CHAPTER 4

Overseas

We embarked somewhere in New York after we left Camp Kilmer and carried our own GI belongings in barracks bags on our backs as we trudged, single file, up the gangplank. In my barracks bag I packed my own baseball glove, an Agfa Memo camera, and in my pocket I had my army pay book inside of which I tucked Betty’s picture, taken on the roof of the Georgiana Hotel, during our honeymoon. As we got out to sea, I could see ships our ships as far as the horizon. We shipped out in one of the largest convoys in military history. A converted luxury liner, reportedly originally Italian, it had been captured and confiscated from our Axis enemy. This ship carried the entire 11th Armored Division, 15,000 men, and much of our equipment. We were informed that this convoy was a prize target for the enemy. U.S. Navy battleships, cruisers and submarines guarded us. White lights at night, in or on the ship, were not allowed. Smoking on or above deck was prohibited. Throwing anything in the water was not allowed. It could leave a “trail”.

We participated in periodic “abandon ship drills” on a deck about 40 feet above the surface of the water. That did not bother me; I had dived that far (but in bathing trunks) at a YMCA in Kalamazoo, Michigan and been trained at A.S.T P. to jump feet first from a 20-foot platform, remove my pants and make “water wings” from them. However, we did wear Army boots; they were about 16 inches high and laced to the top. That water looked cold and deep.

I slept in a bunk about 2 feet by 6 feet, spaced about 2 feet vertically. One did not sit up, but rolled out. Until I ran out of money, I played poker in the galley below decks but probably not the water line; the only lights at night were red, which made seeing the heart and diamond suits very difficult.

We ate only two meals a day. Quite a change from the “three a day” to which I had become accustomed in camp After I gambled away my money, which took a day or so, I borrowed enough to buy semi sweet (Bakers) chocolate bars at the ships store, but they began to sicken me.

I observed the craps games and found out why I lost so often. Benny D (he shall remain anonymous) clued me in. He shot percentage dice, and when he could, shot loaded dice. When we got to England, he mailed fifty $100 mail orders to his mom, and went AWOL, which constituted desertion in the face of the enemy.

One night, I went to the ship’s mess deck and observed Navy personnel as they ate. Each swabby had a feeding assignment but unassigned men were pronounced supernumeraries, and allowed in. So, I became one for a few nights and then got caught. Hungry time began for me. I learned later that I merely experienced appetite; hunger is a more drastic experience.

I did not get, as did many of our troops, seasick. The boat pitched and rocked, I suppose, but I was fascinated by all the new philosophies, sight, sounds, and smells. I had been on a boat before, the ferry on the Detroit River, from Detroit, Michigan to Belle Island, twice. Two or three weeks later that changed overnight. After the ship pulled in to Southampton and anchored, the boat stopped rocking, but not me. I got so sick I was afraid I would live. The ship’s pharmacy mate pulled me through after what seemed like hours of having me inside my stomach and trying to get out. But, as usual, I survived.

Next day we disembarked. We took buses to a camp about 90 miles southwesterly from London. The nearest town, Hindon was 10 miles away and the nearest train station, Warminster, was 25 miles away as we were to find out. The famous City of Bath was in the vicinity, as I would find out many years later.

During aircraft recognition training I learned how to distinguish between the types of rockets the German Army launched at England. It was the end of September and security was very tight. We were warned to keep it that way and perhaps we would not become targets for rockets like the V 1 or V2 and the German Army’s Luftwaffe. The V1, a RamJet rocket, was nicknamed the buzz bomb. It sounded like a large buzzer with hiccups. I heard more than a few. The V2 was silent and if not seen in time, would hit without warning. We saw and heard a few

We slept on cots in Quonset huts. A Quonset hut looks like half of a large corrugated sheet metal barrel, on its side; the sides set in concrete. The end walls were made of wood and contained the doors. Our cots were made of wooden frames and slats and had straw mattresses. The rest of our bed included a khaki colored (GI) blanket. In our machine gun section was a Pvt. Kenneth Neilsen, the burly looking son of a minister. He stood more than six feet tall and spoke softly. When he saw his cot, it was the first time I heard him swear.

We trained, took our 25-mile hikes, played games and got a pass now and then. My first pass in England got me to Hindon and a dance at the town hall. At a ping-pong table there winners played until they lost. I did not lose hence did not dance once; I gave up my paddle when it was time to go back to camp. I had a one day pass to London. A bus drove us to Warminster’s train station that morning, where we entrained for Paddington Station in London. We were told what time that night to catch both the train and the bus back to camp.

“Wild Bill” Hayek and I teamed up. He had all the ideas and we took in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, Baker Street, and the main London Red Cross Serviceman’s Center. We had just appeared in front of the Red Cross reception desk when I heard a loud crash and the building shook. I looked at the lady behind the desk who correctly assumed I was frightened. She calmed me down with a few assuring words something like “This happens all the time, don’t be alarmed, love”. She quickly ascertained that a German V2 rocket had hit and destroyed a number of buildings within two blocks. I stayed for a while, looking for free donuts and coffee. I got a clue to the fact that I was headed for a real war when I met an infantry soldier who had been in combat. His left eye socket had a patch of skin over it. He lost his eye in combat. When I asked him if he had killed a German he replied, “I don’t know” and “I just got started when I got hit”. He would be going home soon, after more plastic surgery and a glass eye implant.

Bill Hayek went off somewhere. I took a long walk and found a small bookstore. (Many years later I found and purchased a framed picture that reminded me of that bookstore.) I had less than hardly any money. I took a walk, found a beer joint and had one or two; the only other booze there was gin but I could not afford it. I had only little more than enough money to pay for a cab ride. The train and bus were free to GIs.

The train at Paddington Station was due to leave at 1700 hours so I dutifully got into a taxicab at 1600 hours and we set off for Paddington. Within a few minutes the driver pulled to the side of the road in response to an air raid siren. Between the Luftwaffe, buzz bombs and V 2 rockets by the time I got to the train station the train had left. None was scheduled until next morning. I reckoned I might as well make the best of it and see the town.

I recalled Word War One songs about Piccadilly Circus so it was my next stop, by bus. The sun began to set and nightlife was beginning. Ladies of the evening were drumming up business and one street corners vendor had a humorous pitch “Newspapers, flashlights, condoms, condoms, condoms!” I became an entranced observer, due to a combination of lack of interest, fear, and financial necessity. I wandered, tired and inquired about lodgings for the night. The cheapest were in Soho so I walked there and found a room with a chair and bed. The toilet and bathroom were down the hall .The skeleton key and keyhole looked like a simple lock picker would not be challenged. I took off my boots, locked the door, left the key in the lock on the room side, propped the chair under the doorknob and flopped. In the middle of the night, the chair jiggled. It woke me up; I spoke up and went back to sleep. In the morning I went back to Paddington Station and boarded the train for Warminster.

When the train arrived at Warminster, no bus or Army vehicles could be seen. I started to hike and had made about 15 miles when I thumbed a ride at a jeep driver. A U. S. Army Major from G 2 (Intelligence) gave me a ride to Company Headquarters and promptly turned me in to Sergeant Wolf. After a Summary Court Marshall and 7 days of “Company Punishment” sentence for being “Absent without Leave” for 5 days I pulled weeds and watered the flowers around the Company Headquarters hut.

A Quonset hut housed an enlisted man’s recreation hall, equipped with a jukebox, pool table, and a ping-pong table. One day as I played ping-pong, a trooper came in and warned me that First Sergeant Wolf was looking for me and I was in big trouble. Seconds later, Billy Campbell walked in and began to berate our security. Stationed miles away, just by asking a few questions, he found our camp, my company and me. He had ridden a civilian motorcycle he had bought, illegally acquired some gasoline and came to see me. When I asked, “Where is the motorcycle?”, he divulged that he had stored it in Company Headquarters for safekeeping. Sergeant Wolf knew him as he we had all gone to L .A. together once. So we moved the motorcycle to the rec hall. We had a chat, drank some Southern Comfort whiskey that he had stashed and he went back to his camp. I did not see him again until after the war ended in 1945.

One day I walked into the rec hall and three guys had corralled a medic named Harry. One held one leg, a second held his other. They spread-eagled him and a third was tormenting his crotch. When I asked why they were doing that their response was “He’s a queer”. I had not noticed either him or his squeaky voice previously and although I thought I knew what it meant, had never heard that word applied.

Our recreation included playing football. We had no protective gear and played in a nearby pasture, which had been recently decorated in cow pies. That gave open field running a different dimension. I was a pretty good tumbler, runner and passer. As a quarterback, one day I decided to run up the middle. Buddy Young tackled me at the line of scrimmage and put his head into my solar plexus. When I woke up I had been knocked way back on my butt, down, and out. Private Young was 5 feet 6 inches tall but he weighed 200 pounds and had played varsity college football.

Late in October we were ready to ship across the channel when all our weapons and equipment was taken from us and shipped to the 14th Armored Division, an all Negro outfit, which had suffered heavy equipment losses in combat. We got new weapons and spent a week as we cleaned off Cosmoline; sticky greasy metals preservative, from our weapons and test fired them. Our training include indoctrination lectures like do not shake hands with strange ladies without wearing gloves.

We were informed that the most likely way we would get home would be to defeat the Germans, then the Russians, and then the Japanese. It looked like a long, if not impossible, war ahead.
Me and a Heavy cal. 30

A cal. 30 heavy machine gun crew consists of a gunner, assistant gunner and two ammo handlers. Our squad was armed with water-cooled .30 caliber machine guns, M1 carbines, Bazookas, and Westinghouse submachine guns.

A Westinghouse “grease gun” has a lid which when closed prevents the bolt from actuating, sliding back and forth, loading and firing. Like the Thompson Sub-machine gun, the barrel rises when fired in lengthy automatic bursts. Our machine guns fired at a rate of 300 rounds per minute; like a rat at tat tat sound. German machine guns and Schmeisser Machine Pistols fired at 1100 rounds per minute. Their sound was more like a brrrrp; hence their names, burp guns. One of my favorite jokes later became, “He is a good kid but the woods are full of them, with Burp guns.”

Headquarters Company’s armament included a .75-millimeter cannon, a relic from World War 1. The Company Commander traveled in an M8; a topless tank around which is an oval opening and a gear toothed track in a full




circle. A .50 caliber machine gun mounted in the track can be placed into position and fired in any azimuth (horizontal direction) and almost any vertical position.

After cleaning our guns and sharpening our bayonets, one morning we got up and headed for the “Chunnel”. Headquarters Company crossed the English Channel on a LCI, Landing Craft Infantry. While en route I got into a craps game but the ship pitched and bucked so much the dice took unlucky rolls for me. We went ashore in Le Havre, loaded into our vehicles and headed to the City of Rennes, in southern France. The scuttlebutt was that a division of German troops had been surrounded and we were to relieve our troops there. When we arrived at Rennes we were almost promptly allowed to go into the city. Several of us found a bar. It was quaint and had brick walls. We sat down inside and had a drink or two. Bolted to the wall was a metal sign that contained the menu and wine list. Betty collected menus. It took me two drinks and almost ten minutes to get that sign off the wall. I had it shipped to her. Our next stop in town was a campfire around which we sat and sang.

The war, for me, seemed to start the next day. The German Army penetrated American lines to the north; the Battle of the Bulge began. We departed Rennes in convoy and headed north with me in the assistant half-track driver’s position, behind the machine gun. Pryor drove and I relieved him part of the time.

All American planes were reportedly grounded. During a night on the trek, two unidentified fighter planes flew over the convoy and swiftly descended. We jumped to the ground, I dove behind a tree with a three foot trunk, pointed my rifle at the planes, and our M8 .50 caliber opened up. One plane fell and the other chose to depart, but made that decision too late. It too, was shot down. We saw no parachutes. I still hope those planes were theirs.

At the Ardennes Forest in France, still famous from WW 1, we set up a base, dug in, and suffered our first casualty. A gunner while arming a .30 caliber machine gun, fired accidentally. The bullet penetrated a 1/2-inch thick steel half-track wall and killed a troop. This is where I dug the first of many foxholes. Our squad leader, Sergeant Pepe of the New Jersey Pepe’s, also chewed me out there. He was one of the original cadres who survived the desert training and the onslaught from the influx of ASTP troops. Among other things, he ordered me to stop talking about going back to college to get my engineering degree. Many of the troops who trained in Indio resented the ASTP “boys”.

We moved and soon dug foxholes in a small valley, lined by trees on either side. We received enemy fire. Lt. Levin heard his first incoming shot at about this time and fainted. A smaller soldier, Minton was issued a truck and informed that he would be picking up our fatalities (KIA’s). A troop moving forward managed to drop into my foxhole. When he said, “ Could you go for a Coke”? I thought that was strange, it was cold and snow was everywhere but I thought, “If he has one, it sure will be different.” I agreed and he said, “Well, go for one”.

Our platoon leader decided that wearing our heavy woolen overcoats and gas masks was too cumbersome and that the likelihood of a poison gas attack was small. We dumped them and I donned an extra pair of battle fatigues. The two layers of clothing seemed warm enough and did not hinder my movement as much as that despicable overcoat.

We moved out in our half-tracks and passed a battle in which we did not engage. Dozens of German soldiers were surrounded in a small enclave looking down at and firing point blank at American troops also firing at point blank range. It was absolutely gruesome. Our half-track was less than 200 yards, yet it looked like as unreal as a scene from a movie. We did not participate in that skirmish.

We moved into a new position and as we entered a wooded area saw a gruesome, unforgettable scene. Two American and two German soldiers had apparently just shot each other to death. They lay on the ground in an opening the woods. Another American lay dead next to them.


We moved into a clearing and as we moved forward, received intense small arms and machine gun fire pinned us to the ground. A clean cut, and clean, lieutenant strolled upright and past me. I looked up and suggested he, too, take cover. He looked down disdainfully, commented not to worry, and proceeded. Within minutes two men dragged his corpse back from whence he had emerged. When the firing abated in the area of our squad, we rose, fired, and most of us advanced. We soon took our objective and I dug in. From my foxhole I could see a castle, which one I never found out. It looked like it could have been Castle Keep, but it seems to me that most castles look alike. Rumor had it that our top officers billeted there after having liberated it from the Krauts.

After a few days we were informed that we had been in the 1st Army, were headed north and would become part of General Patton’s 3rd Army. Ours, the 55th Armored Infantry Battalion, was designated as Combat Command Reserve. We moved out and toward a location I knew as St. Ceour but later found out was Recogne, Belgium north of Bastogne where the 101st Airborne Division was trapped. The German 1st and 15th Panzer Divisions were trying to flank Bastogne, Belgium and we were to stop them and beat them back. We proceeded to a small enclave, had a meal and trudged over to a small farming community. Several of us wandered into the houses that had been abandoned. I sadly observed that the occupants had fled, leaving their belongings, framed photos, pots, pans, and all. We went back to our half -tracks we started to eat and immediately received incoming artillery fire. Within minutes, eighteen battalions of U.S. Army Artillery opened up signaling the beginning of our attack.

We mounted up in our half-tracks and drove to a position at the bottom of a snow-covered hill. We dismounted, mobilized on foot, and attacked. American and German troops, many clad in white for camouflage fired at each other from the ground and in trees as we moved forward. The dead and wounded included Germans and Americans. An ammunition handler in that advance, I carried six boxes of .30 cal. machine gun ammo, 4 hooked onto an over the shoulder sling and one in each hand. My carbine, light field pack, which included “K” rations, and gas mask, were slung on my back. My body weighed 185 pounds. On my belt I carried a canteen, shovel, trench knife, personal throwing knife, and first aid pack; six ammo boxes weighed 150 pounds. I made deep footprints in the snow. The snow-covered ground was frozen. On the way up the hill I passed our armorer as he lay moaning on the ground. His weapon was a .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun with which he shot himself through the knee. I heard the call “Medic” many times that day. I trudged up that hill with all that gear, my carbine over my shoulder, and the place sounded like a dross between a firing range and a room full of screaming people. I got to the railroad tracks, parked the ammo next to the machine gun.

From our position next to a railroad track at the top of a hill, we looked down at small town about 800 yards away. Between the town and the track our troops engaged the enemy in close fighting and hand to hand combat. Sgt.Pepe opened fire and directed an almost continuous stream of bullets at enemy targets. Within seconds or minutes an enemy mortar shell dropped the three-man crew of the 75-mm. gun 10 yards to the right of us. Another mortar killed two just to the left of us. Dead enemy troops lay in front, to the side, and the rear of our position.

Sergeant Pepe sent me for more ammunition. I had been taught to hurry, but not in a straight line and keep my head down. Holding my carbine so as to keep snow from fouling the barrel I ran dodged and rolled down the hill to our half-track. When I got back with more ammo Company “A” withdrew ,under fire from both sides, to our line which became our “Line of Departure”; referring to enemy counter attack or our next attack. Wounded and dead lay all around us. One German lay three feet in front of the machine gun. One of our riflemen was said to killed or wounded 17 enemies. When he ran out of ammo he captured two with a trench knife. The Army awarded him a Silver Star that week. (Two weeks later they hauled him out on a stretcher; non-compis mentis or battle fatigue). A little later, two troops marched a soldier in an American uniform who loudly claimed to be Lt. Austin, an American pilot, who had been shot down. He was escorted to the rear, both hands on top of his head. We had been warned about infiltrators who wore American uniforms

I learned later that the Battalion Commander, Colonel Hearn had taken the railhead with “A” and “C” companies, as ordered. But he then overran his objective and both companies were forced to retreat when the enemy counterattacked. Colonel Hearn had been a perfume salesman before he earned his commission in the Army. Judgement of his performance concluded that he stank as a leader. Mike Baboff had been shot down and wounded and they left him behind. Two men later tried to rescue Mike but were shot and killed. During the next attack they found his frozen body. After the war his family had him interred at Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles.

Artillery, mortar and machine gun fire came in from three sides. I found a corner, below a small knoll and dug in. Machine gun tracers came in a foot above my head. I heard a strange buzz and noticed that non-tracer bullets came in several inches below the tracers. I dug hurriedly into the frozen ground and I broke my GI shovel. The next morning to get another shovel I had to argue very hard and finally threatens the Supply Sergeant. I got a new shovel. After the battle, I saw Sergeant Sol Farber. They packed him out on a stretcher. He had trench foot.On December 24 Sergeant Johnny Moore came to my foxhole and ordered me to shave and spruce up the camouflage on my helmet. We expected a visit from a General. We considered that typical Army chicken-shit. The Battalion kitchen came up and fed us a hot meal. They had been in a rear area and had not even shaved.

On December 25 two enemy “Tiger” tanks slowly probed our left flank. Sergeant Johnny Moore handed me a bazooka, loaded it. I aimed and prepared to fire. The only vulnerable area was the tracks of the Tigers. We had to wait until they got closer. Of course, we would then be in range of their forward mounted machine guns. Just before they got into bazooka range, eight of our tanks rolled up, into a defilade position (behind the crest of the hill). Four of our General Sherman tanks rolled forward fired and rolled back. Four more did the same. The Tiger tanks retreated without returning fire.

That evening, as I munched on a K ration, I looked up to see two enemy soldiers walking along the railroad tracks toward our position. Each had his hands on his heads, a position of surrender. Sgt. Pepe jumped up immediately, pointed a rifle and took them prisoner and marched them to the rear. Our Lieutenant, the Platoon Leader, was informed within minutes and became enraged. He went on a hunt of his own. When he returned he reported that had killed two enemy soldiers to make up for those that “got away”. It turned out the ones who “got away” were Scandinavians; Pioneer troops pressed into service as labor by the German Army. Later, I passed one dead, frozen German soldier three times. Each time it appeared that he had either been rolled over or his pockets having been turned out.

Our attack had been in V formation, two columns converging to a point, or spearhead. Foot infantry troops, fought for the space between rear and the point. This is called mopping up. We had enemy troops on both flanks, to the rear, and in front of our position.

On the 26th Sergeant Johnny Moore ordered me out of my foxhole and put me on guard duty at the rear of our column. Our shift was 4 hours on and 4 hours off, for 24 hours. We stood off to the side and guarded the road. We took turns with a bazooka and a .45 cal. grease gun (an all metal Westinghouse .45 cal. machine gun.) On one of my watches, a jeep with a driver and passenger came toward my position. I halted it and gave the password. The passenger, Colonel Hearn, refused to state the countersign, loudly and obstinately postulating that any nearby enemy in the woods would hear it. I allowed him to advance and be recognized. I should have shot him, anyhow. He would later stupidly place our squad and my life in unnecessary peril.

Paratroopers utilized as ground troops relieved us and we pulled out of the line. We moved back a mile or more, cleaned up and got some mail. Betty had not heard from me, nor had I from her, in 57 days. Betty had written a letter almost if not every day. I got more than 50 letters. She later wrote that Mike Baboff’s mother had been notified. Betty worried about me. It was still very cold and our outfit ran out of fences to scrounge for firewood. We got some hot food, even pancakes. We expected hot showers, shoepacks, new socks, and some rest. But, our paratroopers attacked the little town, and fought their way to the other side as the Germans retreated. With our boy’s backs to the town, enemy artillery in the town’s basements opened up, the Germans attacked and 400 paratroops were killed. The krauts then counterattacked up the hill. We moved back into our previous positions and repelled the German counter attack. Minton came by and announced that he had a truck full KIAs. When asked how many he said, “Thirty two and a half.” We looked and they were all frozen, and the ½ protruded from the back of the truck.

I went on guard duty in the company commander’s M8, our company HQ. I manned the.50 caliber machine gun in the event of an enemy attack or infiltration. The previous night the M 8 the Krauts attacked and the company clerk, Ostrov, gunned down at least six. Not bad for a guy who crapped in his pants during the machine gun infiltration training course back in the States. Two nights before, 8 of our troops who had been captured were shot on the spot and each was found with a boot stuck in his mouth. I remained vigilant and alert that night. The Wermacht was equipped with and used loud speakers to attempt to demoralize us. No attack came but the enemy loudspeakers blared propaganda loud enough to keep many of our troops awake. I learned early that morning that the enemy knew the names of the officers in our unit. Rumor was it that they also knew the names of all of the enlisted men.

The 11th Armored Division had secured the northern flank of the 3rd Army. In a couple of days, we loaded into our vehicles and headed south toward Bastogne. As we turned to get on a road I saw an unforgettable sculpture. On a snow bank on the side of a hill was a young blonde German soldier stuck in the middle, his shirt torn off from the blast that blew him into the snow bank. His eyes were wide open, his mouth agape and his arms were flung out; a model of pure astonishment.

The 4th Armored Division had relieved the 101st Airborne in Bastogne. As our convoy rolled along a road we could see that the town in shambles. Ruins of buildings lined the road on both sides. Civilians were not to be seen.

We proceeded into Houffalize, Belgium. We stopped for the night and received enthusiastic greetings. A boy of about 10 gave me a silver colored Saint Christopher medal, about 2 inches long. I put it into my pay book. I also carried a mezuzah with a scroll inside the tube given to me by Betty. I rested and wrote a letter. One of our guys did a little too much socializing and drank from a bottle of cleaning solvent. He died screaming, but it took him all night. We went on the move the next day. We had plenty of food, cigarettes, water and supplies. We were low on manpower. We had lost two of our men and one of the replacements became the squad mule. I no longer hauled ammo but served as small arms support for the squad, bazooka, runner, and booby trap man.

Heavily supported by artillery, tanks, and later, P-47 airplanes, we attacked the next town, Longchamps. We dug into an enfilade position on a high hill (enfilade is in front of the peak) with a very broad field of fire and plenty of targets upon which to fire. We looked down on a valley, probably about a square mile in area, encircled by three ridges. I saw spectacular scenes and close combat. About 800 yards in front of me one of our riflemen troops got hit by a shell or stepped on a mine and literally disappeared.

Sgt. Pepe ordered me take a message to a position two ridges to our right, a distance of about a mile. As I neared the top of the first ridge, I encountered three American officers. One appeared to be a General. I tossed a quick salute and proceeded about 20 yards and heard a shell come in and quickly sat down; the shell burst overhead and a fragment or more hit a troop in a fox hole, 20 feet to my right. He stood up, looked at me, his face turned bluish gray and he keeled over, dead. Two troops quickly hauled him out of that foxhole. I proceeded to my contact, delivered the message and started back. I decided to eat, reached into my pack and removed a frozen can of “C” rations; I had no “K”. The cans were designed to be eaten after heating on a portable Sterno type stove. I had no stove nor fuel but I opened it anyway. After digging out a couple of bites, the scene sank in and my appetite departed. So did I. Crouching, weaving and running so as to be a poor target, got back to my squad.

As the enemy began to zero in on our position we received concentrated enemy mortar and artillery fire. We moved forward down the hill into an enfilade, (exposed) position. We began to receive heavy artillery and mortar fire. We advanced. Another ammo handler, Ettinger, and I found a ready-made foxhole. I dove into it. He stood next to it for just long enough to draw fire; a second after I dragged him in an enemy mortar or shell hit, but we were OK except that our whole advance could not move forward without very heavy casualties. They had us pinned down. Within minutes, a squadron of P-47s zoomed down into the valley about 200 feet over our heads and into the enemy artillery. It shut down. We advanced and passed one of the planes that had been shot down took the town of Longchamps. I lost track of Ettinger either during that battle or the next one. Private Herschberger got hit during this one. It left him crippled in one wrist; he had planned to become an accountant. Our battalion at full strength had 750 men. When we took it we were down to 250; it was a bloody battle. But, we captured 750 enemy soldiers.

In 1984 I met a pilot, Mr. Orr, who had flown a P 47 Fighter plane in that attack on Longchamps. A Prudential Life Insurance representative, he sold me a Life Insurance policy. We had a business lunch and I bought lunch, too.

After the battle we loaded into our half-tracks and proceeded east on the road. As we traveled we opened our mail, which for me included cookies. Ironically, Sergeant Johnny Moore got a box full of cigarettes. We had more than we needed and some one in his family saved their ration to send to him. Betty sent me cookies, letters, and a bedroll.

We stopped at a farm that had just been liberated by our rifle troops. Dead Germans lay outside and in the barns. As we set up our position one of our tanks backed into one of men pinning him next to a barn. He died.

The farmer and his wife invited us into the house. She set the table for seven of us and one for the man of the house. In each place she placed a clean glass filled with fresh water. We enjoyed each sip and the smiles. It sure beat what we usually drank; melted snow to which we added our “Halogen” capsules. We left the people blankets, boots and cigarettes, which we had stored in the half-track. The troops for which they were intended had no further need for them.

We moved on and stopped at another Belgium farmhouse where we laid up for a few days. The owner went into the woods and retrieved a live pig, which had been hidden. He broke out a bottle of Raspberry brandy. I was too sick too eat or drink, perhaps a touch of the flue, which the lady of the house cured with two days of a chicken soup diet. Two of our men drank the brandy almost right down. They
were still sick when we left there.

Our unit returned to the railhead above Recogne. We assembled 50 yards down hill from the railroad tracks and I received the Combat Infantry Badge. We were informed that the 11th Armored Division had suffered 10,000 casualties in six weeks. The villagers congregated along the railroad tracks. We were fully exposed to view, when Sergeant Strauss or Schultz, had an urgent call to nature when his diarrhea dialed in. He retreated to a near bush and relieved himself, caught as it was, with his pants down. This was not the Pvt. Strauss who had promised me a good time in Berlin. A German soldier shot Pvt. Strauss when as an interpreter, he coaxed some German troops out of a bunker. I was told he probably would recover.

As our replacements arrived we went on the foxhole buddy system. My foxhole buddy Private Marin, complained perpetually. We got to eat heated “C” rations. Two Browning automatic rifles (BARs) and troops to fire them replaced our .75 caliber cannon crew. We scrounged around some burnt out tanks and scavenged a light .30 cal machine gun. Light .30 cal machine guns are air-cooled. They could not freeze. The heavies are water-cooled. During winter weather we used PrestoneTM anti-freeze. The heavy .30 s tended to heat up and we worried that they might boil but did not.

In a few days, we mounted up and headed in the direction of Luxembourg. The unpaved snow covered roads wound through numerous forests with snow-laden trees. I stood in the assistant driver position behind the heavy .30 part of the route. As we approached a likely active area I moved to the heavy .30 in the rear, centered in the box in which the squad rode. I did not know the route or where we were.

About this time, my judgment became questionable .We stopped along the road and a couple of us went into a railroad line shack, looking for souvenirs. Our previous opportunities were limited. By the time we had a chance to get at an enemy corpse, his frozen carcass had been rolled over at least once, as evidenced by his pockets having been turned inside out. In spite of knowing that some potential treasures were often booby-trapped, I picked up a tobacco can; mistake number one. Then I held it behind my back because I did not want my testicles blown off, I opened it; mistake number two. It was empty, I felt relieved that it did not explode, but also I felt like an idiot. I, the booby trap man for our platoon, took a stupid, unnecessary risk. But, the memory of that probably saved my life, or limbs, later, in the Siegfried Line.

We proceeded for hours, dismounted and began an all night march. We had no food rations and as usual no water. I picked up snow, jammed it into my canteen and added a G .I. Halozone tablet to “sterilize” the water. Sergeant Pepe gave me one chocolate bar and instructed me that when he wanted to feed our squad, he would ask for it. We soon clambered onto tanks. Enemy fire began to target the tanks. We dismounted and followed them until they attracted too much artillery. We spread out, received and returned small arms fire. After a short battle we continued. After 18 miles we came to a town that in flames. A German machine gun sprayed a stream of tracer bullets in our direction. It looked like a colorful hose. Then a parachute with a phosphorous flare lit up our position. We froze. When the flare died we moved forward, took the town, and dug in on the other side. We had not eaten for two days and Pepe called for the chocolate. By the third day we were supplied with ”K” rations. Each package contained enough provisions for at least one day with 5,000 calories including a chocolate bar. Each package fitted into a standard 4-pocket battle jacket that I wore over a pair of fatigues, woolen uniform and GI long johns. All that put a new dimension to crapping in a foxhole.

We loaded into our vehicles, moved into a wooded area and went on patrol, which I considered strange for a heavy weapons company. As we trudged up a hill, we were waved to a stop and redirected. Within less than a minute, enemy shellfire hit were we would have been. This happened three times, during which I learned that our platoon leader had been well trained in these matters and properly equipped with maps. The Lieutenant was a graduate of R.O.T.C. training and the National Guard. I do not recall how this patrol ended.

On a subsequent march we moved as part of a long column of troops when we heard a German field radio reporting, within a hundred yards or less, off to our right. A couple of riflemen went over and shot him. As we resumed we broke up into smaller groups. It was a pretty day, and quiet. I reminisced and recalled a movie in which Victor Mc Laughlin carried a heavy .30 cal. machine gun, with a belt of ammo loaded in and ready to fire. The gunner on our squad this day was Ken Nielsen, the quiet spoken son of a preacher, who probably weighed 220 and had very large hands. I suggested that he could do this. He agreed, we loaded him up, proceeded in this fashion for a while, and heard a noise behind us. As we turned a squad of German soldiers came quietly down the hill behind us, within less than 50 yards. When they saw Neilsen turn with that heavy .30 pointing at them they threw their hands the air, in surrender, before we fired a shot. Without that machine gun at the ready we would have had real trouble.

Our battalion headed east. We moved into a forested area and went on a special patrol or a probe. Our group consisted of 21 men and three tanks. As we proceeded through one path in the woods and then another, we encountered enemy shell and mortar fire. Two tanks were hit and disabled as well as personnel from resulting fragments and tree bursts. We got into a firefight and a machine gun duel. We suffered casualties from tree bursts; artillery shells which hit trees and exploded. I learned later that they had no proximity fuses, as did the American artillery. Proximity fuses detonated the shells at predetermined heights above ground. We advanced and came to a clearing. The area had been occupied and there were empty foxholes. I checked out one for booby traps. It was O.K. and became our command post.

We set up the machine gun, with the trees at our rear and the gun in an open position, with a field of fire into an opening from which we could be attacked by artillery, mortar, infantry, or any sniper in trees on either side of the opening. We received incoming fire and our machine gunner got hit. I became gunner and was informed that this was a chance for advancement in rank. The job carried a sergeant’s rating. As a buck ass private, no stripe, I respectfully declined for I deemed that to be the epitome of job insecurity. Thirteen men and one tank survived that leg of the patrol. We lost eight men and 2 tanks. I might have accepted a field commission but did not get that offer. The rating I really wanted was PFC, a “Poor F....ing (living) Civilian”.

Things got quiet and as daylight waned we returned to our base camp. The return was uneventful but we had a horrible surprise. Dead and wounded GIs littered the place. A chaplain gave last rites to a number of our troops who had been surprised and overrun by a raiding German Armored Cavalry force. They suffered many casualties. After reorganizing we had surplus rations. We loaded our field jacket front pockets with “K” rations. I felt almost bulletproof, one package in each of the four pockets. We probably were in Luxembourg.

We proceeded east and got into Germany and heavy rain. The roads became muck. I dismounted into a greeting of reddish brown mud from which it I could barely lift my boot-clad feet. My leather boots leaked and we still had not received waterproof shoepacks. I managed to get my new home dug but as the rain continued I wound up in a hole almost four feet deep, with eight inches of miserable muddy water in the bottom. To add to that, it became necessary to relieve my viscera. I could not dry my feet that night and it did not pay to even try to change sox. I kept my spare pair wrapped around my waist, as trained, and usually tried to change them every evening. When we left that area, we slogged down a muddy road leaving three to six inch deep footprints in wet red mud. Hundreds of troops moved out on a ridge in a long column, as far as I could see. An occasional incoming round picked off a few now and then but we kept on moving. My outfit mounted up and we moved out.

Our next action began in Germany, at the edge of a forest. With about six inches of snow on frozen ground we attacked. Our squad moved up behind some tanks. I followed one and one track ran over a mine. The explosion did no damage, but dug a depression into which I crawled into as the tank moved toward the edge of the trees. When the tanks peeled off to a flank we approached a line of trees and small clearing forward of the line of trees. We set up the machine gun, manned by Sergeant Pepe and Sgt. Sewell. Sewell had recently joined our squad and was an older troop, in his thirties. They almost immediately got into a machine gun duel; rat a tat here and brrrrp there. I heard heavy mortar and rifle fire. Along with some of our troops, I started to dig in frozen ground at the edge of the clearing / tree line. The man to my right began to dig in about 3 feet from me. I got about 8 inches of hole dug and encountered suspicious looking hardware in the right side of the hole so did not try to dig it out but dug along side of it. At about 18 inches down I saw the side of three pieces of German ordnance, a fancy booby trap, one explosive device atop and to the side of the one below. Either of the top ones, if it had not fired when picked up, would have released a trigger on the next one below it. The frozen ground immobilized it. That is about as far as I dug, I could curl up in there, or kneel and fire my carbine, 30 cal. Our line came under small arms and mortar attack. We fired our weapons.

I heard a mortar shell come in and explode within yards in front of me. I thought, oh oh, what do I do if the next one is behind me. It was. I could do nothing but wait and heard the next one coming. I knew, from our training, that it should land between the first and second. I could see the scene as if it was on a 35-millimeter slide film; this soldier is getting killed and it is me. I learned many years later that I had depersonalized. When my mind brought me back to reality I looked around. The tail of the mortar was sticking out of the snow bank within reach of my right hand. It had not exploded. The man my left side took a bullet.. Someone called for a medic. Five feet to my left, Sergeant Pepe took a fragment in his cheek and died instantly. Sergeant Sewell took over the machine gun. A troop, 2 feet to my right, on the other side of the mortar dud, went down. As a medic moved up and hovered over him, I told the medic to get down, just before a bullet hit him in the face. Those red crosses made good targets.

It was Harry, the so called “queer”. He stood straight up, threw his hands to his face and said, in his effeminate voice, “Oh my god, I’m blind !”. Someone yelled medic, and he said, “Oh no, they are needed somewhere else”.
Within a minute two of our men escorted him to the rear. Several months later I saw and greeted him and he greeted me. He was fine and explained, in a deep voice, that the bullet had knocked out some teeth, shocked his optic nerve and exited his neck. Further, he said that while he was on the operating table they had done something to, or trimmed his vocal chords. So, if Harry is still around, there is one brave “queer” out there.

Our riflemen started returning with prisoners. Five were brought to my location, for another troop and me to hold for a few minutes. These were said to be SS and acted like they were the captors. One even tried to spit on the man next to me. It was the closest I’d been to a surviving enemy, and to shooting a prisoner.

That night we were relieved and taken to a rest area. Tired and although hungry, I could not eat. I shook all night. My feet were cold, and they hurt. Next morning I was O.K. as we moved out, in our half-tracks. As we did so, I met a new replacement troop, a loud mouth idiot named Weidemeyer, the platoon leader’s new Jeep driver. In addition to his mouth, Weidemeyer had a vision problem so his draft board classified him as Limited Service. The Army in its infinite wisdom made him a Jeep driver. I later heard that he drove the platoon leader’s Jeep over a land mine, which blew off the platoon leader’s leg. Weidemeyer’s brother, Whitey, an epileptic, played professional baseball and did not qualify for service. That really made 2 of them.

We moved into a next firefight as reinforcements. Sergeant Workman was the new gunner. The Germans attacked with artillery, mortar and rifle fire. That, returning enemy fire and machine gun duels occupied my attention until I turned around and a platoon, or more, of more reinforcements slid into position. It was a very different sight, all of them were visibly older and they were all Negroes. (“Captain: That man is colored.” “Yeah, What color”?) During and after the fight we talked. They appeared to be battle hardened and good-natured. The two men with whom I talked were old enough to have been excused from service. They were in the Army by choice. Shortly after that we were treated to a rest. My squad moved back to a rear area (as far as we were concerned). I did not dig in. I spread my GI bedroll about 50 yards from a 155 mm. artillery piece, took off my boots, changed my socks, wrapped the old socks around my waist, put the boots inside the bedroll and crawled in. The artillery fired every few minutes and each time the nearest one did, the ground bounced. I got some rest but very little, much needed, sleep. I had time to think and began to realize that it was a matter of when, not if I was to be killed, maimed, or shot up a bit. I was getting dog tired. I attributed it to a conflict between two parts of my mind. One part was telling my “ Do your job, it is your duty to yourself and family to do it with honor. The other part was saying, “ The best alternative is I am going to be killed and that is not acceptable”.

We next moved onto a ridge and hiked single file, about 10 feet apart, toward a small town about a mile away. As we arrived at the town the firing abated. We settled in, I went to a comfortable looking house, and started to settle in on the third floor. The ground vibrated and I could hear the sound of a “Screaming Meemie” fire, then seconds later it hit beyond the house I was in. This shell was a concussion type; actually a 360-mm. Nebelwerfer rocket and its concussion could reduce a troop to a vegetable without benefit of being hit by shrapnel. The next round hit short and I decided it was time to move. No sooner than I got to the first floor a round of artillery took out the top of the house where I had been. I kept moving and into a shack where there were three other squad members. We were then notified by radio where the mess was set up for chow. Our platoon leader said, “If we can hear that, so can the Germans” so we stayed put. Sure enough, the mess area was shelled and we took casualties. Colonel Hearn was blamed by our guys and roundly cursed. About that time, I had a brief hiatus when I contacted a bad case of the shakes accompanied by dysentery and was put in a local field hospital. The medics gave me sulfa. A shrink asked me how I felt. I told him I was scared shitless, which, except for the dysentery, was an understatement. I was convinced that I would be killed, and that would probably be “the good news”. He said, we need you on the line. Although I felt weak my temperature normalized and within less than a week returned to my unit.

We had new tanks. Our 75 mm. equipped General Sherman tanks were replaced by Priests, heavier tanks each with a 90-mm rifle and two banks of rockets, one on each side, in the front. Each bank held 36 rockets with range and punch. They were supposed to be able to penetrate enemy armor. It was nice to know that we had rockets, too.

We moved to an enfilade position, at a Line of Departure. Sergeant Workman directed a stream of machine gun fire at a silo, which we suspected, housed an enemy artillery spotter. Our section leader, Staff Sergeant Johnny Moore had shingles. Sergeant Nelson, Donald M., still limped about from a twisted ankle. I felt miserable. Sergeant Workman and I chatted, which I thought somewhat unusual. He told me had already lost a brother during the war. He asked me how I was and if I felt like I could handle more of what we were into. I said I was O.K. I felt lousy but I liked him. . I found out later that he was killed in action later in March while I was in the hospital.

My foxhole buddy, Marin, continued his interminable complaining. As mortar rounds closed in on our position we moved out. I lost track of Marin and never saw him again. I did not miss him as with the others, whom had never gotten my attention.

In February or early March 1945 moved to a position on the Siegfried Line for which our rifle troops fought heavily. From our position on a ridge I could see 3 or 4 feet high concrete pyramids, several layers deep and a three-foot high concrete wall in front and back of each layer. Snow covered the ground. The Germans counter attacked. After a short machine gun duel and some incoming mortar rounds I dug in. I dug straight down alongside and behind a concrete wall, the concrete wall and pyramids in front of me. Then I dug forward and under the concrete wall; a round from in front would have to come straight down or make a U turn in the air to fall into my foxhole on me.

We got more replacements, many of them young and green, with very little training, some just six weeks from home. Others came in from non-combatant units. Less than 100 yards in front of me, at 11 o’clock, stood a large concrete blockhouse. It had no windows, just a vent on top and I could not see the door.

My new foxhole “buddy” a Sergeant had been transferred from the Quartermaster Corps. I said hello, gave him a brief talk on foxhole etiquette, and got ready for some sleep. I had a headache so I took two aspirins as night fell. I had just fallen asleep when the new guy jostled me and asked. “What was that?” I explained that it was incoming artillery. The next question was answered by “That was our artillery”. Then “Theirs”. The last time I said, “If you don’t shut up I’ll kill you” and went to sleep. We both knew I would The next morning I awoke covered with fresh snow. The Sergeant had left and I never saw him again. For a while enemy mortars and artillery locked in on us. I ate a K ration, took a dump, and shoveled it out. One shell dug an annex to a hole less than 10 feet from me.

We received enemy fire from a road to our rear; a track mounted 88-mm. rifle took a guy’s head right off. I was told it was Sgt. Mc Ginty but found out later that he was killed exactly like that, but in April of 1945.

One of the new boys shot him self in the leg; the bullet went through his ankle and exited his instep. It made a mess of his foot and qualified him for a court martial but he limped back from our scene on his own two feet; they made him walk.

The sun came out and I put some clothes out to dry on some of the concrete. It reminded me of the song, “We’re going to Hang Out the Washing On the Siegfried Line”. I felt pretty good as I sang it. One of the kids in the foxhole with the mortar blown annex remained in his hole for two days frozen in fear. A couple of us got him up and moving. I took a brief stroll down the line, trying for a little pleasure, a quiet walk, just to stretch out the kinks and chat. I saw a German Walther pistol as it lay on the ground. When I started to bend over to pick it up I had a thought. I had been taught in a Military Science class during ASTP that I was subconsciously trying to bring a quicker conclusion to my combat service than the fates might otherwise ordain. I did not pick it up and made a note to report it as a probable booby trap. I went down the Line about 100 yards. I had to hurry back, firing started and a troop who picked up the pistol was on his way to the rear with serious injuries and minus one hand. I picked up (and probably added to my) guilt for that. On the 4th or 5th day on the Siegfried Line, we called in artillery on the blockhouse; it had walls 12 feet thick; neither 90 nor 155-mm shells did any damage. Other measures were required. Jack Hardesty, under covering fire made his way to it, and then to the roof. He dropped an explosive charge down the vent. The occupants came streaming out, 12 Wermacht and one female

On the fourth night I had to take a group of troops carrying some equipment, and a message, from our line, back to company headquarters in a small house about a mile back. I went into the house to deliver a message and had not been there more than a minute when a shell exploded about a half mile or more away. I looked out the door, and then back inside and every officer had taken cover. Like, being under a table or desk was going to be a big help. I was sadly disappointed, if not disgusted, with these “brave leaders” at the moment. (Later, one of those officers, our Company Commander had his leg blown off when he stepped on a mine, which killed his aide.) I was almost fully exhausted and when I left, sent the other men on ahead and took a nap. The troops got back to the Line without me and I caught up with them.

Things quieted down. Rumors indicated that we would not be relieved, there were no more replacements and General Patton said we would win even if he had to send home a boxcar full of dog tags. That did not help my morale. After six days we were relieved and taken to an area for a hot breakfast. In line, waiting for pancakes, adjacent to an open field, I was amazed to see one lone American rifleman charging one lone German soldier, across that field, zig zagging and firing as he ran forward. We just stood in a mess line without firing a shot. I wondered if I was hallucinating. I could not eat but that was no longer unusual. Anything I ate seemed to travel through me, virtually unmolested. We called it “elephantitis, Everything we ate turned to s—t.

We moved to a rest area. By then I had received a brand new Sears and Roebuck bedroll which Betty had sent me and had shot two and 1/2 rolls of film with an Agfa Memo camera which I had carried from the states. We made camp and built a fire, I spread my bedroll and settled down to rest. I felt so tired I was afraid I would live. Private Young, still upset about not getting to see his mother as she lay dying, threw a tire on the fire. It started burning and up went a thick plume of black smoke. A direct signal to German artillery could not have been more effective. After we pulled the tire from the fire, someone asked me how I was doing. I told the man that “everything I ate turned to shit”. He told me to report to the medic at the camp. He took my temperature, said it was 1040 and within minutes I they loaded me into a truck and headed for a field hospital. It happened so fast I left my camera and new bedroll in camp. I had the contents of my pockets and the clothes on my back.

That night at the field hospital the sound of supply trucks or a convoy produced a sound like an enemy aircraft diving directly at my tent. I got very little sleep. The next day I boarded a train to the 54th General Hospital in France. They had me swallow a rubber tube through which a nurse took samples from my stomach. A doctor informed that I had amoebic dysentery and viral pneumonia. He told me my stomach ate up all its acid which explained why food, when I did get and eat it, went right through me. My white blood count was very high and my red blood count was too low. I weighed 140 pounds and had lost 45 pounds. They trashed my four-pocket fatigue jacket and trousers; each had bloodstains and bullet or shell fragment holes in it. When I realized where I was I cried for the very first time in many years.

I was very happy to be in that hospital. At least for a while. During the first week or so they kept me in bed except for the necessaries and meals. One of the nurses, a lieutenant, made the bed with me in it, even if she had to crawl over me. By the time I was well enough to appreciate it I had to start saluting her when I walked to the mess hall. I was given a bottle of something to add to my water, for a month, during meals to beef up my stomach acid. My first walks down the corridors to the mess hall were very tiring. Almost all, if not all, of the other soldiers in the ward had bleeding ulcers. We had a poker game almost every evening. We played for cigarettes.

Near the end of my stay a doctor commended me for having avoided trenchfoot (but said I probably had minor frostbite in my toes). Within days an officer informed me I qualified to leave the hospital and given a choice; go back to my outfit, which had advanced into Austria or to the Air Corps. I think this was a sanity test, which I passed; I opted for the Air Corps.The Army shipped me to a Replacement Depot at Orlie Field, an airport near Paris. I shared a 3rd floor apartment with two other soldiers. One was a paratrooper named Corcoran who was quite a sophisticate. He had jumped into his first combat, hung up on a tree and was zapped with 7 bullets from a German, armed with a machine pistol. The Germans cut him down, took him to a hospital and patched him up. They relocated his belly button four inches to the right of its original position. He showed me his scars. Corcoran had been repatriated with the proviso that he not return to service. That did not suit him and he wanted to get back to action. While waiting he shacked up with a French whore. After she finished work they “dated” and she presented him with pair of matched Belgium pistols in a custom made wooden, velvet lined case. One gun was for him and the other for his wife. He was not so lucky in poker. One night I cleaned him out as well as the other guy in the room. Corcoran’s last money was $ 10 American, which I won. We were not permitted to possess American money. It was a court martial offense. We had to use script or French money. He promised me he could attend to that. The next day we took the Metro to Place’ Pigalle, went to a bar and I slid the tenner to a bartender he knew. I received my money in francs. As I shoved it into a pocket a burly looking whore stuck a pin in my hip. In a heavy French accent, she suggested I go upstairs and spend it with her. My instant reply, without thinking (not unusual for me) was “I never f--k anyone that can whip me”. This comment drew a crowd from which we hurriedly retreated.

One night one of the men got so drunk he stood on a balcony on the third floor and decided he could fly. He landed on some spiked ornamentation atop a block fence.

We were taken to a small town. As we assembled for a speech which was to precede our departure on one day passes a colonel with a Croix-de -Guerre and a chest full of medals informed us, among other things, that we should be careful, because “we were not civilized”. The resulting laughter broke up the assemblage as we all walked away and headed for our busses.

Within days I checked in at the United States Air Corps, 10th Air Force, 410th Bomb Group near Rheims, France. The planes in the group were light attack bombers. They flew missions almost every day. They had one B 17 at the airfield and I was graciously invited to step in and visit it. I rejected a chance to earn an Air Medal. All I would have to do was man a machine gun and fly 5 missions. After 25 missions I could even go home (if I survived). . Lt. Allen, my superior officer, gave me a book so I could learn to type; I learned the top row of a typewriter keyboard. They classified me as a Clerk-Typist.

I weighed about 150 pounds when I got there and started working out. We lived in tents and air raids by the Germans were not uncommon but few; the Allied Armies had control of the air. I remember only two air raids. Our bombers had runs that would return late at night. I found out that dinners were served near midnight. We had surplus rations because the flight crews did not like mutton. I learned to love hot mutton at first sight. I gained weight and up it went to 160 pounds. I worked out with weights and a “medicine ball” and got into reasonably good shape, albeit not the 185 I weighed when I crossed the English Channel. Betty continued to send me mail. She sent 2 new pipes, honey to use when breaking them in, a pair of red silk pajamas, and a 14-karat wedding ring that fit me.

Among the enlisted men I met or with whom I associated in camp were O’Brien, Greenwald, Penske and De Bianca. We had passes almost every week and I went to Rheims to see the sights, a few times, I got bored. One night I went to a dance. After a couple of dances or drinks I took off my Eisenhower jacket, in which I had stuck my pipe and tobacco packet. After a dance, I returned to find the pipe and tobacco stolen. I acquired a taste for champagne and went along on champagne runs, scouting and riding “shotgun”; with a borrowed pistol, at times. Champagne grapes in Rheims and Epernay were legendary. So were the drinks known as Calvados and eau de vie (V2 in honor of “rocket juice”).

Our unit moved to Beaumont sur Oise. A town named Beaumont on the Oise River, about 20 miles from Paris and also 20 miles from Le Isle Adam, a famous resort spot on the river. Formal party invitations were sent to our unit. Lt. Allen included me as a guest. I got into full dress; we rode to the party in a jeep, and were treated like royalty. The tables were set with linen, crystal, china and good manners abounded. A young lady, about my age, and her chaperone had been appointed my companions. The young lady explained to me that she was very correct. It was a very nice evening. We sat in seats from which we could view the River Oise and engaged in small talk; my first cocktail party. I learned the French pronunciation of the word “marriage” as in “Monsieur, vous et marr-iage?” “May oui, mamselle!!”

One day an airman and I found a small café on the river. We each drank a bottle of sauterne wine, as I bragged about how good I could swim. The river was several hundred yards wide, about a quarter of a mile. Just to prove my swimming skills, I stripped to my shorts and started across; a serious error. I huffed and puffed, floated and when I finally got across a long way down stream I hurt all over. I must have been a sight, walking the shore upstream far enough to re cross and finish near the café.

Aunt Besse wrote me a letter, explaining that Cousin Billy now lived in a small town in France with his grandmother. His father was Lionel (Bisco), the WW I Marine and his mother, Charlotte, was from that town. She had died during a trip going there with Billy. I asked for a pass and permission to go there, explaining my motive. Duly blessed, I borrowed a small semi-automatic pistol that fit nicely into my jacket pocket. After planning my itinerary, I hitched a ride to a train station and crawled into a boxcar. I had neglected to take food but found a raw turnip in one corner of the 40 and 8; this was my meal for the day. When I got to the town I went to the police station and searched for a record of William Nosanov. There was no record. I went back to camp disappointed. Thirty years later, I got the whole story from Billy. It had been reported that a dark, armed, American soldier sought him and that he had to be protected. Billy, as a member of the French Foreign Legion had served the Axis, temporarily our enemy before France re-joined the Allies.

Passes to Paris, usually with Davy O’Brien or DeBianca, were a frequent event. I carried that pistol often. The attractions included cognac, Calvados, V-2, nightclub entertainment and the Metro. One could go from one to the other on the Metro. On one pass I almost made a potentially fatal error. I had a severe case of too much cognac and as I went into a stall, I hurriedly draped my overcoat over a washbasin outside of the stall. A stall consisted of a hole in the floor, in a compartment behind a door. One straddled the hole, dropped pants, if necessary, and did business. As I emerged, a Frenchman held my coat. Out came that borrowed gat and the Frenchman wisely dropped the coat and ran out of the room. I grabbed the coat, shoved the gun in my pocket and headed for the front door. When the cold air hit me I realized I had almost committed an offense for which I would have suffered a General court-martial. The penalty would have been my execution or a very long sentence to breaking rocks at Leavenworth Penitentiary. I forthwith “tossed my cookies” into the gutter outside that bar.

Different liquors abounded. I drank, in order of potency, Eau de Vie (V2), Calvados, Cognac, Champagne, and wine. Eau de Vie had a kick like a rocket and was distilled from the dregs or bottom of the grape pulp. A mixture of Cognac and Champagne is called a French 75. The booze got more expensive. I switched to cognac which cost about $ 4 American in April 1945 and by the end of July went up to $ 20 a bottle. One day as I toddled down the street I saw a paratrooper on his back on the sidewalk. A Chaplain sat on his chest and a troop was holding the soldiers hands down. They were waiting for an MP. The paratrooper had drunk too much Eau de Vie and was out of his mind. A temporarily sobering experience. Presently, the MP s came for him and carted him away.

Davy O’Brien and I heard about the Syrian Quarter, a very nasty Parisian haunt, located near the Seine from which a dead American soldier was fished out almost daily. We just had to take a peek. We walked into a corner bar where some very tough looking older men rolled round cornered dice on a two foot square tiled table. There were no doors on the filthy looking place; it was open to the air, which it needed. Wads of money changed hands on almost every roll. No one smiled or looked at us, but almost all conversation, if any, may have ceased after we entered. I had seen dead men with better attributes and attitudes than those people and got very uncomfortable. There were no other Americans there. We stayed less than five minutes and very carefully eased our way out, almost backwards. We stuck to riding the subway for a while and got to know about every stop of the Metro, and some of each area at each stop, especially the public urinals. Money was always short so early on I rationed my smoking to 5 butts a day and sold my surplus. I also sold what chocolate I could get (and not eat), plus a couple of California dried fruit packs Betty sent me. The price of cognac and entertainment was going up. I was relearning the French language and beginning to stock up on French perfumes and a few gifts to bring home.

One day in May 1945, Lt. Allen issued me a Thompson .45 cal submachine gun and gave me a new assignment. I became support for a detachment of 20 men who, under a Captain Davis proceeded toward an airfield near Frankfurt, Germany. Our mission was to ascertain if it was secure for the 410th Bomb Group to relocate there. We traveled by jeep and truck and through Luxembourg. Just before we arrived in Luxembourg City we were informed of the death of President Roosevelt, our Commander In Chief. We billeted and went into the town in search of food and drink. De Bianca and I paired up and went sight seeing. I bought some post cards and at mealtime we went to a bistro. De Bianca, a warrant officer, had been a bombardier in the 8th Air Force when he took a piece of flak in his head. He seemed to know his way around. We sat down at a table next to a few troops including a paratrooper. A healthy looking blonde, in a fully filled and fuzzy Angora sweater, at least a size 38D, had the paratrooper’s attention. De Bianca suggested to me that she was probably a Nazi collaborator because she looked so prosperous. The paratrooper did not seem to care. He said to her “ I’d like to f---k you for about 15 minutes.” She pulled herself to her full height and breasts, turned to him disdainfully and said, “Oh no, it takes an hour”. De B. and I left soon after dinner but enjoyed an interesting evening. We went bar hopping. The next morning we loaded into our jeeps set out for Frankfurt.

We got to Frankfurt-on the Mainz and drove through the town. The place had been bombed to a shambles and reminded me of Bastogne and Caan, except that in Frankfurt there were many twisted skeletons of steel framed high-rise buildings that had been completely burned out. We drove on to the airport and settled in. There appeared to be no enemy troops with which to concern ourselves. Someone learned about a nearby-liberated personnel German Prisoner of War camp, went there and returned with a few Polish ladies and one young Italian man. The ladies were returned that evening or next morning. The young man stayed on as a helper. We nicknamed him “Umbriago” which means drunk in Italian.Captain Baker command style annoyed the troops. The next day “Porky” La Flamme and a couple of others found 3500 gallons of wine in a cellar. Porky got stewed, walked into the billet where I lay snoozing and reached behind a door where I had stashed my Thompson sub-machine gun. He found the magazine and inserted it. He started down a hall muttering that he was going to shoot Captain Davis. There were a couple of dicey moments as I chased him down and disarmed him.

That morning we found among other things, a Powell motorcycle, a Mercedes-Benz 4 door sedan, and a German Walther 7mm. pistol, the latter in a case with a good supply of ammo. I drove the motorcycle up and down the road near the airport a few times and turned it over to another man. We had been warned that wires strung across a road could cut though a rider’s neck or trip a mined booby trap. The Mercedes had a blown head gasket. That afternoon, in the motor pool shop, we found a tool kit, some old newspapers, scissors, and some grease. We removed the head and the old head gasket. We laboriously cut and shaped a new head gasket from seven layers of newspaper, which we coated with axle grease. It took all morning but we still had plenty of wine left. After we reassembled the engine, we took the sedan for a spin on an airport runway. It lasted about a quarter of a mile before the new head gasket blew. I finished the day firing the Walther pistol and most of a case of ammo.

The next day I escorted a group of three of our men into town. After acquisition of whatever they went in for, they stopped at a three-story building that was fully intact and occupied. A young sergeant, wearing an Army issue Colt .45 announced that there was a whore’s nest on the 3rd floor. He decided to check it out and see what he could get for a pack of cigarettes. I worried out loud about him going up there armed and also about who might stick a gun out of the sidewalk level basement windows and toss a grenade or shoot at us. I poked at a few windows with the Tommy gun at the ready. Nothing seemed amiss. Suddenly, this idiot came roaring down the stairs, missed the 3 steps at the front porch and rolled into the gutter. With his pants half zipped, his pistol in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other he staggered to his feet and proudly proclaimed that he got laid at no cost. We skedaddled out of there at top speed for the jeep. He could have got us all court martialed and himself executed. I did not go back to Frankfurt after that.

As things quieted down at camp I showed Umbriago how to shoot the Thompson sub machine gun. He learned slowly but he knew where to get fresh foods. We were there about ten days and recalled to Beaumont-Sur-Oise. Shortly after that Germany capitulated and the war in Europe was over.

On a pass to Paris, Davy O’Brien and I went to Luna Park, an amusement park, and bummed around. I saw a startling sight, our potential enemies, Russian soldiers, wore sidearms. We had been informed that they were very primitive and some thought a bar of soap was a candy bar. Their dress uniforms were made of very coarse wool. About that time my C.O. gave me the option of staying in Germany in the Army of Occupation or going to Japan with 410th Bomb Group, via the states, on redeployment. The redeployment option included a 30-day furlough. I had not left anything in Germany for which I wanted to go back. I started to collect souvenirs, mostly perfume. I bought Chanel No. 5 for Betty and other perfumes for the ladies in my life. I bought a silver colored cigarette case for Dad and a Hanover Klunz bellows type-folding camera for me. The camera had both a 620-size roll film holder and a plate adapter.

Within weeks the 410th Bomb Group relocated toeither Camp Top Hat or Lucky Strike, a tent city, probably near Antwerp. I thought I was near or in Holland because of a Dutch windmill, in front of which I proudly posed for a photograph. I acquired a Hanover - Klunz folding camera, with both a roll film or plate film holder. Betty had sent me, among other things, a pair of red silk pajamas. The first time I walked down the row between tents wearing them, I heard a catcall, which I expected. When a loud-mouthed airman Sergeant put his hands on them, I tossed him. No one bothered me about those pajamas after that.

I got a pass to a small town, not far from this windmill. I went there with another Airman who took this picture of me. We had been warned, do not go alone and do not antagonize the Negro soldiers in the bars. Some of the local girls, who believed that those soldiers were American Indians, adored them. Some very vocal airmen resented this. Each girl had a Negro companion and they danced together as if they were professionals. Many of the blacks carried trench knives. I could feel tension and hard feelings. My partner and I left after one quick beer.

In late July we boarded a Liberty ship in Southampton and set forth to the Zone of the Interior, also known as the Promised Land and the United States of America. Liberty Ships were made of concrete in one of Henry Kaiser’s factories. Some of the days the seas were rough but I loved standing on the bow as it plowed through the water while spray and water came over the bow 30 feet above the sea.

Most of the men I knew were seasick, but not I. I was on my way home for a while, at least. I learned how to “ride the cannon”. We enjoyed relaxed and happy days. We had time to take pictures, play chess, and roam the ship. We enjoyed planned activities including boxing matches. I met a survivor of the D-Day invasion, Pvt. Fernandez. I saw him do a one-hand stand in the center of a boxing ring as the ship pitched and rolled in heavy seas. There was also at least part of a division of Negro troops who had seen ground combat; I presumed they were from the 14th Armored division. They stuck mostly to themselves but did not seem to mind spectators at their craps games.

While en route we heard of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. That night in a nightmare, which included a vision of an atomic bomb exploding within a short distance from me while I watched every thing incinerate between the mushroom cloud and me; I woke up just before I would witness my “death by incineration”; with yet another unforgettable memory.

Although I preferred to feel that the war did not affect me that much, I have learned over the past 60 years that I am wrong. But I have my friends, Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, Jose Cuervo to name a few.

Chapter 3

World War II

On December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, my friend Red Parker and I decided we wanted to go “shoot down Japs” and tried to enlist in the Army Air Corps. But, the Air Corps required two years of college that day. I had only one year. I tried the navy. The Navy required 20 / 20 eyesight. I had 20 /30 and had no yen for the Infantry. My father hated the Marines so I went home and joined the United States Civil Air Patrol and started taking flying lessons. I dropped out of college and went to work for Standard Brands, Inc. unloading semi-tractor trailers, warehousing and making deliveries of Fleischman Yeast, twenty pound tins of cherries and eggs to bakeries, Royal Gelatin, and various coffees; Standard Brands, Perfect Circle and some exotic roasts. The job paid $ 27 per week and all the yeast I could eat. I paid $ 10.00 a week at home for room and board.

My shifts varied, 4:00 P.M. to midnight or midnight to 8:00 A.M. Some days we would receive and stack 14 tons of flour and baking powders, which came in 100-pound sacks. Each sack was placed on a roller type conveyer at street level and we would pick it up in the basement, stack it on a palette and haul the full palettes with a hand truck. We had no forklifts. I started that job weighing a 117 pounds. A year later I built myself up to 155 pounds.

The 4:00 P.M. to midnight shift, known as the s--t shift, allowed me to go to the beach in the morning and ride my motorcycle. I had blonde hair and a light tan that easily burned. One day, in the water at Lake St. Clair, I met a cute girl and we got friendlier than I had ever been with a member of the female persuasion. She had big brown eyes and was exciting, but we never even got to shore with it. It was my first case of puppy attraction and I did not remember her name. On another day Red Parker and I were returning from the lake on my motorcycle at top speed, about 75 mph. We approached and quickly passed a police officer standing next to his patrol car, on a side road. We heard nothing but the roar of the bike’s exhaust as we passed. We did not slow or stop nor were we followed.

At Standard Brands, Inc. I met some people to remember; one of them Bill Christie was 33 years old but it seemed to me he could do "everything" and especially for an "old guy". For example, he did pushups off of his fingertips with his arms fully outstretched. Ray Gazelle, who later joined the Marines, introduced me to Coca-Cola and vodka. I worked with a kid a little older than me. Joe Mack was his name when he was not at home in Hamtramck. His real name was Macijewski. Hamtramck is a town completely surrounded by Detroit. Many people of Polish descent lived there. He used to “smuggle” me into town. Joe introduced me to seeing a blonde two blocks from the truck. I wrecked a company pick-up truck doing just that, when I slid along wet streetcar tracks into a stake body truck "Zimmie" Zimmerman, my supervisor whom I remember as my first boss, irately
informed me it took 24 labor hours to untangle the front end and rebuild it.

One day I delivered an order near the Detroit Public Library in front of which stood a statue of Rodin’s Thinker. I often studied it when passing it on my magazine route. I took a detour from the bakery and viewed it, again. On the way back to the truck, I passed a guy in a car who sold me an electric razor, for $3.00 with a “pssst, Buddy routine.” When Dad tried to shave with it, it grabbed his whiskers and would not let go. It would not shave me either. The guy was gone when I tried to get my money back.

Katie and Dad divorced in 1942 and she moved. That left Pop, Bruce and me to batch it. Jack left, took charge of Beverly and later took her to Aunt Besse’s. Pop bought a burned out 1932 Harley-Davidson 72 cubic inch with high lift cams and 19-inch wheels. It had crashed during a race and he bought it to rebuild it. While rebuilding that he made a motor scooter that my cousin Bruce and I rode. It had no brakes so were supposed to be careful. We stopped it by dragging our feet.

When Pop finished the motorcycle he asked me if I if I knew how to ride a motorcycle. I said yes so he said I could have it for $ 175.00. I bought it for $ 100 down. On my first ride I turned right off of Wilfred Street, then right at the next street drove the one block to Conners Boulevard and stopped. So far so good. Then I over-accelerated, crossed four lanes of traffic, two of which were oncoming, I missed at least four cars, bounced up on the sidewalk across the street. Then I turned right, crossed back into the correct side of the street and boogied on home. Pop said, " How did it go". I said "Fine" but I must have been pale for days. The bike was green.

This picture shows Bruce with my bike in the foreground.

Dad often went hunting with Joe La Bounty. They both drank heavily. On one day he shot a hole in his car with a Winchester .348 rifle and then fell on it and broke the stock. He later gave it to me; damned thing kicked like a mule. (I fired it 4 times into the ground in my back yard, after a very serious drinking party, on New Years Eve, 1948. Next morning, I found that I had almost “killed” our garden hose.) Dad shot a hole with a shotgun in the darkroom when he tripped on the basement stairway after coming home from a hunt, but fortunately I was elsewhere.

Dad gave me boxing lessons, right after I started smoking a pipe and repeatedly pointed out that “smoking hurt my wind”. He had been a semi pro boxer and never failed to hit me in the nose right after warning me that he would. I did not want to hit him, so I did not impress him with my boxing prowess.

The Civil Air Patrol sounded interesting and I joined. As a member of the United States Civil Air Patrol, I got my first military uniform and became one of two motorcycle escort riders for Gar Wood, our Civil Air Patrol executive officer. Mr. Wood, a wealthy industrialist, lived in Grosse Point near the Detroit River. He had a swimming pool in his basement adjacent to a den in which he had animal trophies mounted on the walls. I was one of two motorcycle escort riders for Mr. Wood. The other was Skippy Sanger. The Civil Air Patrol met at Mr. Wood’s mansion. He was the manufacturer of World War II Landing Ship Tanks and the Landing Craft Infantry. He used his swimming pool to test the hydraulic characteristics of the models, which ultimately became these military craft. Mr. Wood had a profound influence on my future thinking because I vowed that some day I would own a swimming pool and be a hunter.

Skippy Sanger was the other motorcycle escort rider. I pasted a C.A.P. decal on my Harley-Davidson. The Civil Air Patrol had its own song, which I remember. We escorted Gar Wood only in parades. Little did I know that within a year or so that Skippy Sanger would also influence my future.

I adopted the nickname "Speed". It sure wasn’t "watch out". I had a close call about a year later when a car turned left directly in front of me. I skidded sideways, laid the bike down and slid, on the right crash bar, to a stop. When I got off I righted the bike, set the side kick stand, and sat on a curb with my head in my hands for a few minutes until my heart slowed to a normal beat.

In the winter of 1941 I took a job at General Motors Forge Plant as a time clerk. I decided to take flying lessons at Detroit City Airport. The instructor Dixie Davis, owned two all metal Luscombe high wing monoplanes, powered by 85 hp Lycoming engines. My first lesson went well. Dixie Davis took the plane into the air. I took over the joystick I turned the plane left and right, flew figure eights, dove, climbed and made a landing approach. I also flew directly toward the sun at about 5:00 P.M. I had no sunglasses so that bothered me but other than that I thought I was “hot stuff”. Dixie gave me a logbook and a pamphlet containing basic instructions and told me to read the instructions. I looked at the logbook and barely noticed the instructions. A week later, on a Friday night, I had just gotten off my motorcycle for at the Detroit City Airport. The streets had been cleared of snow and ice but the plane all metal Luscombe high wing monoplane was sitting in a patch of snow. The wheel chocks were in when Dixie spun the prop and the engine caught. But it sputtered so I gave it some gas; my both feet were on the brake pedals but the plane moved and toward the 6-story natural gas tank. As I thought about that tank, which friends had warned me about, Dixie started yelling, jumped back from the prop, leaped over and grabbed the left wing. I could not hear him over the roar of the engine. The plane swung around and the right wing hit the right wing of his other all-metal Luscombe. It turns out that beneath the snow laid a sheet of ice on which the wheels and wheel-chocks slid. I still remember Dixie Davis yelling for what seems like 20 minutes, " A plane is always in gear; that’s why I gave you the book to read!” I did not need the book as far as I was concerned. I had been flying and "knew it all". When I told my Dad about it he asked if I was OK and whose fault it was. I told him I was OK and the fault was mine. He said, "Let's eat". I also so informed the insurance company when asked so they paid for fixing Dixie's planes but I put him out of business for three weeks.

One day our CAP crew boarded Gar Wood’s amphibian airplane at TVO (Detroit’s City Airport) and flew to Flint, Michigan to drop imitation bombs on a target at the airport there. During the flight I was informed that it was fortunate that I admitted being at fault because if I had not, the insurance company would not have covered the instructor. The “bombs” consisted of one pound of flour in a paper sack. At the Flint Airport a circle drawn on a taxiway constituted our target.

In the spring of 1942 I went to work for the U.S. Army Detroit Ordnance District. My early tasks included finding measuring gauges for armament that had not been seen since World War 1. My title was Engineer-Order Detailer and I had a GS rating. I earned $1,200 per annum. I had a license to drive a government car. My first boss, Ray Fox; stood almost four feet tall. His boss, an Army captain to whom I was I was later assigned taught me to write letters in his style. I also worked for a man who liked my first name; his name was Myron Churchill and he was in his 70's. He had pioneered freeze-drying and foretold, for my benefit, the advent of the quick freeze industry. Betty Hutton, an emerging movie star had a girl friend who worked at the DOD and I drove her home after work on my motorcycle several times. She had great legs but she was older and too sophisticated for me (and probably too expensive).

One day, early in our batching days, we had a big pile of laundry. Dad instructed me to get it washed. I took it to a Chinese laundry on Conners Avenue. With my customary naive trust and ignorance, I left it without instructions. On pickup day I went there with a few bucks and when informed that the bill was over $11. I had to go home and get some money from Dad. He declared that among other things that if it cost more than $10. the “x@#%^& Chinaman” could keep it. I got it for that price, and almost wished I hadn’t. Every thing had been starched, even our socks. I heard about that for a couple of days.

I stayed on in the house at 14841 Wilfred Street until the winter of 1942 / 1943. In the winter 1942, my father, my cousin Bruce, and I were living as bachelors there. I met a girl named Mary Godwin. She was about 5 feet tall with no discernible shape. We had dated just twice and did some heavy necking; she was hotter than a pistol. I liked her but was chicken. She started coming over to our house. I asked Cal what do about her and he said if I liked her to go ahead and “jump” her. I guess I did not like her that much.

Within a few days after Cal and I talked, Cal and Dee decided to go to California. Cal invited me to go with them. This was on Friday and we were scheduled to leave on Tuesday. We did. I left home with a suitcase and about forty dollars. We drove south at first, through Arkansas we visited Cal’s uncle and his bootlegger’s still. “Uncle” wore hog washer overalls and revolver tucked inside the waste band. The handle stuck out. His still was in a grove of trees up on a hill with a good view of all approaches. We stayed a day and moved on. We drank rum and spent a lot of time looking for Coca-Cola trees. By the time we got to Denver we thought we ought to eat something, so we stopped and had lunch. As we traveled through Arizona we shot at jackrabbits from the window of his car. Had we been sober, we might have hit one.

Cal and I had planned to go to San Diego California and stay there but when we got there we saw many No Vacancy signs. So, we went up the coast to the San Fernando Valley. I found a job at a construction site where I chipped concrete with a star drill and sledgehammer one day and dug ditches the second day. The next day a major rainstorm and flood hit the San Fernando Valley. A woman, unable to exit her car, drowned in it at an intersection. Because of the rain I could not go to work. I used Cal’s car to go a drugstore and left it parked at the curb near the bottom of a steep hill, during a cloud burst. By the time I got out of the store the water was up over the curb and inside the car. Cal reacted angrily and this took the bloom out of our relationship. I had to move out of the motel in which we stayed. I had twenty dollars in my pocket and credit cards, if extant, were not known to me.

Fortunately, when I worked at General Motors Forge I gave many of my checks to my father to keep for me. I sent him a Western Union telegram and he wired me some money so I could afford to move. I remembered and contacted my Uncle Harry Nosanov in East Los Angeles where he lived with his wife, Esther. My Dad had a long-standing feud with Uncle Harry and considered him dead. I wanted to meet him. I sat in his chair when he entered the room and Esther introduced me. I knew he had been a professional wrestler so when he went for me and said, “Let’s see if you’re Morrie’s boy”, I tried to be ready. After we wrestled and rolled around on the floor a little he agreed I was and we got sociable. He and Esther had a nice house and spare room. They agreed to rent a room to me for ten dollars a week.

Uncle Harry Nosanov and his wife Aunt Esther had two daughters, Marilyn and Gloria. They lived there. In a shop in the back yard he made garden furniture for sale. He had two Harley Davidson motorcycles. I liked the Harley 80; 80 cubic inches of engine. The other had a 45 cubic inch engine. My Harley 74 was still in Detroit. He raised chickens in his back yard. Uncle Harry, like his brothers, was a renegade as to being Jewish. To Esther, being Jewish was very important and she gave me the following advice “Be sure to marry a Jewish girl.” I thought then maybe I should find out what she meant and what was “being Jewish”.

I also found out the circumstance that caused the feud between Harry and the rest of the family. Esther did it, not Harry. Uncle Harry was an innocent bystander, normally a sweet guy, and a pushover for his wife. In the 1920' s she sued my grandmother, his own mother, over an estate matter. I never learned the details.

Esther took in Beverly, Bruce’s sister in 1942. Beverly had been with Aunt Besse but they did not fare well together. Esther could not handle her either and had farmed her out by the time I got there. Uncle Jack and Bruce made the trip to California. They drove home on a motorcycle. When Bruce got home he crashed and broke his pelvis. Out of the hospital after three months, on the way home he crashed and broke his shoulder. He switched to horses. The pelvis injury prevented him from qualifying for military service.

I had transported two pistols across the country with me. I took them into City Hall and registered them with the Police Department to protect me from criminal charges if they were ever stolen and used in a crime. On the way back to my abode I drove through a crosswalk, in which there was a pedestrian. Behind me was a patrol car and I learned that in California a pedestrian in the crosswalk has the right of way. I got a ticket.

Gloria had a boyfriend, George with whom I played touch football. We took bus rides to an ice-skating rink and the Bimini swimming pool on Western Avenue. She invited some girl friends over and introduced me. I took a couple of cute ones for motorcycle rides and walked one home. I liked Evelyn Miller’s looks whom I walked home, but she talked my ear off. Gloria told me about a girl named Betty who knew which way the wind blew. One day in the backyard while I was talking with my Uncle Harry in his shop, I saw Betty Fay Magidow, a cute girl in a pair red slacks. She looked great to me. One of my criteria had come from a book where the heroine had enough hips to berth a baby and return to the fields very shortly. I offered her a ride home and told her I would meet her in front of the house. Little did she know that I was going to take her home on Uncle Harry’s Harley 80. She did not demur and I drove her home. When her mother saw that bike she told Betty not to go out with that bum again. Betty had a great bust line, beautiful eyes and cheekbones, rosebud lips and was not shy. But, she had no idea which way any thing blew. She even thought that kissing produced babies; just like in the movies.
Within days after meeting Betty I moved to a room on Rampart Street in Los Angeles and ate most of my meals at the Silver Dollar Café. A motley, if not sleazy, greasy spoon with a less than modest clientele, but affordable. I paid $10 a week for one room with a bed, a window and a hot plate. It probably had a toilet somewhere. I tried to get a job as a draftsman with L. A. Shipbuilding. They said they liked my drafting samples but would not hire me because “Uncle Sam” classified me 1A in the Selective Service Army Draft. I became a lonesome polecat. One popular song that made an impression on me contained the lyrics, “Get out of here and get me some money, too.”

I found a job in a gasoline service station on Hollywood Boulevard directly in front of the Mocambo nightclub. One of the near cross streets was Marmont Lane. Stan Laurel lived on this street and Jack Oakie lived in the Marmont Hotel. The boss, Joe, normally a good natured roly poly guy, let me take his Rolls-Royce to go to lunch a mile away at either Schwab’s Drug store or Greenblatt’s Delicatessen across the street. At the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights Avenue it reveled in Hollywood’s hey-days. The service station had customers like movie stars Arlene Judge, Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart. Arlene Judge, known as the It Girl of the 40s, wore low cut tailored suits and no blouse or brassiere. I enjoyed pumping gas and collecting from her. Bogart behaved reservedly cool and Ann Sheridan was drop dead beautiful. Tony Martin, the singer and Navy officer, stored cases of booze in one of the closets. I worked there for two weeks until I came back late from lunch with Joe’s Rolls one day and he ran me off with an adjustable wrench that look too big for where he wanted to put it. I hated cleaning the rest rooms, anyhow.

I promptly found employment at Schwab’s Drug store as a motorcycle delivery boy. Later, I also manned the cash register in the front of the store and washed dishes in the soda fountain galley on occasion. Leon Schwab hired me. He, his brother and sister, Yetta, ran the store. I earned $ 90 per month, tips, and a meal plus a second meal during my shift. A shift ran 8 to 12 hours per day, starting at noon. Their motorcycles had three wheels and between the two in the back there was a trunk like storage compartment. I also majored in soda jerk, counter clerk and dishwasher when needed. I used my nickname, “Speed”. I moved to digs on Franklin Street near Western Avenue. I had a room in an attic all to myself and refrigerator privileges in the kitchen for the same rent I had paid on Rampart Street.

At Schwab’s I met and observed many famous acting people. Some came in after work, others after play or whatever. Barbara Stanwyck and Vera Ellen frequented the soda fountain. Bob Benchley came in for cigars. Ann Miller, 19 years old at the time, (as was I) came in and tap danced in the back room to prove that she was faster than Alabam, a Negro cohort who also rode motor for Schwab’s. Alabam was an aspiring entertainer who also danced at a local nightclub. Another rider was Bill Bordner, who lived just around the, south of the Garden of Allah. He wanted to be an actor. One day at his house I found him and his Mom admiring his body; he was standing in front of a mirror in his shorts, all puffed up. He had a great profile and cheekbones and although he knew it did not behave haughtily. Bill and I often chatted with Bill Lundigan, a very nice fellow and well-known actor of those days.

The most memorable chat was with Bob Benchley (later known in the 1990's as Peter’s father), a famous author and comedian. One late night after Bob Benchley had played poker up the street, he stood in front of the cash register counter blew perfect smoke rings and comically instructed Bill Bordner and me on the joys and proper puffing on a cigar. He made us laugh so hard we had tears in our eyes. When we could laugh no more, he looked down in disdain and stalked away. It was at this cash register that I met Lena Horne, also my age. I met, had a soda with Vera Ellen at Schwab’s soda fountain and aspired to date her. That idea crashed when the next week, I made a delivery to her apartment and she tipped me a dime. Other persons to whom I made deliveries included Cole Porter (author, musician, composer), Sidney Skolsky (columnist) and performers Bob Mitchum, Charles Laughton, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, and Jane Wyman, also known at that time as Mrs. Ronald Reagan. The Garden of Allah was a popular hotel for Hollywood aspirants. Dinah Shore lived at the Garden of Allah with George Montgomery. When I made a delivery there, her new teeth were being built as well her image for stardom. Skolsky used to come into the pharmacy room and chat.

Allan Jones, a talented singer and actor, rode a motorcycle and would wave, as was the custom, to other riders. Each time I would ride up Sunset and turn onto Doheny Drive, a small dog would try to jump in front of Schwab’s three-wheeler. I avoided that dog until I could miss it and it outsmarted me. I ran over it as we both jigged, I to miss and he to get in front. The dog ran a few yards toward a house and collapsed. I stopped and found the owners. They included Allan, and his preteen kids, Jack and Shirley Jones. They took the news bravely but Allan stopped waving at me. Jack and Shirley, of course, grew up to be attractive, talented and famous singers and actors.

I rented a private room, previously used as servant’s quarters, in a house on Marmont Lane at the southwest corner of Hollywood Boulevard. The landlady, Tanya Huntsberger was gracious and accommodating. She invited me to several gatherings of her local folk and friends and I grew up a little more. One of her friends wore army boots and drove a car that let the owner know when to push a button to lubricate it. It may have been a Rolls or a Bentley. He had paid more $30,000 for it. In the spring of 1943 that was more than chump change. I also started to change and had a major hormone attack.

Coupled with the new room and its privacy it seems like I had purchased a libido license and was determined to use it. However, I was still at the learner’s permit stage and chose to watch and listen. A gal who sat at the soda fountain displayed herself with tight fitting clothing on a body that seemed to be the epitome of carnal being. People called her “Rosie the Riveter”. With a mouth like a sewer I heard words from her which I had never heard before and not often since. Sex seemed to be as common as coffee in that neighborhood and I heard stories and saw examples that would put even some tabloid articles of the 1990's in the kindergarten stage. I choose to not print them. I also heard of some exploits of some of the locals that would cause a corpse to blush.

Uncle Sammy wanted some Kings Men cologne, a very popular, scarce and expensive commodity at the time, but Leon sold me a bottle for him. I packed it up and mailed it, the top leaked and when it arrived in San Bernardino the bottle was empty. The store had no more and Uncle Sammy had to do without, as he reminded me often.

At this time I made a thoughtless decision I still regret. Dad and Bruce decided to move to California, from Detroit. Pop asked if I would be interested in coming to Detroit and taking the trip with them. The decision I made was negative. It would have been quality time that could not be replaced. They started out with two cars, trailers and my motorcycle. In Evansville, Indiana one car broke down. It turned out to have been a stolen car, which Pop unwittingly purchased from Cal Harris. They abandoned it in Evansville along with the trailer that the car pulled. The trailer contained all my belongings including a large, valuable stamp collection. When they arrived a week later I was glad to see them and to have their company and get my own wheels. Bruce and I took a motorcycle rides together.

One day after working more than 12 hours and riding Schwab’s three-wheeler, while going west on Sunset Boulevard I hung a right turn too tight at Kings Road. The right rear wheel of the trike hit the curb and the machine and I flew into the air. Before I came down, the front wheel had hit an oncoming car. I lurched forward into the faring, which cut through my scarf and scratched my neck, under my Adam’s apple. My legs hit the crash guards. My riding boots took the shock so my shins were only dented. The front wheel of the trike went where the motor should have been but it moved to the rear. When the tow truck got there with Bill Bordner, they made me ride on the trike so as not to “lose my nerve”. The shop took three weeks to repair the trike.

At Schwab’s things began to denigrate. Yetta Schwab complained about the meals I freeloaded. I decided that I was not appreciated and quit. Leon knew about it and wrote it off to free overtime, which they did not pay. He and I shook hands and we stayed on good terms. After I was discharged from the Army in 1945 I had to return there to get a copy of my payroll information to satisfy the Internal Revenue Service, Leon offered to train me and run his new store in Beverly Hills, but I had other plans.

The family and some old acquaintances began to congregate. Pop, Aunt Besse and Uncle Harry were in L.A. Bruce and Uncle Jack were in L.A. Uncle Sammy was in San Bernardino. George McCann and George Porter were in the area. George had been a racecar driver and pilot until he had a crash and wound up with a stiff right leg. But he was good looking and charming and not in the service and attracted girls. Cheap whiskey was available. The good stuff was not.

One night in March 1943, Dad, Uncle Jack and I went bar hopping and carousing. Jack, Dad and I were extremely under the “alkoflence of inkohol” and, as I had previously schemed, stopped at Uncle Harry’s. Dad, Uncle Jack and Uncle Harry shook hands and made up. We stayed a while, chatted and went upon our sodden way, into a long and memorable night.

Uncle Sam loaned me a 1932 Model A Ford Coupe from the lot where he sold cars. I made a date with a beautiful beast who worked in a drug store about a mile east of Schwab’s. She claimed to be a countess and showed up with another girl who the Countess claimed to be Nicky Hilton’s ex-wife, Maria. (Conrad Hilton founded the Hilton Hotel chain). I took them both to the Coach and Horses Bar on Hollywood Boulevard. We all drank daiquiris and they were thirsty. When I ran low on cash we left the bar and I dropped off Maria, she slammed the car door and broke the window. When I dropped off the “countess” I was so worried about the car I forgot why I dated her. Uncle Sam shrugged off the car damage. He merely put it back on the car lot from which he had borrowed it. Maria Hilton committed suicide a couple of years later.

George McCann, a family “friend” from Detroit, took me out for my very first round of golf in what is now Century City. I shot a 90 but after 9 holes was just too tired to continue counting strokes let alone swing a golf club. George was living with Helen in a trailer and drove a cool looking convertible.

One day George and I had lunch in a restaurant across from the Greyhound station at 6th and Main Streets in L. A. He made a date with a sexy looking Mexican waitress, just to show me he could do it. To insure his appearance she handed him an expensive sterling silver bracelet, loaded with charms. When we got back to the trailer, his lady or wife (?) Helen asked him, “ How was lunch?” and he just tossed her the bracelet.

Dad scheduled a “going into the service” party for me on April 20th at Aunt Besse’s house on Cloverdale Street in L.A. Because of my family I wanted invite a nice girl for my date. I did not know any in Hollywood and therein lay my dilemma until I remembered Betty Fay Magidow. I telephoned her and she accepted. The night of the party I drove George McCann’s convertible and picked her up. Betty wore a navy blue dress with a lot of white polka dots. Uncle Jack acted like he wanted to count all the dots. We, not Betty, all had a drink or two and after an hour Aunt Besse sent me out for ice cubes. I asked Betty to go with me and we took George McCann’s convertible. Dad informed me later the car did not belong to George; he had “borrowed” it. After a while I found a drug store at Beverly and Vermont that had ice cubes that I could purchase but they had to dig them out of someplace. As we waited, sirens began to wail and all the lights in the city seemed to be turning off. Some one ran in and said the whole is blacked out because of a Japanese air raid; Santa Barbara had been bombed. Betty and I perched on some stools until I got uncomfortable, so we went out to the car and sat, talked and waited. After the air raid all clear signal, we got the ice and returned to the party, which was almost over. Every one was smashed and ready for bed. I took Betty home and we sat in front of the house and talked a long time. On the morning of April 21 I said goodbye to McCann and sold him my alarm clock for $ 5.00. Dad drove me to the induction center in Los Angeles where I reported for induction into the U.S. Armed Forces.

The events of the early days are not clear; there were inoculations, standing around naked, interviews, swearing in, and more interviews. During one of the inoculations a young recruit fainted and knocked over a corrugated metal trash receptacle. The trash receptacle received immediate attention. The recruit wasn’t going anywhere anyhow. The fact that the faintee was a Negro could have been why he received attention only after the trash can, but I realized from that moment on I was probably going to be just number 39571809.

I got in line to get into the Navy, heard my name from behind, turned around and there stood Skippy Sanger, from Detroit. He had been the only other motorcycle escort rider for Gar Wood in the C.A.P. Detroit Squadron. Skippy asked me why I stood in the Navy line and I told him that my Dad had been in the Navy but I really wanted to be in the Army or Navy Air Corps. He said I should get in line for the Signal Corps and when they found about our experience they would put us in the Air Corps. Skippy was older and persuasive; I was young and dumb, so I said O.K. When interviewed about my Detroit Ordnance District experience the interviewer classified it as Engineer Order Detailer and wrote me into the Army Air Corps. Skippy was put in the same unit. We went through initial orientation in the same place and took written and physical tests.

Then we were sent to a desert base, Camp Anza, near Warner Springs. I put on skis for a test to see if I had aptitude as a mountain trooper. A mountain trooper skied down a slope in an attack, fired a submachine gun with one hand and poled with the other. I did not know if I had a choice but this did not appeal to me as it sounded suicidal at best and at worst, I could barely stand up in the darned things. One day I was put on a work detail where we went to an open field, in the High Desert. We were told we would be building the Campbell Mountain Rifle Range and handed shovels by a Sergeant who promptly disappeared. It got hot and after a short time I decided someone should be in charge and took over as the non-digging supervisor. I knew about digging from working with my Dad. After an hour or so the Sarge returned and gave me an earful. A few days later we were taken out there again. By this time it became a rifle range and we were issued .30 caliber 1903 British Enfield bolt-action rifles for the day’s firing. Firing prone, each time I fired I was bounced back a few inches. I would crawl back up and fire again. That night my shoulder was black and blue, my right cheek hurt, and I had a major headache.

The first music I remember hearing during those days was “ Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”. When I got to a telephone to call my Betty and Dad, he said a gal I had dated accused me of committing fatherhood, which I knew to be a big lie and told him. Dad told her to forget it.
Skippy and I shipped out to Army Air Corps Basic Training Center No. 8, at Fresno, California where I took Army Air Corps basic training. Betty and I began to correspond. My Dad came to visit me and brought his lady friend and Betty. Betty’s mother did not want Betty and I to be alone so he brought her, too, a couple of times but made sure that we had time alone. We appreciated it. I gave Betty my Harley Davidson Motorcycle Pin. It is on her sweater in this picture.

I made a few friends including Mike Baboff, Neeley, and Baker. Neeley survived the war. Baboff did not. I donut know about Baker who loaned me a silver dollar one day. He and I went on a few passes together. On one a Portuguese family named Bojorquez befriended us. Baker had access to a car, and he and I dated two of their daughters. I paired with Rosie. Baker and I visited them once when they later moved to the San Francisco Bay area. Rosie was nice but I was hooked on Betty, although we were not yet engaged. By then she had bought me a watch and sterling silver I.D. bracelet. Each of those presents cost her a week’s pay.

During training the temperatures on the field often exceeded the 100's. Calisthenics were brutal. The philosophy applied seemed to come from a sensible clause in General Von Clausewitz’s handbook. We were informed, “If you can’t survive the training you will fail the mission and your buddies will suffer for it.” The officer who led the training who liked working the previous night’s whiskey out of his system. We worked up to 50 pushups, 100 side straddle hops, 100 sit ups, 10 mile hikes and 2 miles of running in one day. We were allowed one canteen of water during daylight hours. The afternoon of the final day of basic training during “Retreat”, 7 men passed out and two died.

But we did have some fun. I got into some intense dice games (craps) just about every payday, and usually lost. One day I ran my paycheck up to $ 700.00 and “shot” it. I won and “shot” the $ 1,400. Freddy Lobdell won it and lost it on his next roll. We borrowed a dime, went to the PX and split a beer.

During a barracks bull session one night I met Hollywood’s Grant Withers, an actor in some westerns and in a movie with singer Deanna Durbin. Grant was older than all of us and told some great stories. In one of his purported escapades he got drunk, went over to Central Avenue in Los Angeles and picked up a Negro “tootsie”, unintentionally insulted her and after all of that wound up with nothing but a dose of crabs. Condoms were available in the Company Commanders Headquarters. One need not ask, we just took them as wanted.

We could easily leave camp without a pass. I rolled up my mattress and hid my GI issued stuff in a pal’s bunk and footlocker. At night I slipped out of the barracks, under a fence and went. Our barracks housed 21 men of which at least 18 or 19 would show up for roll call each morning. But one was seldom missed. The sergeant, who had been Regular Army, apparently could not count that high and some “heres” were delivered from the sides of a buddy’s mouth. He must have been near sighted, too. One day we were informed that we were all restricted to barracks. One of us had a mustache and refused to shave it. There was a near riot as he was almost attacked. I was one of those who held them off. One of our guys took a couple of men to the back of the attackers and fistically neutralized the instigators. I was to find out later that our leader of the neutralizers was one William Malcolm (Billy) Campbell.

I went AWOL several times to see Betty and once to bring back Mike Baboff who was absent during reveille. Mike Baboff could run the 440 in 10 seconds. He was a beautiful specimen of a young man, but missed his Mom and her great Armenian food. I sneaked out and found him at home, in East L.A. By the time I got there it was dinnertime. His family had emigrated from Russia. Mike’s mother set the table with the most food I had ever seen for a family. It was delicious. The sergeant put him on report and would have qualified for Air Cadet Training School, but the Captain used the report to prevent it. Baboff, Betty, and I became friends. (Mike would later die in infantry combat north of Bastogne.) Our son, Michael, is named after him.)

I was then informed of the results of testing and given three options. Oh, joy. I could become: 1) a radio-operator-gunner; 2) a weather man or 3) take tests to go back to college as a soldier, get a degree and become an officer. The Allies were planning for a long war contingency. I had liked option one when the war broke out. Option 2 sounded boring; the school was at Chanute Field near Chicago. Option 3 sounded best because I still wanted to be an engineer so I opted for that. I could not qualify for pilot training because I lacked 20-20 vision in one eye.

We had our teeth checked and I needed some fillings. The Army dentist informed me that he used cheap metal amalgams; sure they were temporary but survivors of the war would get silver replacements at government expense.

Within days the Army shipped me to Stanford University where I enrolled in the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) and took academic tests preparatory to assignment at another major university. In three weeks I shipped out to the University of California in Berkeley where I began intensive scholastic and military training. We billeted in a sorority house on Euclid Avenue from which the females had been wisely evacuated.

After reveille, exercises and breakfasts we started class at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning and studied until 10:00 at night, five days a week. We ate in the school cafeteria, where one day I ate horsemeat for the first time in my life. I made two more friends, "Bambi" Ellison and Billy Campbell. Billy and I had rooms on the second floor. Bambi, my roommate, and I use to take turns punching its each other in the stomach, not hard, but as fast as we could. Billy Campbell was very unusual. He and I first met over a dispute about a pillow that he said I had taken from his bunk. I disagreed. When I had taken the pillow it was not his bunk. We had only one argument over that. We were later to fight, just for practice, when he could provoke no one to attack him, it seemed. He almost always beat me at wrestling and once at boxing.

Billy Campbell had also come out of the Air Corps into the ASTP program. He had been born in United States of Canadian parents; therefore he had dual citizenship. His Dad owned Campbell Motor Company, on Kingsway Avenue in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Billy was a good mechanic and the proud possessor of a caved in chest, from a motorcycle accident. He had slid down a mountain with a tool kit strapped to his chest. He also had a large gap between his front teeth and could be a charmer. Billy had an electric razor that worked and a mobile radiotelephone in his car. The radio - telephone was from Canada and totally illegal in the U.S. at the time. He had a Mercury convertible, painted robin’s egg blue, with two fuel tanks and a cut down, “Carson” top. Gasoline was rationed but not cleaning solvent. Billy could start the car on gasoline in one tank, warm up the engine, and then switch to cleaning solvent in the other tank. I had my motorcycle. The only time I tried cleaning solvent in it I had to park it somewhere in Oakland where it ceased to operate. And, I was broke. Fortunately there was a Red Cross facility on the next block where I made “borrowed” $15 and got back to camp.

On weekends when Billy and I had money we drove to Los Angeles and sometimes stayed at Betty's house. Her mother had married her second husband, Arthur, who liked to be known as Butch. They owned a two-bedroom house on Houston Street in East L.A. Betty’s mother, Beatrice, fed us huge breakfasts; we could put away one pound of bacon and a dozen eggs at one sitting. Bea, her nickname, was an attractive lady for her age. Butch was very hospitable and a fun guy. Betty got dates for Billy and she would be my date. We had some very nice times. We would usually get in very early on Saturday and leave late Sunday night. Among our favorite past times was night clubbing. Billy and I drank a lot of alcoholic beverages. We also “collected” the glasses that held the drinks. Betty could not hold her second drink, or anything that preceded or followed it. This resulted in ruining the paint on my Dad’s car one night.

One night Billy, Betty and I went to a nightclub, the “Seven Seas” on Hollywood Boulevard and got a table close to the stage. Ella Fitzgerald played the piano and sang there that night. We sat in a booth and soon Bill and I went to Men’s Room. Upon our return our seats had been filled by 2 officers whom we firmly but politely confronted; they soon retreated to a safer position. We saw “Red Nichols and his Five Pennies” there one night. Another night, Dad and his lady friend, Sadie, took us to Club Zamboanga, a rowdy nightclub near Gardena. When a patron headed to a rest room they were loudly informed, “ We know where you’re going”, and “ Here, take a short cut”.

Billy had a habit of starting fights, and winning them. He had big wrists, a mouth to match, and an overactive ego and was almost universally disliked by the men. One weekend several of them decided to give “big mouth” Campbell a lesson, in his room. The dummies actually lined up outside the door. When I got up there he was handling two at a time. After I arrived, it was one at a time. He would beat them up, throw them out and I would let in another eager, but stupid, aggressor. After several of them were ejected the rest of them gave up. Billy was very charming with the ladies and could pick them up, often in pairs. I always wound up with one that did not interest me. He fell for one, a beauty named Carol Tanner, and wound up broke one week after financing her trip to her home in Oklahoma City. That kept us from going to L.A. one weekend.

One Monday morning after a heavy weekend during which I was observed out of uniform (I wore my motorcycle jacket and cap, while riding) I missed roll call after reveille. I had dreamed I stood it, after I heard the g-d d--n bugle. I reported to the C.O. to explain. When I told him he dismissed me with a chuckle, saying he had never heard that excuse before.

Our training included water exercises in the University swimming pool. We swam naked. One day while sliding out over the edge of the pool I noticed some tiny little critters on the deck but thought nothing of it. With in hours I was getting some itchy bites. They turned out to be crabs of the crotch variety; I was re-introduced to the song; “Get out that old Blue Ointment, the Crabs disappointment, take a Hot Bath once or twice a day”. In a week the crabs were gone. During one exercise we donned sailor pants and stepped from a deck, 25 feet above the pool water. In the water we doffed the pants, tied knots in the bottom of the feet and at the waist to hold in air, ala water wings, and thus survive an attack on a watercraft.

We studied hard. To fail meant loss of honor and reassignment. Early in the program one could go back to his old outfit, in my case, the Air Corps. One of the fellows, Landon, studied every waking moment, evening when he walked. He did not wash his face or shower. After a few months he literally had a crust on him and an offensive body odor. This attracted the attention of a Sergeant who threatened our group with a disciplinary measure. Finally, his roommates grabbed, stripped, and scrubbed him in the shower with Fels Naptha, a very strong soap. They only had to do it once. After hearing a rumor we asked him if he was related to Alf Landon, a Republican presidential candidate who had run against F.D. Roosevelt: he confirmed that he was a nephew.

The Army wanted to find out about high altitude effects on humans. I volunteered to be a high altitude testing “guinea pig”. The first day they used me I entered a pressure chamber with several other men where they took us to a simulated 12,000 feet. On another day, right after I ate a quick lunch, they took us “up”, returned us to “sea level” and then up to 18,000 feet. At 12,000 feet they stopped providing pressure and as we approached 18,000 feet my stomach bloated and I almost passed out; as did others. It seems that the gas in my stomach expanded to 7 times normal volume and I could not relieve myself fast enough. I did not go back there again. I found out later that the tests were used for B29 flight parameters. The B 29 airplane flew at elevations of 35,000 feet but they knew when to provide oxygen and pressure.

After six months we were informed that the A.S.T.P. would close, the war would be shortened and future technical and officer training of the type we were getting would end. I earned a Basic Engineering Certificate and 40 three-semester units, including some military science credits. So did Mike Baboff, although he was AWOL during the Chemistry Final exam. But he passed. I took the test for him it was easy. I had taken it for myself only a few days sooner. ASTP closed because of Project Manhattan, a program conceived to shorten the war. The A- bomb was to be used in the Pacific after the war in Europe was won. B 29 aircraft delivered those bombs. How would they win in Europe? They would later fully mobilize all human resources (scrape the barrel) as ground combat troops. I found out the later that the Laws of Conservation of Mass and Energy were repealed by the results of Project Manhattan.

One of the last things I did while at Berkeley was to take my whole paycheck of $ 50 to a jewelry store. I spent it all on a yellow 14k gold wedding ring and engagement ring set with a 10-point diamond. I had never been that close to a diamond before. When I got to L.A. I presented the engagement ring to Betty and we became formally engaged.

I tried out again for Pilot Cadet Training and this time passed the eye examination. But, by then Cadets were no longer in short supply. The Air Corps would accept only the return of men who had been in the Technical Training Command. Within days, hundreds of us shipped out to Camp Cooke; on the Pacific Coast, west of Lompoc, California. The 11th Armored Division was to be filled out to combat strength of 15,000 men. They had gone to the desert with 12,000 and then to Camp Cooke with 10,000. I became one of 5,000 new men, almost all fresh from Universities, who were wholeheartedly resented, especially by buddies of the training casualties. My squad leader, Sergeant Pepe, bitterly told us of a his friend whose hand had been blown off by a one pound brick of Nitrostarch during training in the hot Indio, California desert while were at a University. ASTP troops started at the bottom of the totem pole and ate worms.

Bambi Ellison, Mike Baboff and I were in the 11th Armored Division. I was assigned to the 55th Armored Infantry Battalion, Headquarters Company, and Heavy Weapons Section/Platoon, machine gun Squad. Billy Campbell was assigned to the combat engineers. It took him only a few days to look me up. He had brought his car to the base. Mike Baboff was assigned to a rifle company, “A”Company. I weighed 155 pounds when I got to Camp Cooke. On a meat and potatoes diet and infantry training I weighed 185 pounds when I went overseas. The training was different and not as physically difficult as Air Corps Basic. We went through obstacle courses, climbed ropes, swung on rings and tumbled. We trained with basic infantry weaponry- the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine, light and heavy .30 caliber machine gun, .50 caliber machine gun, Thompson .45 cal. submachine gun, bazooka and hand grenades.

We attacked simulated villages; I made a friend on one of those exercises. I had climbed up on top of a one-story building, to avoid going around it to face an “enemy position”. When I jumped off the roof I landed on “Blackie” Sulfaro. Neither of us got hurt. He thought quite highly of that introduction. Another friend was Pvt. Strauss who escaped the Nazis in Berlin by the skin of his tussy, came to the U.S., and promptly joined the Army. One day while in our barracks, lined up in front our bunks, naked as was the custom, waiting for short arm inspection (check your encyclopedia) he told me we would fight our way into Berlin and he would fix me up with many beautiful girls. He got excited and an erection; this would have made it easier for the inspector, but he grabbed a newspaper to cover up, read it and calm down. Two other former ASTP troops were Carl Meyers and Ostrow. Carl liked to be called Carlos. He was assigned to I & R, (Intelligence and Reconnaissance) Platoon. Ostrow was made Company Clerk, a corporal. I resented that. I could have whipped him while playing a bugle. He was the only man I knew who crapped in his pants during the infiltration course.

During training we crawled through a course under live machine gun fire (the infiltration course), and simulated rifleman attacks up a hill where I could not duck, hide, kneel, crawl roll or do anything but walk erect and “shoot” I was “killed” in about 20 seconds. This is three seconds longer than the average combat life of a rifleman under the same conditions and proved I was as good as the average rifleman.

We practiced live firing, threw live grenades, and hand-to-hand combat, which included Judo, and bayonet training. I was selected as booby trap man for our platoon and learned to recognize and disarm the types of booby traps we might expect in combat. I took jeep and half-track driving lessons and became an assistant half-track driver. A half-track is equipped with two wheels in front, and two tank type tracks on the rear, which is also the drive. There are two seats in the cab and a 1/2-inch thick steel box which seats 8 troops in the rear and stores gear. Above the seat next to the driver is a circular opening in which is mounted a .30 caliber machine gun. In the box in the back is a pedestal-mounted .30 caliber machine gun. The driver and assistant driver take turns driving and manning the machinegun up front. One day, during field training maneuvers I manned the machine gun in the box. The front wheels fell into a foxhole and I lurched, breastplate first into the butt of the machine gun. I suffered cartilage damage to my front rib cage at the breastbone. Next day a medic bandaged me and I returned to duty. It was not serious and only bothered me when my body was jolted but took 15 years to heal.

As a draftee I became a member of the Army of the United States and had a different status than an enlistee. Enlistees were in the United States Army (Regular Army). We had a Regular Army first sergeant, with 18 ½ years of service. This muscle free man weighed an obese 280 pounds and could not accompany us during training. He did not belong in the Army. He, too, resented of all us GIs who spent all that time at a university while he had to train in the desert. He manifested his resentment daily. We retaliated in numerous and subtle ways. Within weeks he broke down, tore off his stripes, cried and took early retirement. Sergeant Wolfe replaced him. We also had a First Lieutenant Richter, another real pain as our platoon leader. One day during a redundant exercise in taking apart and reassembling carbines I asked him what would happen if I filed the sear (it catches the bolt as it retracts). It opined that the carbine could then be fired as an automatic weapon; but there would be no way to stop it short of emptying the clip. Richter retorted, “Ten years in Leavenworth, soldier.” Richter was replaced with a National Guard graduate, just before we went to Camp Kilmer our overseas Port of Embarkation.

I learned to handle more alcohol. Campbell and I would get to L.A. every possible weekend. One weekend he could not get away. I went to Lompoc to try to hitch hike a ride to L.A. So did dozens of other GIs. After an hour or so I meandered into a local bar and met a GI from C Company. He was a red head named Garcia and we and settled down to drink. I tried to get a ride after 2 drinks but failed and went back to the bar. After 11 drinks, about midnight, I got off the barstool and tried to walk but could not. After Garcia showed me- you put one foot out, hang on to something, then another foot, he helped me ambulate to a large room in a local church where I got a cot for the night. I went to sleep on one and when I awoke in the morning I was on the floor. It seemed that was standard procedure. There were only a few dozen cots and many more troops.

One weekend I rented a large 1926 Buick Touring Sedan, then known as a “Pregnant Six”, from a rifle company sergeant; $ 25.00, in advance, for a weekend. The car, a convertible, no longer had a top; but had a luggage trunk and spare tire on the rear. Seven passengers shared the costs. By the time we got to L.A.; we picked up 3 GI hitchhikers .We probably looked like the lost battalion and we hooted and hollered every chance we got.

That weekend Betty and I had a ball. Betty’s stepsister Sylvia used to date with us. She was the same age as Betty and I liked her. She was chubby, sweet and ironed my dress tan trousers for me. She later married Harvey Witnov, Betty’s cousin. His family had a chicken trucking business and provided me with AC@ Gasoline Ration Stamps. Black market gas was $0.50 a gallon when it could be found, compared to less than half that for rationed gas. I took a load of family to the beach. We went to Belmont Shores, near Long Beach. Sylvia’s sister, Isabelle, was 14 and “sailor crazy”, so each time we passed one we teased her. We had a big weekend. On the way back, I collected our riders and we made it back to Camp Cooke by 0500 hours to go to “work”. We had a close call when the driver who relieved me fell asleep and drove off the road; some one woke him just in time.

Trips with Billy Campbell were adventures. More than once, I could not bear to look so I just went to sleep in the back seat. He traveled at high speed in blinding fog. During a foggy night while doing 70 MPH, he passed a California Highway Patrol car. I just knew we were in trouble. But, no, Billy sped away, pulled into a small community just off the highway, and turned out the headlights. We saw the CHP pass and waited until it was safer to proceed.

One Saturday morning, while in camp, Campbell pulled the worn out and squealing brake shoes from his Mercury and we set out for L.A. with two other passengers. We took a back road to avoid traffic. As we started down a long hill, at the bottom of which there was a U-turn, Platoon Sergeant Nelson suggested that Billy use the brakes.
Billy said, “Sure hand them up here, they are under your feet there in the back seat.”
I forget Nelson’s words but the look on his face said it all. Billy shifted down into second gear, slowed a bit, and all was O.K. We made it to L.A. When we got to Sunset Boulevard and Western Avenue a L.A. Police car sat at the northeast corner behind a car waiting to turn east. We were going east on Sunset and the light changed to yellow as we approached then red as we entered the intersection. Billy shifted into second gear, then first, hit the emergency brake and slid onto a parking place, about 100 feet past the intersection. I watched with amazement and relief as the cop, with sirens roaring went down the street and pulled over a different car. That day, Billy bought new brake shoes and we installed them.

Shades of Hollywood. One weekend a budding starlet, Jan Sterling, entertained us. I was selected to be her chauffeur and show her around the base. Another weekend Ray Bolger entertained us.

About that time, Campbell got me in trouble again. We were in uniform, as required, and headed toward the beach in Santa Monica. Billy drove and Betty, Henrietta Robins (a power packed little chick), and I were in the car when he picked up a cute hitchhiker. She turned out to be a college girl and he drove to her sorority house at UCLA, and went inside with her. After about 10 minutes I went in after him. He had started a card game and it took us another 10 minutes or so, to get away. Betty got very angry with me, as if it were my fault, and Henrietta never dated Billy again.

Billy Campbell got himself restricted to quarters but the next weekend we decided to go to L.A. On the way back, we came roaring up behind his First Sergeant’s car. Betty’s cousin, Harvey had given us Gasoline Ration Stamps so we decided to not pass, slow down and kill time by stopping for gasoline and have another drink. We did, but traveling at very high speed, Billy again caught up with the sergeant. Billy said, “ I’ll pass him so fast, he’ll never recognize us.” Yeah, right. Billy got court martialed and sentenced to 90 days, which he would have served, but his company shipped out and they took him along. This was my last trip back to camp with Billy Campbell.
Dad bought a trailer and lived in it in a park at the corner of Alvarado and Temple Streets. I stayed there at night with him occasionally. He listened to the radio a lot. One of his favorite songs was “If I Could Be with you an Hour Tonight”. He had a lady friend named Sadie Kemp. They had good times together. Sadie and Dad introduced me to her daughter, a tall, slim, pretty blond. We had nothing in common.


Without Dad’s help I had no independent means of transport. About that time, he bought a 1942 Packard sedan and started to fix it up for me to drive. It was almost done and one day he left it at the top of a hill. It rolled down, crashed and he had to start over. It was not ready by the time I shipped out. One night after a date with Betty I walked from her Mom’s house near Soto and Malabar to his trailer. It took several hours. The next day, I was trembling until I reached her by phone, to see if every thing was O.K. The hook was set.

I got a Chevrolet coupe, which I used for a few trips. It held the driver and two passengers but had a trunk into which a hardy soul or two could ride-and did. On one trip I picked up four troops, a large Hershey chocolate bar and a pint of whiskey. Henry Roller, one of those troops was an older guy, maybe 35 or more and it seemed to me, worried all the time. On Highway 101 north of Santa Barbara as we turned off the coast, downhill in the Goleta Pass, I had finished half the whiskey and may have been going at terminal velocity. The wind howled and the car rocked. Two GIs rode in the trunk with the lid open. Henry wanted to get out and walk. At 0500 we got back to Camp Cooke, right on schedule. I had finished the candy bar and the whiskey. As I tried to exit the car, I found I could not walk and had to be helped to my bunk where I spent the day. The guys covered for me.

I began to get withdrawal symptoms ever time I left Betty after a weekend. Little did I know then that I was hooked? She seemed to have no fear and would ride behind me on my motorcycle, our means of transport. One day, on the way back from Santa Monica Beach, where I had asked her to marry me that day, coming east on Wilshire Boulevard we were traveling at 75 miles per hour. Her comment was, Can’t you go any faster?” Actually, the bike would not go any faster that day, although at one time, in Detroit it would go over 100 mph. Years later it turned out she was in her bathing suit and had sand her pants. I guess I had “ants in mine”.

The weekend before the 5th of September 1944 I got a three-day pass, borrowed $ 70 from a couple of troops, and took a bus to L.A. I said let’s get married. Betty said yes. We went to City Hall and I bought a marriage license. Betty’s mom did not let me out of her sight when I was near Betty. She arranged to have the nuptials at a rabbi’s house on Soto Street, a few blocks from her house, the very next afternoon. That night as Dad and I were retiring in his trailer I told Dad him I was getting married the very next day. He said fine but went to sleep with tears on his cheeks. Next morning we drove over to George Porter’s trailer. Dad told him about me getting married. I guess he just had to tell somebody. George had moved to Glendale after he got out of jail for running whiskey. George told us that he served a year but his accomplice, who turned state’s evidence, got a seven years sentence at which the man fainted forthwith. While on the way to the wedding, Dad picked up a pint of whiskey. We sucked on it as he and I walked me up and down the street in front of the house before the ceremony. At least one of us probably needed it.

One of Betty’s cousins scrounged up a best man. Betty and I were married in a short formal ceremony that afternoon and a small reception was held at her Mom’s house that night. Some of Betty’s cousins and aunts and uncles were there. Betty’s grandmother, Bertha, reminded me that I was a soldier, headed to combat and I might not return, and to be careful. I promised. That night we drove to Santa Monica, walked into the Georgiana Hotel and registered as Mr. and Mrs. We were on our honeymoon and our honeymoon could not have been sweeter. Our breakfast the next morning was at Walgreen’s Drug store down the street. The hotel fronted the ocean; we enjoyed a beautiful view from the roof late that afternoon. This is a copy of the picture of Betty taken there that I carried with me all during my service in Europe. The stains were not from my blood.

The following Monday, I took the train back to camp, but it arrived too late for the base bus. I started to walk the five miles. After a while I opened a package Dad had given me and started to drink from a pint bottle of whiskey. I drank the whole bottle by the time I got to camp and I felt no pain. The place was all-aflutter. I was ordered to pick up my weapon, get the 90 pound barrel of a caliber. 50 machine gun and report for Port of Embarkation (P. O. E.) assembly inspection. We had a new platoon leader, a second looey. I showed up in the ranks, still half-soused and properly bewildered. The lieutenant snapped my weapon, a cal .30 carbine, from my “present arms” stance, inspected it and told the sergeant to note that there was dust on the piece. I should have stood at attention and kept my eyes straight ahead. However, I said something like “oops”. Sergeant Wolf put me on report , canceled my pass renewal and sent me to duty at the guardhouse and then to the kitchen for K.P. My honeymoon was over.

The following Tuesday we boarded a train and headed for Camp Kilmer, New Jersey where rumor had it that the mosquitoes were so big they needed landing lights. It was a long ride and went through some southern states, El Paso, Texas, and then St. Louis, Missouri. In El Paso, Texas I managed to get a drink at a bar across from the train station in honor of my Uncles Jack and Sammy. During one of their several escapades in the Army they wrecked a bar during a fight in El Paso. They were over 38 years old and Army policy dictated that a soldier at that age could be released. They “found a home in the army” but that last incident soured their commanding officers. Another incident worth mentioning is when our train stopped in St. Louis and we stood in formation for exercise someone threw rocks down at us from a raised platform.

When we got to Camp Kilmer it seemed about the same as arriving at other camps. Stand in the rain and wait. We finally checked in and assigned to a barracks. We were given orientation as to the rules. One rule was that to be absent without leave (A.W.O.L) was tantamount to “desertion in the face of the enemy”, a capital offense. A capital offense is punishable in the form of execution by firing squad. Being late from a pass was A.W.O.L, therefore technically desertion (if you got caught.)

I accidentally went A.W.O.L on my only pass to New York City. When I went to New York I called the Sax’s, friends of my Aunt Besse who invited me so I said I would drop over. So I saw some of the city and the Empire State Building in the day and hit the bars that evening. I got to the Sax’s’s house that night and had a nice visit, and some food they provided and enjoyed their hospitality. I left a 2:00 A.M and found an open bar. It closed at 4:00A.M. (0400). I made it back to Grand Central Station before 0500. I sat down, shut my eyes a minute and promptly fell asleep. The train left at 0600. I woke up at 0700. I took the next train and when I got back to camp, I had to figure out how to get in. The place was a fort. I loitered across the street and noticed that when officers strolled in, the sentry post guard returned a high salute from rigid attention. The officers wore high top boots that resembled paratrooper boots. I wore high top boots, standard Armored Infantry issue. I thought, “Hmmm. Maybe I can make it in”. Shortly, two officers approached the sentry’s post. As they neared the sentry, I joined them at the gate, saluted and entered.

When I got to the barracks I found that my squad mates had covered for me. I took a needed nap and was ready for chow when they returned from training. One of our troops had a sad experience. Pvt. Young from Ohio heard from home that his mother suffered a terminal illness and had a month to live. He requested a pass to visit her and the Army denied it. A week later we boarded a ship, 15,000 men, the whole 11th Armored Division and set out in a convoy that seemed to be endless. We headed for Southampton, England and combat.