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World War II What Did You Do in The War Grandpa?
We had heard threats of war as early as 1939. Germany was trying to take over Europe. Japan was threatening China and the Islands in the Pacific. Truthfully, we didn't believe Japan had enough ships or planes to be any threat. We thought, if we just stay out of it, we were in no danger. I remember my brother, Floyd, saying, If Japan doesn't stop, we'll send a couple of row boats over and sink them. That was the common thinking at that time. Europe was already fighting the Germans. Some people went to Canada and joined up to help them. There was talk about taking their citizenship away from them. All that changed when the war started. When the war started, I was still in high school. I went to Onaway High, and graduated in 1943. The day the war started, December 7, 1941, I was hunting rabbits with my brother Bob; and some friends. We got 21 rabbits that morning. When we came in for lunch, we heard the news, Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor and sunk most of the American fleet. We were at war. That ended our rabbit hunting. We didn't feel much like hunting after that. Some men from Onaway went down the next day and signed up. Some were drafted. My brother Bob took his- physical, but he was IF. My brother, Floyd, went into the Army. He was stationed in Washington, D.C.. he was a clerk. When I got out of high school in June 1943, I had a farm deferment. I planned to be a farmer. My Ma didn't want me to go in service. She was afraid I might get hurt. One day I got a letter, from my girlfriend,-Virginia Milligan, saying she didn't want to go with anyone hiding behind a cow. I made up my mind right then, to go in the army. & went into town and looked up Jack Brown. He was both the recruiter and the Agricultural agent at the time. I told him I wanted to go in service. He asked te>"why". I told him all of my friends were in and I wanted to go too. The next day I went down to Detroit , for my Physical. My Ma was really mad because I signed up . I took my physical in Detroit. They asked me which branch of service I wanted, Army, Navy or Marines. Before I could answer, they wrote down Army. There was no Air Force then. It was the Army Air Corps, and was-under the Army, like the Navy Airmen are today. Both the Army and Navy had theirs then. It was January or February when I took my physical and April before I went in. I cut a little timber and a little ice while waiting to go in. I took the Smith bus from Onaway to Indian River, where we boarded a train for Detroit. J.D. Guilbert, and I from Onaway, Kenny Atkinson, from Millersberg and a man named Lover, from Houghton Lake all went in the Army together. We stayed together through boot camp. Earl Ellenbaus went for his physical with us, but he went in the Navy. I never saw him again until the war was over. When we not to Detroit, in April, 1944, we took another train to Chicago, and were inducted into the Army at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. We were issued our uniforms there. We were not told what base we were going to until we arrived. One place along the route, one of the guys said, I know where we are, we are in Oklahoma. See that red dirt. Another place, I saw a road sign that said 40. I don't know if it was a state or U.S. highway. I thought it was such a pretty place. I would like to see it again sometime. We didn't know where we were until we got to Tyler, Texas. We went to Camp Fennon, Texas, for basic training. Tyler is the rose capital of the world. We took our basic training in Camp Fennon, Texas. It was basic combat-infantry training. There were roses Everywhere. Every time they set-us down, we were either in roses or cactus. They were beavertail cactus. They would drill us all over then set us down in either roses or cactus. We crawled through roses. We spent seventeen weeks crawling through roses and cactus. We were told they didn't care if we fell out in wet clothes, but we had better not fall out in dirty clothes. We washed our clothes and took a shower at the same time. Several of us had never washed our own clothes before. Several of us were from the back woods and didn't know about taking a bath either. All we knew about-baths was when we went swimming. One guy, name Lover out of Houghton Lake, didn't know anything about washing his own clothes. He was in the shower trying, when some of the-guys gave him a G.I. shower.! I didn't think much of them for it. He was trying. I was glad when, before basic was over the ringleader of that G.I. shower, got one himself. The last two weeks of basic training, we went on bivouac. That was camping out. They called it night problems. We had night problems every other night-and had every other night off. On our nights-off, we went cooning watermelons. They were the biggest sweetest, watermelons I ever ate. One nights when we were coming back from cooning watermelons, when we ran into another group having their night problems. We used the same pass word we had had the night before, and it worked. We never went cooning watermelons again. We found out that the watermelons were too big for the farmer to sells and he was enjoying watching us coon them. Somehow it wasn't any fun anymore. It sure helped when we got to Italy. We knew how to scavenge. I went into Tyler on pass. I bought Virginia's rings there. On the train home, I asked a lady if she thought Virginia would like them. She said she thought she would. We graduated from basic in Augusta We got $48. a months We used to say we got $48. a day once a month. We got ten days delay in route, in August. I never saw penny Atkinson or Lover after basic. Kenny and I came home with ten days delay in route. J.D. came home with a discharge. The trees were starting to change colors when I came home on-leave. I gave Virginia her rings. I had her keep the wedding ring too. I told her I didn't have any place to keep its She wanted to get married right then, but I said no. She was too young to be a widow. She went back to school before I left to go back. It was only a month or two after I went in, that they called up all of the deferments. That is when Sam Tennant went in. Bob Dole was in that bunch too. He was a collage boy. I would have been in that bunch if I hadn't joined on my own before that. We went to Fort Mead, Maryland then. It is just outside of Washington, D.C.. We went to Washington on pass when we could. A great big bunch of G.I.s were there. They shipped most of them out. I was one of the ones who waited for the next bunch. I was in Fort Mead about a month. We were in training during the week and went to Washington on the weekends. My brother Floyd was stationed there. I had lost his address, so I couldn't find him. I was in the Smithsonian Museum one day. I had worked my way up to the second floor, when I saw a man with Floyd's patch on his scolder. I asked if he knew him and he did. He took me over to Floyd's apartment. I saw the Capital one day. All I saw was a bunch of old pictures. I went out and sat on the steps. A maintenance man came along and asked if I would like to see the basement. We went down a set of steps to the basement. I saw the big pumps that run the big fountain, and where the Senators parked their cars. He showed me which ones were from Michigan. From there, we went to a port in New York. I don't remember the name of it. We were there maybe a week. I went into New York City, I was at the corner of 42nd and Broadway, Times Square, when I went in and got my picture taken. The man wanted me to come back in about a week to pick out the one I wanted. I told him I couldn't I was shipping out. Just pick out the best one and send them to Virginia. I paid him $40. and gave him her address. I had just 60¢ left after paying for the pictures. I still had it when I got to England. When Virginia got the pictures, there was a $20. bill stuck in with them. We got on the Queen Mary. It had been stripped down to work as a troop ship. I was in the first class section. There were fourteen men in a room built for two. We ate in the swimming pool . I carved mine and Virginia's Initials in the railing, just forward of the bridge, on the left side. I understand they are still there. I stood at the rail for hours, watching the water. The ocean changed from hour to hour. There was one place, in the ocean, that had a lot of sea weed in it. There was a little bird that was with us all the way across. When I saw gulls again I knew we were close to land. There were a lot of flying fish. They were fun to watch. They don't really fly. They jump a long ways out of the water and glide back. We soon learned not to stay in our bunks. When they wanted someone to do something, they got the guys in their bunks. If they wanted someone for K.P. or something, they got the guy in his bunk. I liked K.P. duty. You didn't have to go to drill when on K.P. duty. I liked latrine duty too. When you got done, you were free for the rest of the day. The Queen Mary didn't travel with the convoy. It was too fast. She zigzagged back and forth to avoid the enemy. We landed in Glasgow, Scotland four days after we left New York.-Scotland was a pretty country. It looked like there was a place for everything, and everything in its place. We boarded a train there and went to England. I don't remember the name of the place. We were only there for about a week. It rained every day. I didn't go anywhere in England. We left out of London's South Hampton Port. We took a trans channel ship to France. We landed at Omaha Beach 1103 days late. It was hard enough to climb without anyone shooting at you. Once we got to the trucks, one of the guys was going to try to talk to the Frenchman. The only words he knew in French were Parley vouch France. He didn't know what it meant. He asked a Frenchman if he spoke French. The man knew what he was trying to ask, and answered no he didn't speak English. I was with an Indian named Joe Hairyback, from Punca City, Oklahoma. He was a good friend of mine. I wish I knew where he is today. Our first night in France we weren't going to unpack. We combined our two shelter halls to make a tent and crawled in. In the middle of the night, I was trying to be real quiet and get my blanket. He was trying to do the same thing. We soon learned to take our shoes off. Your feet get colder with them on. We got on a train and stayed there a couple of days. We only went about ten miles. They pulled 1000 of us off and sent us to Italy. The rest of the men went to the Battle of the Bulge. We stopped in Leone, France. They told us there was a G.I. hotel there where we could spend the night. I was with a man we called Little Estree. He was from New Orléans and spoke perfect French. We didn't find the hotel, but I had two packs of cigarettes. He traded those two packs of cigarettes for two good meals and a night's lodging for both of us, and we still got some change back. The rest of the crew couldn't find the hotel ether. They spent the night in the planes and ate K rations. We had four kinds of Rations. K rations had one can. It could be cheese or meat, and crackers. C rations had two cans. There was four cigarettes, a book of matches, a little toilet paper, and some crackers, in one can. The other one had meat and potatoes, hash, or something. I used the cigarettes to sell or trade. Ten in one rations were supposed to be enough food to feed ten men. They were better for about two or three. They were a glorified K ration. They had some rice pudding we really liked. D rations were a fortified candy bar. They were hard, boy were they hard, but they were good. I didn't get many of them. We used the crackers from the C rations for a nice smokeless fire. I wondered why they hadn't fixed the holes in the runway. We found out later, it had only been free for about a week. Next we landed in Leghorn, Italy. It was close to Pisa. We saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It only leans from the second story up. It looked so funny. Everything else was blown up for blocks around, and here stood tie Leaning Tower without a scratch. We were only there a few hours. I' ve not no idea where we were next. It was a replacement depot. We stayed there a few days while they assigned each of us to a company. I was assigned to the 5th Army, 34th Division, I Company, 168th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Platoon.1 We went to the front from there. I don't know the name of the town, but it was up around Florence somewhere, that I got into the war. It was Thanksgiving night 1944. The first thing Staff Sargent Seaman told us was, Men if you have any books on how to flight a war, throw them away. You will know what to do. Just keep your heads down, and listen to the met who've been here a while. I remember being in a town somewhere and one of the guys had to go to the bathroom bad. He tried to tell the guy what he needed. He tried everything he could think of. Finally the guy came back With Oh, you got to shit, in perfect English. It turned out he was from New York. He had been over there visiting when the war broke out and he was stuck there for the duration. When we went through the Gothic Line, we were glad we weren't the ones who took it. Like Omaha Beach, we were glad to be late. The Gothic line was a fortified line clear across Italy. It was about half-way between~;Florence and Bologna. It was aimed at keeping us south of that line. There were mines and gun emplacements clear across Italy at the point where the mountains were the worst. The mine fields had trip wires that blew if you bumped them. They also blew if you cut the wire. They were designed to make you -fall on the mines. I don't know what Division broke the line, but they found a weak spot and blew a twenty foot wide hole through it. They marched a whole Regiment through it. That put them behind the Germans. I remember saying, all I want for Christmas is a letter from home. Our mail didn't catch up to us until after we were assigned to Companies. When it did come, I got several letters at once. Virginia sent me some raisins. I remember having a roll of primer cord that I carried. I don't know to this day who had the detonator for it. You used it to throw out across a mine field to blow it. After we took the church, I threw it away. I decided, if I got killed, I wanted enough of me left to identify. We were about ten miles south of Bologna when I first saw the church. It was a beautiful church when we saw it in November 1944. It was a rock pile when we took it in April 1945. One thing we soon learned was, if you heard a firecracker, you stopped dead still wherever you were and looked at the ground. It would be a parachute flare. It lit up the whole area. They couldn't see you if you didn't move. We soon learned not to move a at all while it was up there. It sounded like the rockets in the fire works on the Fourth of July. Levarno was a little town in the Alpines. We called it liver and onions. It was on the main north-south road in Italy, through the Alpines. We had the railroad too, but it was all blown up. There was a-big bald hill just north of Levarno. I was on the south side of that hill all winter. The Germans were on the north side of that hill. Later in life I got to know a man who was in that German Army. His name was Frank Sable. He was there that winter too. He said he was the biggest coward up there. I said Frank, you were not, I was there too. We were just as far forward as we could get. They had to bring our food up to us. We were in the perfect spot. The Germans couldn't hit us. We were too tight up against that hill. Their shot would go on past us. We took over the foxholes from the guys who had been there before us. We kept diggings Some of the foxholes had two or three rooms in them. We had nothing else to do, so we kept digging. When we had to go to the bathroom, we would go in a sandbag, fill it up, and throw it out. They always say, scare the shit out of you. For me it was Just the opposite. When we went to the front, some companies had a full field pack. Our company carried, our rifle, ( I had a B.A.R.), and twenty clips of ammo, our shelter half, a blanket, our helmet (we used it for everything. We washed in it, cooked in it, If we got sick, we threw up in it), our shovel (I would have thrown my rifle away before I would throw my shovel away.), We carried our spoon in our back pocket. When we got done eating, we licked it off and stuck it back in our pocket. We had our canteen and cup, and our first aid kit. Our first aid kit had some Sulpha tablets. (they told us not to take any unless we had a full canteen of water.) We had some bandages, and Sulpha powder to put on the wound. The Only dead man I ever touched was Keith. He was killed by our own artillery. Poncho Ville Sonne was a big Mexican. He had loaned Keith his gun, and we went to get it back. I reached down and touched Keith. Boy was he cold You never forget something like that. We stayed on the south side of that hill all winter. All we did was run a few patrols. They wouldn't let me go on patrol because I coughed too much. They were afraid I would give our position away. I had caught the flu, and I coughed tog much, I wound up in the hospital with it. That is where I started smoking. One of my buddies came running up and said,"I hear the Red Cross is giving away pipes and tobacco, let's go get some." The next day he threw his away, I kept mine until 1976. Free hell, that pipe cost me a lot of money over the years. I went back to the front on Christmas Eve 1944. When we came back from the front for our Christmas dinner (it was New Years), we went to digging foxholes, the second line of defense. We were behind the lines at that time. When we went back up, we relieved the 88th division. There was mud and fog. That fog was so thick you couldn't see anything. It is the only time we ever moved in the daytime. We took over their foxholes. We didn't stay in the foxholes very long. We soon got into a house or something. They told us to stay out of the houses, they were booby-trapped, but with foot thick walls of solid rock, they were the best place we could find. We got in this house. I think it was a grain mill. It had wheat upstairs. It was right up against the mountain. All one day I watched a big cock present strut around. I watched him through my gunsight. I was going to shoot him, then I decided not to. He was fine just the way he was. We were in another house west of there. There were two dead Germans laying there. One had a gold ring on. A buddy and I were going to get that ring as soon as it got dark. When it finally did get dark, we chickened out. They had been killed in November, and this was February. They were black. It was hard to believe they were people. When a man was killed, we just left them where they fell. We did everything we could to get a wounded man to safety, but we didn't risk the lives of two live men for a dead one We went back for a shower and clean clothes about once a month. When We went back for our shower and clean clothes in the middle of February, it was cold. The pallets we stood on to take a shower were frozen to the ground. We didn't take a very long shower. We did get clean clothes tho. I remember I went to a movie. It had music. It was the first music I Had heard in over a month. It sure sounded good. I don't remember what movie it was I just remember the music. We went to the rear for some training. I don't remember the name of the town. It was infantry training about like basic. We were getting ready for the Big Push. We all knew it was coming. We just didn't know when or how big. We got a lot of replacements in right then. One of the replacements was Kenny McDonald from Millersberg. He asked me where I was from. I said Michigan. He said he was from Michigan too. He asked what part. I told him I was from a little town in northern lower Michigan. He said he was too. He asked me where. I said Onaway, but you wouldn't know where that is. He said " I should, I'm from Millersberg. We made an agreement that if one of us got killed, the other would tell his parents what happened. As it turned out, if one of us had gotten killed, the other would have been killed too. We were together until the big push. I never saw him after that. We both came home. We went back up where we could see the Church. We were east of where we first saw it. We got driven back there, but went part way back up. We were a decoy. While the Germans were shooting at us, L. Company went around and took the church. That was the day Sargent Hopper got killed. He tripped his own gun and caught a round going straight up He was dead before he hit the Around. He used to say he had got 43 Germans and they weren't going to get him. they didn't either. I was about ten feet from him when he got killed. I know it was his own gun. You never forget something like that. When we got pushed back, I had four rifles on my shoulder. I don't know whose they were, but I had them. Me and another guy were helping an injured man out. The other guy got a silver cross. I didn't get anything. After L Company took the church, we went around and relieved them. It took four more days to take the cemetery. The Germans had caves dug so they could pop up and shoot. L Company lost a lot of men there. Finally my Company went around in back and attacked from that direction. Then we not the cemetery. When we got the cometary, the Germans broke and ran. After we took the cemetery, we pulled back for a day and got some hot chow and clean clothes. The next day we were going back to our bivouac we passed the church. There were twenty four men under one canvas. I remember saying, that was an awful price for about two acres of ground. We had just taken the church and were on a hill east of there, when our own artillery burned it with white phosphorous. That is mean stuff. One of our guys got a little of it on his hand. By the time he could get to the medic, it covered his whole hand. We spent a night there and went on. The English 8th Army had very few English in it. It was made up of men from Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, and white Austera and Hungry, There were two groups from India. They were the Seeks and the Gurkhas. The Gurkhas didn't use toilet paper. They used a little glass of water. They had their slaves with them. The slaves were not allowed to touch their master's weapons even if the master got hurt or killed. The Seeks carried big knives. Every time that knife left its holsters it had to draw blood, even if it meant cutting their own finger. They were mean bastards. One time, there were three Germans sleeping in one foxhole. They sneaked up and cut the heads off the two on the outside without waking the one in the middle, I think, if I had been him, I would have died of fright on the spot, when I discovered my buddies dead. It's a good thing they were on our side. We sat on the side of a hill and watched the English 8th Army work over the Germans. First it Was their artillery, then it was the men with hand grenades. It was just like watching a movie. While we were watching, two Germans came in to give up. They could have shot the whole bunch of us. It was an old man and a boy. They stripped them of everything they had, their belts, watches, suspenders, wallets, pipe and tobacco. When the old man asked for his pipe and tobacco back, I thought they were going to fight over who would give him a cigarette. We went through a range of mountains and down into the Po valley. The Po Valley is the breadbasket of Italy, The Po River is about the size of the Mississippi. We crossed the Po on a pontoon bridge. Pontoon bridges were made by fastening pontoon sections together long enough to span the river. They were temporary bridges. Bailey Bridges were more or less permanent. The valley is just as flat as the Saginaw valley. There were no hills to hide in. When the Germans got out in the valley, there was no place for them to hide. The P 40s just went up and down the valley shooting everything that moved. There were dead men and horses everywhere. There was a German field kitchen there, the cook had just started to fix dinner when he was hit. The meat was still on the grill. We pulled back for a day, then the next day we went about ten miles into Bologna, We were there overnight, then we went on from there, That was the start of the Po valley. They loaded us in trucks to go on. Bologna is where a man said something to the people and they all started shouting. He started taking pictures of the next truck back of the one I was in. Those are the famous pictures of the freeing of Bologna. The 135th took it but they took the pictures of our convoy. We went two hundred miles that day. There was a big Ford plant in Bologna. It was all blown up. All that was standing was a big sign over the gate that said Ford Mercury. It was written in English. All of the German trucks were Ford. In Bologna, someone was going to have a parade. When they called Inspection Arms, everyone racked out a live round onto the ground. Inspection Arms is when you bring your gun to port arms and rack open the chamber. Everyone was right off the front and our ammo was live. That is the day the people were throwing food in the trucks as we passed. The Germans had lived off the land and they thought we were hungry. One man got hit in the nose with a loaf of bread and it broke his nose. They wanted to give him a purple heart for it and he said no. He said how would he explain to his kids that he got a purple heart because some one was trying to be nice to him. That bread was good, but it was hard old stuff. It wasn't long after that that they came out with the point system, and that would have given him enough to go home. I remember the little chapels along the roads in the Po Valley. They were about as big as a bird house. They were all over. They offered the people a place to stop and meditate. They had a bathroom over there, that didn't have a stool. It had two places to put your feet and a hole. It was a flush toilet. I never used one though. They also had a bathroom, for men only, about every block. You could pee only there. They could see your feet and your head, but there was a partition to hide your middle. We soon learned to tip our hats at the ladies, just like the Italians did. In Italy there are many things they say different than we do. We say hot water. They say aqua calda, water hot. Where the P40s had worked over the Germans, there were dead men and horses everywhere. There was a field kitchen where the cook had just started to fix supper. The steaks were still on the grill. There wasn't a shoe on any of them. The Germans had good shoes, and the civilians had taken the shoes off every one. That group of Germans were Frank's bunch. He and some of the others, realized what was going to happen, and they hid until they could give up. That is how he survived. After that, we went up around Milan. I was twenty miles from Milan when Mussolini was shot and hanged. They hung him, his girlfriend, and the head of the black shirts. They shot them then hung them upside down from a Shell gas station. Someone had taken his belt and tied his girlfriend's skirt up around her legs. I was in on the freeing of Milan, and Mordina. There wasn't much to it. We just walked in and took it. The people were on our side. The Partajani's had caught some girls who had been nice to the Germans, and cut off their hair. They thought we wouldn't have anything to do with them. All it did was mark them so we knew who to ask. When we asked a girl who was in the house, she would say, Mama men Papa Roma cause caput Bela partajani. Mother and me, Papa is in Rome, brother is in the Partijanis (underground). When we were on the front, there were always two companies on the front and one in reserve. Boy, I never liked to be in the reserve company. All they did was drill. On the front, no one ever bothered us. When the war was over for us, the captain called us all in and said " Its all over boys, turn in your ammunition. When they released us, some of us went to church and some went to a bar. I went to church. That is the only night we didn't post a guard. When we woke up in the morning, here was a bunch of Germans waiting for us to get up so they could surrender. We thought, that was a big mistake. Not one of us had any ammo. All they wanted was to give up. They were tired of fighting. That was four days before the war was officially over in Europe. I stood guard on a whore house in Mordina. I was supposed to keep the G.I.s out. What I really did was, only let two in at a time. The old lady, who ran it, told me if an officer came by, reach up and hit the bell three times. She could hide two at a time. She would know what it meant, and I wouldn't get in any trouble. The officer she was referring to was Doliver Dover (D.D. for short). I was going to go in myself until they took a big dog in. Then I thought no way, I wanted no part of it any more. The 100th Battalion, 442 Regiment were the Japanese American Regiment. They were the ones who took the French, Italian border. They were fighting s.o.b.s. They had all Japanese soldiers and white officers. The 92nd Division was a colored Division. It too had all white officers. We called them the buffalo soldiers because they had a black buffalo on their patch. They were on our left. (Black and white did not serve in the same unit in World War II). The 1Oth Mountain Division was off to our left too. They were put in a spot where they were safe. They came over in January 1945, a bunch of rich mans sons. We tried to tell them how to fight, but no, they were collage boys and they knew it all. We tried to tell them where the Germans were and to keep out of sight in the daytime, but they had to go by the book. They shouldn't have had any Faculties, but they wouldn't listen. They had to find a war and they did. That was Dole's outfit. They had a wonderful P.R. man. You would think they won the war single handed. We hated them. A little while later, we went up on the French, Italian border. I saw snow on the 4th of July. Me and an Arab from North Africa were standing guard on the border between Italy and France. We were supposed to check the passes and let the people through to pick olives. Well, I couldn't read French and the other guy couldn't read at all, so we just looked at the passes and let everyone through. There was one place there were 43 hairpin turns you had to back a jeep up._ When I got appendicitis, they wanted to take me to the hospital in a jeep. I remember the doctor saying,"no jeep, ambulance. They took me up those 43 hairpin turns in an ambulance. By the time I got to the hospital, I was ok. I stayed in the hospital over night then they released me. I didn't have my appendix out until 1953. Then they said it was a loop in the bowel instead of the appendix. I watched a flock of sheep coming down the mountain one day. I expected some young kid to be with them. Instead it was an old lady who looked to be at least 80 or 90. She could walk those mountains easier than I could. It was almost straight up. There was a railroad tunnel there. The Germans had used it for a hospital. The railroad had been blown up, but that tunnel made a good place for a hospital. There was a little valley there. I don't know the name of it. There was a big electric generating plant there that had been blown up. The English were working on it, trying to get it back in operation. There were two big high line towers there on the two mountains. The wires were still between them. Those wires hung lower between those two mountains than where we were on the mountain. The towers were above us. We had one cook who could really cook. He had been a cook in a restaurant before he went in. He could take powdered eggs and make them taste good. Most of the cooks cooked them all in one big pan and gave us each a glob. He made them in individual servings, like a pancake. They were good. They told us, if any of the civilians offer you any food don' take it. They need it for themselves. A couple of us guys let a couple of girls take us home for dinner. As a special treat, we had black olives for dessert. I ate a couple, but they were awful. I don't like olives to this day. They took us into France along the Rivera. We were in trucks. They wouldn't stop the trucks and let us out. If they had, they might still be looking for some of us. That is where I saw my first bikini. They said they had to have eighteen square inches of cloth in one. They sure didn't have any more. They were the smallest bikinis I have ever seen. The Riviera is right along the Mediterranean Sea in both France and Italy. We were only up around the French/Italian border for a couple of weeks. Then we got on a train and went across Italy to Udine. We were in 40 and 8 cars They were box cars designed to hold 40 men or 8 mules. I don't know about the mules, but I was in one once, in France, where we had 39 men in one. I don't know how we could have gotten the other man in. I was up on the rations. In Italy we only had eight or ten men to a car, and we were having a ball. We met the train that had the Tenth Mountain Boys on it. We filled rubbers with water and threw them into their cars as we passed. We got off in Udine. We used rubbers for everything. In Chividali we decorated our Christmas tree with rubbers and engineers tape. Engineers tape was a white tape used to mark a safe route through a mine field. I only had to cross one mine field. The day we took the church we had to cross a mine field. It had frozen and thawed and the mines were sticking out of the ground. We had to be careful where we stepped but were in no danger unless we got careless. One guy four or five back of me stepped on one though. There was a tank that was on fire there top. I heard that the crew got out of it . The Sherman tanks were bad for catching fire. The English called them Tommy cookers. It burned for two days. They finally pushed it over the bank. The mines were standing on top of the ground. You had to step this way and that way to avoid them, but you could. When they pushed the tank over the edge, they cleaned up the mine field too. We were stationed at Chividali while we were up around Udine and Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. In the summer of 1945, just before I joined the Engineers, a bunch of us went up on the Yugoslav border. They had told us not to cross that river. The other side was Yugoslavia, and if we went there, they would shoot us. We stripped naked and swam across. We only went a few feet up on shore, but we could say we were in Yugoslavia. Another time we were skinny dipping when an old lady walked her sheep down through us. I don't know what she thought, but all she said was Hello and went on down the trails We also went into Austera, just to say we had been there. The Germans had a square hole cut in the rock. It was about ten feet square: It was a very good place for men to hide. It went straight into the rock about ten feet and was about six feet high and ten feet across It showed it was carved, not a natural cave. One day, I saw a train with two engines way back in the middle of the train, They had UNRRA on the side of them, That stood for United Nations Restoration Relief Association. I joined the Engineers right after that. I got a chance to go to school for six weeks in Florence. It was in an old railroad station. It was a six week course in Agriculture. I arranged all of my classes in the morning and fooled around in the afternoon. I saw the Pointe Vecium (old bridge), several times. There was an old Cathedral there. It was beautiful. I believe it is still there. They took us through another Cathedral that had a wooden statue that was carved in 13 something. It was so frail. Boy it looked old. It looked like just the skeleton of the original wood. I don't remember when the one in Florence was built. It was old. A buddy and I went somewhere. We were on the south side of Florence. It was an overlook where we could see all of Florence at once. When I got back home, I looked in a geography book and found a picture taken from that place. In the picture, there are trees. When we were there, the trees had all been cut down. When the 34th Division went home, those of us who were still there, got to go to school for six more weeks. That is how I got twelve weeks of school in Florence. After I got out of schools I went to Switzerland. I got my picture taken on skis. The man who took the pictures, took the first one of me on top of a ski slope, then he tilted the camera to like I was skiing down hill. The first Winter Olympics after the war were held there. There wasn't even a decent road there then. All there was, was a narrow gage train. I saw most of Switzerland. I still have the suitcase I got there, with all of the stickers from all of the places I went in Switzerland. We went into Udine quite often. Headquarters was there. There was a big Red Cross place in Trieste. We went there quite a bit too. We went to the beach there somewhere. The first time I ever saw the tide, was on-the Adriatic. There was something, in the water, that we were diving off. When we came back at night, the tide had gone out, and the thing we had been diving off, was on dry land. I was at the beach the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. We were scheduled to be shipped to the Pacific, before that. There was a guy there, who got drunk at his buddy's wedding, and stole a truck. He hit a little boy, and killed him. I was a guard on him. If he had gotten away, I would have had to serve his sentence. He got a couple of years of hard labor. One guy asked me why I got out of the Infantry. He told me I should have stayed in the Infantry instead of going into the Engineers. Many is the day we were riding in trucks while they were walking. I believe that is the same guy who gave the speech at Don's graduation from boot camp. I learned to do carpenter work in the Engineers. I also helped to build roads and bridges. Sargent Butler was a road builder before he went in. He knew how to build a road, but when the 2nd Lieutenant told us how he wanted the road built, that is how Sargent Butler built it. He knew it was wrong, but he did what he was told. The road was made of metal strips. The 2nd Lieutenant wanted them laid end to end. They should have been laid side by side. The strips were about two feet wide and eight feet long. We built a pontoon bridge up at Udine. An Officer was going to show us how to float a bulldozer across. He got it on the pontoon, then he was going to move it a little. He moved it up a little, but it kept on moving. They had to fish it out of 30 feet 'of water, then get the only man who could fix a diesel, out of jail to fix it. We finished building that bridge. Later we tore it back out. Pontoon bridges were temporary bridges, while they built or repaired a permanent one. Double single Bailey bridges were more or less permanent bridges. Wether we built a double or a single depended on the loads it would have to take. We put some in up around Trieste. There was a road from Trieste to Gritzia right along the Adriatic Sea. It was beautiful. It had seventeen tunnels and several bridges right out over the-edge of the sea. It was just breathtakingly beautiful. They went right over the edge of the sea. The girl I was out with just before I came home was a school teacher by day and a prostitute by night. There was no money to pay school teachers, and she had to eat. Some women were prostitutes to make a living. Some hoped to marry G.I.s and come to this country. Other women made their living by doing our washing. One girl begged me to marry her and bring her to New York. She told me she would leave me as soon as we got to New York, and she wouldn't bother me. She said that her Father lived in New York. All she wanted was to get to this country. She was up front about it. Another had a couple of kids. She told them, If they would be good while she went out, she would bring them some candy bars. We made sure she had plenty of candy for the kids. One lady did our washing. One of the guys kept hassling her. He kept telling her he wanted to get in her pants. One day she brought him a pair of her panties. She told him, Here, you wanted them, here they are. He never bothered her again. You couldn't touch her. All she wanted was to earn a living by doing our washing. There was one girl over there that I really liked. I probably would have married her, if I hadn't been engaged to Virginia. She was a really nice girl. There were two sisters that told us their idea about Prostitution. The said they never drank. They made sure all of the men used a rubber, so it really didn't hurt them any. It made them a living. When we got a pass,, we were required to pick up two rubbers, or you didn't get a pass. There was no reason for not using them, Yet, I don't know how many times we had to stand short arm inspection, because someone didn't use one and caught the clap. Up by Chividali, we were building a bridge. There was a family we got acquainted with. They were farmers. Their house and barn were both in the same building. They lived in one end. and the cattle lived in the other. There was a Father, who could speak German. I think he had been a prisoner or something. There was a Mother, a son and a girl about 13. I can't remember if there was a Grandma or not. We shared our rations with them. The Army brought our food out to us. We never sent any back. If we had, we would have gotten less the next day. So, we gave the family all we had left, especially sugar. They couldn't get sugar. For New Years Eve they invited us to a party. My buddy and I went. They had made us a cake with the sugar. They had made a cherry brandy that was the smoothest I ever tasted. It had the cherries in it. I remember dancing with the brother on their cobblestone floor, to the accordion. That cherry brandy turned that cobblestone floor into the nicest hardwood floor. The road that was straight when we went out there, got awfully crooked on the way back. They washed their clothes in the river. I remember going to the PX and getting some Jurgons lotion and giving it to the girl. Her hands were chapped raw. I am still sorry I didn't go back and get their address before I came home. I got to within 20 miles of Venice once. We could smell it from there. I really didn't want to get any closer. The sewage came right out a pipe in the sides of the buildings and into the canals. That was the day they dropped the Atomic bomb. When we came home we took a train to Genoa. We were in Genoa about a week. We went swimming every day. One day, there had been a storm. There was a big mine that had broken loose and washed up on the beach. It was a lot taller than I was. It still had all of its spikes. It had washed in out of the sea. It was there on the beach, where we had been swimming the day before. I just barely got to come home when I did. I had been watching the board where my name should have been, but I hadn't seen it. A buddy of mine came running up to me and said,"hay, your name is on the board. You get to go home. It is way over there on the bottom." I went and checked in. They had pulled my orders because I hadn't showed up. I carried my own orders all of the way home. We got on the W.P.Richardson in Genoa It had been built for a troop ship and it was nice. I didn't know it until I was on my way home, but a ship is hinged in the middle. We could go anywhere we wanted to on the ship. We came through the Mediterranean to the Straits of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean was beautiful. I wasn't impressed with the Rock of Gibraltar. It was much smaller than I expected it to be. I saw it from the Mediterranean side. It may seem bigger from the Atlantic side. On the way back, we ran into a storm, at least we thought it was a storm. The sailors said it wasn't much of a storm. When you hear the old propeller shaft go rrrroooonnnnccch you think it is a storm. Everyone on board was gather throwing up or had the runs. Some people had both. I had to go through the next berthing section to get to the bathrooms. They had bathrooms in lines down both sides of the ship, in the forward section. Another guy and I stood at the rail by the hour, watching for whales. I finally went below. I hadn't been there more than ten minutes, before he came running down. He had seen a whale. He said it looked like a big horse. out there. The sailors used to tie their clothes to a rope and wash them in the ocean by letting the waves hit them. One of our guys tried it. He tied his clothes to a rope and threw them in . When he came to get them the next morning, all he pulled back was the rope. His clothes were beat to pieces. When we came into New York harbor, we all got on the same side of the ship. We all wanted to see the shore as soon as passable. The captain came over the P.A. system with," would some of us PLEASE go back to the other side. The ship was listing too much and in danger of sinking." I don't know what camp we came to in New York. We could call home if we wanted to. I didn't know anyone with a phone. I sent two telegrams, one to Virginia and one to my Ma. We were on a train somewhere in the coal country. Someone said he wondered where we were. I said," I don't know where we are, but I'll bet when we wake up , we'll be hell and gone out of the country. When we woke up, we asked a kid out beside the train, where we were. He said some place in Ontario. When I saw them hooking on electric engines, I said, I know where we are. We are coming into Port Huron, Michigan. We spent hours sitting be the depot in Durand. I didn't know where it was until I moved down here. I recognized the station. Our next stop was at Kalamazoo. From there we went through Chicago to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. That is where I mustered out. Camp McCoy is at La Crosse, Wisconsin. I took the Hiawatha out of Camp McCoy. It was the first time I ever ordered a meal on a train. I didn't have much money, so I quietly ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. When the food came back, we all had the same thing. I started eating in Milwaukee and ended in Chicago. When we got to Toledo, I found had several hours to wait to get a train to Detroit. I checked the bus station and found I could get a bus much quicker. I cashed in my railroad ticket and took the bus to Detroit. I caught the bus to Indian River. I started hitch hiking to Onaway. I met Gary Curtis. He gave me a ride clear to Onaway. I went down where Virginia was staying and saw her. He then took me out home. Ma was just coming out of the barn from milking. I remember thinking how white her hair had gotten. Gary Curtis picked me up when I came home and he also was the one who gave Sam Tennant a ride when he came home. I got home July 2,1946 and Virginia and I were married on July 27,1946. My brother Bob and Donna Milligan stood up with us. I remember it was a Baptist Minister in Cheboygan. All of the houses in-Italy had the people and animals in the same building. It saved space, and you didn't have to go outdoors. Most of them had the people upstairs and the animals downstairs. That one house, they were side by side. They stacked their manure on a cement slab. In the spring, they hauled it out to the fields in a wagon with a big wooden tank, about like a barrel. In the fall, they hauled their grapes in a wagon that looked just like it. We called them honey wagons. We swore it was the same wagon for both. We drank the wine anyway. In the summer of 1945, I don't remember just where we were at the time, I remember seeing a man leading his wife down the mountain. They had their fields up in the hills. She had the grain in a shelter half on top of her head. It came down over her eyes and she couldn't see. He was leading her. I wanted to ask him if he was sick, but I lost my nerve. There were a lot of little fields up there, like that. Cecil C. Hilliker December 1997 Click here to return to the main page Please feel free to email us with any questions you might have This page designed and maintained by DJ Hilliker, Intricate Articles All information © 1997- 1998 DJ Hilliker. Please contact us for requests to use any of our photos in any way |
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