Oral history interview of World War II Veterans, conducted by Harold Phillips of the Hanolin ph) Library Archives and the Winchester Frederick County Historical Society. Today is the 13th of August, 2002. The veteran is Mr. Elmer Lauck.

I'm Elmer Lauck and I was born and raised here in Frederick County in the year of 1922,

February the 26th. And when I got quit from the farm long enough, I was in high school in my senior year at Jam -- at Stephens City, and I was -- during the Pearl Harbor interruption of our schooling, why, I decided during the Christmas break.

And I told Mr. Eller that I didn't think I'd be back after Christmas due to the fact that I was going to get a defense job.

So I went to -- I had a friend working at the Winchester Wool Mill. And I had talked to him a few days before that anyhow pertaining to the work down there; they had a lot of work and not enough help. So I said, well, I may be back down and talk to you. So after telling Mr. Eller when we had our Christmas break that I probably wouldn't be back, I had to fulfill my work -- my word cause -- I went down to the wool mill and talked to Mr. Weaver and he put me to work the next day. So I worked clear up until the time I was called, I guess it must have been around March 13th or 14th of that year. And so one day when I left there they -- Mr. Weaver told me when I got back that I had a job for him -- from him back when it was completed. So I said okay. So I went on in the service.

Were you drafted?

I was drafted, yes. I wouldn't volunteer for anything. That's not my way of doing things, volunteer. But, yeah, I was drafted and went to Camp Lee (ph).

And from there we were sent -- I was sent down to -- with a couple of other guys from our group, from the same territory, to Miami Beach, Florida where we did our -- well, I -- the boys in the Army, they -- they made fun of us cause they had to do basic training in a woodshed and in woods and fields and mud and stuff. But we took our -- did our basic training at Miami Beach on a golf course. Lived -- and not only that, we didn't live in pup tents, we lived in hotels. I had several fellows there from Winchester that I met during the time of going into service.

And Paul Comney (ph) and Bill Butler was stationed there at the same time; even come up to our room at night, and we just had to lead him back home. But he -- he later transferred from the Air Force back into the Army. But I -- we -- after -- or on my completion of my basic training I was transferred back up to Macomb, and went from there then to Texco (ph) at Sooner Field,

Illinois, and almost froze to death going from there overnight.

What did your basic training consist of there in --

Well, we were learning close order drill and proper use of rifles and firearms.

So it was the regular --

It was the regular Army training they --

But just in the Miami --

Just in the Miami section. And we had a habit down there when we'd go from the hotel to the drill field which was, like I said, was a golf course; we would sing.

Air Force members would always sing Air Force songs and everything else that they could think of. And we would walk our cadence by that. And if we were really anxious to get out there we'd sing one that was fast and almost down to a run. But, it was -- it was nice down there. I didn't particularly care for Florida that well, but I've been back there a couple times since and it hasn't changed any, but I --

So what was the training in Illinois?

In Illinois we learned the mechanics, engine mechanics, any -- everything pertaining to aircraft operation and maintenance on aircraft. And so then after that I was assigned to an outfit that organized -- that was organized at Savannah, Georgia. And then after we -- the cadre came in and we all joined together there, we were transferred up to Augusta, Georgia, Hunter field, and we trained there on the Hunter field for a while, a few months. And then we went -- we were transferred back down to Perry, Florida where we were working on fighter planes that were -- they were a pilot training station and we were doing the maintenance work on those for a period of time; I think it was about six weeks, not long enough to unpack our duff -- duffle bag. But then we transferred up to Tallahassee at the Al Maebry (ph) Air Base and was stationed there then about -- about four months. And then I -- during that period of time, well shortly after we -- well, about three months after we got there I was -- come my turn for the -- for my furlough. So I got -- I took a weekend pass and got on a bus to Jacksonville, and got on a train in Jacksonville and got to Richmond, go through -- that was the early morning I got on a train down there, and got on -- and came all day Sunday and got into Richmond that evening. And then that night I got on a bus at -- oh, yeah, a bus at Richmond to Washington, and then I transferred buses to Washington to Winchester and got home at 1230 in the morning with -- my furlough started 30 minutes before I got home. My weekend pass was to 1200 midnight. So then I was home for ten days. And in the meantime they called or -- yeah, they notified me, sent me a wire, that the outfit was packing up, getting ready to go overseas. That if I got -- head back by a certain day I would be able to go with them up to the debarkation location at Patrick Henry. And so I said okay. I went back down to the base down to Tallahassee in time to get with them and we all came up to Newport News, I guess it was Patrick Henry -- Patrick -- was it A.P. Hill -- no, it wasn't Hill. I don't remember the camp. We was out there for about 12 hours, then we was on our boat. Got on a liberty ship.

How long did you spend in training all together? Not counting basic, just the --

Well, basic, oh, I guess maybe about -- about -- seven months, six, seven months.

So this is the end --

School and everything, yeah.

-- end of '42, beginning of '43?

Right.

Okay.

And we got on this -- we got on this liberty ship. There was 256 of us in my outfit and it was like one big happy family. Well, we'd been together a few months here in the States and got overseas and stayed together. I was over there for a couple -- couple of years working together.

And -- but we took 30 days to go across in this convoy and --

Do you remember the name of your liberty ship?

Yeah, the Thomas Pickett.

Thomas Pickett.

Yeah.

General Pickett.

And we got -- that was the liberty ship we rode on. We found out we was in the second hold down from the deck, next hold down from the deck. And nothing else -- we didn't know there was anything below there or had no idea how far it was down, but we understood there was three decks below us, when we got off, and it was filled up with aviation fuel, barrels of aviation fuel. So we had this problem going through -- before we got into the Mediterranean. The Jerries come over one night and was shooting, and the Navy crew on the ship, on this liberty ship, they were firing these big guns they had on it. They had a big gun on -- one on the side and one on each end. And they were firing these guns and we were down in the hold; they told us to get down in the hold, and we did. And one guy down there from -- from Avon,

Massachusetts, he said that -- he was a different religion than most of us -- that he wasn't scared. And I said, "Well, one thing about it, you may not have been scared in your religion, but my religion is taking care of both of us." Cause I was scared enough for two people. But, you know, you're -- you're on that ship and you're down there, you're in a confined situation. You've got steel all the way around you and if you have to get out of there, you've had it, you know, there's no way you can get through that steel. Whereas if you've got wood and an axe or something, sometimes you can cut your way out of it. But then we got up there and had to lay off the cost of Africa for ten days, waiting just off the coast of Iran, and had to wait for the Fifth Army to finish taking Anzio. They had moved in on Anzio but had a little advancement problem so they delayed us going into -- into Naples harbor and unloading. And, well I guess --

During the convoy was there any other action than -- any submarine --

No other -- no, no other submarine problem or anything that I heard of. But, you know, then everything was on the QT, it was very -- communication from one ship to another was done in code, but -- and no -- no voice talking at all, it's all code work.

So you parked off the coast of northern Africa while they cleared Anzio?

Northern Africa, ten days, yeah.

And it was just as hot on that ship in the daytime as it was on that island or that broken seaboard, I think. But nighttime we could see the lights of -- over there on the coastline. Just far enough out we couldn't get there but we could see, at nighttime you could see the lights sparkling across there. But then after we got into Italy or into Altonwood (ph) in Italy at 00 in the morning, we spent the rest of that night in an old Italian college. And the floors were marble; no furniture in there whatsoever, just bare rooms and these marble floors. And of course we all had our ODs and our coveralls and our Mackinalls and everything, but we -- well we each had a blanket and we made a bunk on the floor, marble floor; it was like taking a nap on a chunk of ice. And we got up the next morning and the sergeant in charge down there, we was standing in the chow line and he said, now I don't want you-all to get rid of anything, he said, edible stuff, any food to any of these kids running around here. They're -- they're taken care of without that. Well, there was seven or eight kids come up through there, and there was one little girl had her -- one leg off below her knee and she had a bone sticking out through the flesh. It was com -- the lower part of her leg was all but gone. And she was hobbling on a crutch made out of a forked tree limb, that's what she was using for a crutch. I honestly think she might have been 7 or 8 years old. All these kids were in that category of age. And they'd come out with these empty gallon buckets that the mess sergeant had emptied something out of and thrown them out, and these kids would scramble these buckets up, you know. And one of them would be standing there with one bucket, he'd take coffee, and another one -- another bucket would take pancakes or whatever they could get. And they -- I guess they was going back to -- they -- I understand -- somebody told me they were going up underneath this college, they were staying under there, back in the crawl space, I guess, is where they were staying. But it was pitiful, seeing those kids like that, especially getting into a country where you didn't expect to see much. But then after -- we got moved out of that place the next day on a bunch of trucks to crisscross Italy. And that's another thing that really gets you, is that -- eating that diesel fuel and the fuel and the exhaust of those GI trucks; everything was diesel. And we went -- instead of stopping at Foggia, we went on through Foggia and on over to Bari. Bari, I believe, was another port over on the Adriatic. And we had a ship over there that was bombed a few nights before. And it didn't sink, the water wasn't deep enough for it to sink there, it was just laying there on -- kind of 45 degrees on its side. But it was full of equipment and stuff that we needed. It was -- I guess they had already planned the Fifteenth Air Force but at this time it hadn't been set up as an office area in Foggia. So we unloaded all this stuff off this ship. And I had three Italian PWs there working for me. I had a clipboard, and as they'd bring this stuff off I would get the project number and everything on it so that they could categorize it, what group it would go to. And we -- we -- there was six or eight of us with clipboards. And we got there and there was a lot of great longnecks exiting the port. And I heard this -- there's -- the British had these anti-aircraft guns there; they was rockets. Well, I'd never heard one of those rockets fired before until a plane came over and they had the opportunity to fire on one. So there was an America and four Italians laying in the mud puddle; we all four were scared to death. And we got up and wiped the mud off of us and out of our eyes and kept on going. But it was -- it was an amazing thing. That -- that was my first time to hear a rocket fire without any warning or anything. And you don't -- from the sound of it you don't know whether it's going over you, through you, or under you, or what. It just seemed like you're -- you're right in the velocity of it. So I said, "I don't need anymore of that." But finally then we -- a few days later they had -- the Fifteenth Air Force had moved in to open up their office. And our assignment to the 484th Bomb Group came through and we organized back at Ferdinoa (ph) on an air base. We had two runways, engineers had built two runways; one of them had a metal landing strip. Weather over there in the spring is very wet, a lot like it is around this area here. Some springs it rains a lot. I don't like it too much. But they -- they matted the end of the -- one runway, and the other one they just left shale. But they built them up so they would drain off good on each side. And we had three, three bomb groups on our field and each group consisted of four squadrons. So we had a lot of planes on that field because it was a good location; it was a fairly low area, low lying area, and flat. And they were -- and we had our group there and there was two other bomb groups out there that we worked with. We could tell our planes from theirs; the upper half of our tails were red and under there we had a red bow tie. They said Active Sally (ph) called our group the "Flying Bastards," but we didn't have any problem with that, you know. Active Sally (ph) had her work to do, we had ours.

But it was rather enjoyable. It's -- we had a lot of good guys over there. We lost a couple there. One of them was in a car -- a truck accident and got killed. And another guy in my outfit had worked as a, not as an embalmer but for an embalmer up in Montana. So he washed this guy's body up and got him ready for the casket. I guess he embalmed him and everything because then they shipped the casket, his body, back to the States. But then we had -- we didn't have water pressure around there or anything, and we got water tanks that we had to haul the water that we drank. So one of the guys over in the -- in the shop got a big heavy-gauge steel tank, about 5 or 600 gallon tank, and they brought it over there and leveled it up and laid it on the ground and kind of leveled it up so it would wash out where it would clean up pretty good. And then they hooked up through a small water pump and pumped the water through a heater that they had made out of aluminum tubing around the inside of a barrel. And they fired with a -- they cut a hole in the bottom of the barrel, one end of the barrel, and welded a shell casing, brass shell casing. And then all around that shell casing we'd drill holes through or burn holes through with a torch. But then they'd fit it into a similar casing, they tapped it out and threaded it and everything, hooked up a aluminum line to a barrel of underlocking fuel that would bring the gravity into it, and light it, and everything gets hot.

Hot showers.

Yeah. Just like a blow torch, you know, it'd make a lot of noise; you couldn't talk around it hardly. But we had hot showers, yeah.

And this guy -- and we put air -- we didn't have a pump to pump the water right so it was just -- put a little bit of air on top of it and force it out. Well, not realizing a pound of air in that water tank was about -- was different than it was in a tire. It was -- in a tire it would have a tendency to expand, but in that water it didn't expand. And it blew a whole end out of that water tank one day and it caught the -- my shop chief. He was a tech sergeant and it caught him and it ripped down across his upper cheek and chin, chin bone and collar bone. A piece of metal caught on there and fractured the dickens out of him. And last time we saw him he was in a -- over at Bari at the hospital, had his arm in a cast and it was braced around up and he couldn't -- had to hold it up like that all the time; and his face, the side of his face. And when we saw him he was looking a mess, but they said later when he got to the States and he got over it and got all the cast stuff off of him, he looked a lot better.

Yeah. When did you start servicing the aircraft at --

Well, we -- they started coming in there while we was in Bari. We had -- when we got back to -- got up to the Strenola Chardonnolla (ph) we set up our tents in an olive grove out there in the field right up the side where we could see the runways and everything. And when we came up there and -- with our baggage and everything, all of our equipment was sitting there waiting for us when we got there. And so we set up there in that and had -- our tents, like I said, was in this olive grove where we kept our tents and stuff in. But over next to the runways we built this -- where it came from, we don't know, but the parts and all the materials for a Quansit hut ph), an old Quansit hut; it hadn't been used in -- for years.

And we had to put that -- that was our first job; we put that thing together, bolt -- run bolts through it. And we had a nice, big place to work in except it wasn't heated and in the winter time it got cold. But then we fixed a heater in there to help a little bit of a morning. I was in the sheet metal shop and I have some pictures that we took during the process of working on it. It took us 128 days to repair the blast charges that had gotten from shells and made its way back to the base.

There was one through the right fuel -- right air line, one through the left side of the rear part of the fuselage and up through -- and when it went up, the shell went up through, they took the gunner's head with it. And it -- it was shot up awful and it made its way back, made its way back. And even the -- the cowling around the engine, on one of them, one-half -- or one had gotten shot completely away. So they lost one engine with all these other holes in it and they made it back to the --

What were their missions, the bombers, where did they fly to?

Well, we were flying up over Germany, east Germany and southern Germany and Winnernuscot ph), which is just below Berlin. That was a bearing factory.

And that's what everybody was going for, was the bearing factory. And so we would -- and then they started -- after we had flown up far enough and back, they realized then that it was shorter for them to fly up, drop their load, and go across to England and get reloaded and come back over it on the way back home. So they started what they call the triangle flying. We'd ship our things out one day and they wouldn't come back till the next because they spent the night usually in England.

Uh-huh.

And they'd be out and getting in the air along about daylight in the morning. Some mornings it was really nice. But then after the war ended my -- my shop was divided in two groups. There was about 33, I think it was, in my shop.

Before you get to that, did the Germans attack your area while you were there?

Several times. But we had British gun target --

Anti-aircraft?

-- gun -- anti-aircraft guns stationed around our area there, especially around our tent area and our shop area. There was two of -- two of them there. They were manned by British gunners. They were good. But at no time did I hear of anything being shot down or -- every now and then you hear them shooting, but you don't know whether it was on practice shooting or what. But you never heard of one of the Germans flying or landing back in our area due to the fact that they'd been shot down.

Did they do any -- any damage to your area?

Not a whole lot. That area, it was very -- very well taken care of in there, not -- not damaged at all. Romney -- or Rome and up through there north of Rome had a lot of structural damage I think. Naples had a little bit over there. After -- after I was over there a year, or almost two years, three of us got a three-day pass. And we came over -- back over to Naples to look at things around. Climbed on top of Mount Vesuvius two days after it erupted, and the sulfur smell was so strong up there it reminded me of when we were cooking lime sulfur right here in _________ where I worked years after I came back.

Did you get into Rome?

Got into Rome, and the Pope was there. That's the one that died. Was it Paul -- no, it wasn't Paul. I don't know which pope it was. He was up there at the -- talking to all these parishioners down in there. And we saw all that, saw him up there talking to them, but the three of us were not Catholic so we just moseyed on through, kept on -- kept on creeping.

Did you have any trouble keeping contact with home while you were there?

No. Very -- well, our -- our communications were very good. We used a lot of V-mails, the ones that they would send with the microfilm back. I used to think of them -- the V-mail sheet they gave us to write the letters on, which was the standard eight -- seven and a half by eight -- or eleven, I guess eight and a half by eleven size form. And I would draw pictures of GIs standing there with the uniform on, his tie clip and his shirt and all, and guys would write their name on it and mail it home and said that was their picture, you know. It was -- a bunch of nuts. But some of those guys were really -- they were -- we had all -- all types.

We had one guy there that every Saturday night he would get loaded and get up the next morning and go to his church. He was Catholic. He was -- and I don't know what ever happened to him.

Cause the first reunion we had after we got back there was -- we had it up at Johnstown, Pennsylvania. And a bunch of us went up there. I was there that day when we had the reunion. But that guy, no one has heard of him since; whether he's still living or -- I don't know. I've asked -- these guys come through here with the blood mobile where I give -- I gave them 139 pints of blood -- and I'll be talking to these guys on the blood mobile from Johnstown and nobody's ever heard of him here. These are young people anyhow.

Yeah. How were your living quarters and food and stuff like that?

Food and all was great. We had a good mattress -- or a good mess sergeant. He was from Montana.

And about two months after he got home he died. I don't know -- we don't know why. He wasn't overly fat or anything, you know, he -- he was a plump guy. But he was a good mess sergeant. And they'd send him a lot -- a lot of canned food stuff he prepared.

Even the eggs and stuff, he'd get powdered eggs and he'd add water or milk, I don't know what he added to them, and stir them up and put them on the skillet and we had scrambled eggs for breakfast. But he -- he was -- he was very good. Then we had a -- he had a guy in the kitchen helping him who went to cook and baker school, and he could bake a lot of cakes and pies and stuff. He was terrific. And we -- the -- we had all type of men with all -- all types of knowledge in the outfit. And the -- and these two guys in there were former brick layers. We got over there in Italy and these -- they were like, well, yeah, building blocks here, you know, the concrete blocks? Over there they had adobe blocks. They were just -- they were dug up, I understand they were dug up out of the ground over there someplace where they evidently had laid underground for so long and had become compacted. They would cut these things up to sell in squares. And there were a lot of those they used. And they even used mortar. That's what we used under our tent.

We'd just take our tents, our pier metal tents, spread the flaps out, build these walls up, lay a two-by-four or a two-by-six on top of this wall and fasten the canvas tent to that two-by-four -- two-by-six. And that would give a lot more tent area in our tents.

That's a good idea.

It was amazing. And -- I always kind of liked that this -- the ingenuity of the natural form of people. I guess it's their jobs, they've learned to do things, and when they get out in a place like that they -- they have it in their head exactly what to do. And it's amazing how -- well, everybody got along good with everybody.

Yeah. Were you there at VE Day,

Victory in Europe Day?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I have some pictures that came out on Stars and Stripes newspaper we got over there. And I had -- I had taken snapshots of various guys in the outfit standing there holding this paper up, reading this paper, and behind you'd see the headlines, "It's Over, Over Here."

Yeah.

It was -- it was amazing.

And where did they send you after that?

I went to Casablanca. We -- they flew us -- there was a bunch of us flew up, and we flew over there from Italy to Casablanca in a converted B-17. Now transports over -- transport planes over there were difficult.

And this was a B-17, and the only gun on it was the nose gun and the tail gun was the only two guns that was still left on it.

And we've got all those -- there was our baggage and everything in it, and flew over to Casablanca. And we stopped at Iran,

Iran, and gassed up, refueled. And it was hot as blue blazes when we touched down there. We touched down there and refueled and went on in to Casablanca. But it was --

What -- what was your job in Casablanca then?

We were converting C-54 transports to personnel carriers. They had all these personnel, all these packages come in there with -- containing cots in back -- in back of the wall, a section of the transport plane, and there's aluminum tubing and they had canvas on them. And during the daytime when they hauled any machinery or equipment they would just fold these up and they'd latch up against the wall. Then when they wanted to haul a bunch of them in, they'd just drop them down and men could sit on them. But they were -- they were decked like bunk -- three or four, I think it was going on four, four bunks high, had one down here and three on top. And like I say, if they were going to haul -- transport any merchandise, stuff, they'd just fold these things up and clip them right up.

They could have used them for transporting patients and stuff like that.

Transporting patients or anything, yes. And this was primarily -- it was four because at that time there wasn't many C-54s over there because most of them had gone into, I think, the other areas of war. They used them to tow gliders and stuff with. And that left this -- this portion over here was -- in the European and the aerial carrying it all. And then they came out with these transports they got now, these -- what is that thing they got over -- C --

DC-7?

No, they're C-130s.

Oh, C-130s. They've --

Yeah. Yeah, they come out with those, those were all gas driven. And we didn't see a jet plane until we got home from the service. There wasn't any at all in that European area.

Where did you stay in Casablanca? What were your accommodations like there?

It was good, it was good, except one thing The -- they trusted the Arabs over there too much. And if you were working on night duty they'd always have to appoint someone to stay in the barracks.

END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE; BEGIN SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE.

And along about sundown you'd see a pile of rags getting up and moving. Yeah, they -- that's just the way -- they just -- when you look at it in the daytime there would be a man under it but you wouldn't know it. It was just like a pile of old, discarded rags.

Okay, we'll have to turn over the tape now. Okay, and you were talking about the pile of rags getting up and walking away.

Yeah, those -- those Arabs. And we had an occasion one day at the base there, we were -- actually we were -- run out of work. We didn't have any 24s -- or 54s there to change the 54s and we had to wait for more to come in.

So they had a detail there and they says, "How about you, you and you come out here and help me." So we didn't have any idea what he was going to do. So we got on a jeep and went out there along the road, and it was a shaded area along the road where these guys were camped. We went out there and he had a, I don't know how many bags of DDT dust on that jeep. And our job was to go out there and dust all these guys. Had some guy with us that could speak with these guys. And when I hear them talking it reminds me of somebody trying to talk with a mouth full of mush, you know, your tongue is mashed down and you can't say anything?

That's the way they sounded. But this guy got out there and he said -- he called them, and they lined up. And they all -- I mean all the way -- you knew he was getting through to them -- they lined up, walked up to the jeep and reached up there on the jeep. And we used a duster, dusting this stuff down the back of their clothes, down their back, you know, cause of the fleas and stuff that followed them. It was -- it was -- you know, it was -- one thing about it, in the service, you run into enough problems -- well, actually they're not problems -- enough different things that you can do during the day, and most any time, to occupy all your time because everybody is having these same problems, you know they are, and they just -- yeah. But I was glad that we got on that detail because it really gave me a chance to see what was outside the base.

Did you do any travelling for entertainment while you were there?

No. The only time we did any travelling was that one time that three guys and I, three of us from over in Italy, from my old outfit, old outfit, we took a break and went out across -- came across to Naples and up along Rome and back. And we had to only do it in three days, so we didn't have a lot of time to fool along.

Yeah. How long did you stay in Casablanca?

I was there in Casablanca for nine months, yeah. That's how long it took us to fix up all the planes that came in there. Now I had some buddies in my outfit, two boys that was brothers -- not brothers -- they were friends in my outfit, when I heard we was all in the same shop. One lived at Tup -- at Tupelo Springs -- Tupelo, Mississippi, and the other one lived at Holly Springs, which was just a hoop and a holler away. And they both went to Bechar, and they said it was hotter than blue blazes, it was awful down there. But they said they put up with it. And I suppose they were down there as long as I was at Casablanca. Cause when the war ended in Casablanca I got on -- they put me on a ship. It wasn't a -- it wasn't a liberty ship, it was a -- I believe it was a little bit bigger ship than a liberty ship. It was a small personnel carrier, and several thousand people, I guess, and they brought us all back to the States. We came in to Rome up at -- in Delaware, we came in Delaware there and unloaded.

And were released from the service there?

No, I -- I was -- they -- the Air Force people, the people that were in the Air Force were shipped to wherever -- the air base closest to them. And they shipped me from there down to Richmond, and I got my discharge out of Richmond. Richmond Air Force -- Richmond branch.

What branch were you in when you --

A staff sergeant.

And what awards and medals did you get?

Well, we got the European Theater pin and the Good Conduct medal. And that was the only thing that we got at the time. But personally there were a lot of guys in the bomb groups we were servicing, they got more medals than we got.

Did you have any trouble transitioning to civilian life?

No, no problem at all.

Did you have a job waiting for you?

I really didn't have any trouble going from civilian life into military life either. I didn't feel ease -- at ease at it too much until I realized that it was to be done and put up with it, you know; you have to put -- grin and bear it, as they might say. But --

Did you use the GI Bill?

Yes, I did, to take flying lessons.

No kidding. After that time in the Air Force.

Well, I -- I -- when I came back I went to my old job back in -- at the first of January after Christmas, they were closed for the Christmas. And Marvin Weaver, he had a lot of merchandise on hand, and they still were running some materials down there. So I went back to work in January. And I let him know that I was back and he said just come up in January and come back to work. And I worked until the 15th of March on my old job. The 15th of March was his last day to have the place open down there that -- everything was sold out, all except a little bit of material that needs to be -- stay around and all that. But that was -- I didn't have any trouble with that because I liked the job and it was a good job. Cause I had been raised on a farm, and it was different than going around on a farm picking up -- trimming trees, picked up brush and hauled the brush off the orchard. But I don't -- I didn't mind it, it didn't hurt me a bit.

Did you stay in contact with your buddies in the Air Force?

Oh, yeah. Still do.

Still do.

We have a -- we have a reunion coming up Labor Day weekend. I've complained about the way we do it Labor Day weekend always because most of these guys are not working any longer and it's not that they've got to get back to the job or just -- so I told them I wouldn't be able to attend anymore until they changed the dates on them and get it on some other day other than that week. Labor Day weekend there's too much traffic to travel, too much traffic these days to travel. Cause I'm not much for traveling anyhow. And -- but yeah, I've had -- I had them all here in 19 -- 1954, '54 -- '56,

I had them all here for a reunion down at Jimmy's Restaurant. And they still -- they stayed at the motel there.

Did you stay in the Reserves, the National --

I've -- I stayed in the Reserves for six years. I didn't go into the Reserves till about a year -- I was out of the service about a year before I went into the Reserves. And Don Gar -- Don Grubbs, I knew him pretty well before I went in, and he was an officer in the local wing of the Reserves we had here, and he come up here and talked me into it.

And so I was ready to get into it because every year you get a ten-day break, a vacation like, they pay you, and you go to any of the Air Force bases you want to for the ten days. But I was lucky. I didn't have a chance to go cause every time we thought we had a chance for a vacation they'd have something there they wanted me to do some painting on. I kept the windows lettered up with our insignias on it. We moved two -- three different places during the six years I was there.

Yeah. Did you join the VFW and the America Legion?

Oh, yeah. I was the Commander of the VFW in 1950.

Oh, good for you.

And I was quarterback -- yeah, quarter -- quarterback -- Quartermaster before that? It was Quartermaster, Adjutant, Senior Vice, Junior Vice, Commander, and Chaplain.

Chaplain.

Chaplain one year, yeah, they had -- but that's a pretty good outfit. I liked it, it's -- I got a lifetime membership in it. I was -- it was presented to me, see my wife died in '90, it must have been about '88 they presented me with a lifetime membership. A National Commander come up here and presented it to me at the VFW Post.

That's good. Apart from being of service to your country, did you get anything of value out of the service time?

I -- the only thing I've gotten out of being in the service is the fact that you meet people who have -- in different walks of life, and they've kind of been able to commit theirselves to, you know, changing and ever -- being -- doing everything all the time. I kind of think that was the way that I -- I came out of it with the idea that I can do anything I want to do. I feel -- I feel like that now.

Before I went in the service I never felt like I could do anything I wanted to do. I was sitting in school, high school I would sit -- I went to high school in Stephens City. And they only had one county bus then and that one ran from -- in the mornings from Western Union Line to Stephens City. Well, I would catch it at the Henry -- well, right over here on the corner --

Right on the corner, uh-huh.

-- where I'd catch it and ride all the way to Stephens City. And in the evenings I'd have -- the last period of the afternoon before I leave there was my study hall so I'd get my lessons; in case I needed any help, I would have the assistance of the teacher. Because my parents weren't that fortunate. They went to school -- my mother went to school through the sixth grade; that was the highest the school went where she could get through. She was one of 15 of her family, she was the second one, being the second oldest. She had one brother older than she was and the rest of them were younger.

But she got to the sixth grade. Well my dad was lucky, he didn't go to school but two days in his life. He was 75 when he died. And so I said, well, if I have a problem with my homework somebody -- I have -- would have to go till the next day. So I'm going to arrange it. And in the last -- every year I was up at Stephens City, the last period of the day, I had arranged, been able to arrange a study hall where I did my lessons, my homework. I had no problems. Cause if I had -- like if I had a problem there would have been a teacher there that could have answered me. And I did get some assistance a couple times. But I -- that's when I started, you know, this -- you're in this thing by yourself, you got to -- you got to sink or swim, so.

But it was a lot of fun.

Yeah. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Well, while I was sitting there in school, when I got through my work I was -- I started drawing.

And I drew the front end of a '39 Ford, I think, on the front leaf of every book I had that was mine. I liked that. It was just a natural looking thing and I -- I'd draw that. Even -- I could -- toward the end I was getting that thing where it had a shine on it and it would sparkle back. I was drawing these sparkles on it, you know, it was just -- oh yes. So I said, well I'm going to -- when I get out of -- go to work, I want to be able to learn something that I can do when I'm older.

Yeah.

And I said the best thing I can think of doing when I'm older is paint signs. There's not a lot of work to that. So when I came back from the service -- when I was in Italy I would have the chance now and then to put a pilot's name on the B-24, or his girlfriend's name, or his wife's name. And a lot of times I'd fix up a, like a bomb, make a stencil on a piece of cardboard of a bomb. And for every mission that plane would fly we'd put it up there and -- and spray it, you know, spray it on the side there, you know. And they add them up. Some of them had a lot of bombs. And I did that over there to a lot of planes during my off time. It was all my own time, I mean, cause we had work to do, we had to do work. We had one experience over there we had a -- when we went overseas we had a commanding officer, Army, of Army, the old field Army was our commanding officer. So we go in Italy and sitting up there and -- and evidently Major General Twining (ph) was expecting work out of this outfit. So we -- we were a little slow, and so he sent his adjutant general toward them and wanted to know why we were so slow getting some of these jobs done. And so that general in there said, well, he said, there's no problem up there, he says, their commanding officer had them out in the field doing close order drill on -- on the ball diamond. Now this is great. So he sent his adjutant general back up there and told this guy, he said, "Pack your bags." And it just so happened that the fellow that came in and replaced him was a pilot and wanted bombers and one -- and another flight, another group. And his closest buddy took off one morning and his plane had been wired up to blow-up; it was when they pulled the wheels up. And it was a tech sergeant, American tech sergeant that was doing it, and he was getting paid for it.

He'd get so much per plane, so much per man. So this guy we got us for a commanding officer was from Texas. And he was a -- a major -- no, captain, he was a captain, Air Force captain, and he was a pilot on this B-24, and he had a nervous breakdown.

And they transferred him into our outfit as a commanding officer. But I -- I've seen that guy quite -- and buzz a ball diamond and cut grass with the prop of a P-40 we rebuilt. Now he -- he was scary, I mean this guy. And when the war ended over there and they had dissolved our outfit, I was told that he was transferred to the Air Transport Command, he was flying transports, so, yeah. But he -- he was a heck of a nice guy.

He got a promotion in our outfit from -- he came as a captain and he got promoted to major. And they said he was transferred.

One of the guys that had kept in contact with him said that he was promoted. Well we had one guy in my outfit that was a surgeon who got -- in Ohio, Dr. Crayjack (ph). And he operated on our adjutant. On the liberty ship one day, in the kitchen, down in the gallery, he operated on our adjutant for appendicitis. Now this is the first place I -- first time I ever heard of a button hole. Cause when they took mine out Dr. Cline didn't use a button hole. If he did, he was expect -- expecting an awful big button. Cause I mean my -- I've got one incision there that is -- you know, back when I had mine out you don't want to walk up and down steps, slipping gait. Well, we had one step between our -- our kitchen was one step lower than the dining room at my home. And I went up there -- up that step one day, I was in the dining room, I came out of the bedroom into the dining room and went out to the kitchen. And whenever I stepped down there I could feel it, and it tore one of my incisions loose. And that's just after I'd been operated on when I was 12 years old. But when I was in the service, when I came back they had raised the flooring in the kitchen to match the floor in the rest of it, the rest of the house.

It's been a good -- good interview. Thank you very much.

I was really glad to find the time to get down here cause I was running a little bit late.