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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMilitary Home Interviwe James BohananStephanie Nobels interviewing James Bohanan at his home SN- Stephanie Nobels (moderator) JB -James Bohanan (interviewee) Oral History Project — Military Memory Lane August 8, 1999 c ■o 1 Copt Interview: SN: On August 8 1999. OK, um, you served in World War II. How long did you serve? JB: Yeah. Two and a half years. SN: Two and a half years. JB: Yeah. Uh, uh, I went in on Omaha Beach. SN: Mmm hmm. JB: And uh then we went all over. Uh -- France - -. We was with Patton. Our division was follering Patton. And I was a medic. SN: Oh, you were? JB: Yeah. I..I didn't carry no gun. I never carried a gun nowhere at all. SN: Mmm hmm. JB: And uh. When I taken basic training, I trained just like the infantry. And I done everything that they done. But, uh, when I went overseas, well they, uh, put me in the medic. And I was a doctor- I never carried a gun. SN: Did you have any medical training? JB: Huh? SN: Did you ever have any medical training at all? JB: No, no, no, no. I just plain training just like everybody else, but I was, I was, uh, taking basic training SN: Mmm hmm. JB: in a medical camp out in, uh, Illinois. - - - -, Illinois. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: And, uh, and when I went overseas well, uh. They put me in, in medical core. And, uh, so I was the..the infantry doctor really. SN: What would you have to do? Did you have to do surgeries or anything? JB: No, I just had to doctor `em out in the field. SN: Oh, okay. JB: Yeah. Maybe if a guy had his leg shot off, I just...Uh, uh. Cut all the leaders off of him with scissors and, put some powder on it, and wrap him up, and give him a shot and send him back to aid station. And, uh, uh. I done that all the time I was over there, except I got, uh, wounded a couple times... SN: How? JB:... myself. And I was, uh, sent back to England... SN: Mmm Hmm. JB:... for about two or three months, uh, two..two different times. But soon as you get well, well, they send you back over there. SN: Were you drafted, or did you sign up? JB: No, I was drafted. SN: You were drafted. JB: Yeah they was drafting everybody. SN: Did..you mentioned that you had nine siblings. Um, did all the boys in your family get drafted? JB: Yeah. SN: Were the girls expected to, um, do things at home for the war effort? JB: Yeah, well, a lot of the, uh... a lot of the girls worked in sh.., uh, even in shipyards. SN: Okay. JB: Went to Houston and worked in shipyards. A lot of the women did. SN: Were there any efforts in College Station? Did they do any rationing stuff, or did they sew? JB: Yeah, yeah. They, they had they..they uh, ra..rationed food and, and uh,uh all kind of stuff like that. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: And the pe..the people wasn't getting paid very much. They..they could get the job... SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB:... but they wasn't getting paid much. Of course, a dollar back then was SN: not worth - -- JB: was worth fifty dollars now. And, uh, so, uh, I stayed in the, in the army so long `til I even got used to seeing people with their arms shot off and their, and their legs shot off and..and, uh, uh, all this kind of stuff. SN: Was your family aware of all the things that you were witnessing? JB: No. SN: You mentioned the letters. How did that work? JB: No. All I do is just write a letter to my wife. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: And, uh. I was married when I went over. See, I, uh, my, uh...me and my wife we was married 57 and a half years before she passed away. SN: Congratulations. JB: She was passed away in '96, and I can still see her sitting in that chair. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: And uh, uh. She was a uh... she went to Houston where her folks live. SN: Mmm Hmm. During the war? JB: Yeah. And she worked in some uh, cosmetic uh deal downtown. In Foley's, or some place like that. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: In downtown Houston while I was in the army. And uh, and then when we, uh, uh... When I finally got out of there, well, they..they gave me a purple heart. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: And they gave me my sharp shooter medal uh, medal. Uh, I can shoot a gun as good as the infantry people could. And, uh, cause I was raised on, in the country, see? SN: Right. JB: And that's all I done was sh -... my dad he'd give me, uh, uh, ten shells for a little old 22 rifle. SN: Uh, huh. JB: And he said bring me back tw..ten squirrels. SN: (laugh) JB: And with their heads shot. SN: So, uh, you better get you aim down (laugh) JB: And I go out, and get the ten squirrels. And I'd have all ten of them shot through the head. SN: And how old were you when you did this? JB: Oh, I was about fifteen years old. SN: Wow. JB: back then SN: And this was in College Station? JB: Yeah. Uh huh. And uh... SN: Have you always lived on this property, or where did you live? JB: No, uh. We lived uh, uh out west part of town. And uh uh... SN: Did you... JB: (starts to say something) SN: Go ahead. JB: Uh, it was just a hard time. SN: Yeah. Um. JB: That's all. SN: When you were... you told me earlier about the mail system. And you'd write a letter, and then what would happen? JB: Well, I'd write a letter. It'd go, the letter, whenever you wrote a letter you'd mail it, you..you'd take it to the uh Italian headquarters. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: you know? And- to mail it. And they would uh, uh, they'd censor that letter. SN: Was there someone whose specific job was to read all the letters? JB: Yeah. They had people there that read every letter that was mailed from overseas. SN: And what were they looking for? JB: See, what they - -- They didn't want you t..talking about the war or nothing. See, one, one time I was uh, uh in a place where, uh, shells was hitting all around us, see. And you could hear them big guns going off, and everything, and I wrote my wife a letter. I says uh, I'm uh I'm laying here in my little tent and uh, and it's thundering everywheres and not a cloud in site. And they, uh, call me up to the office on account of that, see? SN: What would they do to you? JB: Uh, they just ask me...to show me they was going to mark it out, see? Uh, because uh, that..that would give the Germans uh, uh idea of what was going on, see where we was at and everything. If we was - - -- amongst all this SN: Oh. JB: big guns, see? And big guns going off and that's what I was talking about was thunder, see? SN: Right. JB: I told her...I said it's thundering everywhere but not a cloud in site, see? SN: That's very right, very witty. JB: And, uh, so they didn't like that. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: So, anyway... SN: Did you find that the mail was quick or how long did it take to get letters? JB: Oh, it was long, i..i, and when it did come, it'd come, oh, maybe ten or twelve letters at a time, see? And, uh... SN: So there would be long periods of time where you didn't have any communication? JB: Oh, yeah, yeah. And then when ya', and then all at once you get a whole pack of mail. SN: And you weren't able to call you family? JB: Oh, no, no. We..we called nobody while we were over there. Heck, I don't even remember seeing a phone. SN: Can..could you telegram? JB: No, uh -uh. Uh -uh. We was out, uh, in the wild, wild west. That's where we was at. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: We'd uh, we'd go through a town, but the town would be tore up. SN: Right. JB: And, uh. I. .I don't even remember seeing a telephone over..while I was over there. SN: Now, for your family back in College Station, were they..how were they able to, besides your letters, keep up with what was going on in the war? Were there news programs? Were there radio programs? JB: Yeah. They had..they got it over radio. SN: Over the radio. What was that like? JB: See, there was no tv. A bunch of tv's, stuff like that. Uh, but they could hear, uh, uh, the news over the radio, but they didn't hear half of it. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: Cause it wasn't no really, really no reporters over there. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: I never did see one myself while I was, uh, uh, uh, over there. And we was, uh, we was follering Patton. And, uh, back them days, well, uh, all the tanks, uh, run off of, uh, gasoline. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: And, uh, Patton taked all the gas away from `em, so we had to have our..our ambulances all run out of gas. SN: So, what'd you do? JB:... and we were sitting on the side of the road. And he was gone, with all his tanks, see? SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: And, uh finally we'd, uh, they'd be truck after truck after truck loaded with gas would just go right by us. SN: And the ambulances weren't... JB: But they was taking that gas to Patton, cause he was going through that place over there. SN: Mmm. Hmm. Now, in terms of transportation in College Station, how did your family get back and forth, and what was the major way of travelling? JB: They went back and forth from town to the country in a wagon. SN: In a wagon with horses? JB: Yeah. SN: Did..how did your wife get to her family? Did she take a train or... ? When she went to Houston? JB: I bel... Well, me and her went to Houston, uh, on a bus after I was drafted and I left Houston, uh, going into the army. And she was down there with her mother. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: Her mother and father in Houston. SN: Um. And the university, how big was the university when you left? Was it...? JB: Here? SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: Oh, heck, little bitty thing. SN: Little bitty thing. JB: Yeah. Heck, whenever I come back here, uh, uh, in the sixties... SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: It was only 11,000 students. SN: During the war, I would imagine that the enrollment declined a lot. JB: Oh, yeah, yeah. And, uh, uh, like now they have 11,000 students in summer school. SN: Right, you're exactly right. JB: Yeah. SN: Um. I..one of the questions asked for A &M's mission at the time. Do you think the war effort was the center of the entire focus of the university at the time? JB: Yeah. SN: Yeah. JB: Yeah. SN: Um... JB: That was really... the university was the only thing really was going SN: Did they have any kind of, not supports groups persay, but just kind of organizations where your family could get together with other families that were experiencing the same thing? Was there any kind of... ? JB: Not, not that I know of. SN: So, your families were not only not able to communicate with you very much, but they didn't have very much information from the radio. So, they just had to suffer? JB: Yep. SN: Um. JB: They just had to go right, go through it. SN: What about families who, um, unfortunately lost family members? Did..was there any kind of organization that could help them go through what they had to go through? If they... JB: No, they had to do it theirselves. SN: Um. One of the questions... JB: Like now they got... they got people that you can go to when something like that happens, but not back then. SN: I'm not sure of the point of the question, but it says, how many churches were here at the time? Th..they just want to know what kind, what the city was like. JB: There wasn't...there wasn't but just two or three that I can remember. SN: Mmm. Hmm. And, A &M, the university was the centerpoint of the.. JB: Right SN: ... the city. What else, what other big comp..., were there any companies or any, the..the war base or the army base? JB: Air base...the air base was out there. SN: Mmm. Hmm. Did most people work there, or... ? JB: Yeah, it was there. It closed down though, uh, after the war. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: ..and then that left, uh, Bryan/College Station worse off. SN: Right. JB: And, uh... SN: Where did most people work at the time? JB: There wasn't really much work going on. SN: Mostly farming? JB: People worked... working at the university or out at the air base WE they closed, and then, uh, after that, well, uh, you just done whatever you could do. SN: Right. Well, You had said that there was food rationing, when you...your family was farming and gathering food, did they take any things that you would produce off your own land? Or what, how did they ration the food? JB: Do what now? SN: When, you... you talked about how they would ration food, how did they do that? I mean, did they take the food that families would raise off their own land, or how does...how does the government ration food or ration supplies? JB: Oh, oh. They just, uh, they just give you so much of this, and so much of... if I earned so much... meals SN: So, you couldn't buy as much. JB: Yeah. Mmm. Hmm. SN: Okay. Um. Did your family, um, to work for the war effort? Did any of them work in factories or shipyards? JB: No, no. SN: No, um. Air raid wardens or the recycling effort? JB: No. Uh, uh. SN: Mmm. Did you see, um, the film "We've Never been Licked "? It's a 1942, it's about A &M and the war effort. JB: I don't believe so. SN: Okay. Um. Let's see. Did you get to ha..h.. receive any local newspapers when you were at war? JB: No. SN: No. Um. What did you for fun? I mean, was there any entertainment when you're at war? I mean just for when you were away from battle? JB: I never was away from battle. SN: Never? JB: Mmm Mmm. No I'd got three or four days at a time, and when I sat down to sleep, I'd just lean up against a wall and sleep. SN: Now, you were there for two years, and you had a brother that was there for six. Why were you there for two? JB: My brother, he was in the uh, uh, uh, transportation department. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: They take him over there first. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: And he was driving a truck and he went over there, and he was over there, uh, oh heck, two years before I went. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: And, uh, he just got married when he went over there, when he come back home, uh, oh, he was over I know between four and five years. When he come back home, he had a little boy four years old he never seen. SN: Hmm. JB: He'd seen a picture of him,... SN: Right. JB: ..but he had never seen him. SN: Now, why were you there for two? Did you..were you injured, did you get sent home, or? JB: No, uh, they was getting ready to send me to Japan. SN: Mmm.Hmm. JB: We was right out in the middle of the ocean when they dropped that bomb down in Japan. SN: Mmm. Hmm. JB: And that ended the war. So they changed our course , and sent us into Boston that Tuesday, and that's how come I got out of the army early. SN: Okay. JB: Cause they was, they figured we was through over there in Germany. We done had the Germans whipped. So, we was gonna go and..and whip the Japanese. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: Well, SN: They had already... JB: We was on our way out there, about fifty ships of us. And we was all out in the middle of the ocean, and uh,..and the guy come on the loud speaker and he says uh, uh, "Boys, I'm s..sorry to tell you, but we gonna have to change our course." And he says, "We're going to change it to Boston, Massachusetts." SN: (laugh) And you're like, "That's fine with me." JB: Everybody throwed their..all their clothes, and their..everything they had over..overboard. SN: (laugh) So, how did you get from Boston back to... ? JB: On a train. SN: On a train. JB: Yeah. I come, uh, my wife was in Houston, so I went straight from Boston, Massachusetts to Houston. SN: And you didn't have children at the time? JB: No. SN: No. JB: Uh -uh. SN: Um. It also asks what kind of battles you were engaged in? You said that you followed Patton, um. JB: Well we was in a bunch of `em. When we went in on Omaha Beach , we didn't go in `till after about three days after we was settin' out in the ship channel and then it was about three days after the first Americans went in there. SN: Um hum. SN: Um ha. SN: Um Hum. JB: And when we went in they was enough bodies laying on the beach for a hundred and fifty yards you could walk on bodies without touching the ground. So, Uh men we just we just kept going then. JB: And we just done everything I mean we just uh I sound handly handy one time uh we walked for three days and two nights never did stop, oh we'd stop about 10 minutes every hour and lay down in a ditch and raise our feet up. JB: Let the Blood go back down. And uh, uh, this uh, we got in to this little town, and uh, I don't know how come this uh, he was a Three Star General he comes out on the porch of a little house and he says, and I was on the back end of all these guys and he says, "Hey ", he called me Doc cause I had red crosses all over me. SN: Um hum. JB: "Hey Doc come over here your you and we's gonna gonna camp right up there." SN: Um Hum. JB: And uh, so he uh, uh called me over there and uh come on in and I didn't know what in the heck he was gonna do he says, "Uh you hungry or sleepy ?" I said "I'm sleepy." SN: Um hum. JB: And uh I hadn't slept in three days three nights and two days and uh he says, " Okay. ", he says, uh, they had a shower in the house and everything they had it fixed nice had a bedroom there. SN: Oh. JB: He says um, "Go take you a shower pull all your clothes off , everything you got on pull um off and throw by the door there as you go in there to that bedroom and go in there and crawl in bed and go to sleep." and I went in there and crawled in that bed and went to sleep I slept uh 2 nights and a day and uh when I woke up well he here's me movin' around well uh he come knocked on the door and I said, "Yes sir. ", and he says, "well uh you got all knew clothes right there beside your bed everything that you wear is new just put um all on and while your doing that well our cook will get you something to eat." SN: Uh why did he select you? JB: Huh. SN: Were you the only one that got this? JB: Yeah. SN: Wow. JB: I was the only one that he picked out and all the rest of the guys went on up set up there tents and everything. And uh we set up our aid station and uh we had two or three uh, doctors in the aid station you know. And we go out and pick up the wounded guys SN: Um Hum. JB: And bring um back in and uh so uh when I got up and got all my clothes own. Uh it was cold weather there was snow about three or four thick foot deep outside. SN: Uh -huh. JB: He says come on in here we got you something to eat and where he got it I never did see a cow over there. SN: laughing. JB: He had a steak. SN: Oh My. JB: I mean that steak, SN: laughing. JB: I mean that thing was that big around. SN: The best steak you ever had. JB: Yeah! SN: laughing. JB: And all kind of stuff and I just set down and eat and eat and eat. SN: more laughing. JB: And the he said, "Do you feel better ?" I said, "I sure do. " SN: Laughing. JB: He said, "Well you can go on back to you're your unit now." So uh we was tryin' to go over this hill and boy them Germans was shootin' our people up bad, and uh he ask me he called me and told me to come down there to there house and they had um a look out post. Upstairs in this house they could see all up there, and uh he said does five guys up there been laying up there all night. SN: and your. JB: In that snow says we don't know if there dead or if there alive he says can you get um out I said yeah I can get um out. Um there's uh pretty high hump there you'll have to get a hold of the tree's and SN: Get up there. JB: And pull yourself up. I said uh, you send me about three guys or four guys with me and I'll let them stay under that hill and I'll go up there and I'll get these guys uh, and bring um, down there and roll um off there and they can carry um back to the aid station. So uh, I go up there and I take me a blanket with me and the first guy I get to he's alive but he's froze all he can move is just the tip end of his fingers. So I rolled him over on that and I wasn't lookin' around or nothin' I just paying attention to what I was doin'. And uh, I got him on this blanket I drug this blanket down it was about a hundred yards I guess, to this a little cliff and I drug `em down there and I rolled em' off that and uh, they takin' `em on back to the aid station. I go back and I get the next one and uh, I do him the same way I go back to the next one and he had his chin and all of his face shot off like that, but he was still alive he still movin' his you only way you could tell he was alive uh he didn't hardly have any pulse or nothing. But you could see him barely move a finger. And uh the snow they were laying in the snow it was about four foot deep under um, and a that guy bled so much `til it was a hole about 10 inches in diameter all the way to the ground were that warm blood... SN: Melted. JB: ... had melted the snow. SN: Did he live? JB: And I got him ... I got him on that blanket and I dragged him back down there and I dumped him off at that hill and they carried him back to the aid station. And uh they sent him on back to the hospital and uh the next uh one of them was dead uh but I left him to last I got the other one. And uh so we started feeding um hot soup. And uh and it take em about two days and then they got where they could talk. And uh so that uh general he called up to my uh aid station and asked me if I'd got anything out them uh guys yet. And I told him yeah uh they told me where the guns is at. They had three guns up on that hill that we wasn't no way we could get up it. Boy I mean them guys was they everybody went up there. That's how come they had them guys pinned down with machine guns. SN: Mmm hmm. JB: So anyway uh when I got to the last one off of it off of the hill well stupid me I turned around and looked back. And when I did it was a tree about ten or twelve foot high and it was real bushy. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: And uh and them Germans just cut that tree off if like cuttin' it off with a chain saw with bullets. They didn't try to shoot me they just shootin'. SN: So so they could see better. JB: They just didn't want me lookin' around. SN: Oh JB: See they didn't want me to know where them guns was at. But these guys that I picked up uh. SN: Had seen them. JB: One of them said uh do know do you remember how I was layin' and I told him yeah. Well he told me exactly where the three guns was at. From the from where he was layin' and about how far they was. SN: The guns the Germans were using? JB: Huh? SN: Or their guns? Their guns or the ones the Germans were using? JB: No it was German guns. And we was tryin' to go over this hill and we couldn't go over it. SN: Mmm hmm JB: And uh so I go back down there and that general he say you know where they at and I say yeah. Just get just get a gun up here and lets get rid of em. So in just a little bit boy they had a big artillery piece and uh so I pointed out him where where this gun and this gun and this gun was at. And uh umm they had taken this gun first and they they fired and they they shot the shell hit about ten foot short of the where the machine uh gun was at and I told him uh a little bit short just a little bit short. And I so the next one you didn't see just Germans flyin' in the air. SN: Mmm. JB: And they got all three of the guns with that gun and we just went right on over the hill. And we was doin' that on our own. Patton he was off over here somewhere's else. SN: Right. JB: With his tanks see. SN: Did you ever meet him? JB: Huh? SN: Did you ever meet Patton? JB: Na I seen him. SN: You saw him. JB: Yeah see him ridin' on that front tape. SN: Now did you receive a metal for that that instance you just related to me? JB: Uh oh I got I got all kind of metals. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: See this one here I got well there's my medical badge. SN: Ok. JB: And this is my sharpshooter badge. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: And the purple heart alright that uh silver star up there I got that for for carrying a wounded German in. He'd been layin' in shed for for three days uh. SN: So you helped an opposing or the opposite army? JB: Yeah. And uh me and this boy we had been carrying uh our wounded out. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: For three or four days and nights without any sleep and this Iuitenant he said why don't yall sit down here and nap I told that little boy I said uh let's go... SN: Mmm Hmm JB: And uh so we go up there and uh he had his leg shot off right below his knee. And uh when you get you leg shot off here. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: Well all these leisures, all the way to the end of your toes is still on there. SN: All the veins and the arteries? JB: Yeah. SN: Ugh. JB: Everything is still on there see. SN: So you have to cut those off That what you meant by that? JB: Yeah they take scissors just clip them off just like.... (mumbling). SN: How did you get through that emotionally having to do all that? JB: And we had a a little bag of powder about this big square. SN: Mmm Hmm. JB: And you could uh course he'd practically stopped bleeding cause if he'd been bleeding all that three days. SN: He would've died. JB: He'd died right there. Well he uh I got this powder and I I put that powder all. First though he had a hand grenade in his hand. SN: So you had to get rid of that? JB: And he had the pin pulled. So we had to we had to find us a piece of war to put in that hand grenade to... SN: Stop it from going off? JB: To stop it from goin' off when we pryed his hand apart. So we had to take a bannet uh knive and pry his fingers off of that hand grenade. He'd been holdin' it so long `til his hand is... SN: Locked up? JB: Is Yeah. And uh we got rid of the hand grenade and then we uh I throw that powder on his leg and I wrapped his leg up real good real good and we had uh uh morphine shots.and uh they were in little tubes so long that you could give a guy a shot; when you find him like that. The needle on it would bend like a piece of wire, and so you could hock it in his shirt collar or any wheres so it could bend over and fasten there, so when he got to the aid station you'd know He'd already had a shot. SN: already got a shot. Ok that's good. JB: and uh,so we carried him back and they sent him straight back to England. And uh ,I lost the letter I got from him . SN: Did he say thank you. JB: About three months after this happened well, uh, I got a letter from one of the nurses in the hospital. She said that German was up on crutches and they were getting ready to make him a new leg. SN. So you must have a family in Germany completely indebted to you? JB: Yeah. SN: Did you ever get to hear from the people that you saved? JB: No, liked to see him. Because he bagged us for three days all he could say was Comrad, Comrad. But we was carrying our own wounded soldiers out. And we was tired we were worn out. I just felt like that... SN: Why did you do it? JB: I just felt like ... I do not know I guess the Lord told me to. SN: Did you see any of the concentration camps or what made you keep going beyond what you were told to do that you did? Did they just make you believe it was the right thing to do or what? JB: No, I just done it. I think the reason I come home cause I had a lot of faith and I'd do anything. I would go anywheres. It made me no difference. If they wanted to go pick up a guy right in the middle of the line of fire, I would go do it. But the Germans was real good. They never... The only way I got wounded was by shrapnol you know from a shell or a martyr or something like that. I got wounded two times like that. I never got shot by a bullet. I saw a lot of other people get shot. SN: Horrible, when you came back from the war and returned to College Station what was it like for you? Did you have job? Where did you live? JB: I think when I come back I ended up in Houston. I think I went to work at shift yard. After the war was over, they quit building ships and stuff. Then, I started doing carpenter work and I started building houses. This old man wanted and he kind of liked me. I just asked him I want to be a carpenter? He said you really want to be a carpenter? I said ya I want to be a carpenter. He says it will take you four years. I said I do not care I just want to be a carpenter. So, I did not have no education. He just give me a whole, an arm full of old blue prints. He said just take these home with you and study them just like a book. I got to where I could do anything that can be done to a house. I got to where I could cut any kind of roof. I could cut a roof that people now days would not attempt to cut. SN: Is that what you did when you came back to College Station? JB: Yup. SN: Where you an independent carpenter, or did you work for somebody? JB: I worked for a construction company when I first came back here. We built a few houses. Then, I worked for myself for several years. Everything was cheap, but you got paid cheap. Groceries wasn't high either. SN: Was there a lot of building to do after you back into the ... ? JB: No, it was just two or three builders in this town. Now there's a hundred. SN: Yeah. Did you get to do any of the buildings on A &M or the buildings we would know about? JB: No, I did not. I only built some greenhouses for A &M some years ago, but none of the big buildings. SN: Were, was it difficult after seeing the things that you saw was it difficult to come back to regular life? JB: No, not really. I just kind of put it out of my mind. I hardly ever said anything about the war for a year or two. Then, my brother I could see it eating on him. So, I just told myself I am going to talk about it. So, I did. I talked about to the Eagle. They came out here. Somebody told them about me getting all those medals. They came out here and I gave them an interview. They put my picture in the paper. And, I was on the front page. One woman I showed her that picture. It was when Clinton was running for president. I said he had a little bitty piece on the front page see. Here I was... SN: I have the feeling you're a little more honorable than President Clinton. JB: But, I get all wound up sometimes whenever I get started talking about all the stuff. I could sit here and talk to you for about two hours about what I done whenever I was over there. SN: Have you ever gone back to Europe? JB: No, I do not think I want to go. I have seen too many guys dead. SN: It would be like reliving it. Were there big changes when you came back? JB: Oh yeah, yeah, lots of changes. It was all together different from when I left. SN: Like the city was? What do you mean by that? JB: Everything, I don't know, it was just uh, just uh, getting out of the army and everything and getting back home and going to work. SN: How old were you when had gone to war? JB: Huh? SN: How old were you when you entered the army? JB: Twenty -One. SN: Wow. JB: Yeah, so I'm just, me and my wife got married, we had just gotten married just before I went into the army. We got married in 1939. SN: How did you meet? JB: Huh? SN: How did you meet your wife? JB: The first job I ever got, I got a job working in a meat market. It wasn't meat already all cut and laying out on the, like you do know. SN: Like a deli. JB: You'd come up to the counter and you'd order what you wanted and the meat cutter would cut you some T -bone steaks or some sirloin. SN: Right from the cow. JB: Yeah, and now they got them all ready cut, wrapped up, priced and everything. And that was the first job that I got and I went to work in the meat market and they had a little restaurant in the back and all they served was chili and whatever we had in the meat market. SN: Now is this in College Station? JB: Yeah. SN: Where was it? JB: Uh, it was Downtown Bryan, uh, I don't know for sure know. SN: Like by Main Street and all those places? JB: Yeah. SN: Did your wife work in the restaurant? JB: No, she never, after I come home she never did work anymore. SN: Now you were saying you met her though, did you meet her at the restaurant? JB: Yeah, I met her in uh, when I was working in the meat market. And uh, she would walk up and down the street in front of the meat market see. I was working on month and my brother -in- law, he was working in the meat market, and he says, `Bohanan, you oughtta marry that pretty girl." So I... SN: You did. JB: Yeah, I ended up marrying her. She was sixteen years old. SN: Wow. Did you marry her in a church here? JB: Oh no. Well, there was a town usher, preacher and my sister went with me as a witness and we got married like that at a minister's house. SN: Wow. JB: The wedding was over and I didn't have a penny. I had three dollars that I gave him for marrying me and he gave me back a dollar. SN: So how did you make it? JB: Working, I worked on farms and everything else. SN: Did she work or did she just raise the family? JB: No, no, we didn't have no family. I got shot up, this boy I got right here he's adopted, we adopted him forty-two years ago. SN: Wow. JB: And she wanted to, it take us three years to adopt him. We lived in Houston some, we lived in Georgetown in my early years. She lived in Georgetown and when I went into the army, I met her back here now, I met her right here living in this neighborhood right here for thirty-five years. I used to own that house right across the street and I sold it and uh, and this is a trailer house. SN: It's nice. JB: With a roof over the whole thing and I put a room on the whole... SN: So you did this yourself? JB: Oh yeah. SN: Wow. JB: I need to do some work on the door. I just got through with bypass surgery and got a pacemaker and got a valve put in my heart. SN: You're doing really well. JB: Uh, yeah, I'm going pretty good. SN: The last few questions that I have are, "Do you know anything about the prisoner camp in Huntsville, Hearne, or in Huntsville, the prisoner of war camp ?" JB: Nah, I don't know much about the prison camps. I don't know hardly anything about the prison camps. I know that's what my brother done. He'd haul prisoners over in Germany, he'd haul them back and they sent a lot of them home here. SN: Over here? JB: Yeah. SN: Weird. JB: Yeah, they sent a lot of the German prisoners in different places around here. SN: How long did they keep them, I mean did they return them to their... JB: They kept them until the after was all completely over and everything and then they'd take them back home. SN: I didn't realize that we had P.O.W. camps. JB: Yeah, they had, man, I don't know, I can't remember now where it was at, but it was seemed like it was between here and Dallas somewhere. But they had a prison camp here just for the German prisoners. SN: Did you ever see Hitler or anyone? JB: Nuh -uh. I seen, when I was overseas, well, these army guys they just scared to death to meet Germans and they was bringing, they had about a hundred German that they'd captured and they was bringing them up to our age station, they'd bring them to our age station and then we'd have a truck come in there and pick them up and take them back to wherever they was holding them at. I ain't sure about where they was holding them at. They marching on down the road and these two guys, one on that side and one on this side, and one of them asked me, I was going down to get a wounded soldier, he asked me, "What am I gonna do with these guys ?" and I was just kidding and I said, "Shoot `em." SN: Did he? JB: And they shot two of them before I could stop them. SN: Oh no. JB: Yeah, and I just, "Hoah, Hold on, wait a minute." SN: Joke, kidding. JB: "Wait a minute. I was kidding boy." But they was scared to death and I wasn't ever scared of the Germans. SN: You weren't part of the infantry that went in and closed down the concentration camps? JB: Nuh -uh. I missed all of that, I had to be close to it, I had to be close to it cause uh, when Patton was making his circle, well uh, somehow or another our division, it was twenty -eight divisions, uh, out of Pennsylvania and that's the one, the division that I was in and we uh, we met the Russians somewhere over in that pile of snow. I mean, this snow was so deep that we had a bunch of pack mules, he was a foreigner, he could talk to them mules, and he'd load them, the only time we could, we had a whole division of men pinned in on the Germans. And uh, the only time we could take them anything, any kind of supplies was at night and it would snow all day long and at night, he'd take, he had eight mules and we'd load them mules down with all kinds of food stuff and ammunition, and take it up there and them mules, he had one mule who knew exactly where that trail was at. It would be solid snow and she would know, that mule knew exactly where that trail was at. In other words, if you stepped off you'd be in the snow twelve foot deep. SN: Right, you'd sink. JB: And whenever the Germans would hear us, we were down in low spots, we'd go up there. And when they'd shoot down they would shoot over us. Everytime they'd be going over us but he'd tell them mules to lay down and them mules would lay down in the middle of that trail just like a human. SN: They're trained. JB: And that's the way we got up to them guys with them mules. SN: Have you ever talked to elementary schools or any schools about your experiences? JB: Huh? SN: Have you ever talked to any elementary schools, or any middle schools or high schools about your experiences? JB: No, but I would. SN: I teach fifth grade, you could come, I would come get you and you could come speak to my kids. They have no understanding, I mean I don't have an understanding because I'm too young, of the horrible things that you had to witness and all the, you preserved out freedom and you saved so many people. They think that the basketball players are the heroes but they have no idea that we have so many heroes in this town. JB: Yeah. SN: I mean you're amazing. Thank You. But uh, that's all the questions that I have. Your stories are fantastic. I can't believe you did all the things that you did, it's really far braver than anyone that I have met. JB: Well, I don't think bravery had anything to do with it. SN: Well it had to have been something. JB: Yeah. SN: I'm going to stop now. James Bohanan 11374 Hickory Road College Station, TX 77845 Dear Mr. Bohanan, Thank you for participating in our Oral History Project. Your military experiences will be an enlightening addition to the book. Enclosed is a copy of your transcript. If you could make corrections on it and return as soon as possible that will be greatly appreciated. Once again thank you for participating. If you have any questions please contact me at 764 -3720. I am here on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Our address is 1300 George Bush Drive, College Station 77840. Sincerely, Regan Green COLLEGE SIATION CITY OF COLLEGE STATION Conference Center 1300 George Bush Drive College Station, TX 77840 (409) 764 -3720 FAX: (409) 764 -3513 Internet: www.ci.college- station.tx.us October 12, 1999 Remarks: City of College Station Memory Lanes Oral History Project Memory Lane: Adichfra Interview, Name LA'S - t�L&.4/ , 1 . Interview date ?S "alq ) Interviewer Arffarla ma , v Interview length Interview Place , r Mt Special sources of information ,kJ Date tape received in office # of tapes marked e Date 4 1/4 Original Photographs Yes No i,✓ # of photos Date Recd Describe Photos Interview Agreement and tape disposal form: Given to interviewee on Received /2/014.7 l.1 Yes No Date Signed Restrictions- If yes,' remarks below. Yes No Transcription: First typing completed by Pages Date (name) First audit check by Sent to interviewee on Received from interviewee on Copy editing and second audit check by Oral History Stage Sheet (name) Pages Date Pages Date (name) Final copies: Typed by Pages Date Proofread by: 1) Pages Date 2 ) Pages Date Photos out for reproduction: Where to: Date: Original photos returned to: Date: Indexed by: Date Sent to bindery by Date Received from bindery Date Deposited in archives by: Date