an adventure?
GF: I guess it was. It was another part of life.
DB: Were a lot of people complaining or just something they took in stride?
GF: No. The only thing I remember about the complaining is the . . . one morning I come out for line up and roll call and a first sergeant, he was always hollering about something. But he came out and hollered “I want those torn tents (sounds like curtains). We want those torn tents.” And that was a torn tent. I finally found out that he wanted . . . all the tents had holes in ‘em because we had a storm go through and there were holes in the tents and he wanted the torn tents fixed. Torn tents.
DB: The torn tents.
GF: But he went fix those torn tents, fix those torn tents.
DB: Now when you got down there, you went on the train which your equipment didn’t come with on the train did it?
GF: Well, it mostly came on the trucks.
DB: There’s a convoy that went down?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And how long was it till you started doing training on your weapons and everything?
GF: We didn’t have any weapons.
DB: Well, when your 75 millimeter guns arrived and started training on ‘em?
GF: Oh, it had to be . . . I think we mostly had close order drill in all that time for probably a month or so until we got something to train on.
DB: Down at Camp Claiborne?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And how did that seem? You’re in close order drills, did that seem like what are we doing here? Is this a waste of time or did it seem okay?
GF: Yeah, I think it . . . I didn’t think it was a waste of time anyway. We were busy getting ready . . .
DB: You were getting ready for what? What did you think . . . what was on your horizon at that time?
GF: Just to get our training in.
DB: Just to get your year in and go home?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And everyone . . . that’s pretty much what everybody thought. You’d . . .
GF: That’s right.
DB: . . . get your year in and go home? Did you get off the post very much? Did you get down into Louisiana?
GF: Oh yeah. Yeah, we got weekend passes if we didn’t have guard or KP or something like that?
DB: And how did the south seem to you?
GF: It was different than up north.
DB: How so?
GF: Well, one of the main things that amazed me is how the colored people just jump out of the way when a white person is walking down the sidewalk or something. A colored person would jump into the . . .
Tape 1, Side 2:
DB: Did you see any of the real blatant signs of discrimination with the “Whites Only” fountains and . . .
GF: Oh, yeah. Yes.
DB: And how did that seem to you?
GF: Didn’t seem right.
DB: Had you had any contact with African Americans in Duluth or was it . . .?
GF: No. Well, I did. I only had one colored family in our neighborhood. And, she went to school with me.
DB: And how were relations with the southern whites around Camp Claiborne? Did they . . . did Minnesotans get along alright or did they . . . did the people . . . ?
GF: I don’t think they . . . I don’t think they liked it too much that we were coming there.
DB: But there wasn’t any real friction in the communities?
GF: No, I don’t think so.
DB: Kind of mind your own business and that was it?
GF: I think so.
DB: Any signs about town about soldiers not welcome here or there?
GF: No . . . I heard there were some but I didn’t see ‘em.
DB: You didn’t see any, you didn’t encounter that. Well, when you’re at Claiborne and you’ve got the mud situation stabilized a little bit, what kind of training did you get involved with?
GF: Well, it’s all radio.
DB: Yeah, just all communications training.
GF: Yeah.
DB: And was that pretty intense?
GF: Yeah, I think so. I had to go through like the Morse Code and all the rulings and stuff like that at radio.
DB: It was all done at the unit level though?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And so your NCOs were training you and they knew what they were doing?
GF: Well, they got it out of a book.
DB: But they were able to stay a little bit ahead of you?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Did you have confidence in your NCOs?
GF: Some of ‘em.
DB: Some yes and some no.
GF: Yeah.
DB: What about the officers?
GF: Same with that.
DB: So it was pretty typical then?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Pretty typical of life.
GF: Yeah.
DB: And did you participate in any of the big maneuvers? Big maneuvers in Louisiana?
GF: Oh yeah. We went . . . maneuvers in Texas. And we had maneuvers in Louisiana. And then I got sent over to the Carolinas for first infantry division maneuvers. We were sent over there as umpires. And we weren’t attached to anybody. There was, I think, a couple three officers and probably half a dozen enlisted men that went over there.
DB: When you participated in the maneuvers as a player, was your job at that time on a full observation team?
GF: Well, we really didn’t . . . you didn’t do any firing like that down there.
DB: So you’re mostly just practicing communications on a battery . . . battery or battalion level?
GF: Right.
DB: This training’s going on, it’s gone on for almost a year. And it’s December of 1941. And what’s everybody thinking? Getting ready to go home?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Christmas is coming and . . .
GF: Yeah. Some guys got home.
DB: And of a sudden, December 7th happens. And that changed everything.
GF: I was away on a weekend pass down in Villeplatte, Louisiana. Oh, there must have been 7, 8 of us. And we went back to the hotel and went to our rooms and then we got notified that Pearl Harbor had happened.
DB: What was the first question? Where’s Pearl Harbor?
GF: (Laughs) We were told to get back to camp.
DB: And so what was the attitude back at the camp? What was your impression when you got back to the camp?
GF: Oh, everybody’s all flustered and mixed-up as to what’s going on? Then we had to go . . . sent part of our troops down to New Orleans and part to Houston, Texas, part over to Florida.
DB: To do what?
GF: Guard the shores with our broomsticks.
DB: And did you? Did you go off on one of those guard . . . ?
GF: No, I didn’t.
DB: You stayed at Camp Claiborne?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And when did you realize . . . or when did you find out that . . . that you weren’t gonna be going home after your year was up?
GF: Well, let’s see, when did we get the . . . I don’t think I have that written down either.
DB: Well, no, it’s kind of a personal thing. Did you . . . an event happens. You’re anticipating going home and then this event happens in Hawaii and all of a sudden the world changes. So I guess the question is, did it dawn on you right away that it’s not a one-year commitment? It’s the duration plus six now.
GF: Well, I think we figured we wouldn’t get to leave or furloughs.
DB: Christmas leave or furlough.
GF: We knew that was gonna happen. But I don’t think we realized it was gonna be that much longer.
DB: When did you . . . when did you go to Fort Dix?
GF: That was in what . . . ?
DB: Did you go with the unit?
GF: Yes.
DB: And what did you do at Fort Dix?
GF: Well, we weren’t there very long. I got a couple of furlough . . . not furloughs but weekend passes to go to New York.
DB: Were you bringing all of your radio equipment with?
GF: Well, they had it all packed.
DB: It was all packed but that’s what you were gonna be taking to Northern Ireland?
GF: Yes.
DB: Did you know you were going to Northern Ireland when you went to Fort Dix?
GF: Knew we were going some place. We didn’t think we were going to Ireland because we had . . . they gave us summer uniforms. So we thought we were going south.
DB: Was everybody pretty excited or apprehensive? How . . . what would you describe the mood in the unit?
GF: Just another adventure, I guess. Had to go where they tell us to go.
DB: When the unit got mobilized you had some older guys in the unit and were they released?
GF: Anybody over 40 was released at Claiborne.
DB: And how many guys were in that category?
GF: Oh, there must have been 15, 20 or something like that.
DB: And they were replaced with draftees that came in?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And were most of the draftees from Minnesota or the Midwest?
GF: The ones we got down in Claiborne were all from Midwest. The ones we got in Dix were all east coast.
DB: And they all came in with no training? They were just into the unit and then once they got there they got their training.
GF: That’s right.
DB: So really, some of the people could of only been in the unit maybe a month or so and all of a sudden they are at Fort Dix and their getting ready to head overseas with virtually no training.
GF: Yeah. That’s correct.
DB: And do you remember the night you went to port of embarkation? You left from New York?
GF: Well, we were supposed to go on the Queen Mary and that’s when the Queen Mary caught fire and burnt.
DB: Was that the Normandy?
GF: Was it Normandy?
DB: Normandy I think it was that burnt.
GF: Okay. Whichever one it was we were supposed to go on it. But we . . . it burnt so of course we had to change plans and wait for the banana boat to come.
DB: And what was that experience like?
GF: Well, it wasn’t the troop ship. It wasn’t equipped for one.
DB: Packed in like sardines?
GF: It was a banana boat to start with. Bringing bananas up from South America.
DB: And did you go over as part of a big convoy then?
GF: Yep. We had . . .
DB: And how was the voyage?
GF: It wasn’t too bad. A lot of the guys got sick. I didn’t. I think if you kept eating every meal and . . .
DB: And how was the food on the ship?
GF: Better than the trip from England to Africa.
DB: Do you remember what kind of meals you had?
GF: I don . . . I don’t recall what kind of meals we had on the ship but going from Ireland to . . . or from England to Africa then we had all English rations. And ended up with English rations in Africa for . . . I don’t know how much months.
DB: We’ll come back to that later.
GF: Yes.
DB: Did you land right in Northern Ireland?
GF: Yes.
DB: And what kind of a reception did you get?
GF: People seemed to get all excited that we were coming.
DB: And did the Irish give you . . . did you parade for the Irish? Or did you march through the town? Did the Irish turn out for ya?
GF: Yeah, I think so. I really don’t recall that.
DB: Still kind of a sense of adventure for you at the time?
GF: I think so.
DB: And how did you find Northern Ireland?
GF: It was different than the United States.
DB: How so?
GF: It wasn’t as neat and well kept as it was here in the States. But we . . . we went into some English barracks. They were like apartment buildings.
DB: How many men in a room?
GF: I think it was four. DB: Okay so small rooms.
GF: Yeah.
DB: Which was different from American bases . . .
GF: Oh, yes.
DB: . . . where there’s 40 or 50 guys in a room.
GF: Right.
DB: And how was training in Northern Ireland? Was it pretty intense for you? Was it more laid back?
GF: Well we had two . . . after we got moved on to Southern Ireland, then of course we had to train on the 25 pounders.
DB: But you didn’t specifically work on the guns? You were in the communication section.
GF: No, but we corrected the artillery fire.
DB: So you’re on a FO team now.
GF: Yeah.
DB: But you still had the same radios that you’d had Camp Claiborne?
GF: No.
DB: You got new radios?
GF: We got different radios.
DB: And did they seem to be better?
GF: Well, they were newer . . . a newer type.
DB: But they did the job?
GF: Yeah. They all worked I guess.
DB: Were you getting American food now in Northern Ireland?
GF: Ah, somewhat.
DB: Some English food, too?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Mutton?
GF: Yeah. Oxtail. Oxtail soup.
DB: How did that taste?
GF: Crap. Got to like it after a while, if you had it enough.
DB: What was the alternative?
GF: Nothing.
DB: Yeah, nothing. Do you . . . did you get into town very often? The Irish towns. Interactive with the Irish?
GF: Not too much, no. Some of the guys went into town. But they were the . . . I don’t know what you’d say. They’re the drinking ones or whatever. They’d go in to find a bar.
DB: And you weren’t a drinker.
GF: No.
DB: And towards the end of October now, you’re getting ready to deploy somewhere. Do you remember what kind of notification you got of the deployment?
GF: No, I don’t know how I . . . I don’t know how we found out that we were going.
DB: Do you remember how much advance notice you had? A little bit? A couple days?
GF: No, I imagine it was weeks, I suppose.
DB: Did they tell you where you were going?
GF: No.
DB: People were just . . . were they guessing a lot?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Now, you got the new helmets while you were in Northern Ireland. Rather than the old flat helmets, you had the newer style helmets.
GF: Is that where we changed?
DB: Yeah. Did that seem like a big improvement?
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: And you got your M-1 rifles in Northern Ireland? Or did you have a pistol?
GF: I had a 45. I probably had an M-1 there.
DB: Okay. So no distinct memories of getting new weapons or any of that stuff?
GF: No. Just the 25 pounder is all.
DB: When you got on the ships to go to North Africa, was it all done in great secret? Did you go on night or what was that situation of getting on the ships?
GF: We had to go across the North Sea to get over from Ireland over to England. That was the roughest part of the whole trip.
DB: Stormy?
GF: Yeah. It was an awful experience.
DB: And did you have a sense for the size of the convoy? Did it seem real big?
GF: Yeah, it was big. There was a lot of . . .
DB: So as you’re coming down, did you stop at Gibraltar? Did you see Gibraltar as you went by?
GF: Yeah. On . . .
DB: Was that the first indication of where you were going?
GF: . . . January 2nd we went by the Rock of Gibraltar.
DB: Was that the first indication of where you were going or had they briefed you on the ship before then?
GF: Yeah, well I think were pretty well aware of where we were going by that time.
DB: And did you have any problems with U-Boats while you were on the convoy?
GF: Not in that . . . we had a U-Boat come around our convoy when we came from . . . over to Ireland.
DB: But no ships were sunk?
GF: No. We did going over to Italy.
DB: And you landed in Oran?
GF: Yes.
DB: And how did you find North Africa? Was it strange?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Was it somewhat familiar?
GF: It was . . . bunch of people running around in sheets, I guess you’d say.
DB: Did you have a lot of contact with the North African Arabs?
GF: Not much, no.
DB: How about the North African French?
GF: We didn’t get time when we first got there to . . .
DB: And no dealings with the French army?
GF: Well, I did after . . . at one . . . do you want to go into that? I mean, it’s further into the African campaign.
DB: Well, we’ll talk about it later than. Yeah, we’ll come back to it. So you landed Oran. You spent a couple days in a pup tent city, probably? Pup tent encampment?
GF: No, it seems to me we were in trucks traveling most of the time. You had go a thousand miles to get to combat.
DB: Did you do some of it on the 40 and 8 cars?
GF: No.
DB: Did trucks all the way? Towing your 25 pounders . . .
GF: Yes.
DB: . . . and bringing all your own equipment?
GF: Yep.
DB: And did they tell you anything about where you were going or what you could expect?
GF: No.
DB: And where did you go into the line in North Africa? Do you remember your first couple of nights going on the line?
GF: Pushon . . . no, we had to go a thousand miles before we got up to the line. The first battling was in Pushon.
DB: And you were a forward . . . on a forward observer team. So what was your participation in the battle?
GF: Well, it . . . we were right up into the town and then the French were on our right flank and they . . . their lines broke. The Germans busted through theirs and we had to retreat.
DB: Was the retreat orderly or was it chaotic? Was it at night? Nighttime?
GF: Well, the lieutenant and myself says stay back a couple of guns to direct fire as soon as the troops are coming at the other end of town. We were supposed to open fire and . . .
DB: As soon as the German troops come into town?
GF: Yeah. When they came into town we were supposed to open fire so that the others would have time could get away. Which we did. We stayed there until they came into town and then we put in fire.
DB: Did you physically see the Germans?
GF: Did what?
DB: Did you physically see the Germans coming in?
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: Tanks . . . a lot of tanks?
GF: Tanks and troops.
DB: And what was the experience of seeing the Germans for the first time? Were they a long ways away? How far?
GF: Yeah.
DB: A kilometer, 2 kilometers?
GF: I suppose it was maybe a kilometer. But anyway . . .
DB: Was it frightening to see them?
GF: Yeah. So then we had to bail out of there, too, so you got . . . tied up their 25 pounders to pull back. Then we had our jeep to go . . . I drove the jeep then. We’re trying to get back with our unit and, of course, it’s out on the desert. There’s these wadis. Do you know what a wadi is?
DB: Yep.
GF: Where the water comes out.
DB: A wash out, yep.
GF: Yeah.
DB: A dry stream bed actually.
GF: Yeah. Well, we were going across there it got so black we just could not see where in the heck we were going so we kind of said well, let’s take a snooze here or a rest or something and as soon as it gets a little light we’ll take off again. So we did and we woke up in the morning and looked and about 10 feet ahead was a Wadi, it was about 20 feet down. If we would of kept on going I wouldn’t be here today.
DB: Intuition to stop. Did you have any encounters with German aircraft? Early in the campaign, the Germans had air dominance for a short time. Did you ever get attacked by Stutkas or . . . ?
GF: Yeah. For a long time.
DB: Did you ever get attacked my German aircraft?
GF: Oh, yes.
DB: Stutkas?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And what was that experience? Do you remember the load wail of the sirens on the Stutkas?
GF: Yeah. And they . . . I guess I saw that a lot with those . . . by them. Those machine guns.
DB: Did you learn quickly the importance of a good foxhole?
GF: Pardon?
DB: Did you learn quickly the importance of a good foxhole?
GF: Oh yeah. We didn’t have time for foxholes. Forward observer, we were . . .
DB: Yeah.
GF: . . . on the move most of the time.
DB: In your first engagement and you’re doing a rear guard action, did you take turn and fire at them? Did they stop and set up their guns and shoot at you?
GF: Yeah, the tanks fired at us. But they didn’t . . .
DB: Anything close?
GF: Ah, fairly close. Close enough to jar you a little bit. When we finally got back to our outfit, and at that time they had gone back up in the mountains. So we got some sleep there but woke up in the morning and there’s snow all over the ground in Africa, up in the mountain.
DB: And was the clothing you had adequate for the climate?
GF: No. We didn’t have . . . well, we got by but I mean . . .
DB: Who would you buy it from? You’re out in the desert.
GF: We didn’t buy it from anybody. We didn’t get anything.
DB: Oh, you just didn’t get it.
GF: And from there we went to . . . do you want that?
DB: Yeah, go ahead.
GF: From there we went to Fond Duc. And held that one pretty good. And then back to Pushon again. We had somebody else besides the French along side of us so we didn’t have to worry about them.
DB: And they held. You had Americans next to you?
GF: Yeah. But we were . . . we didn’t have really training to go into combat.
DB: Did you have a lieutenant with you as a forward observer?
GF: Most of the time. Captain or lieutenant.
DB: And generally they were proficient at what they had to do?
GF: Oh, yeah. Some of ‘em. I better back up and say some of ‘em did. And some were useless. We had some that if we had fire coming in they’d run.
DB: They were afraid.
GF: But you can’t blame ‘em. I mean if . . .
DB: Leave you behind and run? GF: Yeah.
DB: Or say come on guys let’s go?
GF: Oh, no.
DB: They’d just take off on their own?
GF: Just take off.
DB: And did they stay in the unit then or were they gotten rid of?
GF: No, they weren’t there anymore.
DB: They were gotten rid of.
GF: Yeah.
DB: Coming up to hill 609, did you . . . were you forward observer position there?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And how close in did you get? Were you attached to an infantry unit going forward?
GF: Yes. We were right at . . . right on the hill going up into 609.
DB: So what was your experience going up into 609?
GF: That was a tough one. I lost a good buddy. He was a lieutenant in our forward observer group. And he got shot, killed instantly.
DB: And he was attached to the infantry as a forward observer?
GF: Yeah. That wasn’t too nice a deal.
DB: Generally, as a forward observer team, was that . . . was it considered a good assignment, was it considered a very dangerous assignment?
GF: Well, they considered it dangerous. I guess it was sometimes but it’s . . .
DB: Was an assignment to a forward observer team regarded with apprehension or was it just another job? How did people feel about being a forward observer? Pride? Did they have pride at doing something dangerous or exciting?
GF: I guess some did.
DB: How did you feel?
GF: What I was set up and trained to be so . . . Might as well do it.
DB: What was specifically your duty with the infantry at 609? Did you . . . did you come under German machine gun fire or small arms fire, or artillery fire?
GF: Artillery and small arms. Mortars. Aircraft.
DB: And very close in fire or how . . . ?
GF: Oh, yeah. All I can say is that the lieutenant was right beside me got shot.
DB: That’s the one you were mentioning was the lieutenant that got killed.
GF: Yeah. Right. He raised up to see what he could see. You don’t do that.
DB: Was it a sniper?
GF: Yeah. I imagine it was.
DB: What did you have to do then as a forward observer team? Did you have someone else to come in and call in the fire after the lieutenant had been killed?
GF: Called into headquarters and tell ‘em to send somebody else out.
DB: So there wasn’t a sergeant or somebody else? You couldn’t call in the fire yourself?
GF: Oh, yeah. We did that.
DB: You cross . . . you cross-trained then so if the lieutenant was killed, someone else could fill in for him immediately.
GF: Yeah, but you didn’t have . . . didn’t have the authority, I guess you’d call it.
DB: But in a pinch, you could do it? You’d been cross-trained.
GF: Oh, yeah. We were trained in it.
DB: Well, after 609, things moved pretty fast.
GF: Yes, they did.
DB: Flying into Baserti. And did you have any experience with the thousands of German prisoners that we had . . . Italian prisoners?
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: What kind of contact did you have with them?
GF: Well, we had to set up barbed wire fences to keep the prisoners in. And we had . . . well, let’s see. I’ve got it here. Two weeks after we captured 609, there was 200 to 75,000 German troops surrendered.
DB: You had German and Italians.
GF: Yeah. That’s a lot of people to be dumped on a poor little division.
DB: Aside from setting up some of the prison camps, you didn’t have to guard them or . . . ?
GF: Oh, yeah. We had to guard them.
DB: You had to guard them, too. And did you have . . . as they were coming in, did you have to march them into the camps, too? Did you work on that, too?
GF: Yeah, well they came . . . they came marching down the road and we’d open the gates and they went in.
DB: Did you have any personal contact with them? Talking to them or anything?
GF: Not there, no.
DB: Later on you had something?
GF: Yes.
DB: So it was just something you saw then pretty much.
GF: Yeah.
DB: After the campaign in Tunisia ended . . .
Tape 2, Side 1:
DB: After the campaign in Tunisia ended, you guys didn’t go to Sicily. The 34th division did not go to Sicily.
GF: No. Part of it did.
DB: Not to Sicily. Salerno. They went to Salerno initially.
GF: No, Sicily. We had . . . 168th went over there. Infantry.
DB: No. I’ll have to look that up.
GF: Yeah.
DB: But you didn’t go?
GF: No. No.
DB: And did you . . . what kind of activities were you involved in in that summer of 1943? Just training. .
GF: Training in on the new guns. We got the 105s in.
DB: Were people happy to get the 105s? Did that seem like a big improvement over . . .
GF: It seemed to be.
DB: . . . over the British guns?
GF: Yes.
DB: How did you prepare to go into Salerno? How did you go in? What kind of boats did you load on? What was your plan for arriving on the beach?
GF: Well, they had those landing crafts to take us off the boat.
DB: Did you encounter any German U-boats or any problems in the aircraft . . . ?
GF: We lost two boats going over.
DB: To U-boats?
GF: We lost two of our boats. But they were supply ships. There were no troops on ‘em.
DB: Okay. Did you have any encounters with German aircraft when you were going up to Salerno?
GF: Yeah. Quite a bit.
DB: Any close calls?
GF: You know, I don’t remember if those two boats that sunk if they were hit by torpedoes or if they got hit by bombs?
DB: Did you actually see them get hit?
GF: One of ‘em did.
DB: It was close enough to you that you could see it?
GF: Yeah. But I don’t remember how . . .
DB: Do you remember landing on the beach at Salerno?
GF: Not too much about it.
DB: By the time you landed, the front had moved forward.
GF: Yeah, somewhat but not very far though.
DB: So it was kind of an administrative landing. Do you remember what the situation was on the beach when you got there?
GF: Kind of all mixed up.
DB: There’s a lot of confusion on the beach?
GF: Turmoil, yeah.
DB: When the 125th came ashore, they stayed organized? Did you camp out on the beachhead for a while or did you move right into the line?
GF: I think we moved right up. We had . . . we didn’t go into Naples, we went around it.
DB: And the weather was still pretty nice at this time.
GF: Yeah.
DB: Did it seem like a nice place, I mean considering that there is a war going on?
GF: I think in the first three weeks . . . I think we crossed the Volturno three times. Not because we got pushed back or anything, but the river just kept winding down through the valley, and you had to keep crossing it.
DB: Generally, the Germans held the hills and you guys were coming up the valleys.
GF: They had all the hills.
DB: How did that feel? Being on the ground or you’re with the infantry as a forward observer . . .
GF: Yeah.
DB: . . . and did you feel pretty vulnerable?
GF: Oh, yes. But after we got up on the same hills, of course, you look across and there’s another hill down the street.
DB: Did you take a lot of artillery fire from the Germans?
GF: Mostly mortar.
DB: Mostly mortar? And was it pretty effective? Did they have good forward observers?
GF: Yeah.
DB: Called it all pretty effectively?
GF: Yeah. They had good spots to observe from.
DB: As you were coming up to Monte Cassino and you’re coming up this big valley, and you can see Monte Cassino ahead of you, do you remember . . . do you have any impressions of that or was it just another hill?
GF: Of course we had Monte Pantana and Monte Trofeo in between there, and they were really rough to get up to the top of so we could see. Muddy weather at that time.
DB: In the fall at that time . . .
GF: So slippery going up those mountains, you just couldn’t get any footing so we had to have . . . we had mules to take our . . . transport our equipment up. Our radios and stuff we could never have carried ‘em up there because it is just wouldn’t work.
DB: Who were . . . who were the . . . ?
GF: So these pack mules would come and they’d go up ahead of us and if we got to a slippery spot we had to grab onto their tails so we could get up. I mean, we had to pull on their tails to get up to the top and of course a lot of the pack mules got shot on their way up, too. Blown apart.
DB: Did you have a backpack radio at this time?
GF: Yeah. But it was too big to . . .
DB: So typically when you’d be moving up with the infantry, you’d be taking a lot of fire?
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: Who were the teamsters for the mules? Was it Americans, Italians that changed side, French? Don’t remember?
GF: I don’t remember that. I think they were probably Italian people. They probably volunteered there.
DB: Now, the clothing you had in the fall of ’43, the weather’s real wet, was the clothing that you had up to the job? Required of it? Did you . . . could you stay dry?
GF: Hummmm . . . I guess we did. Sometimes I think about it and I wonder how in the heck did we ever survive it . . . the weather. You know, you had rain and mud and snow and no place to wash up or take a bath or . . .
DB: Did you have a lot of casualties relating to the weather?
GF: Yeah. I think so. There was one thing I was going to say is that back in Africa, we had all English rations. Of course, I said about the oxtail soup and that stuff. And we had English rations for a couple three months and when the engineers finally caught up with us and they had their baking trucks baking breads and stuff like that, they baked bread and they came up with a whole truckload and they gave everybody a loaf of bread. And we just sat down and ate that like it was cake. We hadn’t had bread for months and just sat down and ate it like it was . . . just like cake. But that’s . . . I didn’t say it at the time.
DB: When you got into Italy, you’re eating American rations now, did that seem like a big improvement?
GF: Oh, yeah. When we’d get to . . . out the door, we could get something to eat.
DB: How often did you get fresh food?
GF: Well, being up on liaison, of course, we had to eat with the infantry. When we could get a chance . . .
DB: Did they just have K rations or did they have hot food brought up to them?
GF: They were C rations or K rations. K rations were a treat after Cs. And then we’d get . . . well, we had cards or notices that we could eat any place . . . any place that we could . . . any outfit that we came across that had food, we could stop there and eat.
DB: Because you were forward observers?
GF: Yeah. Because we weren’t attached to our . . . you know, I mean they had . . . they were miles behind us. We couldn’t keep running back there for something to eat.
DB: In the Italian mountains, was your radio communications pretty good? Were you able to communicate?
GF: Sometimes. Sometimes we weren’t. If you’re up on top of the hill, it was good. If you got down to the valley, it was lousy.
DB: Sure. Earlier I had asked you about coming up the valley and seeing Monte Cassino ahead of you. And was that an ominous sight?
GF: Yeah. We knew that the Germans were up there.
DB: Yeah. Did it seem different from some of the other . . . ?
GF: You’d even see ‘em up there. We could see ‘em . . .
DB: Walking around.
GF: . . . up there walking around.
DB: Whenever you’d see ‘em, would you always call in artillery fire on ‘em?
GF: No, we couldn’t. We couldn’t fire on the Abbey.
DB: Oh, okay. Not on the Abbey but you saw them walking around on the hill or something, you’d always call it in?
GF: Yeah, oh yeah. You’d fire on those guys. We were always careful not to fire on the Abbey but it was all right for them to be up there and look at us. Look where we were.
DB: On the 13th of January, the division crossed the Repeato River, just below Cassino, and were you with the infantry going across the river? How did that transpire?
GF: When was this, did you say?
DB: 13th of January.
GF: January . . . yeah, we must have been. Had to be. DB: But no specific memories of that, in any case?
GF: No.
DB: Okay. How about in the attack on the Cassino? The 25th of January to the 13th of February, the 34th division came around on the right side and hooked over and tried to come around Cassino.
GF: Yeah, and I got . . . I had a shell land close by me, and it . . .
DB: During the assault on Cassino as the troops are trying to move up to it?
GF: Yeah. It was the day before they bombed the Abbey. And that shell landed and picked me up and threw me across the road. So I had a concussion, and at that time I went into the hospital. And that was the last I’d seen of anything in Italy. I went back to regional hospital and then back to Naples, and then from Naples went to Africa to the hospital.
DB: Well, the first . . . do you remember, were you conscious when you went into the unit hospital? Or the medics picked you up, put you on a stretcher or what happened? Do you remember any of that?
GF: Well, back at the unit, they helped me back. Part of our team hauled me back to their headquarters and then they put me in an ambulance. That was the day that they bombed Cassino . . . the Abbey, and I was lying in a stretcher in the back of the ambulance with the doors open and I could see all the bombing.
DB: Were you glad to see it?
GF: Oh, yes. It just wasn’t right that they could be up there and observe us and we couldn’t do anything about it.
DB: So you had a concussion but you were still conscious and aware of what was going on.
GF: I think I was out for a little while.
DB: Yeah, yeah. So you went back to a field hospital?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And where . . . first an evac hospital?
GF: Then to Naples, and then to Africa to the . . .
DB: You had a convalescent period in Africa?
GF: And at that . . . you want to hear about that?
DB: Sure. Yep.
GF: Well, I was there. We got to a point where we were going to be shipped back to the United States, but they didn’t have any troop ships to take us.
DB: Now had you pretty much recovered by this time?
GF: Yeah, pretty much so. And they said that we couldn’t go unless they had a troop ship. So this one lieutenant that was with us, he was part of us, too, that were in the same group. I mean, he could go back to the States, too. Well, we waited there for weeks. And he finally said we’re gonna . . . I’m gonna fix it up. We’ll get back. So he took off, and he went down to the docks and there were some Liberty ships in there, so he took a bottle of wine and smashed on the bow, and he’s like, "I christen you a troop ship." And there was about a hundred of us that got on that troop ship. No accommodations, no rations, no nothing. And that’s how we came back to the United States on this Liberty ship. It took us 18 days to come back.
DB: You said there was no food on the ship. What did you eat?
GF: C rations.
DB: Oh, you had C rations.
GF: We squandered up some of those someplace. I don’t know. He was a go-getter.
DB: You came back as part of a convoy.
GF: No. Yeah, it was a convoy. Sure. I mean it had to . . . And then we got to . . . we hit . . . on the boat coming back, we couldn’t . . . we had a ration of water, and we couldn’t take a bath, and we couldn’t cook or anything but we did . . . we couldn’t have water because General Eisenhower had two Arabian steeds that were being transferred back to the United States that he got as a gift. And they were on board the boat, and they had to have the water. That’s that way we came back. And then that same . . .
DB: What did you drink?
GF: Well, we could drink some.
DB: A little bit. No baths or anything?
GF: No. The same lieutenant . . . I wish . . . I never did remember his name, but I wish I did, because when we got back to the United States, we landed at Newport News and we were supposed to go to Patrick Henry for just a brief . . . and then back into the Army again. And when we landed, one of the guys got . . . I don’t remember what he got. He got some disease. I think it was chicken pox or measles or whatever in the heck it was where you’d be quarantined. And he stayed on the boat with this guy until everybody got off the boat, got into the trains, and he reported that the guy was quarantined. He stayed with him and let us go.
DB: Was that the officer who had christened the ship who stayed with him?
GF: Yeah.
DB: So he continued to look out for you?
GF: Yeah. He was a wonderful officer as far as I could . . .
DB: Was he a Minnesotan?
GF: I don’t know.
DB: Oh, you don’t know.
GF: I don’t remember his name, where he was from or anything.
DB: Now, a lot of times when guys would be wounded, they’d have certain mixed feelings about leaving the unit or coming home or whatever.
GF: Yeah.
DB: Fear of the replacement system. Now you build a lot of connections with people in the unit.
GF: That’s right.
DB: On the one hand, you’re probably glad to be out of the dirt and the grime and the filth and the danger but on the other hand, you miss the people you’re with. Was that your situation? How did you feel about it?
GF: That’s the way it turned out for me. When I got back to the United States, I got sent to Sam Houston, Fort Sam Houston, and they let me go home for a couple of weeks, I guess.
DB: Were you still convalescing at this time?
GF: Yeah. Then I come back, and they decided I could go back into the service or, you know, . . .
DB: Active service?
GF: . . . active service. So they sent me up to Nebraska to a prisoner of war camp. A German prisoner of war camp . . . or our American one, but helped holding Germans.
DB: So . . . before you go into that, there wasn’t a chance that you were going back to Italy?
GF: No.
DB: So you’re up to Nebraska guarding German prisoners. I suppose most of them were from the Africa Corps?
GF: They were the same guys we were fighting down in Africa.
DB: So this is the spring of ’44, now?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And you’re feeling okay? You’ve recovered?
GF: Yeah. So I got a pretty cushy job there with showing movies to the prisoners. We had thirteen camp sites around Nebraska and Kansas where the German prisoners were that were working on farms and stuff like that. Well, I had . . . I traveled from camp to camp showing movies to the prisoners for their entertainment.
DB: So that was pretty good duty?
GF: I thought it was.
DB: How were the Germans? Were they . . . did you have some ardent Nazis, or were they . . . ?
GF: Yeah. They were rough ones.
DB: Did you have some trouble with them at all?
GF: Yeah.
DB: What kind?
GF: They would ransack the barracks or the washrooms and stuff like that. They’d tear all the sinks off the walls. Oh, it was rough.
DB: Just trying to cause problems?
GF: Yeah. But they had it pretty nice going out to these farms and working. Most of the people in Nebraska were Germans.
DB: Any issues with them trying to escape? Did you have to deal with . . . ?
GF: Not that I know of. They had it so good . . .
DB: Probably never ate so well in their life?
GF: No, they were never gonna run away.
DB: So did you continue to do that until the end of the war?
GF: Yeah, until September.
DB: Of ’45?
GF: Yeah. On September 2nd, I got sent to Leavenworth—Camp Leavenworth, not the prison. I got discharged from Leavenworth.
DB: Train ride home?
GF: Yeah, train ride home . . . or bus, I guess. Either a train or bus. I don’t remember. But I know my wife worked up in the Courthouse up here . . . that was before we were married.
DB: But she was your girlfriend at the time?
GF: Yeah. And everybody in the courthouse was feeling sorry for her because her husband was getting discharged from Leavenworth. They thought I was a criminal!
DB: Were you engaged at the time or just . . . ?
GF: Yeah. I got out on the 5th of September, and I got married on the 22nd.
DB: And coming home was it . . . was there a big welcome for you?
GF: No.
DB: Or just a small family thing?
GF: Well for the family, yeah.
DB: A lot of guys coming home, though, and everyone . . . What was the attitude of the soldiers coming home? Just 'get on with your life'?
GF: Yeah. Just keep going. Trying to get going into something else. But it was tough to settle down . . . to sit in one place or . . .
DB: You’d had a lot of adventures.
GF: Yeah.
DB: Did your wife appreciate what you’d been through? Or did she understand?
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: And when you got home, what kind of questions did people ask you about? Or did they not talk about the war?
GF: They didn’t talk about it much.
DB: Everybody just wanted to get on with things?
GF: Yeah. There were lots of ‘em that talked a lot about it, but it was a long time after I got back that I . . . before I could talk about it.
DB: Did your wife ask you about it? Did other people ask you about it?
GF: Ummm, not too much. No. I think it was after that I got into the working on the Veterans’ Memorial Hall that I started to talk about it some, because we went to many schools and talked to classes.
DB: So when was that? What year? Was that in the 90s, maybe, or 80s?
GF: Yeah, it was . . .
DB: ‘70s?
GF: . . . 90s. And you’d be telling ‘em about Africa and Italy and the things that had happened there, and a kid raises his hand and says, "Oh you were in Pearl Harbor then."
DB: Did you take advantage of the G.I. bill when you came home?
GF: No.
DB: Was it hard to get a job when you came home?
GF: Yeah. Somewhat.
DB: Were you looking for something specific or did you . . . ?
GF: No. I finally went back into the drug business with my dad.
DB: Did you become a pharmacist?
GF: No. And then I went ahead . . . before that, I went on the road for Old Gold cigarettes. Pretty near everybody that came back went on the road for somebody . . . Kraft Foods or cigarettes or most anything.
DB: Coming home, was it hard to find housing?
GF: No, we found an apartment right away.
DB: What did an apartment cost in those days?
GF: I don’t remember.
DB: $30 a month maybe or something like that?
GF: I have no idea. I don’t recollect that at all.
DB: Was it hard to get the money to pay the rent?
GF: Yeah, I didn’t have a job so . . .
DB: But I mean, after you got a job.
GF: Oh, yeah.
DB: And your wife was working at the time, right?
GF: Yes. In fact, the first apartment that we rented, they said they had to be both working . . . a working couple is what they wanted. So I had to get up every morning and go to work with her, but I didn’t go to work. I didn’t have a job to go to.
DB: Overall, was your military experience a difficult experience? Was it . . . how would . . . what would you rate it in things in your life?
GF: It was an adventure, I guess you’d call it.
DB: You said you didn’t talk about it when you came home . . .
GF: No.
DB: . . . was it because it was painful or it just didn’t come up?
GF: It was painful, I guess.
DB: The combat experience.
GF: Yeah. I had trouble with my mind, I guess. So I went through a psychiatrist for quite a while after I got back.
DB: Was it nightmares and that sort of thing?
GF: Yes. Yeah, it was frightful, really . . . a lot of the stuff.
DB: Yeah. Did you ever call in artillery yourself, or was it always you were the radioman, and the lieutenant did it or the sergeant did it?
GF: Did I ever what?
DB: Call in the artillery yourself?
GF: We had the [words missing].
DB: Relayed it?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And what was the experience of calling in artillery? I mean, you see the Germans, and you call in artillery on ‘em . . . ?
GF: Yeah. One time that I did was . . . one of the times you could see a . . . we were up on a hill, and you could see like a farmhouse down there in the valley and there was activity around . . . German soldiers running all over the place, so we knew it had to be some kind of headquarters. We called in artillery fire on it. The second volley of shells made a direct hit on that house. And at that time, the officer that was with us wasn’t up to us yet, and he got the Silver Star for it.
DB: But he wasn’t there?
GF: Yep. DB: And nobody thought of mentioning it to anybody.
GF: No.
DB: Was he a glory seeker?
GF: No, not really.
DB: Did it just happen and you know . . . he didn’t . . . he didn’t ask for it, he didn’t seek it out?
GF: No.
DB: It was a misunderstanding in the orders?
GF: Well it was . . . I don’t know how it came up back in headquarters.
DB: Was there resentment towards him because of that?
GF: Ahhhh, I guess a little bit, but not . . . he was a good officer.
DB: Kind of a victim of circumstances?
GF: Yeah. I don’t hold it against him. I mean, that was our job to put fire where we needed it. It turned out that way.
DB: Any other specific stories related to calling in artillery?
GF: Well, at one time . . . another time I called in was . . .
Tape 2, Side 2:
GF: Another time I called in . . . it was up . . . I can’t remember exactly . . . up on Tropio or Pantana, and we were on the far side of the hill, and it was raining cats and dogs, and this fellow that was with me was gonna go back over the top of the hill to get his . . . I don’t know, get a raincoat or get something dry, anyway, I guess, 'cause we were soaking wet. But when he got up to go over the top of the hill, he got captured. I mean, that’s how close to the front lines we were.
DB: So you were actually behind the German lines?
GF: Yeah. And I was right there . . .
DB: Or you were intermingled with the Germans.
GF: . . . I was with him right there in this bush that was around us, and he got up and got captured.
DB: Did you see him get captured?
GF: Yeah. But I didn’t move, and they didn’t see me there, so I was . . . didn’t get picked up. But I watched them take him back down the mountain, and they were going down the road, and we had that road marked on our coordinates on the map, so I called for fire on that road, 'cause we had that made up between us. I mean, if we got captured, and you could see if you could save it, kill us or whatever, go ahead and do it. So I called for fire, and when they fired the one gun, and it hit the road . . . by the road, and the Germans all jumped in the ditch, you know, of course, and when he jumped in the ditch, he went back through the woods, and he came back. It took him a couple days to get back, but he got back.
DB: And did he come back to you then . . . to your section or what?
GF: Yeah. He came back to the outfit and . . .
DB: How was he doing after that experience? Just . . . “Hey, I’m back”?
GF: Yeah. He got back. That was a big thing. So I saved him from going to a prisoner of war camp, anyway.
DB: Yeah. Luckily. Any other experiences with the guns?
GF: Oh, no, just a little one here. They took this out of my leg in Africa [gesturing to something].
DB: A piece of shrapnel?
GF: Yeah.
DB: How many times . . . how many times were you wounded altogether?
GF: Once.
DB: Just once. This time?
GF: Just that one time with . . .
DB: And then the other time . . .
GF: . . . the concussion.
DB: . . . the concussion. Did you have two Purple Hearts, or one?
GF: Didn’t get any.
DB: Didn’t get any?
GF: No. Anyway, on this one that went into my leg and the radio that I was operating—it’s one of the 6-10 or 601, it’s about, like, that square—but it had a hole like that in it. In the radio. So if I would’ve been just a couple of inches over, I wouldn’t be here.
DB: Yeah.
GF: But I just went back to . . . back into the medics, and they took that out of my leg and gave me another radio and I went back out.
DB: Patched you up as a flesh wound, then?
GF: Yeah.
DB: And was that pretty typical then to just . . . people would get wounds like that and get patched up and just go back in?
GF: I don’t think so. I don’t know. Not anyone I know of.
DB: Was it a mortar round that hit?
GF: I don’t think so. I think that was . . . It was artillery, I think. I don’t know.
DB: When you’d be on FO [on the forward observing team], what was the thing that was the most difficult to deal with? The 88s, mortars, artillery . . . ?
GF: Yeah. Those screaming Mimis . . .
DB: [words missing]
GF: Ohhhh, they used to drive me crazy.
DB: Because they’d just blanket an area, or what?
GF: Yeah. They’d zing, zing, zing, zing . . . they’d be coming over you, and just drives you crazy. But they always said that if you could hear their shell whistle, it wasn’t gonna hit. It’s the ones that you don’t hear that’s gonna hit ya. ‘cause you don’t know it.
DB: In Italy as a forward observer, how long did you go out before you’d come back and get relieved?
GF: Whenever the outfit got relieved.
DB: No, typically was there a regular scheduled rotation or what was the longest you were ever in the line?
GF: I don’t . . . long, long time.
DB: 30 days? 60 days?
GF: I can’t . . . I couldn’t put a figure on that.
DB: Yeah. And when you’re in a line, you’re just . . . no change of clothes, just wear what you got on?
GF: Didn’t have any clothes to change to.
DB: Yeah. And there was no hope of getting anything clean?
GF: No.
DB: Any other stories? Anything else you want to relate?
GF: Can’t think of anything.
DB: Okay.
GF: You better give Bill a chance because I got to be back home at 4:30.
DB: Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for the interview.
GF: Were you the one that was here looking for money for flags, too?
DB: Yes. Yes.
