HomeMy WebLinkAboutMilitary Panel Group 11MILITARY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
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Interviewer: James Burk
Interviewees: Will Worley
Pat Mann
Clyde Schaffer
JB: I'm James Burk. Today is February 19, 1997. I am interviewing for the first time. I
am interviewing Mr. Clyde Schaffer, Mr. Pat Mann, and Mr. Will Worley. This
interview is taking place in room 101 of the College Station Conference Center at
1300 George Bush Drive in College Station, Texas. This interview is sponsored by
the Historic Preservation committee. The Conference Center Advisory Committee of
the city of College Station, Texas. It is part of the Memory Lane Oral History Project.
And now I would like each person to introduce themselves, so that their voice will be
identifiable on the tape recorder. And we will start with you Will. You will give your
name and something about yourself. Perhaps, how long you have been in the
community Something like that.
WW: I'm Will Worley. Class of `43 of A &M. A native of Dallas. I came to A &M in 1939
and stayed until 1942 when I went into the service, then came back after the war to
finish. In 1947 I married while in the service. Had one child and my second one born
when I was finishing my degree at A &M . Went to work for nine years in industry in
Houston, Baton Rouge, back here. And then at the age of 35, I taught Electrical
Engineering at A &M until I retired 32 years later. And we have lived here ever since.
Had four children. They all live in Austin. Three of them went to the University of
Texas. And counting them and all our grandchildren, son -in -laws and daughter -in-
laws, we have 19 degrees from the U. of Texas (Laughter). I have one degree from
here. My wife has her Masters' degree and one of our daughters has her Masters'.
And that is all for Aggieland.
JB: Great, thank you. Pat....
PM: I am Pat Mann. I was born in Arlington, Texas or near there. You remember when
the toll road goes through there, cut over the of farm there, and, I went to school in
Arlington. Attended NTAC which you will recall was a part of A &M at the time.
JB: What do those initials stand for?
PM: North Texas Agricultural College is what it stood for. It is now a part of the U. of
Texas system. I was drafted into the military in March of `43. Went to Ft. Knox,
transferred to the Aviation Cadet Program Was a bombardier overseas. After the
war, I came back here and, transferred to A &M to finish a degree in Wildlife
Science.
JB: Clyde?
CS: Yes, sir, I am Clyde Schaffer from Anderson, Texas. I was born in Anderson,
moved to College Station in 1925, and spent my school time here at A &M
Consolidated all 11 years. And, after that I went into the service March of `43.
And, left here and went to Fort Lewis, WA. I was in the 44th Infantry Division and
I spent about nine months up there. Then we came back down to Louisiana on
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maneuvers for three months. And from there we went to Salina, KS. for some more
training From there we went to Camp Gilmer, NJ. And that's when we left to go
overseas. And it took us twelve days to go over. And I spent the rest of my time in
the service over there until the war was over. We landed in Cherbourg, France.
And I went through France, Germany, Austria, up the Swiss border, and also up the
Italian Border. And after I made my time over there, came back home and married
my wife who lived in Anderson. And from there I, did not get a whole lot of
education. I got a couple of years at Blinn College. And I went to work for the
Highway Department, Engineering Department, and I stayed with them about twelve
years. And then after that I went in with the US Postal Service and I spent 29 years
with them. And now I am retired.
JB: Great. Thank you very much. Now we have to do the legal business. With the
interview agreements. I am supposed to read an interview agreement with you, so
here we go. This is the City of College Station, Texas. Memory Lanes Oral History
Project its interview agreement. The purpose of the Historical Preservation
Committee is to gather and preserve historical documents by means of the tape
recorded interview. I suppose that's sound tape and video tape. Tape recordings and
transcripts resulting from such interviews become part of the archives of the City of
College Station Historic Preservation Committee and Conference Center Advisory
committee, to be used for whatever purpose may be determined. I've read the above
and voluntarily offer my, portions of the interviews with Will Worley, Pat Mann, and
Clyde Schaffer. In view of the scholarly value of this research material, I hereby sign
rights, title, and interests pertaining to it to the City of College Station Historic
Preservation Committee and the Conference Center Advisory Committee. I have
signed this with my own name of course. That takes care of my legal obligation.
(Laughter) Here are forms for you to fill out to take care of your legal obligations.
And I will take a rest while you do that. (Time passes as they fill out forms)
Well, questions that we have to raise this morning have to do with military in this
area, roughly the first half of this century. I'd like to begin asking about the Spanish
American War, right at the beginning, actually the end of the 19th century, And I'm
curious to know whether any of you had family members who were in the Spanish
American War.
ALL: No.
JB: What about W.W.I? Did any of you have family members who fought in W.W.I?
CS: My Dad made it to Navasota and that's as far as he got the war ended. So, he didn't
have to go any further.
JB: Was he drafted?
CS: He wasn't. He was on his way to go to be drafted.
JB: He was on his way to be drafted?
CS: Yes, yes. That's as far as he got.
PM: I had some uncle that served the end of W.W.I. I can't give you the details of the
service. (Laughter)
JB: And you, Will?
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WW: My father -in -law was in W.W.I. And also a couple of my wife's uncles were in
W.W.I. The father -in -law was in a Mortar Battalion. He was in several of the
battles over there. `Course he came back.
JB: Lucky man Well, lets.... We don't have many details about these earlier wars.
Let's turn to the 2nd World War. I wonder. I'd like to hear from each of you,
actually, where you were when you first heard about the entry of the US into the
2nd World War. Where were you on Pearl Harbor?
WW: I was in Guion Hall on Sunday watching a movie. When we came out, the news was
out and that sort of thing. `Course this was particular with the seniors, because they
were most vulnerable to be going into the service.
JB: Do you remember what movie you were watching?
WW: No, I sure don't that's about all I can remember about the beginning.
JB: Pat, what about you?
PM: As I said, I was enrolled at Texas, NTAC. They had a Cadet Corps there. They
called them junior Aggies. And, we were having a parade on that Sunday. And, we,
JB: Did you have a parade every Sunday?
PM: No.
JB: This was just special?
PM: I think it was a Mother's Day Parade. It doesn't coincide with Mother's Day, but if I
remember right that's what it was for. On December 7, we heard about it there
during the parade.
JB: During the parade. How did that Happen?
PM: Oh, they had a P.A. system there, and it spread like wildfire as one heard it the rest
of us heard it and it went from there.
JB: I see. And you Clyde?
CS: Well, all I recall about it, I was going to school here at A &M Consolidated, and, it
kind of surprised all of us. I think quite a bit when it was announced. And, next
thing I thought about was when was my time? Because I'd been hearing about the
war, you know, going in the service. And, will I be next to go in the service?
(Laughter) They were waiting for me to get out of school. And, it was about outside
of going into the service.
JB: Well, let's talk about Pearl Harbor Day a little bit more. After you first heard about it,
Clyde. Did they... Did classes close down? Or did you continue with classes for the
rest of the day?
CS: No, as far as I recall we continued with classes.
JB: Went back to business as usual.
CS: Correct. Went back to business as usual.
JB: That Geometry is tough.
CS: We had some pretty stern teachers. They didn't take too much back talk from their
pupils. They said, "Let's go ", and you went.
JB: When you got home what was the reaction of your family?
CS: Well, really I don't remember a whole lot, but my dad he worked here for the college
for 50 years. And, he was kind of upset a little bit, because, being a new war and the
young men having to go, you know.
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JB: Like you.
CS: Like me in particular. So, that was about it. I never recalled him saying too much
about it.
JB: Now, Pat, you weren't at home. So did you have some contact with your family on
that day or what?
PM: On that day, well after the parade, yes, but there's nothing in particular I remember.
School session went right on next week.
B3: Was anybody surprised, do you think by this?
PM: Oh I think we were all somewhat surprised.
JB: But you just went about business as usual.
PM: Business as usual. I spent two more semesters there before I was old enough to be
drafted. I was just 16 at that time.
JB: Didn't waste any time.
PM: Went from there.
JB: What about you Will? How'd your family respond to this?
WW: Well, I can't remember, now. I do know that afternoon we were in DOPM 1
which was where all Electrical Engineers and Signal Corps lived, so we had, one of
my classmates, we had a kind of a internal radio system in there, so he got on the
radio and started talking as if he was a Japanese, and saying what was going
happen. And all this sort of thing And of course, I was a junior, but the seniors
they were very vulnerable because they went on into the service the following
May. They finished their contract in ROTC, and even though they didn't graduate,
well, they gave them a commission, and put them on active duty. Being a junior, I
had a contract, but we had not gone to summer camp So, we would not get a
commission when we graduated. And they speeded up the program, and that
following summer we went to school full time. So we did not go to camp. So we
did not fill all of the requirements. So, as a result, they sent us on OCS before
we'd get our commission. Well, a couple of us said, "What the heck. I'm not
going to go OCS, so the two of them volunteered for direct commissions in the
Navy. The following classes, sophomore and freshman, were pretty vulnerable,
and they really didn't, they get advance ROTC contracts. But the class of `44 did
not get a chance to finish school. And they went on to OCS and got their
commission. But the next class, which would be the class of `45, they, in order to
stay in school, they would have to enlist in the Enlisted Reserve Corps. And then
they left them in school until they needed them. But, what I have here, I think, are
the orders for 52 of them, March 17, 1943, and I'll give this to you when I get
through. I want to give you this copy. Each enlisted reservist listed the enlisted
reservist ROTC student's name below, then at A &M College of Texas, will report
at their own expense to the commanding officer, Camp Beauregard, Louisiana,
March 25, 1943, for active duty. So here's 52 of them all were taken in together.
This is true all over campus. The different branches, the infantry, and so forth,
were all taken in about that time. And of these 52, when they came back for their
50th class reunion, which would be the class of `45. At Christmas time of 1995, I
wrote everyone that I could find and asked them to come back. The 50th class
reunion was April 21. So of these 52 I got 27 of them to come back plus their
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wives. We had about 50 of them in our home at that time. Some of them had
never come back to school, they had gone off somewhere else. And of the 27, 7
or 8 of them were dead by that time. They all went into the Signal Corps. pretty
well, and none of them were killed in the service. However, of 52 about 6 of them
said, "I'm going to get in the Army Air Corps." Which they did. And became
pilots of one thing or another such as that. So it's interesting to be able to after 50
years come back like this and also when you come back in a big group over in the
Hilton Hotel its hard to get to see those persons whom you knew best. Got
Roberto Zuniga, who lives in Mexico City. He came with his wife.
JB So you organized your own reunion.
WW Yeah.
JB That's good. Let's think again about your family at the beginning of, at the
beginning of the war. Who in the family, if any, joined immediately once the war
was declared? Did anybody?
PM The family members? Yes, I had a brother in school here. Class of `42. I believe
he went into the Air Force Aviation Cadet Program. The others did not join
immediately, but we had 8 children in the family. All five of the boys were in the
service, one branch or the other.
JB Were they all in the Army?
PM No, it was scattered out from Merchant Marine to Aberdeen Proving Ground
Engineering, (Laughter) Air Force two of us, and, did I miss anybody?
JB No, Navy?
PM No Navy. Army and Air Force.
JB Clyde, what about your family?
CS No. I had one brother. He was younger. I was oldest in the family. I had one
brother and one sister. And so he went later on. He finished A &M, and then he
went over to Japan after the war was over. And spent some time; a couple of
years over there.
JB That was in the service?
CS That was in the service. In the army, he went over there with , I don't know just
what they were doing, but they were kind of, in other words taking care of
business over there as war was over. Looking around and making sure everything
was going okay for us, they were concerned. Yes, the States were concerned. I
thought he told me he wound up in the MP's while he was over there.
JB We still have troops there.
CS Yes we sure do.
JB And Will, your family
WW Well, I had only two sisters. A number of cousins, male, were in the service, one
of which was on the Hornet, when Dolittle flew off on his raid to Tokyo.
JB Now, tell us who don't know, what was the Hornet?
WW That was the aircraft carrier that they flew off of to bomb Tokyo and later it was
torpedoed and sunk. He was on board then, but of course, he did survive that.
JB That's good.
WW By the Japanese.
PM Flew the B -25's off of it.
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WW It was the B -25's that flew off of the Hornet. That's the main one I had of all my
cousins that were in the service.
JB Well, if you had to think what was the effect of the service on the other family
members who joined, we'll talk about their experiences in a moment. But if you
think about their experiences. Did it affect their life? What did they go on to do
after the service?
PM Well, I think most of `em, I know the rest of the family thought little brother,
which was me, wouldn't be old enough to be in the service. But as it ended up, I
was the only one who was in combat. It worked out that way.
JB They treated you with new found respect after that.
PM But most of them had a sense of responsibility. If it was my turn to go, I'll go.
JB Let's talk about life during the war a little bit. I am curious, now to think how you
got your information about the war. Whether you were here or in the service,
telegrams, letters, news reels, how did you stay in touch with what was going on.
CS Personally, myself, since I went in and got in the infantry, I only came home one
time while I was in the service and that was when I left Fort Lewis, Washington.
Just before I left, we got two weeks vacation to come home.
JB Was that at your own expense? (Laughter)
CS No, not all together, but partially, yes. And 1 came back home and, boy, I had a
real good vacation while I was home. Because during the war, people were
raising practically everything they could to help benefit the war. And dad got the
bright idea that the government needed a lot of peanuts to make oil for the Navy to
use on the ships So, he decided to get into the business while he was working at
A &M. He had about 30 acres of peanuts when I came home. It wasn't done by
tractor, it was done by mules and sweep plows. It was just fortunate that he had
plowed them all up, but you had to go in there and turn `em upside down so they
would dry. Well, that was my job, so I spent two weeks turning peanuts upside
down.
JB Glad to go back to the army?
CS I was glad to get back and I never did ask for another furlow.
JB But while you were in, how did you stay in touch with the family, did you get
letters?
CS Mail was the only way.
JB No telephone?
CS No telephone.
JB No E -mail?
CS No E -mail. No nothing like that, the only thing we got was a letter occasionally
and not a whole lot of those.
JB Were your letters censored?
CS Oh, yes. Not so much going over, but occasionally they were. But coming back,
every letter we sent back was pretty well censored, because my parents said they
were always open.
JB But, the letters you got weren't censored?
CS Very few. Only one or two were censored. I guess they just spot checked it every
now and then and made sure what was going on, but packages, I don't know how
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they done those. I don't know whether they were opened or not, but every now
and then you'd get a package.
JB A box of peanuts?
CS Yes, peanuts. I got over there and everything was going pretty hot and heavy and
it was cold at that time. That was the worst winter they had in 25 years.
JB What year was this?
CS 1944. That was coldest they had in 25 years and it would be. Snow on the ground
was very deep everywhere you walked. So I tried to stay as warm as I could but it
was hard to do. My fiancee I wrote here a letter and told her it was getting pretty
cold over here, I need something to warm -up with. Well at that time occasionally
I would take a little drink of that tonic they have around, so she sent me a package
and low and behold I got that package and it was an oxydol box. What in the
world is she sending me a box of oxydol I haven't got time to take a bath anyway.
Clean clothes it didn't matter, but I couldn't figure out, so I ripped it open and I
looked in sure enough it was all oxydol. Man this is a new one to me. Well, I will
just give this stuff away. We was in a village there and they didn't know what it
was and I showed them how to use it, but before I did let me scratch a little of that
stuff. I found something caught hold of it, she had put a pint of good whiskey in
there. I kept that bugger to myself I didn't tell nobody, every time I got good and
cold, I'd take a little drink of that.
JB: Willing to share cookies, but not the whiskey.
CS: Cookies, not the whiskey. I had a dear friend, who was my #1 man under me lived
in Wisconsin his mother would send him the cookies, cause he didn't drink, smoke,
curse, nothing but fight. She would always send homemade cookies over there, I
ate all his cookies as much as I could, and I shared some of mine with him.
JB: I have to ask it is a personal question. You are free not to answer it might be
incriminating. Did you marry this woman?
CS: Yes I did. Yes we have been married 52 years now.
WW: I was married in the service too. We got married 52 years ago last October 1.
We met at the University of Delaware. After I graduated from OCS and she
graduated, we got married.
JB: So you were married before you got into the service?
WW: No, no. I married her in the service. Being from Texas and she from Delaware,
she was a little leery of Texans, our reputation wasn't that best back then.
JB: How did you all stay in touch?
WW: I did not go overseas I was stationed in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Then down
in Virginia. And then in Arlington, Virginia I was in the Army Security Agency a
cryptographic officer, so she started teaching school, but pretty soon got pregnant,
so she wound up living with me in Arlington, until I got discharged we had one
child.
JB: It was easier to stay in touch with her. What about the rest of your family?
WW: Well, they lived in Texas of course, and you know you had free if you wrote FREE
in the upper right hand comer. If you wrote air -mail you would write two
FREE's, but I don't think it would make any difference. Actually the letters came
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fast. I was stationed up in Massachusetts. You could get a letter in 24 hours.
Really it was amazing that the mail service was so good.
JB: And were your letters censored?
WW: Oh, not in the states not at all.
JB: What about you Pat?
Pat E -mail or B -mail? E -mail I believe it was in those days. Just regular mail all that
in the states training, and overseas E -mail. And our letters were censored. I help
censor a few.
JB: You helped censor a few? What was that like?
Pat: Interesting, read some interesting letters.
JB: What kinds of information did you "black out ", if you did?
Pat: We were supposed to block out anything about the missions we were on and they
might have military parts. The rest of it regular information.
JB: Letters you received were they censored?
Pat: I don't know, I doubt it.
JB: You were a bombardier you say, so you probably were moving around a bit. Did
letters have trouble catching up with you? Were you able to get them?
Pat: Yes, it did. We went over in July `44. We flew our first mission off of Los
Negros. Twenty -five missions usually you got to go home, if you had a
replacement. When we were on our 24th mission, we were shot down in the
Philippines on Negros island. We went from Los Negros to Negros, and we spent
about 34 days there as evadees. A lot of our mail was a little late getting there.
JB: You weren't getting your letters in 24 hours
.JB: I am curious. To what extent while you were in the military, you were watching
news reels or listening to radio programs. How did you get your news about the
war itself?
Pat: Very little News.
Clyde: Very little, I never heard the news.
Pat: We were more concerned with our training and surviving such as that, we didn't
know different.
CS: Mostly just things that were going on here in America. I have all kinds of
paraphernalia.
Jim: Oh good.
CS: This here is training in Louisiana. This here in Washington, that was about all we
done. Just among ourselves talking.
Tim: This is you? With the cigar? Doing your best Winston Churchill.
CS: Yes, anyway, these are all boys I was in the service with.
Jim: So you had photographs? Somebody had a camera?
CS: One of the guys, one of my buddies had a camera. Every time he took pictures he
would get a double roll of film. This here is overseas in Germany.
JB: How did you get hold of film overseas in Germany?
CS: Well, we took a Kodak plant. They had a big plant in Germany. We just so
happened to find plenty of cameras. Everybody got a chance to get all the film
they could find. We just kept what we wanted.
JB: Well good, I guess that's the way we paid for it.
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CS: I took about 300 pictures, I guess, over there and I only got very few back
because the army developed the film, I sent them in, being a smart boy, I let them
develop them, but they never sent them back. It was more important to them,
there was a prison war camp, right there, I was a little too far away to get to the
buildings and stuff that were back in here, but we, came across that and, there was
about 400 people in there. The people could barely move.
JB: Were they, military?
CS: No, no. They were, oh, I don't know what country, Yugoslavia, France, and all
different countries were in there.
JB: I see.
CS: They just picked them up here and there, I don't know whether they considered
them spies or what, some of them might of been, you know, but, they picked them
up everywhere.
JB: There they were.
CS: There they were and they were just poor as a snake too, I tell you, I felt sorry for
them.
JB: They were happy to see you?
CS: Oh, gosh, they were. They were not feed very well, when we first got over seas
we had K ration when we first got over there, in a box, and then we started
getting the C rations, but we always had a few on hand in case we'd need them.
The prisoners liked them, we gave them quite a few, and they was just tickled to
death to get these of K rations, they wasn't worth nothing, but you could hardly
eat them biscuits in there. But they loved them, they really did. They liked them.
I don't know whether this is interesting to anybody, but here is a book, you might
have seen it... Men and Women of Brazos County in the Service WWII.
JB: Oh, that's fascinating. "Men and Women in the Armed forces from Brazos County
and the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas."
CS: And I got the book from the American Legion and VFW, they published that
book with the county.
JB: That's very nice.
CS: Its got quite a few people in it.
JB: I bet it does. I've never seen that before.
CS: The American Legion knew my dad real well and, they asked him if he'd like to
have one of those books and he told them "I sure would," so, they gave him one.
JB: Was this published during the war or after the war?
CS: I don't recall whether its got the date there or not, but it seems like to me it was
published just right after the war started, maybe a couple years after. I'm not
positive on that, but, I don't recall seeing a date in there. There might be one, but
I don't recall seeing one. Every now and then I sit down and go through the book,
because I know about half of them in there and some of them are still living, some
aren't, but I went to school with a lot of them, too.
JB: That's a treasure. It really is.
CS: I don't know where you would get one, you might be able to find one through the
Legion or...County.
JB: Well, we have one. The problem is for you to get it back. (Laughing)
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CS: Yes, I thought maybe you guys might enjoy glancing at it and I feel like its some
pretty good information in there. The guys, who they are, and a service
connection.
JB: Well now, I want to ask
WW: E.R. Whitely, of course, the Congressional Medal of Honor Winner here.
CS: Yes
WW: Buried him on the campus.
JB: Who was that?
WW: E.R. Whitely. Here he is right there. See, there's several Whitely's. There's his
brother in there, too.
CS: Quite a number of brothers in there.
WW: Whitely was with the College of Agriculture. Was supposed to be his career.
JB: If I've heard your stories correctly, most of you didn't spend the war years in
College Station.
All: No. That's right.
JB: So, it won't be extremely profitable for me to ask about your life in College
Station during the war, but if you have any particular recollections from your
families who might have been in or around the area of what they thought life was
like, I'd surely like to hear about them.
CS: Well the main thing I heard was the ration business.
JB: What about that?
CS: Just didn't have a lot of items, especially sugar and coffee and things like that,
were very, very scarce. And they finagled a way to get some from somebody else -
just swap it back and forth with some other thing that way some of them got a
little more than others did because of the size, you know. But that's about all I
know about it.
JB: Planting peanuts. Did your family plant a victory garden?
CS: Oh, we had a garden from the time I was big enough to walk, I mean, I remember
that, but I'd always get in there and pick those potatoes on, George Washington's
birthday. Boy, dad believed in that day, George Washington's birthday, he would
plant about 150 or 200 pounds of potatoes and we'd get enough potatoes to fill
this room up in here.
JB: So you were never to keen on farming as a career?
CS: Nothing much on farming, now I've been ranching for about 50 years. Well, I
worked with the Post Office Department. I was a rural mail carrier and a lot of
times it was late getting home. I was also in the cattle business and at one time had
a dairy, but that wasn't too profitable. I got out of that thing. Anyway, I've been
raising cattle ever since and I still have cattle. They are about to get the best of me
now, though. Can't rope and handle them like I used to.
JB: But, you were here during some of the war years?
WW: Yes, I came the fall of `39. The war had broken out in Europe, so my freshman
and sophomore years were fairly normal and then here comes W.W.II when we got
in December of `41 then everything changed because then they. We lived in the 12
dormitories, the new dorms, but they moved us over onto the old campus in `42
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and they had a Navy school here, both radio school, operators, and repair. So, we
doubled up three to a room and this sort of thing
JB: To make room for the others.
WW: Three to a room. You put the bunks three top high and I've got a scar where I
jumped out and hit my chin. (Laughter)
JB: A war wound.
WW: Of course, those men who did not take advanced ROTC and have a contract they
were pretty vulnerable. So many of them, then, went on into the service. Many of
them went into the Air Corps which became the Air Force and of several of my
classmates, two of them were killed in the war. Except I was in the Signal Corps,
we were not in a real bad position and this sort of thing when we went into the
service.
JB: Did the students put pressure on each other to drop out of school and enlist?
WW: Oh, no, not at all, I don't think so. Some of them weren't doing very well in school
and as I say, they've got to choose their own branch of service so they chose the
Air Force.
JB: They preferred that to being drafted?
WW: Yes, to be drafted, yes. Very much, they didn't know what they were going to get
into if they did that.
JB: Of course, after 1943, you couldn't compete with the draft.
WW: No, what happened then is, of course, one thing that they did in most of the civilian
schools is the colleges needed to stay open and they even got naval training or
army and so they developed what is known as the ASTP -Army Specialized
Training Program. And so, that way while they sent many back to school to keep
the universities open. So A &M got a sizable number of students to keep the
faculty employed more or less and so all the other students were either 4 -F or
drafted. Then of course, they took them into the service as the war went on and
then I think they must have gone down to low enrollment here at A &M. There
were 6000 when I came here in `39 and they had the people that were in the
service connected with it, but when all they left, well then you just had, I don't
know, maybe a couple of thousand students.
JB: So the university was really mobilized for the war.
WW: Yes, they were mobilized. They cultivated getting things like the navy in here, of
course, and used part of the Bolton Hall which is where the Electrical Engineering
Department was. They set up code rooms there for teaching. And then they had
Anchor Hall which is over about where G. Rollie White Coliseum is now. They
had those for naval training and some of our faculty taught the navy as well as
taught the ASTP and this sort of thing. This is second hand of course cause I was
just a student then.
JB: But in addition to the students they had military personnel on location.
WW: Oh, most of the students on campus were military so they had plenty of people and,
of course, some of them were married and this sort of thing and so they had some
families, but I can't say much about that. Of course, one thing, when I came here
in `39, A &M Consolidated was on campus, Pfeiffer Hall, a little dormitory, was
where the high school was. it must have been where you were going to school.
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WW: And then, right behind dorm 2 was the music hall which was used as the elementary
school. And in about 1941 is when they built A &M Consolidated where we are
right now. Not this building, they had some wooden buildings and so, they moved
them off and, of course, A &M Consolidated was a consolidated school district is
what it meant.
JB: Tell me about the social life at A &M. How did that change over your four years?
WW: If you've seen `We've Never Been Licked" I was in the movie.
JB: Well tell us about that.
WW: This was about the corniest movie ever made! It was about A &M, about a
freshman that came late in the semester and Robert Mitchum, Wallace Berry Jr.,
Martha Driscoll were in it. I have a tape of this thing...
JB: I've seen the movie.
WW: And so in the fall `42 they were making this movie here on campus and this
freshman became disgraced because he defended Japan and he had come from
Japan and he knew Japanese and so forth. But anyway, as I recall our particular
outfit when we walked up into Sbisa Dining Hall tripped him as he went up the
steps and this was my outfit that he.... (Laughter) But he went off and apparently
got back to Japan and he spoke Japanese, so he was kind of a traitor in that he was
broadcasting this propaganda. Well, he got to be on an aircraft and, of course his
roommate who was a pilot on one of the aircraft carriers and he was in the
observer's seat behind the Japanese pilot and somehow he directed the American
dive bombers to this Japanese carrier and he crashed and died, but anyway they
wound up giving him the Congressional medal of Honor, and on Kyle Field they
had his boots, and Bill Stern you remember him?
JB: Who is Bill Stern?
WW: Bill Stern was a sports broadcaster back in those days and so here it was at the end
of it. As I say it was at the end of it. As I say it was really a corny movie.
JB: And you took time off from classes to help make this movie?
WW: Yeah, not too much but I know we did a lot of drilling, you know have parades and
all this sort of thing -They were taking pictures and what not.
JB: I see that must have been pretty exciting in the town to have a Hollywood crew
making a movie.
WW: Oh yes. Oh yes. but what you did for entertainment, since A &M was all male, was
to have Corps dances and Regimental Balls. So on Friday night you would have a
Regimental Ball like the infantry and then you'd have Corps dances on Saturdays -
all this in Sbisa hall, and they had big name orchestras, Glen Miller, Harry James
any number of really big orchestras coming And so this was our entertainment.
Now to house the dates? Well one of the dorms got vacated so the girls could live
in these dormitories for the weekend and you had to find wherever you could with
some other people on campus somewhere and stay in their dorm for that weekend.
Many of them would stay in homes of course If I can remember.
JB: Many of the students or many of the women?
WW. Hmmm?
JB: The students or the women?
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WW: Oh, the women, would be either housed in a dormitory, or in faculty, homes, or this
sort of thing. No, the Aggies they found other places to live on campus.
JB: What if you wanted to drink a beer?
WW: This is the White Way Cafe out here at the East Gate. The county was all dry
except for beer.
JB: What was the name of that cafe again?
WW: The Whiteway Cafe. Its about where the 707 is now. I took my first beer there
when I was a junior. You go over there drink beer and then walk back to campus,
and this sort of thing That was about the extent of it. Of course you had Uncle
Ed Hrdlika's (Singing: We'd go out to Uncle Ed's drink your troubles away I'd
rather be a Texas Aggie and thumbing a ride than have Greta Garbo for my
blushing bride.) Anyway that was a song that was sung when you go out to Uncle
Ed's and drink your troubles away.
JB: I see.
WW: I think cadets don't sing it anymore, but that's what was written during World War
II.
JB: Well Uncle Ed isn't around anymore.
WW: Uncle Ed isn't, his daughter is. Her husbands name is Jack Fugate. You know it
would really be nice if you could have her talk about it.
JB: So if you wanted hard liquor you went to Uncle Ed's, if you wanted a beer...
WW: Uncle Ed had beer and that was it. We took our dates out there one night after a
dance and all the tables were all carved up and beers and all that stuff and they said
gosh is an awful place here. And we said well this is what it usually is.
JB: What about churches?
WW: Well, now, this is kind of important because about the only church was in the
YMCA chapel and this is a Presbyterian Church and I'm a Presbyterian and
actually the A &M Presbyterian church met in the YMCA chapel starting in the
20's. At the Northgate was a Methodist church and then of course the Catholic
Student Center is -that was a Catholic church maybe you can remember that too -its
where Shell oil station is now, across from the parking garage and that's about all
there was in the way of churches that I can remember. The Catholic, The
Presbyterians on campus and the Methodists, I'm not sure about the Baptists
church they must have had something on Northgate but all of them were rather
small
JB: Were the churches involved in the war effort at all?
WW: Oh, I can't say that.
CS: I really don't know either. I wasn't here at the time.
JB: When you were on campus during the war, were the students involved in helping
recycle materials or anything
WW: Not at all.
JB: You were wasteful.
WW: We didn't have anything to recycle.
JB: Were there drills for blackouts or anything of that kind?
WW: Not at all. During World War II, along the east coast you'd ride trains and they'd
always put the curtains down and all the headlights of the cars, the upper half of
14
the headlights were painted black, and you did not have any background light for
the ocean for the submarine -the German submarines along there too. Along the
Atlantic Coast.
JB: Pat do you want to add anything to this part of the discussion about life in College
Station during the War?
Pat: I had no particular relationship with folks here until I got out of the service in `46
and moved here. So I don't know what the social life was here.
JB: Well we'll talk about the social life of `46 before we're done here I can promise you
and expect you to speak up. What I want to do now is hear about your own
experiences with the war and I suppose the best thing for me to do is be real quiet
and just listen. Will, maybe you want to start.
WW: What now?
JB: Your experience with the war, tell me about your personal experience, tell me about
your service in the military.
Will: While I was in the service? I was first in the amphibian engineers, and up on Cape
Cod.
JB: First, tell me how did you get in.
Will: Hmm9
JB: Did you flunk out of school and sign up to beat the draft?
Will: Oh no. Went in the service at Camp Walters and they shipped us up to Fort Devans
Massachusetts in the middle of a winter and I was at the bottom of the alphabet so
I didn't get any Artie boots. Here we were snowing and all that stuff (laughter).
JB: You were an officer?
Will: No, I didn't go in as an officer, I went into enlisted school and got into OCS. I
spent 3 1/2 years in the service, two years going to school, part of the service.
Teletype school, cryptographic school, OCS, officers school, this sort of thing
So, you guys helped win the war, I didn't have much to do.
JB: Don't be so modest. Tell us what happened when you finished school.
Will: Where? After the war?
JB: No, no, during the war.
Will: Oh, oh, I went on into OCS and got my commission.
JB: And then?
Will: And then I went to Virginia to a cryptographic maintenance school to learn about
cryptographic machines. Before that I went to teletype maintenance at I Fort
Monmouth. Then I went to Arlington Hall in Arlington, Virginia until I got
discharged in 1946.
JB: At the time of course that work was highly secret, but can you tell us about what you
did?
JB: When you were in the war and you were working with these cryptographic machines,
what were you doing? Many of us have never seen one.
Will: I was developing new cryptographic machines and also we got Japanese and
German, cryptographic equipment to do some work on and find out what they
were doing. The war was over by then.
JB: O. K. good. Pat?
Pat: I think your question was what we did in the service and all that.
15
JB: During the war.
Pat: I was drafted I guess, barely 18. Went to Ft. Knox, Kentucky I Army and while you
could not get in the aviation cadets then unless you were in the service and since I
was in the service I qualified and went on from there to the Air Force. Went to
Bombardier school, gunnery school, and bombardier school, Carlsbad N. M.
JB: Did you call it the Air Force then or did you call it the Army Air Corps?
Pat: Army Air Corps is what we called it then till after W.W.II was the Army Air Corps.
And then became a separate branch of service, after finishing bombardier school,
we were put together as crews, we didn't get a leave, at all.
JB: Tell us a little bit about bombardier school. How did you learn how to be a
bombardier? That's something most of us are born knowing.
Pat: Well, at that time, everybody was wanting to be a pilot I think, Army Air Corps -seem
to be the popular thing And they said we don't need anymore pilots, but you can
go to Wichita Falls, what they called, a classification center, I think they call it, at
Ft. Knox and I got on that train to Wichita Falls, Shepherd AFB, classification
center I believe what they call it and on the way down there, well a funny little
thing happened there, the sergeant in charge was supposed to have told me the
night before your going to Wichita Falls tomorrow, but he didn't, he was not quite
sober. So the next morning he came in the barracks of course Sunday morning,
said 30 minutes going to catch a train and you're going to Shepherd AFB. Said
OK, so we had a lot of help. One footlocker held everything I had (laughter). Got
on that train and he said when you get on that train somebody will have your
orders yet so I guess I'm still waiting on them. Anyhow, somebody suggested we
just stay on this train we don't know what to do with you. So, that train went all
the way, a troop train, long, you all probably been on -ended up in California, Santa
Anna, California which was another center, classification center, so we hung
around there two or three weeks, then went to gunnery school at Las Vegas and
went to bombardiers school at Carlsbad, NM. Your question was how'd you get
to be a bombardier?
JB: Yes sir.
Pat: Well you went to class studied a lot of basic things that anybody on flying status
would study navigation and had a lot of practice dropping bombs, a lot of it.
JB: Where did you drop these bombs?
Pat: In the desert there near Carlsbad. They had lots of shacks as we called them - practice
ranges -you dropped a lot of bombs there. And if you qualified and stayed with the
program you were commissioned at the end of the service there, there after about
4 or 5 months there. Commissioning was after completing the course and right
away we were assigned to go to, they put us together as a crew, they had a pilot
from Dallas and a co -pilot from Alabama, others were from Chicago, California we
were a mixture there. Only 2 of us were from Texas. The rest of them were from
Illinois, Pennsylvania and just several states. We trained weekly as a crew about a
week in California and then we were on our way they issued a lot of fleece lined
clothes that you'd use over in the cold country so right away they us to the Pacific.
We stopped in Hawaii, Honolulu for 2 or 3 days.
JB: Do you remember what year this was?
16
Pat: Yeah this was all in `44, it was about July `44 and after a day or two we went on to
the Guadal Canal and then up to Los Negros which is a little island off New
Guinea and started flying our missions there. We flew 24 missions before we were
shot down in the Philippines just before we invaded the Philippines.
JB: What were you bombing before you were shot down?
Pat: A variety of things, airfields, troop concentrations, couple of passes over the
Japanese navy which had lots of firepower.
JB: They shot back?
Pat: Yeah, they did, they returned fire, lots of it. Yeah, so we bombed a variety of targets
that you find in the Pacific area.
JB: And what plane were you flying?
Pat: We were on a B -24. We had 8 out of 12 that survived which was a pretty high
percent.
JB: Was this 8 out of 12 men or 8 out 12 planes?
Pat: People.
JB: People?
Pat: I do not remember a crew in that group that ever finished 24 missions and got to go
home and the mortality rate there was tremendous. We were in the 13th Air Force
and all of us just heard about the 8th Air Force because they had such a
tremendously large organization. We were (Lone Wolf) minority Air Force if I say
that. We flew mission of a tremendous length of time. We got a commendation
for having flown the longest mission in time at that time.
JB: How many hours would that have been?
Pat: About 17 hours.
Jim: Long time to stay
Pat: Gas tanks one bomb we went from Monday, out on another little island. Island
hopping you know out on another little Island.
Jim: Right around here. That's it there.
Pat: Yes, ha, ha, ha and right there we had just been rescued right here. We had lost a lot
of weight and we were living off the land there while we were missing, and didn't
get many regular meals.
Jim: Why don't you tell us about the mission in which you were shot down.
Pat: A Fighter plane shot us down. We weren't to concemed about it because he was
one fighter plane but he lucked out and caught us on fire. All those empty fuel
tanks make a pretty good fire hazard Wing burned off the plane and we bailed
out.
Jim: Parachute
Pat: Oh yea and three of them did not get out and one was killed in the parachute. Being
strafed . They strafed me three times and they didn't get me. I don't know why.
Jim: That was the Fighter pilot?
Pat: Yes.
Jim: After he was...
Pat: Bailed out over land. We just completed a bomb run. We were over some pretty
17
good jungle. It took about two weeks for all of our crew to get together. We
were fortunate because of the guerrillas found and took care of us. It took about
two weeks to get back together with the crew plus seven others.
Jim: Do you remember the name of this land? Was it an island?
Pat: It was Negros Island.
Jim: Negros Island.
Pat It was midway in the Philippines on the west side about the third largest Island up
there north of Mindano.
Jim: So some friendly guerrillas found you?
Pat: Yea and it took two weeks to get all of out crew together cause as you bail out you
were scattered several miles in thick jungle.
Jim: Yes
Pat: So it took us a little while to get us all together. We were treated royally by the
guerrillas we didn't know who survived and who didn't for two weeks we got
together and picked up three other people that had been in the Philippines, one
from the March of Batan, British Pilot, and 5th Air Force Pilot. We had a pretty
good little Army. I think 15 people were in there after about two weeks we got
together.
Jim: Do you remember the month and year when this happened
Pat: 8th or 10th of Nov. 1944
Jim: November 1944, then you were in the Pacific for what six months
Pat: Yes, six months.
?: What number mission was this? What number mission?
Pat: twenty -four.
?: twenty -four.
Pat: yes, twenty four ha, ha, ha I remember losing a pound a day. I went thirty four days
and lost thirty-four pounds. But a lot of missions we would fly, there were not to
many bombs. I remember one mission, extra tanks and one bomb.
Jim: How did you, before you went out on this, wait a minute I want to hear the end of
this story about we now have fifteen of you with the guerrillas on Negros.
Presumably you didn't stay with the guerrilla's and fight with them to the end of
the war?
Pat: No they were not fighting, they were there to primarily help and rescue the
Americans.
Jim: So what did they do with you?
Pat: They treated us royally. They ask if MacArthur was going to return. I said oh yes.
While we were there, let me see, when did they re- invade in Leyte? At that time
we didn't know. Next thing was Roosevelt was still president, they were mostly
poorly educated people. They were native, at most third or fourth grade education.
Jim: Huh Huh
Pat: I landed in the jungle in a very high tree, rainy and dreary like today only raining a
little harder. I was too high to drop to the ground, but I finally managed to climb
down. I heard some voices, I got my pistol out, ready to do what I could. I could
hear them coming, there was a big boulder about the size of a car. Just before the
firing started somebody started yelling Americanio, Americanio don't shoot!
18
Don't shoot, friends. There was an old lady. maybe weighed 90 pounds. She said
we are going to celebrate your new birthday. She saw the strafing going on as the
Japs were shooting at us in the parachutes. The Jap fighter pilot made three passes
at me and how he missed I don't know. The guerrillas sent a young man out late
one afternoon and he came back late that night with a few bananas. Very
apologetic he couldn't find any bananas for us. So they decided to have a barbecue
in our honor. I don't know if you are interested or not.
Jim: I am
Pat: They had a little shoat or pig there. It might have weighed 20 pounds. Barbecued.
So they barbecued him And I was the only one at that time in contact with them
in my group. Well we talked all night and they asked all the normal questions
about Americans.
Jim: What were the usual questions?
Pat: The usual questions were how old are you, and your background, where you came
from, few questions about the war, they knew it was going on (the Japanese) but
the didn't know about the big picture. We didn't know either. And one of them I
remember had been to Idaho to harvest potatoes. And anyhow, after barbecue I
got to sleep in the headquarters building, which was a bamboo shack. Any way, I
got to sleep in the number one palace. I remember at that time I wasn't still sure I
was among friends. I remember going to bed, it must have been midnight or later
but they were so glad to see an American. I saw a machete lying on the bed and I
thought, "I am going to move that thing because he is liable to cut my throat with
it. The guerrilla said to leave it alone. We have to leave here in a hurry if Japanese
come we have to know where everything is. I might have gotten an hours sleep
that night. When we got back to the barbecue there were a whole lot of starving
kids around. I had not been there a day. I was not that hungry yet but anyhow.
They wouldn't take it but you could tell they wanted it for the worst thing in the
world. But I didn't hurt their feelings but not eating so much. I nibbled a couple
of bites. Finally the kids got something to eat, there were 4 or 5 youngsters there
3 years to 6 years. Something like that. So after a little sleep. The next day they
said come on, we got to go. And so I began to trust the leader there. I had no
choice. And went by where our plane had crashed. Meet the mayor of the Free
Talisha. We passed by a group carrying the torsos of the rest of the crew members
burned. Their leader said he would give them a burial, then after the war we will
know where they are. Went by where the wing burned off of the plane and went
about a mile. Then we went on to another camp Every day we walked from
camp to camp taking whatever they provided. They had a very interesting menu.
We got to where we trusted them pretty well, the guerrillas. It wasn't a lot of
them now. Half a dozen in one camp and half a dozen in another. They wanted to
be good to us. I remember, we got to where we could hardly walk, weak as well as
hurting and they had a water buffalo there. It was old. They wanted me to ride
and I got on that thing and rode about 50 yards and said "that's all folks" That
was the roughest thing you ever saw. We got to a river once and I remember there
was a lot of commotion and we stopped and hid in the bushes and finally, their
leader came back and said lieutenant take that cap of because I had a Japanese
19
hat on. He said," they might shoot me for wearing the hat." I had not thought of
that so I took it off.
JB: The C- ration was probably looking pretty good.
Pat: I would have loved to have some K- rations.
JB: K- rations.
Pat: But any how we had one day where we were going through the jungle and there was
a clearing there, and there was the biggest commotion you ever saw and everybody
spread out and hit the ground. We were trying to figure out what had happened. I
found out after 15 minutes. They said," Lets go now. There was a monkey in the
tree they saw one tree shaking. They wanted that monkey but didn't ever get it.
We ate camote which is the root they did up from trees. It looks a lot like a wild
persimmon tree with a root about that big around. You bake it a lot like a sweet
potato. Grind it up and make some flour out of it, if its dry. He didn't ever cook
it. We had some monkey meat, I had some snake meat. We had some water
buffalo after he had died. He cooked it a four times and made it so tough you
couldn't chew it. We had some fish. But fish were about minnows, I called them.
They would cook them whole. Pretty good eating there for a few days. But the
eyeballs sure were tough. Anyhow.
JB: How long were you with the guerrillas?
Pat: 34 days.
JB: 34 days.
Pat: They took pretty good care of us.
JB: You all were nearly brothers.
Pat: We got to know each other pretty good in fact we had one kid I remember he was 14
or 15 years old. He wanted a promise to take him back with me. I said," I can't
do that." We find a tree and I said, " if you get me out of here alive I'll give you
my shoes." They were the old army G.I. ... with soles like a tire, real thick. I
said," OK" He then wanted to trade pistols with me. I said , "OK." You get me
out of here alive and we'll trade.
JB: What kind of pistol did he have?
Pat: He had a Japanese pistol he got from a crashed Air Force pilot, which I still have.
JB: What is it, like a 9mm9
Pat: Seven or nine? A luger type.
JB: Seven or nine?
Pat: I don't know which it is, I haven't looked at it recently. So we got ready everyday
we kept moving and they said go south if you got shot down, catch a submarine.
They said we got two more days. We were getting happy then. Our one outfit,
374th Squadron, came on another bombing mission, and we flashed a mirror at
them and they flashed back. Here came a P -38 down flying about fifty feet off the
water and we ran out to the beach and about three or four minutes the PB4 landed.
You all know what that is, its got two engines. We started to crowd on that thing,
fifteen people. I don't remember. About half of us got on and the pilot said "uh
huh ". We need some volunteers for the next trip. But there weren't any
volunteers to stay. (laughing) They divided us up. We had a pile of bananas
about the size of this table. They were heavy in the back of the boat. We were
Clyde: I can't compete with all that.
20
about to sink that thing We were going down I said, "Throw the bananas out ",
but the pilot didn't want to part with those bananas. He said somebody come up
here to the front and we might make it. I crawled up between the pilot and the co-
pilot. They started taking off and if you have ever been on a flying boat you know
when they start to hit the waves. It goes bump, bump The pilot looks at the co-
pilot and the co -pilot and shook his head "no". After about five minutes it
bounced off We stopped in Mindano. There was supposed to be an important
celebrity there. He was a congressman. We came back home and then took those
pictures, here. Some of them went to another outfit. Fifteen people, army this
crew, that crew, two of those crew members were not from our outfit. That's
pretty well how after we got back, they took us down to MacArthur's
headquarters. One of those Philippinos gave me a map of a railroad car where
they had the Japanese cornered and the Japanese couldn't escape and neither
could they. But they had a small arms fire. They wanted me to make sure and see
that somebody came and bombed that railroad car. I said," I can't guarantee that,
but I will deliver the map, which I did." The result of that was that they took us
down to McArthur's headquarters to interview us. We returned to San Francisco
via boat.
JB: Ga -lee.
Pat: But we spent some time in the hospital there. Then we got to go home in December,
Christmas Day of `44. We started home and thought we were going to get to fly
home, but we ended up on a transport boat. We got out of there and in to San
Francisco. It took two weeks. We notified your folks that you were alive and
under government control, but you can't call them until we were sent to
Washington DC to the Pentagon, for debriefing, and then to Arlington, VA. After
that, the navigator and I were the two surviving officers which I got to see last
year, we got together after 52 years. We decided we would go to Pilot School .
We went down to Horida and Georgia. And we were in primary and basic and
you got to sign up for three years. I decided I would finish up here at A &M.
JB: Was the war over then?
Pat: Yeah, we got points on discharge based on your service. So we got out the first go
around early. So I came home. The navigator stayed as a career in the Air Force.
A lot of interesting things, it may not be significant.
JB: But Pat, you just left one thing out, you said," you went to McArthur's
headquarters." But you didn't tell us about the conversation you and Doug had.
Pat: We got down there and we were supposed to meet him in person, but he had some
emergency come up. But I still don't know (laughter). We had an officer there
who talked to us a few minutes, then he came back out and sent us back to the
hospital, then back home. We did not talk to him, we thought we were going to.
JB: Maybe next time.
Pat: He was apparently busy on something.
JB: Well, Pat, that was a good story well told. I'd rather hear it as a story than look
through it myself. Clyde, I wonder if you could share with us.
21
JB: Well, you don't have to compete, all you have to do
Clyde: He would have had it, Gaundry, I would like to say Hived here in Bryan. I took a
train with about 200 of us I guess it was. Left here and went to fort Sam Houston
and stayed there a couple of days. Got issued clothing and what not, shots and
what not. Then one morning fallout well, first of all, before that first morning we
where there fallout. They wanted to know who all the heavy equipment men and
truck drivers and all that you know. And oh well shoot. I can drive a truck. Sure
enough. Wound up at that big building with a bunch of wheel borough and
shovels. We moved all the dirt they had stacked up there. That was the heavy
equipment.
JB: Right
Clyde: Anyway, I was ready to leave the next day. And we left on a troop train to Fort
Lewis Washington. Didn't know what we were going to get into until we got
there. But the 44th infantry division was there. And pretty well, all fit up, we
were one of the last groups to come in there. And most of our boys were from the
East coast pretty well. Think there was only three with my group here that was
with me and we trained there for about nine months. I got there and there was
water everywhere. Rain, rain, rain. I said," oh my goodness , I have to live in this
place." But it never would stop the whole time we were there. Anyway we got
through with all of our basic training there. And I was in the 81mm mortar
company and the 60cal machine guns were connected with us. I tried to get out of
that thing but didn't have any luck.
JB: Why is that?
Clyde: Well I figured it was a lot easier than what we were doing. So I went up to talk to
commander S about going up to, I think it was Cort Air Force base in
Tacoma Washington. So I said," well I should be able to just go up there and see
if I can get in, well I had been doing a little radio work, you know at post." So
they gave me a transfer. And I went up there. After they told me what I had to do
they got to explaining to us that we weren't going to be sitting in the United States
with that stuff. Telephones and Radios. They described what we had to do as a
radio man. And lay a telephone line down way ahead of everybody else. And
climbing poles and so forth; uh -no, no, no, this is not for me. So I got back with
the unit. So I stayed with them from then on.
JB: Did they rip you about this? Did they tease you about having left?
Clyde: Yea, Yea, Yea - they kind of carried me on there for a while but it didn't take long
before they quit. But, anyway we left there after our basic training and we came
down to Louisiana. And we spent three months down there in the mosquito
infested place.
JB: Lord, that's the worst!
Clyde: I thought that was the worst place I'd ever seen in my life. So it was hot, it was
so hot. We spent three months there and I thought it was bad. Then we left there
and went to Silena Kansas. Dust everyday, you could hardly see sometimes in
front of your face, that far, sometimes with all the dust blowing. Well, I don't
recall how long. Not too long there. One morning we loaded up on troop train
and took off. We didn't know where we were going. Chugging on through the
22
country, the United States, we wound up at camp Kilmore, New Jersey. Well, we
got there and we found out where we were going. We then loaded up the next day
on these little Liberty Ships. I don't know just how many they carry, but not a
whole lot, compared to some of the other ships. I don't know how many of them
things, it was a convoy of 150 ships that went over at one time. The one that I
was on , was one of the ones up in the front. And after I kind of got straightened
out, because down below them crackers didn't do a bit of good. Man, I got so
seasick. And everyone else also. And they gave us a chance to go up on deck and
we unloaded up there. And while we were up there, the captain of the ship said
everyone below. Well, we didn't pay much attention to him. The second time,
everybody below. I wondered what was going on. Well, we saw the head ship up
ahead, it was a battle ship up ahead of us, and all of a sudden we saw something
over the top of the waves. What was that? He just disappeared. A few minutes
later over another one. What in the world is that, I didn't know what a PT boat
was. And the captain of our ship said everybody below or we are locking the
hatch. And we decided we better go below and just as we were starting to go
below, we saw the P.T. boat shoot that barrel up in the air. We didn't know what
that was either, but we came back out and found out that they had torpedoed that
submarine, German submarine and they got him. An oil slick came up and it was
floating all by us. Well we made it on without any other incidents from there on.
And we started pulling to harbor in there in Cherbourg.
JB: Now when you were in New Jersey, did they say you were going to go from New
Jersey to Cherbourg? Did they say you are going to Europe now?
Clyde: No, they just said you are going to a front. They didn't say what front we were
going to, but I knew which direction we were going and I couldn't figure out any
other front besides European Theater. So we were fortunate that we got there in
the first of September and the landings were completed. Thank goodness!
JB: September of `44?
Clyde: Yes, and I don't recall how far we were out, but you couldn't see any land. And
they said, "we can't go in any further because the ships the United States bombed
and the Germans bombed a lot of ships and so forth and they were just sticking out
of the water everywhere." You couldn't come in too close with a big ship, troop
ship So they unloaded us all off on barges and pulled us in through those boats
and so forth then we got into the beach. And they issued all our equipment to us.
And we took off on foot. I don't recall but one time riding the whole time I was
over there but the first time we stopped was at St. Lowe. This was one of the big
battles there. An doing the landing, we got there and there we stayed for about 3
or 4 days and they told us we're moving to the front lines. They issued us all four
guns and ammunition. From then on we started moving forward. We went all the
way through France. We were south of Paris. We never did get too close into
there, we stayed south of there.
JB: Now you said you were in the 44th infantry?
Clyde: 44th, Right.
23
JB: Do you remember the name of your division commander? I'm sorry, I don't mean to
distract you, I was just curious if you did?
Clyde: "General Dean" -He was also General of all forces in South Korea.
JB: You didn't play poker with him too often.
Clyde: No I didn't. Sure didn't. I might have if he would have stopped by sometime.
JB: I'm sorry for interrupting you, don't pay attention to my question.
Clyde: But anyway, we started to get orders to go forward. At that particular time, I was
corporal gunner once we got in battle. It didn't take no time before we started
losing men left and right. We were fighting constantly, I wasn't with my outfit all
100% of the time. I spent 151 days on the front line without coming back for
anything. I mean it was impossible. I knew when I wasn't with my group we lost
a lot of men and I was a forward observer also, and radio operator. I stayed with
the radio. A lot of the times I had to go on my own and you go up to the rifle
company that's ahead of you. They were #1 up front. Then when you got up
there 9 times out of 10, you would have to move out 3 or 4 hundred to 500 feet
ahead of them. You would do that at night time though. Don't go out in the day
time. A lot of times you had to crawl on your stomach to get out there and dig
you a slit trench to get into. Then you start looking to see what you could see and
send messages back about what you could see, what the German troops were
doing. I did a quite bit of that. I wasn't too happy about that but I didn't have
much choice. We moved on the Meher, went through France and into Germany
And business sure picked up there, sure enough. I never was in Berlin, we were
south of there. We went through the southern part of Germany and Strasburg.
Imps also, and oh Imps was right in Austria. And that was the biggest town we
had taken, Strasburg - Germany. (schuffling through papers and looking at
pictures)
JB: It probably didn't look this nice when you were done.
Clyde: No, well when we moved in the whole thing was destroyed except this cathedral.
That Air Force was something else. They could drop a bomb and just never touch
anything if they didn't want to. I think I counted three cracked windows in that
church when I went around it. And we moved into there. That was our biggest
project. I got a little story on that. The lady that works right here at the Chemistry
building , she lived right behind that cathedral, her and her folks. She was from
Germany. She had a brother and herself and her mother and dad. She and I got
aquatinted about six years ago. Friend of mine lives at Anderson. He was with the
chemistry department up here. He said," who was your liberator ?" She said, "I
have no idea." He said I might have somebody that might know something about
it. Well he came back and talked to me about it. Had I ever been there. I sure was.
We crossed over the Danube river right there at Ulm, Germany and this cathedral I
had a bombed out picture there of it. Anyway we got aquatinted. He got her to
come down and visit with him and I went over and visited with her. And she was
nine when we were there during the war. She told me the only way they survived
was her mother and the two kids were there and she said the way they would
survive, she would take a bucket, a metal bucket and they each put one of them
over their heads and they got off into the Danube river and she tied them to the
24
bank so that they wouldn't wash away and they'd all three stay there until they
stopped dropping those phosphate shells and everything was burning and that's the
only way they survived, doing that. They could get down in the water and they
could still keep their heads up far enough where they could breathe and they spent
three nights in the river. And it was very interesting. We'd meet quite often and
visit with her and she just couldn't get over that.
JB I wonder if we could go back a little bit. A lot of people who hear this tape or read
this transcript won't have ever been in a war or battle. How would you describe a
battle to somebody who has never experienced it?
Clyde: Well I will describe one that I think will about cover all of it. That was on
Christmas eve night of `44. We were going to surprise the Germans because, they
knew the territory and we didn't and we only followed maps to where we were
going. So we decided we would surprise them. Our mortar platoons, we had 12
mortars in the platoon. And we had them scattered out, I'd say about 500 feet
apart. And, we all coordinated our guns together and, we'd lay out a pattern to
shoot in front of us because we knew the Germans were going to be in that area,
somewhere. And, so we laid that pattern out beforehand and we made a point,
everybody at midnight, would start firing at the same time. Well the Germans beat
us to it. About five minutes to twelve they must have had the same idea and boy
they started firing. We were ready. We cut loose with everything we had. And we
fired almost to daylight. From midnight to daylight. I burnt up about three barrels
on that gun that I was firing. I mean it just melted away.
JB: Literally burned up?
Clyde: Literally burned up. We had extra barrels on hand, we had big protective gloves,
we just picked it up, threw it out of the way, put another barrel in and kept on
firing. But anyway, we start firing and, they were firing on us. They moved into us
with white uniforms on. No one could see them on the snow.
JB: Snow?
Clyde: Snow. You couldn't tell anybody was moving. And they were right on the
infantry group before they realized they were there. Well like I say, we fired till it
was daylight and things quieted down then. Well they called in some of the Air
Force for which I was proud, because we called them quite often. And I was glad
to see them come anytime. But, the next morning, we moved forward to the Blyce
River. We was getting ready to cross it and we started moving forward, I don't
know how many for sure we killed. The medics said that we lost about 200 men
ourselves up on the front -line. They said it was about 800, they counted the next
day. They were scattered all over that front, and it was dreadful, I tell you, it was
dreadful just to walk through there and see them laying everywhere.
JB: This would've been Christmas day?
Clyde: Yes. And, that's more or less a scene of what a battle was like. There's no end.
You just keep moving. We had our vehicles. I had a jeep and a jeep driver. He just
continually kept going back and forth hauling ammunition, the shells, they were
ammunition 81 millimeter, they were about 18" long and 6" around. And,
anyway, that was one of the battles. Now the other battles, where you get pinned
down by the German troops, I've been up front. I've been up front with a rifle
25
company too and we got pinned down. They fired artillery in on us and, we started
firing m- 1 Is and machine -guns and mortars and everything else we had to get them
to move out of the way. So that, that's really a battle, there. And that was just
continually, all the time from one village to the next. Right on through
The Germans were backed up and they
couldn't go to Switzerland so anyway they were just pinned in. That's another
beautiful country. We moved there to Austria and, a lot of ski places there.
Snow, between the Alp mountains and, that's the most beautiful place in the world
that I've ever seen. Well we stayed there until the latter part of April. When we
first moved in we were following these roads around them mountains. And we
didn't know the war was coming to an end. Everything we saw was still war. We
came around a mountain and here came about 200 Germans and there wasn't but
about 25 or 30 of us. Oh boy! Boy you talkin' about slamming on the brakes and
heading for the other side that mountain. We took everything we had because we
didn't know what was coming up. But what it was , they wanted to surrender.
They knew the war was over and they was wanting to surrender to somebody. But
they still had their guns though. Boy they came around and we could see them
facing us with that mob and just a few of us there. Well, we were getting ready to
cut loose once they started, but they didn't. They threw their guns up over their
head and surrendered. They had a white flag and they was waving it. Well we
asked them what in the world was going on, because we didn't know.
JB: Someone there spoke German or...?
Clyde: We had a few that could... just a little bit. I never could say too much. I get a
word in every now and then. I learned to pick up a little of it but not too much.
But we had a few guys that could speak German with us then. Anyway we found
out that the war was ending but they still didn't want to give up back further up in
the mountains but they finally did. We finally just pushed them up on in the corner
and they couldn't go any further because the 2nd division had them pinned up
there in Italy. And, they couldn't go that way cause they was up in the mountains.
They was just stuck. And, I can't think of the admiral, the German admiral. It
was kind of odd there. An admiral backup in the mountains when he should've
been out on a ship But he and one of the generals, I can't remember their names,
but, , we captured those two. And, the war ended there about the first part of
April. And, we stayed there until the latter part of April. I wound up with a fairly
good job. I was Sergeant Guard of the whole thing and oh, I had me a Jeep and all
I did was ride around and check the guard posts and so forth. And swapped tires
for a wrist watch and a case of beer or something along that line, you know? We
all got to find somebody. And , that was a beautiful country. The snow was just
beginning to melt and come down....the river running in the bottom, and the grass
beginning to get green. When we left, it was just beautiful. I'd like to go back for
a visit. I'm hoping to get back over there pretty quick. I wanted to go before but I
think I am going to make it now this coming year.
JB: When did you return to the states?
Clyde: It was around the middle of may when we got back.
JB: Very quickly?
26
Clyde: Very quickly. They picked us up right away and just sent in another division there
and, we came right on back. We walked all the way across there and I'll estimate
it from the time we got off the ship until I got back to a ship, I guess I covered
somewhere in the neighborhood of about 4000 miles on foot.
JB: That's a long walk.
Clyde: Long walk Yes. It sure was. And we didn't ride. There wasn't a way to ride.
One time we rode. I remember and that was when the Battle of the Buldge was up
on. They picked us up there one night about midnight And we took off in trucks
and jeeps to that front. We were protecting the southern front of it. And, it was
snowing. It was cold. Black out. You couldn't see nothing. And, I loaded all my
men on trucks and after I loaded them up I found out there wasn't no space for
me. So the jeep that I had. I already had three men on there. All the guns and
ammunition loaded on the trailer and truck so well I don't have much of a choice if
I'm going go with `em. I didn't care about going but I had to. So I got on the
trailer and stood on the trailer hitch and held on.
JB: Held on for dear life huh?
Clyde: Yes and man, I almost got lost. They came across a railroad track somewhere
during the night and up over it. And when I went up and over it I went up in the
air and when I came down one foot hit the trailer hitch on one side and I just hung
on but I made it OK. But that was the only time I rode. We didn't ride otherwise.
JB: And that wasn't such a great ride either, was it?
Clyde: No, it wasn't. It wasn't such a great ride. But that was about it. I mean as far as,
our fighting over there.
JB: Well, 150 days, that's a lot of fighting...
Clyde: Yes, 150, that's a lot of fighting. Well, I remember one other little incident when I
first got over there. They sent me up as a radio operator and telephone guy came
back from 45th division. I believe it was. And, he told me how to get to the
observation post. He said, `You follow that telephone line, just pick it up and
follow it when you get to the end of it the telephone is still there." He said, "I left
it." So I did and that was my first experience there. And, when I took off, well I
was by myself and I was following that line I ran into a crater there about ten feet
in diameter and about eight feet deep. And I said," well I'm not going to lose this
line. I'm going down in that hole." So I went down. I stumbled over something
and went on up and didn't pay any attention. Went on up to the front and the next
day after we got settled, well they sent another two guys up there, the radio man
and the observer. I came back following that line and it was light - daylight -
where I could see my first dead German I stumbled over ... down in the hole and
if I would have stumbled over him and know what it was. I don't know what
would have happened because that was my first one. But we saw them
everywhere, all over. Some of them were old men too -- that was the bad part of
it. But that was about it.
Tim: Well thank you, thank you. It's hard to break away from this topic but we have
one more area to cover if we can, if you got the energy for it. That's it, if you
could explain what it was like to be a returning veteran, but in particularly
27
returning after the war to this area. Um, I can't remember, Will, when exactly did
you come back to College Station?
Will: Well, when I got discharged, I'd gone back to A &M and only had 40 hours to
finish The dilemma of course is whether to bring the family back from Delaware
or home to Texas but I didn't have much decision to make - I wanted to come
back and get my degree. So I came back the Fall of `46.
Jim: And had the town changed much since you were gone?
Will: No it really hadn't. It didn't have much going on and of course I enrolled that fall
and I left my wife and daughter in Dallas with my folks and we had one girl;
College View Apartments opened up in February of 1947. These were barracks
along University Drive where they now have nice apartments. They moved up
here from Victoria I believe, and made each one into eight apartments. So we
were all veterans and since I was graduating in August, I had first choice to get in.
And so I brought my family from Dallas and all I had was a bicycle with a basket
on the front. We had to go into the A &P store which is in the middle of Bryan and
that was the nearest supermarket. I'd ride the bicycle in to get groceries. We had
Mays Market on the corner of University Drive and Texas Avenue, you remember
that? Yea and, of course our son was born right at the end of the spring semester.
And I registered the next morning for summer school to finish up in August. But
all of us were veterans and hardly any of our wives could drive a car, including my
wife. Of course all of the Texas girls, they drove cars all of the time. We didn't
have a car anyway. So anyway, I spent a year here to finish up and get my degree.
Jim: Did you have trouble finding a job?
Will: Oh, not at all. I had a choice. I could have gone to GE, back in New York but I
wanted to stay in Texas so I went to work for the same company my father
worked for in Dallas but the branch in Houston.
Jim: And you Pat?
Pat: I had no connections to Bryan or College Station before I was a student here. So I
could not say whether it has changed or not. I bet several other fellows here will
want to listen to these other good stories. Now, our esteemed President George
Bush, a great president, claims to be the youngest pilot. I might have been the
youngest bombardier. I did all this and came back and I still, it was about three
years, was not old enough to vote. But I have had some more notable details.
Some of which are kind of gory that I haven't related here but I think we have
about run out of time.
Jim: Well Pat, if you have something you think we should add I wish you would add it.
Pat: It is probably insignificant in all but interesting maybe to you as it was to me. We
have picked up a couple of guys in out crew after we got together after one of
which have been through fall of Baton, the other been there about that long but
never was a prisoner. Guerrillas always had wanted to entertain. They treated us
like we were somebody. Anyway, we got pretty well away from the Japanese, we
thought. And I remember a boy named Buckavinsky. He was army. He escaped
from a death march up in Luzon. He spent three years getting far down as he did.
He became pretty much like an animal in his lifestyle. Now we had two Japanese
prisoners there, and after a few drinks there, he wanted to skin these prisoners.
28
First got into an argument about which one he would skin first. And then they had
a long argument about, do we kill them first or do we skin them first? After awhile
I told him, "Fellow, I need those two prisoners to carry my baggage here. So let's
don't do that." They finally gave up on it. Lot of stories inside there though I
can't go over it.
Jim: It's hard to tell everything in just a few minutes ... Tell me when you go ... you go
into the Army at 18, you come out and you are not quite 21, and now it is peace
time, does it seem boring to you?
Pat: The army or peace time?
Jim: The peace time.
Pat: Oh, I would not say it was boring. But you know, quite different.
Jim: Had your ambitions changed at all?
Pat: My only ambition was to finish college ... and preferably at Texas A &M. And that
was the only reason I got out of the service, because I really liked the Air Force
and wanted to stay in but I said if I don't get out and do it now, I never will.
Jim: Did you ever think about going back in, the Air Force? When Korea started?
Pat: Yeah, I got a telegram in Korea that said, would you like to come back on active
duty, voluntarily. It was not an order. I said no, not unless I had another rank. So
I passed.
Jim: And was it general you were looking for?
Pat: No (laughing). I just thought I had enough of that and done my part of it.
Jim: And you were at A &M for three years. And graduated 1948?
Pat: No I was here from January `46 to January `48. I went full-time. I wanted to get
that sheep skin.
Jim: You were in a rush?
Pat: Well, I had to. I got tired of pork and beans, peanut butter, you know. You want
to get it over as quick as you can.
Jim: How was the employment environment after that? Were you able to easily find
work?
Pat: I think so. It was kind of ... really easy after World War 11. There were a lot of
jobs available there. I went to the Chamber of Commerce Management Business.
Spent a good bit of time with Radio -Free Europe later on. And spent the last
eighteen years as Chamber Manager here in Bryan- College Station.
Jim: Clyde, you were coming home.
Clyde: Yes sir.
Jim: How were things for you when you came home?
Clyde: Oh, it was fine. I came home and ... I was not out of the service at that time, but I
got home in August, the first part of August. And in August, Harry Truman
dropped them bombs over there. I was getting ready to head to the Pacific and he
dropped them bombs. And oh boy, that suit me just fine. So, that was the last
part of September because, I told my wife , I said," I have got now until October
8th I believe" and I said " would you like to get married ?" She said `Yep." So we
got married August 2nd, 1945, and left right after that. I went back up to Kansas
and I spent a couple of months up there to be on the point system to be getting
out. And then I came back home I was ready to go. I was married and had a
29
place to live. Well, her father owned this place we have now so she had a home
and I had a place to go. Otherwise, I would have no place to go. But, I came
home, really not no big problem. I was like Mr. Mann, I really wanted to go
further in school because I had been out for quite a while. I was working and
going to school at night time. I would go to school until about midnight and get
up the next morning about 5:30 to 6:00 and go to work. I manage to get a couple
of years in at Blinn. Then I was going to transfer to either A &M or Sam Houston.
But in the meantime, my family was little larger and I had my wife's father. He
was living with us. I had five of us to feed. I said that this was not going to work
too well, going to school and no money to feed on. So I just forgot about the
school part and went on got me a job with the highway department and really
fortunate to get on a good deal there and wound up as inspector for the
engineering department. I really enjoyed that work, really loved it. But the
money, was not much to it. So I decided that I could do better than that. And
which I still feel I did but going ... I was just fortunate to be getting in with the
Post Office department because they were not hiring too many but one of the guys.
He was not doing right and they needed to replace him. And so, a friend of mine
there and he said how about taking that job. It suited me fine. In fact, in the mean
time while I was doing that, I had a grocery business too for twelve years. And I
let the wife take care of the grocery business with hired help. And so, I also had
the dairy business too. So I had three jobs at one time. Anyway, it all worked out
and that is about it. And as far as I could say, it all worked out pretty good for
me.
Jim: Clyde, thanks. All of you have been really cooperative and most forthcoming,
making my job very easy and I thank you for that. Before I bring things
completely to a close, I do want to say ... Is there anything you would like to add?
I have not thought of every question a person could asked.
Will: Well, what do you do?
Jim: I teach sociology at Texas A &M. I came here fourteen years ago ... transplanted
from the east. But happy to be here now and I consider myself an adopted Texan.
Well, I know you all brought a lot of interesting things I do not know how exactly
they are to be shared but I thank you for the things you brought and I thank you for
sharing your experiences with us. It has been really an interesting time for me and I
am sure for everyone who sees the tape or reads the transcript. So I thank you very
much.
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