Good morning. This morning we are interviewing Lee A. Davis, Post Office Box 303, Salem, Indiana, date of birth, January the 23rd, 1914. My name is Pat McClain and I'm on the staff of U.S. Senator Richard Lugar. Also with me is Gertrude Stevenson, an interested citizen who has great gratitude for all of our veterans.

Mr. Davis, were you enlisted or were you drafted into the service?

I was drafted. I was drafted as a pre-Pearl Harbor father. Anybody that had a kid born before Pearl Harbor was in this special classification. And maybe they were scraping the bottom of the barrel when they got us, but several of us went to Louisville to be examined, and they were older than most of the soldiers that were in the service, and about half of them didn't pass. I was one that did. I could have had a deferment because I was working at the black powder plant in Charleston, and they wanted to give me a deferment, but for some reason I said I would go ahead and go if I passed. So that's how I happened to be in the army.

And when you first started out, where were you sent?

I was sent to -- we went to Fort Thomas, Kentucky, on the train from Seymour. A sergeant that drove an army truck met us and took us over to Fort Thomas where we started our training instruction, brainwashing.

(Laughs.) Do you remember your first sergeant?

Well --

Fondly or --

Well, I was only there a couple of days until they sent us out to where we were going to take basic training, so I don't remember anybody. We went through Fort Thomas so fast that we didn't have time to get acquainted with anybody.

And then where did you go after that?

We got on a train in Covington and three or four days later we got off at Fort Warren, Wyoming, at Cheyenne for basic training in the winter time.

It was cold.

It was cold.

Do you remember any stories that you want to tell us about your boot camp or --

We were -- I was assigned to a grades registration company, and we were in one of the permanent barracks, the big, two story brick buildings, on this Main street in Fort Warren, and I think basic training maybe lasted six weeks, and they didn't have anything for us to do, so we started over basic training the second time. And one morning we were in class, and an officer walked in and talked to our instructor and he closed the book and said everybody go back to your barracks to go on your POE furlough. So there were four grade registration companies right in a row; the army undertaker in other words.

So we knew that something big was going to happen when four companies were going to go overseas. And everybody went home except three of us, we had been accepted to go to the officer's training school in Camp Lee, Virginia. So I didn't wind up with the grade registration company because of that reason.

I see. And how long were you in Fort Lee?

The class lasted for 17 weeks, quarter master school.

There were 400 -- you had to be approved by your company commander, then you appeared before an OCS, officer's committee, that had your army history and everything, and had to be approved by them, and then you went to OCS, and half of the people there that started washed out. Only half graduated 17 weeks later. It was a concentrated 17 week school.

If they washed out then where did they go?

They went back to wherever they were assigned.

Wherever they were assigned.

Yeah. The grading system, we had 22 subjects I think it was, and they graded according to comparative score. The upper 15 percent on a test got an A, the lower 15 percent failed, and the middle 70 percent got a satisfactory. If you had four failures they called you before the board to send you out, and if you could convince them that there were special circumstances that caused to you fail some of the classes, they gave you one more chance for one more failure. On five you were out automatically. So if you scored 95 on a test and were in the lower 15 percent, you failed. That's how they washed out half of them.

And then from Camp Lee, Virginia, you went to Texas; is that correct?

I came back to Camp Lee after a short furlough, and then I was assigned to a group sent to Camp Barkley, Texas, to train the medics who had been in the United States and had to have certain training before they sent them overseas. I was down there at Camp Barkley like three or four months maybe.

And you mentioned that you were in South Carolina.

Okay. I came back to -- my home base was Camp Lee, and I saw on a bulletin board one morning where they were having a meeting in a certain room in a certain building at 10:00 that morning and anybody interested in certain special training or special assignments could go to that meeting, which I did.

And it was conducted by Colonel Robert Stevens of the Stevens Textile family. He was a quarter master colonel because of the experience of the textiles. And we had one day -- we were interviewed first to see whether we were qualified to do whatever they wanted us to do, and they said to look on the bulletin board the next morning and see whether your name is on there or not. And I looked and sure enough there was my name, and we had a one day meeting that Colonel Stevens conducted, and I was assigned to the Granitville Company in South Carolina. They gave one day instruction. Our instructions were to do whatever was necessary to increase the production of cotton duck.

Oh my.

And as a little example of what they said to do whatever possible, we had -- we were supposed to work with the unemployment offices. If anybody wanted a job to be sure and sign because they were short of people working. And they said that the people in the unemployment office that interviewed the prospective people that came in, to get on the good side of them. They said if they want to go to a bar on Saturday night, take them to a bar. If they want to go to church on Sunday morning, take her to church. Do whatever you have to do to get on the good side so they'll refer these people to the cotton mills.

(Laughs).

The Granitville Company had five plants scattered over a small area there, and they never turned out the lights or locked the doors. They worked 24 hours a day.

And how long were you there?

I was there oh, maybe three months. When I went they were making 200 and some-odd thousand yards a week, and when I left they were making over 500,000 lineal yards, some of it 52 inches wide, in one week's time. 500 and so many thousand lineal yards.

Cotton duck was used for what?

Cotton duck was used in many, many different things.

Canvases where they covered supplies that had to be protected from the weather, and cover on the army trucks, and all kinds of army units. It was used extensively. Every branch of the service.

MS. STEPHENSON: Tents?

Tents.

Any kind of uniforms? Jackets?

They were used for leggings because -- we didn't wear leggings, but there was a lot of different weights and it was fireproof, flame proof, however. They might have burned in hot fire, but it wasn't supposed to burn. And we were very successful in increasing the production of cotton duck. Some of the things we did, we got special people that had been inducted in the army that had special jobs in the mills that they were short of and we got the boys to come back, not from overseas, but as far away as California. And I had like 25 or 30 of these soldiers that worked in the mills and they were being paid by the army and also by the mill. They wore their fatigues doing the job they were supposed to be doing.

And did you have a lot of women that did accept these positions and work that -- in the mills?

Oh, there was a lot of women that worked in the mills, yeah. At least half or maybe more. And the people were very patriotic. We didn't have many lost time as far as walkouts or strikes or anything, no time lost at all. Everybody was conscientious and wanted to do what they were supposed to be doing to help get the war over.

Now you had an interesting experience with Cesar Romero. Will you relate that?

Well, after the cotton duck project was completed they sent part of us to Massachusetts to do the same thing with the woolen mills. Wool top is what they used to make the thread out of -- to make the thread to weave woolen cloth. And they were short a lot of people, and -- the people in Massachusetts were a little different, they were cosmopolitan. Lawrence,

Massachusetts, is where I went, and they had a lot of mills, a lot of big buildings, that was an old mill town. And we weren't nearly as successful in the wool project as we were in the cotton project.

While I was there, Cesar Romero and a group of entertainers who were all in the service, they were professional people in civilian life, were on a bond-selling tour. Promote the sale of war bonds.

Uh-huh.

And they performed in the theater and the ticket of admission was to buy a bond. And it was a packed house of course and Cesar was there. He had been -- he was in the merchant marine, and he made a little speech at the end of the program urging people to buy bonds. And he was so effective I'll bet half the people were in tears when he got through talking. He had been in the South Pacific and had kept them back. And I was with him a couple or three days up there, and finally when he left I took him down to Boston to appear on a radio program, and then from there they kept on going on their bond-selling tour.

You did go overseas.

When the wool project was completed I went back to Camp Lee and then I was assigned to go -- one day I had orders to go to Europe, and they were rescinded the next day and it was changed to go to the Philippines. And we didn't know where we were going, but they said to take tropical clothing. So I had a three-day furlough, so I took all my wool clothes home and went back to the camp and then they changed the order and said take cotton -- take tropical clothing and wool clothing also.

So I had to go back to -- come back through Salem and get my wool clothing and take both. And from there I went to Chicago and got on the train and went to Oakland, California,

Pittsburg, Camp Beal. It was -- Camp Beal was what, 50 miles from San Francisco, something like that. And there a few days and got on a liberty ship, a little ?bowie? it was very small, but a lot of us were on it. We were all second lieutenants.

Everybody on the boat was a second lieutenant.

The name?

U.S.S. Jane Adams.

Oh, okay.

You know who Jane Adams was.

Uh-huh.

We were 37 days on the water, went through the Hawaiian Islands, stopped at Pearl Harbor overnight, and went from there south and picked up a small group of ships and we went on to what they called the Ulithi Lagoon where there was a lot of ships in the staging area. And then after two or three days we took off from there to the Philippines with a big convoy of ships of all kinds, battle ships, sub chasers, everything, because they were -- the Japanese submarines were doing a lot of damage in that area. And so 37 days later I got off at the Batangas in the Philippine, getting ready for the invasion of Japan.

And what was your assignment?

I was with the army far western -- I forget the letters.

We were training Filipino troops for the invasion of Japan. I was in the United States Army training group. We had small units scattered all over the islands and had the Filipino soldiers that were being trained. That was about the time the atom bomb dropped and would change the whole story. I'm sure as I'm sitting here that that saved my life, because second lieutenants were expendable and we weren't assigned to any particular group, or any army or battalion or anything, we were in a replacement pool.

I see.

As they needed second lieutenants, that's what we were going to do -- be doing.

How long were you in the Philippines?

I was in the Philippines just about a year. I got my orders to come back to the States and went to the depo where you were supposed to -- I was going to get -- ride back in a plane, and I was there for a couple of weeks. They lost my records and thought I had already gone. And finally they straightened that out and I flew back. I spent one hour coming back for every day of going over. Came back to Pittsburg, California. Stayed there for three or four days and took the Union Pacific, I think it was, to Chicago to Fort Sheridan.

Did you -- Can you think of any funny things that might have happened during your tour over in the Philippines or you know, any stories that you might want to relate?

We had a group -- the morning reports showed that we had maybe 400 soldiers in this group, but most of them were out in the islands in a little group. But we drew rations, or we couldn't do our rations because of the morning report, which we didn't need because we didn't have that many soldiers in the base camp. But we built a club to have our parties and so forth out of different kind of materials to aid the camp.

Mrs. Osmena, the president's wife, was a member of our group for rations and quarters. And he gave me the chance to go with him to tour Malacanang palace, the president's home, and I didn't see the president but I went through a lot of the rooms, and Rosie and Mary Osmena came out to our club, our parties. Captain Lamencia (ph) brought them out because ours was kind of exclusive and small. And Mary was a Portuguese, but her husband -- she had married one of Osmena's sons. He was killed during the war, and Rosie was the daughter. They looked Oriental more than they did Filipino. So I was acquainted with both of them. They attended several of our parties. That was a very interesting experience.

I can imagine.

We had some entertainers that come back -- came out and entertained that were top notch as far as their talent and ability. One wound up as an opera singer in New York. I saw her picture in the paper.

Who was that?

That was Conchita Gaston. She was denying reports that she was going to marry the president of the Philippines, whoever he was at that time. And as far as I know they didn't, but I'm not sure.

Oh, okay.

Did you keep a personal diary?

No, I didn't. I don't know how anybody would have done that in certain circumstances. It would have been hard to do I would think, but I know that some civilians did.

Do you keep in contact with any of the people with whom you served?

Well, I have been, but most of them are gone. I talked yesterday to a friend of mine in Utah that was in the Philippines the same time I was. We keep in touch by telephone, and I visited him one time. And most of the guys that were in my class and so forth are in their middle to high 80s at this point if they are still living. But I kept in touch with several of them by Christmas cards and now I get a card from their widow in most cases. Most of the widows I have never met, only one maybe.

Are you involved in any veterans organizations here in Salem?

I belong to the American Legion, and I did belong to the VFW, but I didn't attend the meetings so I just dropped that.

I'm still a member of the Legion.

Tell about the pictures your mother had that are on the wall back of the sofa.

Okay. Is it Stephanie that does this?

Yes.

They give the military information on different people, and a couple of years ago, Gertrude asked me to do this, and it was such a hard job to do, and I finally decided I was going to do it, so we got these pictures of myself and my two brothers and a sister and her husband.

Oh.

My mother had the picture hanging on her wall and the stars in the window -- or the blue stars were the ones that were in the service. They both served in the war and they had been killed. So that is a story that Gertrude wrote up and we had gotten a lot of comments on that, how good of a job she did.

I didn't do things that contributed to the war effort nearly as much as a lot of other veterans did because I wasn't in combat except on the Pacific ocean with the Japanese submarines. But we didn't see any action there, so I really didn't get into it like Franklin Nixon did or --

But your brother Paul -- your brother Gene, I mean --

Gene was on the Atlantic on an aircraft carrier, he did.

But I went where they sent me, I didn't have any control over that.

Well sure, yeah.

I tried to do what they wanted me to do. I didn't get court martialed or anything like that.

Do you remember the day that you got out of the service?

And what have you done since then? Did you use the G.I. Bill?

Do you attribute your time in the services as helpful to you in later life or no?

I got out at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, which is about north of Chicago, and they put you through two or three different things, about the same thing they did when you went in. And I finally got through late one afternoon, and I went down to the Union station and got a train to Indianapolis. And it was late in the evening at that time, but there was a bus, a Greyhound bus, going down 31 through Scottsburg. So I got on that bus, came to Scottsburg, and got there about, oh, 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and there was some guy there with a taxi and I got the taxi to come back to Salem. And I got in maybe 3:00 in the morning. That was my -- the next day after I got out.

Oh wow, that was quickly.

Did you carry anything for good luck? Did you have --

I did. I had a silver dollar that I had been carrying and I carried it all the way through, and it wore down to -- it's so worn that you can hardly tell it's a silver dollar. You can't tell the date on it. You can barely see the picture on the front, that's how much it wore carrying it in my pocket with other things.

Did you ever use the G.I. Bill?

No, I didn't.

And what did you do after you were out of the service?

When I went in I had an automobile agency with a partner,

and they quit making automobiles, and so he kept it open while I worked at Charleston for a year before I went into the service and the four years I wasn't there. When I came back I was -- I had the agency to go back to. We had Pontiac,

Hudson, G.M.C. truck and JI Case farm machinery.

And is that still -- business still in existence?

No, I quit the business in 1957. And after that I got dabbling around in real estate and building and buying and selling and so forth. I built the Salem Motel and the Western Hills Country Club and Smith Cabinet office building and bought houses and refurbished them, remodeled and sold some of them. I still have some around here, so I guess I'm still in business.

I would say you're still very busy.

I started business in 1934, and I guess I'm the oldest living businessman in Salem.

Were you mayor -- have you served as mayor of Salem?

I had been mayor and had been out a year before I went to the service.

Wow.

I was elected mayor in November of 1938, took office January 1st of '39 and '40, '41, and '42.

That's --

Yeah, the mayor that followed me died in office, Ollie Bowers, and the Republican party came to me and wanted to know if I would take it back if they appointed me. And I had my orders to go to Louisville to be examined and I said, "Wait until I go in another day or two and if I pass I wouldn't be interested and if I fail, then I'll talk to you." But I passed, so they appointed somebody else.

Now you had a sister that was a nurse and her husband.

Jane, in the picture, she volunteered and she was an R.N.

She graduated from Ball State. And she was assigned to Morrison Field in Florida and that's where she met Captain Muglig(ph) who had been in the CBI Theater and they were married down there.

Did she serve overseas?

No, she stayed in Florida all the time.

What about her husband?

He was in the CBI Theater and --

Would you elaborate on that, please?

He was a flight surgeon and flew the ________, which was the Himalayan Mountains. They had to go between the mountains because a loaded plane couldn't get that much altitude. And he survived many trips on that and got to come back to the States.

Did all of your siblings get home?

Gene was in the Navy assigned to the aircraft carrier the U.S. _____, and their mission was to track down submarines on the Atlantic. They were doing a lot of damage to the shipping. And he survived that. And after the European war was over he came to the Philippines and he was there the same time I was.

Oh.

In fact, we visited one another one weekend. Christmas Day we called home, talked to folks by long distance telephone, long distance radio or whatever it was.

Right. That's incredible. That's a neat story. Can you think of any other stories you might want to share with us?

Well, my army life in the United States was very interesting because of the different assignments I had, and it opened a lot of doors. I made many friends in South Carolina, and I don't keep in direct contact with any of them anymore because I stopped in there a few years ago and the hotel where I lived was just exactly like it was, the same solid oak desk that -- where you registered. And I looked over and saw an old white haired lady and I went over to see if she was Mrs. -- whatever the name of the people were that had the motel, I can't think of her last name now, and she told me everything that I knew -- almost everybody that I knew when I was there had passed away in the meantime. So when you go back someplace like that you remember it the way it was and not the way it is now. And things never seem the same.

Right.

You had a brother, Paul.

Paul is -- he was in Ball State attending school and started flight training and did a lot of different things, a lot of different training. He was in training in Arizona when the war ended and they gave him a chance -- he was over age as far as the flying cadets were concerned, and he instructed.

He gave the cadets their first eight hours in a small plane of some kind.

You told me one time he had more experience and really was more knowledgeable than --

Yeah, he started in the very beginning, and all of the training he took, he had more hours than his instructor did.

Oh my goodness.

He had hundreds and hundreds of hours of all kinds.

Your contacts home since you were here and close was somewhat different though, wasn't it, in contacting your parents and your loved ones at home?

Yeah, when we talked long distance it was radio, and there was a pause, like you see on TV now when you talk by satellite. They'll ask the person in Afghanistan a question and there's a pause there before they answer. You had to wait for -- after you talked you thought maybe you had lost connection because it took the time to travel back somewhere.

But you could understand, you could hear, and folks were always glad to hear from you of course.

Of course.

When you left the States on a troop ship, in my case, 37 days, well, that's five weeks and so forth. And you didn't -- you couldn't contact anybody during that time.

Did you get mail? Did they have mail drops?

Well, the first mail you got, you got a stack of letters because they was so far behind. Maybe it was two or three months before they finally caught up with you.

What do you remember about Cesar Romero?

He was taller than me and he was erect and a very impressive person and a tremendous public speaker because that was his training. He played several TV parts, and he was in Dallas. He took the place of the old man that died in the series of Dallas, the father of all the --

That Ewing?

Yeah, yeah. He played that part. And he had done many movies before that.

How does it happen that he rode with you?

Well, we were acquainted with the manager of two theaters in Lawrence because we did a lot of film work and requests for people to get war jobs and so forth. And when the group came through, I was invited to be with all of that group because of my work, and got acquainted that way. And he needed to go to Boston to appear on the Boston Pops program, so I volunteered to take him.

Didn't you have a car?

I had my car with me.

That's right.

You could have an army car or your own and they paid mileage, all the miles I drove.

Is there anything most unusual that you remember?

When we were giving the medics their training in Texas we went on bivouacs out many miles from the base and we slept in sleeping bags. And one of the things I remember, you wake up and the sky was clear and there was no pollution and the stars were so bright, it was just an awesome sight, because there weren't -- in that area there weren't any big trees, there was scrub oak and stuff like that, but you could see everything.

And the stars were never brighter than they were down there.

Okay.

Sleep out in the open in a sleeping bag, so when you open your eyes you could see the stars.

How much time have we used?

Oh, it doesn't really matter. We don't have a time limit or a time necessitation shall we say, but I greatly appreciate your sharing your story with us this morning, and we will make sure that this gets into the Library of Congress and we appreciate you taking the time to come.

Well, the experiences I had weren't all that bad. I wouldn't want to go through it again, but I'm sure glad I did once because of all of the experience and the things you learn, because everybody was a different person when they came out than what they were when they went in, one way or the other.

I'm sure of that.