Oliver Andrew Rivard
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
September 18, 2008
Oral History interview with:
Oliver Andrew Rivard (WWII Vet)
Born: December 7, 1916
Interviewed By:
Dan Hartman
Program Director of Veterans Memorial Hall
Transcribed by:
Karin Swor
Program Assistant of Veterans Memorial Hall
D.H. Dan Hartman
O.R. Oliver Rivard
N.R. Nina Rivard
H.H. Helen Hase
D.H. Today we are doing an interview with Oliver Rivard and it is taking place on July 31, of 2008. This interview is being conducted by Daniel Hartman of the Saint Louis County Historical Society and I am the Program Director for the Veterans Memorial Hall project. Oliver you are a veteran of World War II, is that correct?
O.R. That is right.
D.H. How do you spell your last name; can you spell it out for me?
O.R. R-I-V-A-R-D
D.H. Okay, thank you. And your middle name is Andrew, correct?
O.R. Andrew.
D.H. When you served during World War II what group did you serve with?
O.R. What’s that?
D.H. What group did you serve with, or what division were you part of?
O.R. Well, 495th Anti -Aircraft Battalion.
D.H. I imagine that was part of the Army, correct?
O.R. Right, right.
D.H. Okay, what year were you born?
O.R. December 7, 1916.
D.H. So you were born on a famous date?
O.R. Pearl Harbor.
D.H. Yeah, so when you were born, where were you born originally?
O.R. Superior, Wisconsin.
D.H. Were your parents from Wisconsin originally too?
O.R. My mother yes, my dad from Michigan.
D.H. He was from Michigan?
O.R. Cadillac, Michigan.
D.H. Do you know how your parents met?
O.R. He left the farm, come up here to get on the Railroad but they weren’t hiring so he got on the streetcars. He was a motorman on the streetcars and he would eat at a restaurant and my mother worked at that restaurant and that is where they met.
D.H. Were your parents actually from the United States as well or were they born overseas?
O.R. No, No my dad was born in Michigan and my mother was born here in Superior, Superior, Wisconsin.
D.H. Do you know where your family traces its heritage back too? Like are you Finnish?
O.R. Oh, German, my mother was German, my dad half French and half Swede.
D.H. Of what religious background were your parents?
O.R. Catholic.
D.H. Was religion a really important thing in your family growing up?
O.R. Yeah, I’d say yes.
D.H. Did you attend mass regularly?
O.R. Well, yes, when I was younger.
D.H. You said your dad was a streetcar motorman?
O.R. Right.
D.H. What did he do for the rest of his life, was he a farmer or something for a while too?
O.R. No, he took over the farm in Michigan and during WWI and then they moved back to Superior and he held odd jobs and he finally worked at the coal dock the rest of his life, until he retired.
D.H. How about your mother, did she have a job too or did she take care of the family?
O.R. No, she was just, a housewife, if I can get it out right.
D.H. Do you remember any stories about your dad working when you were growing up that you think were kind of interesting? You know, something that you wouldn’t see today. Did he enjoy working at the coal dock?
O.R. No, not exactly, because he was a common laborer for a long time, that was back during the depression days and jobs were hard to get. If you got a job you were glad to have a job. Well that was the situation, he would rather have been a Railroad man, but it’s the situation anyway.
D.H. You grew up in the 1920’s as a kid right?
O.R. Right
D.H. How was that for you, was it a good time?
O.R. Well, except back in the depression days we didn’t have much spending money or anything but as kids we didn’t suffer too much.
D.H. So what did you do as a kid?
O.R. As a kid, well, I started out trapping and I was great at making log cabins, building log cabins.
D.H. As a kid?
O.R. As a kid, yeah.
D.H. How old were you then?
O.R. Well about fourteen, fifteen years old. Making a small log cabin, you know. A good friend of mine built a shack out in the woods and we spent weekends out there, but we were great for hunting there too.
D. H. So who did you learn how to trap from?
O.D. Well, more or less on our own.
D.H. I mean, I bet there were several other people that were in to trapping too?
O.R. Yeah.
D.H. Was this just kind of a common thing back then?
O.R. Yeah, prices were good on the furs back in those days. For the times it was good money.
D.H. What were you trapping?
O.R. Mostly muskrats and also mink and that was it, though.
D.H. Any particularly interesting stories you remember from your trapping days, like a weird animal occurrence.
N.R. I have one.
D.H. Let’s hear it.
N.R. Our son trapped also and he had about one hundred and twenty-five, of course he had a partner, and they had about a hundred twenty-five rats and we decided after they got them all skinned out that we would roll them up and freeze them. He was going to high school so every once and a while he would call me and tell me how many rats to take out and defrost because they were going to sell them. So I had muskrats in front of every furnace register thawing out.
D.H. When you grew up in the 1920’s, this is during the famous prohibition era.
O.R. Right, right
D.H. Do you remember people sneaking booze around?
O.R. Absolutely, I had uncles that made moonshine and I spent quite a bit of time around with them and once and a while I would take a little drink of moonshine myself.
N.R. I had a brother making moonshine.
D.H. Where would they make moonshine?
O.R. Usually, if they could find a good source of water, like a creek and out in the woods, hidden away, and that is where they would make the stew.
D.H. Do you remember exactly where your uncles used to make it?
O.R. Out here in Butler Park in south Superior, but out in the woods.
D.H. If you had to describe it, what did the moonshine taste like? Were there different varieties?
O.R. More or less like vodka, I would say vodka.
D.H. When you guys were making this were you scared about the cops ever busting it?
O.R. Oh yes, they got caught. They all got caught at one time or another, and served time.
D.H. Your uncles did?
O.R. Yeah, yeah.
D.H. How long were they in jail for?
O.R. Well, one was in for thirty days and another one for four months.
D.H. Whoa. Did they go back to it afterwards?
O.R. Well, for a short time, yeah they did, right.
N.R. Until jobs opened up.
O.R. Till jobs opened up.
D.H. What did your parents think about it?
O.R. Well my dad he, like I say, he worked at the coal docks, didn’t think nothing about it, you know, and my dad was no alcoholic or anything but he liked a little drink once and a while even if it was moonshine.
D.H. Your uncles, I imagine sold it to other people too?
O.R. They sold it, right.
D.H. Where did they go to sell their moonshine?
O.R. Well, back in the old days there was “Blind Pigs” around town.
D.H. There was what?
O.R. They called them “Blind Pigs.”
D.H. Describe to me what a “Blind Pig” is?
N.R. A tavern.
O.R. Well, they would sell booze but they were always afraid of Federal Agents coming to arrest them. So you rapped at the door and they had a little peek hole in the door and they looked through that peek hole and if you looked like you know, like you weren’t a policeman, they would let you in. That is what they call a “Blind Pig.”
D.H. Were there quite a few of those around?
O.R. Oh, yeah, I’d say.
D.H. Do you remember where some of them were?
O.R. Well there was one, there was two of them right on Tower Avenue in Superior. Otherwise I don’t know because I never went, I was too young at that time.
D.H. Yeah, do you remember the two that were on Tower, where on Tower Avenue were they?
O.R. I can’t tell you that though, either.
D.H. Okay, but they were definitely all over town.
O.R. Probably not that many, but there was a few around.
N.R. Were there some in Oliver?
O.R. Oliver, yeah
N.R. Like where Club Palimar is, there were about three, four, five, six of them.
D.H. Really and do you remember any of these places too?
N.R. Well there was, yeah, the Palimar, the Duluxe, Palace, One o One,
O.R. Redtop.
D.H. Did you ever go in one?
O.R. Yup, I was in them.
D.H. Were they kind of a fun place to go?
N.R. Oh, yeah, they had music and dances.
O.R. That is when booze came back, though. There wasn’t all these places till the booze was legal.
D.H. Oh, okay. So you guys never went into them when they were illegal?
O.R. Going back to the dry days, there was a couple of them in Oliver. After prohibition went back into effect all these places opened up. But they sold legal booze, though.
D.H. Yeah.
N.R. Out in Oliver, quite a few of the people sold, right in their homes. Go there and sit around.
D.H. Why was Oliver a place for people to buy illegal booze?
O.R. Just automatically come that way and most of them probably made moonshine themselves and it got to be known as …
D.H. A place?
O.R. Yeah.
N.R. And a lot of them in Oliver didn’t make the moonshine, they bought it and then sold it, and they made beer and wine and sold it, in the homes.
D.H. They would make it in their own house?
N.R. Yeah.
O.R. Yeah.
D.H. I have interviewed a couple of people now where they all came to Oliver to get their booze.
O.R. Right, right.
N.R. Some came to go to the park.
D.H. What?
N.R. My brother made moonshine right out here in Butler Park.
H.H. This is called Butler Park and some came out here, she said.
D.H. How long have you guys lived in this house?
N.R. Well, I have been here since 1931.
O.R. 19?
N.R. He’s been her 57 years.
O.R. 57 years, yup, yup.
D.H. That is a pretty good amount of time for the both of you. That’s good! I guess any stories in particular that you want to tell from the prohibition era?
N.R. I got one.
D.H. Okay.
N.R. I just remembered, a couple of the guys that made moonshine, they sold it to the tavern out here a little ways and they hid it back in the brush, the owner did, then the guy, then the guy sold it too him, a couple then would come back and help drink it, out of the woods.
O.R. They had it hid out in the woods in jugs, you know, in case the federal agents came around and wanted to arrest them, you know.
N.R. Yeah, it was a $5.00 crock; we got some of those crocks, haven’t we?
D.H. So the five-gallon, those big five gallon jugs is what they would bring it in? Okay, and any stories you remember from growing up, you know, from when your uncle’s almost got caught? Any stories getting away or?
O.R. Well, I got a little story, my friends and I were out bird hunting and we followed a creek untils we ran into this kind of a tent like thing so we marched down there. The two guys that were there got scared because they heard somebody was coming so they run. But when they discovered we were just kids, I mean young guys, they come back. They come back and they offered us $5.00 to keep our mouth shut, say nothing. Oh, so it didn’t take long back in them days to spend that $5.00 so we thought we will pay them another visit. Well, when we went back they were gone, so we had a good thing, we had a good idea, we could get another $5.00 out of them.
D.H. Yeah, $5.00 was a decent amount of money, back then.
N.R. And then one time, my brother got a warning that the federal agents were going to be around so he brought several five gallon jugs over here and put them in my bedroom and he said if they come go to bed. They can’t go in your bedroom if somebody is in bed, nothing happened.
D.H. Were there a lot of federal agents around?
O.R. There was some, yeah.
D.H. How did your uncle’s, how were they finally busted?
O.R. Well, they would get wind of it, somebody would then turn them in or else they would follow where they were buying. What took place then, they had 100lbs of sugar, 12lbs of yeast, and they would probably check at the stores where they were getting the sugar and the yeast or whatever. So, they had ways of finding out anyway. I will have to tell you another story, another uncle of mine, he lived in South Range and he was also making moonshine and I happened to be out there and here comes the sheriff and a couple of deputies, they pulled into the yard. I said to my dad, Oh, oh looks like Jim is in for it. No, he said we don’t have to worry, so I see Jim he’s talking to the sheriff and he’s talking to the deputies and they are laughing and it wasn’t long Jim came in, he marched through the house, he gets a gallon jug of moonshine and takes it out to the sheriff and the deputies. When my dad asked my Uncle Jim, what’s up he said they warned him that the federal agents are in town so cook everything up and get rid of it and they would let him know when it is safe.
D.H. And they wanted a jug?
O.R. Oh yeah, a jug of moonshine.
N.R. Fantastic!
D.H. So that tells you a lot about how much the people cared about the rules.
O.R. Right, right.
N.R. They tried to make a living.
D.H. Yeah.
O.R. Lots of people, lots of people, that was their living, you know. They were on welfare otherwise.
D.H. Was it a lucrative business?
O.R. Oh yeah
D.H. It made your Uncle some good money, you think?
O.R. Well, they didn’t get rich or nothing.
N.R. There were some that did.
O.R. But my uncles were happy go lucky guys too. If they had it they spent it.
D.H. Okay. Do you remember any of the main, you know the really big mobs, like the Al Capone gang. Do you ever remember hearing about that?
O.R. Oh yeah, right, right, right, we didn’t know anything about them because that all took place in Chicago, Al Capone.
D.H. Okay, I am just curious. Yeah, those are great prohibition stories. Do you guys have any other great prohibition era stories or anything you remember about the “Blind Pigs”?
O.R. Well, see, I was too young back in them days to be around those places, you know.
D.H. Your parents didn’t talk about it?
O.R. Well, my dad he, well I mean, a big family of us, so he wasn’t a drinker either. I mean he didn’t patronize those places.
D.H. Now, when prohibition ended, was that a pretty big celebration, do you remember?
O.R. Well, I don’t remember how big a celebration it was, but, yeah it wasn’t long and taverns opened up.
D.H. But it wasn’t like a big celebration where you had some booze at night?
O.R. No, I can’t remember that, no.
D.H. Then I guess, when you grew up as a kid in the 1920’s besides trapping, what were some of the games that you played?
O.R. Well, a lot of softball, lots of softball. In school I played softball and I played on some of the softball teams in Superior.
N.R. As kids growing up out here we just played everything. I even played hardball, the oldest boy was eighteen and I was eight, and they let me play out in the field, either third base or in the field. They batted a hardball, and I just put my hands up like this and caught it, a hardball! But that was the nice part of the good old days; there were a lot of kids out here. We had the woods, the hills, the river and winter and summer. That was our life. Berry picking, we picked all kinds of berries back there and made hay. Everybody had cows, chickens out here and now there is none. I would say the days we grew up the kids should have it today, instead of sitting in front of a TV. We didn’t have a radio, even. We were outside.
O.R. Started out with a crystal set.
N.R. And we had three hills, a little one and by the river we had two big hills and they would build a bonfire on top, ice the trail and we had a big bobsled and I was always down there. My brother of course was a little older than I was so I was only eight years old when I first went down there with the big kids. The oldest one was eighteen and that’s all I can say about growing up out here; we were never bored, never.
D.H. So you just kind of made your own fun with whatever?
N.R. We made our own fun, even if it was helping neighbor haul hay, anything to do something.
D.H. Would you say growing up in that environment was better than growing up in today’s environment, is that what you were saying earlier?
O.R. Well, I would say there wasn’t drugs.
N.R. No, nothing.
O.R. So there wasn’t too much that the kids got into.
D.H. A different type of trouble.
O.R. Right, right.
N.R. I spent practically my whole life out here, him too. I was four when we moved out here.
D.H. In 1931? Do you remember the day you moved in here?
N.R. Oh, 1931, sure do. I remember when we moved out here when I was four years old. We had to walk, we lived in the South end, but we had to walk out here. There was no streetlight or anything but it was, at night and it was after dark, I remember everybody had barbed wire fence, you know. Everything was fenced in with barbed wire so the sidewalk followed the barbed wire and that is what I remember the most, walking along all that barbed wire to get to our house back out there.
H.H. Now Oliver, you worked for Nina’s dad when you were fourteen?
O.R. Yup.
H.H. Over in the cemetery in Oliver, and you hand dug the graves, cut the grass with a push lawnmower.
O.R. Right, right.
N.R. I worked out there cutting grass.
D.H. I want to hear, how old were you when you first got a job?
O.R. Well, I was about fourteen years old when I worked for her dad during the summer, like I say, cutting grass with a hand push mower and digging graves and whatever had to be done.
D.H. Did you have to work; I mean to help support the family?
O.R. Well, I wanted to work to get some money.
D.H. Yup, just like today. How about you, did you have a job when you were growing up?
N.R. No, I wanted to go, I had relatives in western North Dakota and I wanted to go up there and visit so I offered to cut grass out at the cemetery to get my dad to pay me. The fare to up there was twenty dollars so I worked till I earned twenty dollars and then I left.
D.H. I forget, I didn’t hear, where did you say you wanted to go with the twenty dollars?
N.R. Pardon?
D.H. Where did you want to go with the twenty dollars?
N.R. Well it was Kenmare, North Dakota.
D.H. North Dakota, why would you want to go to North Dakota?
N.R. I had relatives.
D.H. Oh relatives, okay.
N.R. And I had cousins living there and they were farmers up there. I enjoyed it, we went into Saskatchewan and that was amazing country.
H.H. What year were you born?
N.R. What day was I born?
H.H. What year?
N.R. 1910.
D.H. I think I forgot to ask you this earlier, but just for the record how do you, can you say your first name and could you spell it out?
N.R. My first Name?
D.H. Yup
N.R. N-I-N-A
D.H. Very simple. What is your maiden name?
N.R. Esteher
D.H. Like, Est, can you spell it?
N.R. E-S-T-E-H-E-R Johnson
D.H. Okay.
O.R. Esteher Johnson.
N.R. Oh, Johnson, yeah, I have been Johnson.
O.R. Esteher Johnson.
D.H. OK, so your dad owned the cemetery?
N.R. He worked there. He was the sexton.
D.H. Oh, he worked there. Was it a city cemetery?
O.R. Yup.
N.R. No, not city.
O.R. Free in our region and-
N.R. Mostly church, the Norwegian cemetery was affiliated with it. I can’t say the name of the church, but Pilgrim Lutheran was for the Swedes .The Jews, the Jewish, now there was nothing they were not connected to in the city in any way, but the city did plow the roads.
H.H. Nina, your family came from Sweden?
N.R. All of them.
H.H. Okay.
N.R. I’m first generation here. All my grandparents and my parents and my aunts and uncles on my mother’s side, they all moved Lyons, Nebraska. Things petered out down there and little by little they all moved up here. So a lot of the family settled here in Butler Park, and my family goes back, out here, to 1900’s, until about 1900.
D.H. I am going to move you forward a little bit in time here. When the depression came on in 1929, do you remember the day, do you remember when it started to happen, could you tell the difference?
O.R. Well, when the people started to get laid off. My dad came home from work hung up his dinner pail, and he told the rest of us I don’t need this anymore, laid off, you know, off the job.
N.R. Well, there was a big chair factory over here and that closed in 1930. I was going to try and get in. I was eighteen, I guess, and I was going to try to get a job over there but they were closing, and gradually they just went downhill. For a while they made tables there and then they made T.V. cabinets. Now it’s been a railroad shop and that is closed.
D.H. So quite a few things closed in that time frame?
N.R. Oh yeah, there was two box factories out here and a duplex iron works.
O.R. See the box factory, they made wooden boxes, more or less before cardboard so everything was put in boxes.
D.H. Did you have quite a few friends that had a hard time finding jobs?
O.R. Oh, I guess, in this neighborhood out here there’s only one or two probably had a job. My uncle for one, he was a streetcar, streetcar motorman, he had a job and that was about it. Only about one or two guys had a job, everybody else was laid off.
D.H. So how did people get by?
O.R. Well, in our old place over there we had cows and chickens and my dad had managed to raise a couple of pigs every year and butcher them. But he would go back, for instance, in the wintertime at the coal dock. Back in those days, pretty much everything was coal, but then he would get laid off in the spring again. So by the time winter rolled around again, you know, we probably had a pretty good sized grocery bill and get it nicely paid off in the spring and he would get laid off again.
D.H. A lot of what you had to do was self-sustaining. I mean, you kind of needed a hobby farm.
N.R. You almost had to. Well I often wondered how much they ever gained, you know. They had to buy the cows and buy the horse and buy the pigs.
O.R. When you had the horses you had them for years and the equipment, had that for years.
D.H. Was there a welfare system backing them for people?
N.R. Yeah, they didn’t call it welfare they called it County Aide.
D.H. County Aide.
N.R. But they had it, yeah. Well I had a cousin that was on it, that was in about 1928 and she had a family of five, a widow, and I think she got $40.00 a month, and she got her fuel.
D.H. I Imagine, that the County Aide was still pretty important.
N.R. Oh, absolutely.
O.R. To some it was a lifesaver.
N.R. Yeah, she worked at the high school also, but they still had a pretty skimpy living.
O.R. The government, Roosevelt put into effect what they call WPA and to get people work. In fact the water lines, the water lines from South Superior out here back in those days were dug by hand to give people work.
D.H. Do you think that was a good thing?
O.R. Oh yeah, right, right.
D.H. I mean a lot of people became very big fans of Roosevelt during this era because of that.
O.R. Oh right, right, there were different projects like that, even CCC camps, that was a good deal.
D.H. How old were you when you got involved in the CC Camps?
O.R. Eighteen years old.
D.H. We will move on to that a little later. When Roosevelt started to put these WPA projects together what were people thinking? Were you guys thinking it is about time, were you a little skeptical at first you know, what were you thinking, when you started seeing all these new projects being built?
O.R. I don’t know, we were getting some help anyway.
N.R. Well, it took lots and lots of kids off the streets and fed a lot of them. They said there were boys, well I have seen documents on documentaries about it and heard what he has told me. The kids put on weight after they got there. We saw it was a good project.
O.R. When people didn’t have a job they probably didn’t get a heck of a lot, only $30.00 a month or something like that but still, it was money.
D.H. Yeah, you have to move on.
O.R. Right, right.
D.H. And so then when you were eighteen you joined the?
O.R. CCC Camp.
D.H. Did you join, did they recruit you, how did that work?
O.R. No, I joined, you sign up for it.
D.H. OK, where did you work?
O.R. Loretta, Wisconsin.
D.H. Do you remember what projects you worked on, what did you do?
O.R. Well, they planted those trees, seedlings, then they improved trout streams.
D.H. What does that mean? What did you do? How do you improve a trout stream?
O.R. Well, for instance if they filled up with logs when a storm went through and blocked up the creeks, they cleaned them out, made roads and like out here in Pattison Park. They even put up buildings.
N.R. They put all the buildings up in Pattison.
O.R. And out there where I was at the fire tower and the guys had to man that fire tower through the fire season. Well, that was it.
D.H. Was there any certain project that you particularly enjoyed?
O.R. Well, I was planting trees for a short period and a lot before that I had to, right off the bat when I got in, when I first went in there, right after the first of the year, the Ranger came around and he wanted to know who had a hunting license. Well, geesh, I raised my hand and there was a couple of guys from Rhinelander and another guy from the same area and we were issued a pair of snowshoes and a .22 rifle, and to go out and hunt rabbits. They wanted to get rid of the rabbits because they were eating the seedlings. So that’s what we did the first winter. Well then, the next, by the time summer rolled around I got stuck out in the woods for a short time planting trees. Well, then a friend of mine, I got to be friends with this guy, and he got a job on the outside, he was a truck driver. So he said why don’t you take my job? Well, I never drove a truck; he said you can lie can’t you? Go down and lie and tell them that you drove a truck, so I went down to the ranger station and stated what I was there for. I understand so and so is leaving I wonder if I could take over his job? Have you ever driven truck before? Yup, big liar! Well anyway, he said take 66 out in the morning. That was the number of the truck.
D.H. Yeah.
O.R. Well, holy Moses, I went back to my friend Dan and I said show me how to drive that truck, show me how to start it. So we go down there and put it in super roll, and I had to double clutch, ever drive a truck?
D.H. Yeah, yeah.
O.R. Double clutch and I backed it back and forth, but I lucked out, they needed somebody to go to another camp to pick up supplies. So, I was assigned to go after those supplies. So here is the doctor, we had a doctor and an officer that ran the camp, and a forestry ranger ran the Forestry Department, and they were all sitting out there on lawn chairs. Well, I backed out all right, I put it in super low, and I crawled out to the main road, it wasn’t too far away. I wouldn’t dare try to shift that thing until I got a couple blocks down the road. But I practiced all the way over, over to Glidden, and I practiced on the way back, stopped and shifted. The next morning, taking out a crew of guys, maybe twelve or fifteen guys in the back of the truck and the ranger riding with me, but I got along pretty good. I found out later, after about a week, the old ranger was sitting over there laughing and kind of smiling, and I said what’s funny? He said, you never drove truck before. I said, I never even drove a car before. He said you are doing a good job.
N.R. Tell him the fire story.
O.R. What do you mean?
N.R. When you had the two fire big boys out there?
O.R. Oh yeah, yeah the fire seasons that year and we, a whole crew of guys, see I was a truck driver, so I stayed with the truck and the guys were down in the woods fighting this fire and holy Moses the gall darn fire was getting closer and closer to where I had the truck parked. I was standing on the running board and I already had the truck running and boy I started to panic, I didn’t want to burn up and I didn’t want to leave all those guys down in the woods. So finally, finally, that fire was not much more than seventy-five feet from me going through the treetops. The ranger and the whole crew came running out of the woods and the boys patted me on the back. They never thought that I would stay that long. They figured that they might get trapped down there.
D.H. Yeah.
O.R. Well, that was kind of an exciting situation too.
D.H. Sounds like it, well it was a good thing that you did that.
O.R. Yeah right, well they patted me on the back quite a few times for sticking it out.
N.R. Well, it would have been too bad for them.
D.H. Yeah, it would have been. Oh, man, how long did you stay in the CC?
O.R. Well, two and a half years and we only got $5.00 a month and we got $30.00 a month all together. We got $5.00 and $25.00 went home.
D.H. Did they feed you at all?
O.R. Oh yeah, right, right, we got good, it was a good deal. We got our clothes, we got dental care if we needed it and.
N.R. Doctor.
O.R. What?
N.R. Doctors.
O.R. Oh yeah, there was a doctor in the camp every camp.
D.H. What was some of the food they cooked for you?
O.R. Oh, the same as you would get in the hospital or regular food, and it was good food.
D.H. Did a lot of guys sign up that weren’t allowed to get in?
O.R. I think everybody got in, I think that signed up. I think mostly if you were, if your parents were laid off, I don’t remember that. I remember signing up and that was it.
D.H. So why did you leave the CC?
O.R. Well I was twenty-one years old, I wasn’t twenty-one years old yet but you had to be twenty-one years old in most places, like the railroad to get a job. So when I got about twenty and six months I decided to get out and see if I could get a job on the outside, on the railroad or whatever.
D.H. Yeah, and did you?
O.R. Yeah, I did.
D.H. Where did you find a job?
O.R. I worked for different places but my Uncle Jim, that I was telling you about, after he moved into town he ran a tavern and in the tavern there, a switchman came in there and he said, the railroad is figuring on hiring. So Jim got a hold of me and, his dad was a switchman, so he referred me to his dad, I mean, so the same guy took me down to the superintendent then and he kind of lied. He said he is a relative and old pack hardy and he is looking for a job either as a switchman or a locomotive fireman. Well, I kind of picked the locomotive fireman that is what I wanted. So I went down to the mass mechanic, down to the round house and I got hired. So that is where I started out. Well, then the war was coming on and I went over to the Old Great Northern and hired on over there, as a locomotive fireman.
D.H. Was the Great Northern kind of the premier railroad around?
O.R. Yeah, right. They went straight, right out to Washington, straight west. Mostly west out of here.
D.H. Did you ever go out that far, or did you?
O.R. No, no see we only go, our, we only go as far as Minneapolis, Cass Lake, Minnesota and up on the range. They were pretty well up on the range, on the ore business.
D.H. How many years did you work for the railroad?
O.R. Thirty-eight all together.
D.H. Oh man, how many years did you work at the railroad before the Army? Were you drafted or did you volunteer for the Army?
O.R. My number was pretty low and being I just hired out on the Old Great Northern I did get a deferment, six months. Well when the deferment was up I knew I was going to get drafted so I wanted to pick an outfit that I figured I would be the most safe in. So I volunteered for Coast Guard Auxiliary and Anti-Aircraft and I got into that, Coast Guard Auxiliary and the Anti-Aircraft, and I am glad I did.
D.H. Now why did you think that was the safest?
O.R. I couldn’t see myself in foxholes in the infantry. This way I was on these big 90mm guns and shooting down airplanes and what ever came over. Now on your interview did the pilot
End of disk #1
O.R. Planes, airplanes that they sent out of Holland and we could hit them pretty good. We shot a lot of them down because they would fly a straight course.
N.R. Buzz bombs.
O.R. What?
N.R. Buzz bombs.
O.R. Buzz bombs yeah, and that is what we called them, buzz bombs, but there are different names, but we shot a lot of them down.
D.H. I am going to back you up a little bit and start you early on. Did you guys meet or get together before the war?
N.R. We have known each other most of our lives.
D.H. When you guys grew up in the 1930’s, you know, it was kind of the hay day for movies in America. Did you guys go to a lot of movies?
O.R. Oh yeah, probably a lot, if we had some money. That was the big thing, to go to a movie.
D.H. Is that where you went on dates, or is that where you brought girls?
N.R. That’s where we went on dates.
D.H. Do you remember what movie theaters you guys went to?
O.R. Well, the Palace, the Beacon and the.
N.R. The one in East End, wasn’t there a movie out there?
O.R. The Savoy, it used to be the Savoy.
D.H. Do you guys ever go to Duluth very often?
N.R. Yeah.
O.R. Oh yeah, not that often, but like when I got out of the service, I went to the Clinic over there in Duluth, a dime a time. Otherwise we never, I never had a car so, that is back in the old days. When I got out of WWII, I managed to get a car.
D.H. OK, but you both went to movies, that’s how you-?
N.R. I went to the movies before his time I went to Duluth quite a bit, to movies. The old Norshor.
D.H. You guys knew each other growing up?
O.R. We grew up out here.
N.R. Yeah.
D.H. Okay.
N.R. He grew up over there and I grew up over there.
D.H. When did you guys first start dating? Was that before the war or after?
O.R. After the war.
D.H. OK, do you remember what year you got drafted or what year you joined in?
O.R. I got drafted; I was sworn in March 12, 1942.
D.H. Do you remember President Roosevelt saying before the war that he was going to make sure we didn’t go in to the war? Do you remember him making that promise that we wouldn’t go to war?
O.R. Well, I can’t really remember that, but I know he was more or less, I heard he was kind of sucked in to it.
O.R. Pearl Harbor that done it.
D.H. Do you guys remember Pearl Harbor? You probably do because you worked.
O.R. Right, right, right, I was out deer hunting and I came home and my dad and mother and aunt and uncle were playing cards and I stepped in the door and they told me the news, what took place and I just said to them, oh, it won’t be long for me in the service.
D.H. So that is immediately what you thought you knew you would be serving eventually?
O.R. Yeah, I would be drafted.
D.H. Was it kind of a scary day, what were your emotions on December 7?
O.R. Well, back in them days, 18 years old, I was a little older then that, probably didn’t get too excited.
D.H. Did some of your friends go out and volunteer right away?
O.R. I don’t remember that. Some of them belonged to the National Guard and I know they were drafted in. They had to go, they were the first one’s that had to go, the National Guard. Then they came out with the draft, then we got numbers.
D.H. Now, you were actually sent in on March 12, 1942 and you were sworn in, correct? Where did you go from there?
O.R. I will tell you, from Superior to Camp Bennett, Illinois, Camp Illinois to Fort Bliss, Texas, Corpus.
D.H. Is that in Corpus Christie?
O.R. Corpus Christie, we were in basic training down there, and then we loaded up on a troop train again and we figured we would probably go east, New York, and we wound up in Fort Slocum.
D.H. Where is that?
O.R. Illinois.
D.H. Back in Illinois?
O.R. No, no, I mean New York, Fort Slocum, New York.
D.H. Now, I am going to back you up a little bit. When you were at basic training down in Texas, was this the first that you had ever traveled that far?
O.R. Yeah.
D.H. How was that, were you kind of excited to see something new or?
O.R. Well, you are on a troop train and you know, you have a bunch of young guys; you are not always looking out the window and you’re probably not getting the best rest either, you know.
D.H. Yeah
O.R. You know all the way from, for instance from Illinois to El Paso, and then from Texas to New York.
D.H. How was Corpus Christie though, did you have a good time down there?
O.R. Well, basic training, we weren’t down there that long. From March, from March 12th, well, it was later than that, by the time we got through in Camp Bennett, Illinois, sworn in and everything and IQ test and this and that.
D.H. So you were pretty busy when you were down in Texas?
O.R. Yeah, basic training down there, then. Like I said, we went to troop training to New York.
D.H. I imagine New York was quite a site when you first got there?
O.R. Oh yeah, yeah, right, but anyway then we, a friend of mine we took a little trip into New York then. We had to take a ferry in the first place into New York and we went right down to Broadway, Broadway and sightseeing. We took the subways and well we were only around there maybe a couple of weeks and we loaded up on a troop ship again.
We went to Iceland.
D.H. What were you doing in Iceland?
O.R As far as I am concerned, it was, it was a holding area they needed to get rid of us so they could train more troops in El Paso so we were sent to Iceland and spent fifteen months there. The English had left, and we took over the English anti-aircraft guns.
D.H. Now, what did you do for fun in Iceland? For fifteen months, I imagine there was some down time?
O.R. We were forty miles from Reykjavik and there was no way, except by truck, and it wasn’t the best roads so we just never went no place, they had movies though.
D.H. Oh, so you guys watched movies, I imagine you played some cards?
O.R. We played cards and this and that.
D.H. Is there anything else you want to say about Iceland, I mean was it a desolate place was it a cold place?
O.R. It wasn’t as cold as far as Reykjavik. It generally didn’t get too cold where the ice would freeze hard enough for the kids to skate on.
D.H. Really?
O.R. But then it never got real warm in the summertime either. I mean it was something; it was dark until about ten o’clock in the morning then you only had a few hours of sunlight. But in the summer you had just the opposite. When we landed there, the first day I was there it was eleven o’clock and I didn’t have my watch on and I asked somebody what time is it? About ten to twelve, it was like I wanted to go to sleep, and here it was eleven o’clock, daylight. The same up in Alaska.
D.H. So where did they move you from Iceland, where did you go after that?
O.R. Well then we, from Iceland we got loaded up on a troop ship again and headed for England.
D.H. Do you remember any of the names of these troop ships, like what was the name of the ship you went on?
O.R. It was the Queen Bermuda, that’s from New York to Iceland, Queen Bermuda.
D.H. Wasn’t it a nice ship?
O.R. Yeah, an English ship I think.
D.H. Yeah, were a lot of guys seasick on the way over?
O.R. Yup, not so much then, but from Iceland to England, lots of them got seasick.
D.H. Did you get sick?
O.R. No, yeah, I finally did too. Me and another guy, we played checkers or something and the first thing I knew he said boy, I have to go and it wasn’t long and I had to go too. Do you want to hear the mess?
D.H. Sure.
O.R. You know the urinal?
D.H. Yeah.
O.R. The urinal’s they got plugged up, guys, you know throwing up, floors got all, soldiers throwing up and even to the point that they were falling down and sliding in it, it was an awful mess.
D.H. Who was the poor guy that had to clean that up?
O.R. And the air conditioning, we had to close everything up. I mean the storm was that bad! Well it even got that bad that they asked for volunteers, soldiers to volunteer. The sailors were sick. It was a pretty rough trip.
D.H. It sounds like it and that was on the Queen Bermuda?
O.R. Yeah.
D.H. When you, on your route to England, where did you go in England? Where did you dock?
O.R. I don’t remember where we actually docked at, but we sailed out of South Hampton for France then.
D.H. So you went right to France?
O.R. Yeah.
D.H. And what year was this about, was in 1943, 1944?
O.R. Well, 19, well what ever they had the invasion of the place anyway.
D.H. The D-Day invasion?
O.R. Yeah.
D.H. Were you part of the D-Day invasion?
O.R. No, it wasn’t D-Day it was D-Day three or six or something like that.
D.H. So you were actually taking part in, what beach did you land on?
O.R. Alma, I mean, what’s the other beach?
D.H. Normandy.
O.R. Normandy, yeah, Normandy.
D.H. OK, so how was that, was there still a lot of fighting going on?
O.R. Well, there was, the situation didn’t look good. We climbed down a rope ladder and off the big troop ship and into a landing barge and then rushed ashore and we beat it up to whatever cover we could get, but I suppose you probably heard that too. The dead, they took them, bulldozed a lot of trenches and just laid them side-by-side and covered them up. They had to do that otherwise you know the body would deteriorate. Then they’d come and pick them up and dig them up after.
D.H. So when you came off the ship, that is what you saw?
O.R. Yeah, that is what we saw.
D.H. Were the German’s taken down at that point, I mean?
O.R. They were driven back a ways, some miles anyway.
D.H. Was it still a pretty scary experience to be landing on the shore?
O.R. Oh yeah, right, right, then the anti aircraft guns came and we were set up on the high end of the Air Force airport. They made an airstrip, and we set up anti-aircraft guns. We were protecting the airstrip there and also the supply ships coming in.
D.H. Now before the invasion of Normandy did you know something was going to happen?
O.R. No.
D.H. You were just kind of there?
O.R. You’re not told anything.
D.H. Tell me a little bit about training for anti aircraft was this kind of enjoyable to you?
O.R. Well, it was something. When you have a four inch, like that, and a twenty-three inch long shell and you are right up there, I am right up there firing it. They didn’t furnish earplugs but I managed to keep cotton batten. I got a hold of cotton batten and every time the alarms went off to get a lock on your guns, I stuffed my ears with cotton batten.
D.H. I imagine you’re very happy you did that later?
O.R. Yeah, I still have pretty good hearing.
D.H. It’s wise. A lot of guys I interviewed didn’t do that. Were you impressed with how far the gun could shoot, especially since you are an ex hunter too?
O.R. Yeah, these planes I was telling you about, if we looked up we could see shrapnel, where it had hit, you know, and all of a sudden a plane would come tumbling down. I had some of them come down and within couple, maybe within three hundred feet or so, a thousand pound bomber. I then the Germans got wise as to where we were so they started setting them so they come up around our area. The way it looked to me, I don’t know too much about them, but it looks like they set so much fuel per certain distance, you know, because they would peter out and go down and blow up. When a thousand pound bomb hits the ground, it exploded.
D.H. Yeah, either way.
O.R. Yeah, right.
D.H. Were you a gunner throughout the war?
O.R. Yeah.
D.H. So when you got off the ship, you were put on the guns and you were manning them?
O.R. Yeah, right.
D.H. How long were you in Normandy protecting?
O.R. Well we took Normandy. Then the troops even took Paris. Took Paris and then we kind of followed up, and then we wound up, we found a place, a big mansion, that we stayed in then, right in Paris.
D.H. Was the mansion pretty nice?
O.R. Well, yeah, I mean there were no beds or nothing much. We just had to lay down our blankets and lay on the floor, I mean all the way around.
D.H. One of the things that I hear from a lot of the guys, is you know, you are still fairly young at this point and your single, correct?
O.R. Right.
D.H. Were a lot of the guys hooking up with a lot of the local women?
O.R. Oh yeah, right.
D.H. Did you go on any dates with any of the French women, or any of the English?
O.R. No, yeah right.
D.H. Any good stories that you want to tell about that?
O.R. Well, I had, even up in Iceland I had a, had a girlfriend. She was a heck of a nice girl too, and on top of it she even wanted to come to the states, but after I got back I just forgot about it.
D.H. Do you remember her name by chance?
O.R. Stina, Stena, Stena Yansdaughter.
D.H. Stena Youngdaughter?
O.R. Yandsdaughter, that’s in Iceland.
D.H. So did you, did you ever write to her when you were overseas at all?
O.R. No, no, I wanted to just forget about it. I figured bringing a girl over here, who couldn’t talk very good English and I worked on the railroad and, heck, I was only back a short while, and I was promoted to an engineer. If I wanted to work, I had to go to the range and work all summer on the range, so I couldn’t hardly see bringing a girl over here.
D.H. So how did you meet her, I mean she spoke a different language?
O.R. Well, up in Iceland, I was at an outpost and it was five months at this outpost and one would be in to the main camp too, they call it a rest, there were no showers or nothing but in this main camp, it wasn’t the main camp all together it was kind of an outpost and where you could go in and shower and I don’t know, otherwise I was at this tower and mostly there it was no enemy planes coming over there. There were enemy planes, yes, but they were reconnaissance planes and that’s when they were shipping a lot of supplies to Russia and the German’s were keeping a close eye on these merchant ships. We would be up there manning these English guns and there would probably be two, three ships coming in and the next day probably four, five more come in and pretty soon probably be a couple of dozen and all at once the next morning they are all gone. That is what is taking place up there. The German’s were watching the convoys because they had submarines out there, sinking a lot of the merchant ships. But anyway another exciting point, I was in charge of this outpost, there was eight of them all together and I am up there, and if I caught them reading I would just call them on it. I would do a little cheating myself, and geez, all at once I heard a plane and I looked up here’s a German recognizance plane. See we were screwing around too but the German planes weren’t and I grabbed my rifle first, I thought boy, what the heck are they doing this for? But, do what I am suppose to do, call in, so I called in and gave the altitude and the direction and the name of the plane and about fifteen minutes later I got a call, what a good job I had done, what a good description, they shot them down going back to Norway.
D.H. OK, you never really answered but how did you meet Stena?
O.R. What’s that?
D.H. How did you meet the Icelander?
O.R. Oh, there was what you call a girls summer camp.
D.H. Okay.
O.R. Close to the outpost and there were different girls back and forth that were coming, and even one time, even one time about four or five Icelandic girls went down to the outpost there and they even got a hold of some booze. They were drinking and one of them grabbed the telephone and was going to talk on the telephone and I had to grab the telephone and took it away from her, otherwise that would go into the main office, you know, with an Icelandic girl on the telephone. Anyway that was it, but when I met her there was a something like little Niagara Falls out here. Have you ever been out there, Niagara Falls?
D.H. No.
O.R. Or Gooseberry Falls?
D. H. Oh yeah, yeah.
O.R. I walked down there, and here’s two of these girls. Well, we walked up to them and got a conversation with them and got together then while they were out there camping. Well, she went back to, she run a lamp shop in Reykjavik, so I went into Reykjavik then, and I supposed to be on a week’s vacation and met her while I was in Reykjavik then and I had to go back so she came back out to where the outpost were.
D.H. When you were over in France, did you meet some other women too, I imagine.
O.R. I don’t like to tell everything, but it seems like I would have a girlfriend in every place we went, I would meet up with a girl, in France and Germany, even Germany and Belgium.
D.H. So you meet many girls it sounds like?
O.R. Yeah, yeah.
D.H. Was there a certain country where a lot of your friends were dating girls as well?
O.R. Well, lots of them, yeah, and I felt sorry for, I felt sorry for some of the guys, when they were true, true to their wife or whatever their girlfriend back home. Those poor guys they would get a “Dear John letter”, you know, wife wanted a divorce, couldn’t wait for him, or I mean they and the guys that went out to have a good time, it seems like they had wives when they come back, so I mean it was a funny thing.
D.H. I guess I will go back to more of your military part. As an anti-aircraft gunner, were you, I mean it was a safer position but it was still kind of a scary thing to be, like you said you had planes with thousand pound bombs dropping by. Were there close calls?
O.R. The only time, just a few times otherwise, a lot of shrapnel would come down from other anti aircraft in the area, you know. Like our tents, our tents would be all cut up with shrapnel falling down.
D.H. Any of the guys in your crew get actually hit by the shrapnel?
O.R. Ummmmm, one of the guys, my gun, we were walking out but he didn’t get hurt too bad. We were walking out of the gun pit and off hand, jiminy cripe, he turned around, and I heard kind of a smack like, what are you doing, what do you mean what am I doing? Well, the shrapnel hit him on the shoulder. Yeah, yeah, but it didn’t hurt him too much.
D.H. Okay, I am sure it gave him a good shock, though.
O.R. Right, right.
D.H. And so from where did you move on to from Normandy, you went to Paris it sounds like?
O.R. Yeah, we went to Paris, well, we were in Paris there, maybe a month or so, not doing much of anything, that’s when these pilotless planes started coming, sending them out of Holland, trying to wipe out the Port of Ansburg. Well then we loaded up, loaded up and headed for Belgium then.
D.H. It is kind of a basic question, but, for how many times you take a shot, how many times do you actually hit a plane? Like how hard was it to actually hit a plane in the sky?
O.R. Well, like an airplane just as soon, if you didn’t hit them the first time they go into a dive, a maneuver, and see when they check the radar they were suppose to be over here and if they took a dive they would be down here someplace. So that is how they ducked the anti aircraft thing.
D.H. So you had to get them on that first try?
O.R. Yeah, yeah, I mean probably not every time but I mean you do your best. Like the pilot less plane, like I say, they flew a straight course and we got the credit. I can’t hardly believe that, though. We were shooting down twelve hundred of them but I, we got credit for that, knocking them off course, shooting them down, they didn’t hit the target anyway.
D.H. Yeah, and so your battalion was responsible for that or was that your whole unit?
O.R. What’s that?
D.H. Was that your whole unit, the 495th, that was responsible, or was it just your battalion, that was responsible for the twelve hundred?
O.R. That’s something I can’t tell you, now. Probably the Battalion then.
D.H. How did you like the city of Paris?
O.R. We got a chance to, we got a chance to, I’ll have to tell you another story. I got quite a bit to drink, quite a bit and we have our truck parked over there by the Eiffel Tower. So I am walking across the Themes River and I was kind of lost, I asked the Frenchman, where is the Eiffel Tower? No, no comprito, don’t understand, I asked another one, no, finally the third one, Tur Efel? I said I bet that is it, Tur Efel, in French the tower Eiffel.
D.H. Then did you know what it was?
O.R. Yeah, I was on the right track to the Eiffel Tower.
D.H. Were the people in France pretty friendly?
O.R. Oh yeah, right, right.
D.H. Very thankful, I imagine too?
O.R. Oh yeah, right, we got lots of hugs and kisses from the girls.
D.H. I am sure you didn’t mind that too much?
O.R. No, no, that’s right.
D.H. I heard a lot of people talk about how the wine was really good in France?
O.R. Oh yeah, right, bein rouge they call that, red wine. Ben rouge or something.
D.H. Where did you go on from Paris then?
O.R. From Paris to Belgium.
D.H. To Belgium.
O.R. Belgium, yeah.
D.H. Describe your situation in Belgium?
O.R. Well, we sat up there in Belgium then and we did lots of firing there at the pilotless planes and then the Belgium Bounce took place and boy we weren’t getting groceries and they were having trouble getting ammunition. Then we all called out and had to line up and have, that is when things got a little bit rough, half of the outfit was suppose to go into the infantry and half stayed on the anti-aircraft. Boy I was sweating it out, boy I didn’t want to go in the infantry. No, I stayed on the anti aircraft, but we had to stay on twenty-four hours a day. We couldn’t even go up to our, we lived in tents, and we had to stay on the guns all the time. But, they were only gone a couple of weeks and they come back.
D.H. All the guys they made it through?
O.R. Yeah.
D.H. How was Belgium as a place, was it an enjoyable place to be at?
O.R. Oh, yeah, yeah, we got into town a few different times, back in those days I was a pretty good drinker, which I am not a drinker anymore.
D.H. What was your drink of choice over in Belgium?
O.R. What’s that?
D.H. What did you like to drink?
O.R. It was mostly wine, I think, yeah wine.
D.H. What country do you think had the best wine that you were at?
O.R. Well, I would say France.
D.H. France, okay. Anything else in Belgium that you would like to talk about before I move on to another area? How long were you there about?
O.R. Oh, we were there, we were there, oh maybe four, five months and then we, that was about the end of our, about the end, getting close to the end of the war, then.
D.H. OK, do you remember the day, do you remember, did you go any further than Belgium or is Belgium the last place you were at?
O.R. Well, we went to our First Sergeant, he wanted to get some material so we went into Czechoslovakia and he wanted to fix up a church light for some reason, so we went into Czechoslovakia. Potts, that was territory that the Russians were suppose to occupy and boy when we came in there they kind of surrounded us and well there was no trouble, but we didn’t want to make trouble either.
D.H. Right, so what did you think of the Russians, were they a friendly group?
O.R. I don’t know I didn’t really have much contact with them, at least at that time, no.
D.H. Did you have any feelings that you would eventually be going to war against them?
O.R. Well, when we were in France, our outfit, they went up to get a truckload of prisoners, at a prisoner of war camp, and they were suppose to clean up, pick up cigarette butts, clean up the area, whatever work we wanted them to do. But anyway this German, he could talk English but not real good. So I closed the flaps on the tent and we talked back and forth and he said, you know what, instead of the United States and us fighting against one other we should be fighting against Russia, that was it. But he was a human being and got drafted into the service the same as us.
D.H Do you think the Germans that you met, is that kind of how you were in this area?
O.R. Yeah, yeah, we didn’t, I didn’t anyway, I mean, but anyway we didn’t have any trouble finding girlfriends there either, you know. I have to tell you a little story, I am walking down the railroad tracks, we didn’t have much to do, and I meet this German girl and girl and she sort of smiles. We weren’t suppose to fraternize you know, and she kind of smiled and I kept on walking and I turned around, turned around and looked back and here she be standing there turning around looking back and a couple of times like that and then finally I went back to her, I had to go back where I came from and walking back here she is down in the behind some brush down below the railroad bed and she waved at me, well I couldn’t resist that, but that was the end of that though.
D.H. Yeah, so of all the different countries that you went to, were the women the nicest, what country did you have?
O.R. I can’t hardly say, over in England we had good times over there, I was up in Scotland too, and I got a ten day leave and me and another guy we went up to Glasgow, Scotland and we spent ten days up there, well the girls would even. I was with one right off the bat and then another one would tap you on the shoulder when you would walk by
and try to take me away from the one that I had.
D.H. It sounds like you actually had quite a bit of fun over there.
O.R. Oh yeah, right, right.
D.H. When you heard that Hitler committed suicide were you pretty happy about it?
O.R. Well yeah because we knew more or less the war would be coming to an end, you know.
D.H. When the war did finally come to an end did you guys go out and have some beers?
O.R. Well, not too much, I mean we were probably happy to have it all over with. I knew we survived the war or whatever and we would eventually be going back.
D.H. But when you guys heard the news you didn’t go out and get drunk that night?
O.R. No, no, no, we weren’t that close to town either, you know.
D.H. Obviously you wrote letters back home?
O.R. Yeah, right.
D.H. How often did you write back home?
O.R. Oh, maybe every week or so.
D.H. Did you usually write to your dad?
O.R. My mother, the folks.
D.H. What did you talk about in your letters back home?
O.R. Well, you have a letter there that is when I first down in El Paso, when I first got into the Army and we were heading for New Mexico, the firing range, the first time we tried out getting trained on the anti aircraft guns.
D.H. I imagine that was pretty enjoyable the first couple of times?
O.R. Right, right, right.
D.H. Is there any certain particular story that I may have passed over during your war experience overseas that you want to talk about?
O.R. Not that I know of, right off hand.
D.H. When you went out looking for entertainment, shall we say, did you go out with some of your friends usually?
O.R. Oh yeah, right, right.
D.H. Were there any sights over in Europe that you really enjoyed and want to go back and see again?
O.R. Well, I can’t think of that, but back in the states, when we went down to New Mexico we, well forget that, I shouldn’t even mention that.
D.H. Why?
O.R. Well, I forget the name of it. Carlsbad Caverns, yeah, we went there and it was a good trip for the day, sightseeing.
D.H. Of the countries that you visited in Europe, were there any that you’d like to go back too?
O.R. Not exactly, no, not at my age now anyway, what the heck, probably when I was younger, but I would say no I traveled all over there and saw a lot.
D.H. You’re happy with that?
O.R. Right, right, happy with that.
D.H. When you were actually shooting down planes did you guys have contests amongst your friends that were gunners?
O.R. Oh yeah, not often, no, guys in our outfit, there was probably about one-hundred and seventy-five men or so.
D.H. Is there any thing else that you want to say for the record about your war experience I mean, when you realized that you were coming back were you excited about it?
O.R. Oh yeah, real, real happy.
D.H. How long did it take you to actually get back?
O.R. It took thirteen days, thirteen.
D.H. So it took you thirteen days to get back, were your parents pretty happy to see you when you came back?
O.R. Oh yeah, right, right, do you know how long I was gone? Four years, four years and about six months, overseas, from the time I left until I got back.
D.H. So you never had leave, you never came back?
O.R. Never came back, no.
D.H. Straight time.
O.R. Down in Fort Bliss and in August already we were on our way to Iceland.
D.H. That is a long time to be overseas.
O.R. Right, right.
D.H. Especially when you think today, a lot of guys are gone for fifteen months.
O.R. Right, right.
D.H. Four years is quite a bit of time.
O.R. Right, right, four years and eight months, six months.
D.H. Four years and six months. Unless you can think of anything else you want to say.
O.R. I can’t think of any, right off hand, no.
D.H. Well I just want to say it was a pleasure doing an interview with you today and I think you have quite a story.
O.R. My old brain is getting a little bit rusty too, you know. Some of those questions I couldn’t probably answer right off.
D.H. Well, I think you did a really good job. And I want to thank you for that.
