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What branch of the service were you?
I was in the infantry.
All right, army. What kind of training did you—what kind of training—what kind of training did that require?
Well, normal basic training, yeah. Then we were trained as rangers. Then we went to Wisconsin and up into the Upper Peninsula, Michigan, and trained just as winter troops. We were going to go into Norway, but we never got there, thank God.
Uh, woory station—station. I went in, got it at Camp, um, New Jersey. Then went to Fort Meade in Maryland, A.P. Hill in Virginia, and then Camp McCoy in Wisconsin. Then overseas.
Uh, where’d you go overseas?
Europe. England. We were there for about two months, and then the Bulge hit, and we—they shipped us into Europe at that time.
Were you in any battles or campaigns?
Yeah, three of them.
You know which one’s—trying to think about the—they’re all in Europe: Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, France—mainlands.
Were living conditions like—what were they like?
We were fortunate.
Now you’re talking about overseas or—
Yeah. We were fortunate because we were the conquering army, and we would move into a town, and after we captured it, we’d move into the houses there, uh, in no time. Are we intense or anything like that while we were in combat?
What kind of meals did you eat?
Did you—cake rations and sea rations—all mainly prepared. Occasionally we got a hot meal. Some of the—the other people that Mike has interviewed, uh, ran into people from home overseas. Do you ever have any occasions like that?
The only one I bumped into was Dude Cunningham from Ty. I don’t know if you knew Dick or not. Bumped into him in London. In fact, I was sitting in a booth in a pub, and when closing time came, I stood up in the booth, right behind me it was Dick Cunningham. We’ve been—we’ve been together for the whole evening but didn’t know it. We were sitting back to back in two booths, but he was the only one. Well, I’ll take that back. When I was in the hospital for a while, and at that time, four members of the multi-national guard—was a collecting company that brought me back to the hospital, and they—they came to see me there, but that—they were the only ones from Ty that I saw.
How—were you received in England by the people there?
Where—England, Germany? Yeah, usually England. We were—we were treated all right, uh, they were glad we were there. I don’t know if they were crazy about the attitude of the US Army, but they were glad we were there. France, they were happy to see us. Belgium, they were happy to see us. Luxembourg, they were happy to see us. Germany, they weren’t happy to see us.
When you travel overseas, you go on a ship?
Yes. Yeah, yeah. We—we sailed out of Boston on Thanksgiving Day, 1944. We landed in England on my birthday in—Liverpool. And then when we crossed the Channel, we went by boathouse. So coming home, we can’t buy a boat, naturally. Going over was quite rough because we traveled the North Sea or the North—at around North Atlantic there in the mid-winter, and it was very, very rough. Waves are 10, 20 feet high. Everybody on board got sick except me, and it was really a mess because when we had—they served us food, we had big long tables, of course, the boat was rocking, and this guy over here, his food was come sailing past us, and we push it back—sailing past us, push it back. Next time to come over and maybe thrown up on his plate. It was—it was quite hectic.
Yeah. Uh, the Battle of the Bulge, you mentioned that was in the wintertime.
That was in the wintertime. It started in December. You know, I wasn’t in the actual Battle of the Bulge. We came in right after that. We were a backup division that moved in, uh, that’s when we went into Luxembourg, and that’s where we first went into combat. From there, but in the meantime, after the Bulge, we were up in Bastogne and places like that, getting prepared for combat.
Were you, uh, involved in any of the occupation of Germany, uh, at the end?
Yes. Yes, we were there from—while the war ended in May, we left Germany in either late July or early August. I’m not sure which, but we were part of the occupation army. We had to move back from our original positions where the war ended to let the Russians come in and move in on us. In fact, it was quite ironic. We sat on the Czechoslovakian border for three weeks waiting for the Russians to come through Poland in that area to meet up with us. I don’t know where we—we could have ended up in Poland actually. It was—it was bad.
Yeah. What were the conditions like in Germany, uh, after or during or probably both?
Both. Well, naturally, except for the combat part, the only people we saw were the civilians, and they were—they were not negative, but not—not glad to see us either, I don’t think. After all, we were the conquering army. After the war was over, they kind of accepted us. They treated us well. In fact, I had a, uh, seamstress over there make me a nice new army jacket out of materials that we had. It was good.
Did you communicate with people back home? How did you do that?
By mail. By mail. Is, you know, there’s no—no radio or communications or TV or internet or any of that stuff back then. It was all—all by mail. In fact, I may have left them up there. There’s a stack of letters I wrote home.
How did you feel when you came home?
Great. Great. Back there again. I was fortunate. Came home—we were—we were on board ship when Vijay hit. We were going to join them back to the Fourth Division, which I Jane changed from, and we were going overseas to Japan. We—we were on board, and when Japan surrendered, all ready to dock in New York armor, we had to sit and wait for three days to the long—for the longshoremen to go back to work so we could dock. We couldn’t even come into the states then. Yeah. And, uh, went to Fort Dix, came back to Ticonderoga from there. I had a 30-day furlough. We went back to Camp Butner in North Carolina, got another furlough for 20 days, came home that October. I was discharged—gap on her—that was over. I had trouble finding a job though.
Oh, yeah. Were you able to take advantage of the GI Bill?
I didn’t—I could have, yes, but I didn’t. I probably—I should have, but I didn’t. Yeah, I came home, personal—fell in love, and all I was thinking about was getting married.
Did you know your wife while you were in the—uh—overseas?
I knew her, but she was quite a little bit younger than I am. She was just a little kid—better after the war. So you—you have quite a number of children, and those children are part of the—what they call today the baby boom, right, of that ear?
Uh-huh. Yeah, seven—seven children. Seven children. You know, isn’t that something? Three boys, four girls. Yes. You talked about when you were in Germany in 1944, around Thanksgiving.
Ah, no. We landed in England—we left Boston Thanksgiving Day, landed in England December 3rd. We didn’t go into Germany until February—late January, early February.
How do you think this whole experience affected you?
Probably favorably. I didn’t go in the army until I was 22, got out when I was 25, and I’m sure I was a lot more mature when I got out than I was when I went in. Yeah. And in comparison to modern service, like comparing maybe being stationed in Iraq to being stationed in Europe, how do you think it might be different today?
Well, number one, the soldiers in Germany probably numbered in the millions versus to what they’ve got in Iraq at the present time, which is—to me, it’s very, very, very too little. Yeah, there’s no way they can control it. Uh, we were accepted in Germany. All their soldiers were locked up. One thing that they did when in Germany, every town that we took, the first guy we got hold of was the mayor. We told him to collect all the weapons in that town and turn them into us, which if they had done in Iraq, they couldn’t because they didn’t have the troops to do it. But if they’d done it in Iraq, I think it would have been a heck of a lot better if they disarmed them at the time when they took over these places. They didn’t do it. I don’t know why.
Did you have any experience in Germany with the people who were in the concentration camps?
Yeah, I’ve got some pictures here if you want to see them. They won’t—I couldn’t film on TV, I don’t think, but we were—we didn’t liberate the camp, but we came in right after it was liberated, and I got some gruesome pictures of—her—tell you what you took at that time. It was horrible, really. Yeah, furnaces, stocks of bodies all over—you see where they burned them. I think—I don’t have any—is where the—the gas chambers were—where they—they killed these people. They didn’t starve to death. Quite an experience. Yeah. I think there’s some comparison in Iraq was set on Hussein and how they gassed some of their people.
Oh, yeah, they did. And what I continue to hear is that war is a gruesome thing.
Oh, it’s horrible. Horrible. Craig, I take it you work the service at all?
No. You’re fortunate. Uh, I’ll take that back. Maybe it would have been good for you if you’ve been in service.
I think it didn’t hurt anybody being in service.
That’s right. But being in war and all the aftermath like that—you’re fortunate you missed it. It’s no fun killing somebody.
Yeah. Well, anything you guys can think that—or fire away if you care about medals or anything like that. They’re on the wall behind you up there. Mr. Shapiro wants to take a picture of him. I’ll let him—just don’t ask me how I got him or anything like that. I don’t want to talk about it. All right, my wife doesn’t know. Well, however, I’m proud of them.
Oh, yeah. That’s one of the things that I think more and more people are realizing is that service for the nation and the experience of going away from home and putting your life at risk and dealing with all the things that are involved in war—that—that is a profound experience for someone to be involved.
Well, thank you very much. These boys never have to do that either. Wow. Thank you very much.
You’re welcome. You’re welcome. Thank you for coming. I’ve been fighting for years. This is strictly off the record. In fact, this is Price—you—you had Mrs. Price in school, and then Mrs., uh, Anderson, the speech—speech person. That’s my daughter. Got another granddaughter that taught here for a year or two. That was this Price you’re really studying those aren’t you? You.