Interview with Loring R. Carper [3/13/2002]

Harold B. Phillips:

Oral History Narration, conducted by Harold Phillips for the John Handley Library Archives and Winchester Historical Society. Today is the 13th of March 2002. The narrator is Mr. Loring R. Carper.

Loring R. Carper:

In 1941, my life in Middletown, Virginia, was more or less at a standstill. I had a good friend who had been in Hawaii working in the harbor there. And he come back and told me how nice it was in Hawaii; and I, being a young fella, decided I wanted to go down there and see what some of these girls looked like. So I enlisted in the service with the promise of going to Hawaii. I was sent to Fort Slocum, New York. There they called me out one day to issue my uniform come in. And everything was heavy ODs and I wondered what in the world I was going to do with heavy ODs in Hawaii. Lo and behold, they sent me to Newfoundland.

I spent twenty-one months in Newfoundland. While there I learned communications: Radio, and, umm, TR -- telephone, and some -- well, we even trained pigeons. In May -- May the 12th, '43, I was tethered back to Oklahoma, Camp Gruber. There the 42nd Rainbow Division, MacArthur's outfit, was reactivated. We got recruits right off of the street. They knew nothing whatsoever about the Army. We trained them and we had what we thought was a good outfit. But sometime in early '44, 1944, they started sending us air cadets who washed out in the service. I didn't think too much of that, because I wouldn't even go to town with those fellas, let alone go into combat. So on August the 31st, '44, I volunteered out. Was sent overseas and assigned to the 79th Division.

And on October the 9th, 1944, in the Black Forest, I received a wound in the right -- in the lower toe of my right foot. And I was lying behind a big old oak tree. If you can find that tree today, you can still find the print of my body. I was sent back to southern France and they doctored my little toe, which was -- had -- which was broken. The day I was ready to go back to combat -- or rather the night I was ready to go back to combat -- I got to playing ping pong, kicked the ping pong table, and broke my toe. So it was the latter part of December before I got back up to the front. Well, on January the 17th, we were in a village called Witter-Shaffen (ph), up on the French/German border. We had asked -- {coughs} excuse me -- for tank support at 7:00. Well, by 11:00 we didn't -- we didn't get it. The, umm -- or hadn't gotten it. Evidently, the message got back to tank support at 11:00. By that time, most of the outfit was killed or wounded.

I, being a radio operator, was one of the main concerns that the Germans had to get rid of me because I was calling for support. The German hand grenade, what we called the potato masher, was thrown and struck me on my left rib cage, shattering my left elbow, damaging five ribs. And I was lying on the ground, the medic was taking my radio and equipment off and I felt something hit my left leg. And I raised my head as much as I could and looked and there laid a hand grenade. Another one. Now it went off. Why it didn't break my -- err, blow my leg off I'll never know, but the handle of that potato masher went through the medic and killed him. Well, I was left lay on the battlefield for dead. By my own troops.

Sometime along about dusk that evening, I heard Germans talking. I was in the fox hole and I started -- how I got in the fox hole, I don't know -- but I started hollering, "Comrades, Comrades", and one of them -- or both of them walked up to the edge of the fox hole, and one of them pulled out -- I don't know whether it was a .238 or a .45 or a Luger -- but they aimed it right between my eyes. And the barrel was about six inches in diameter. And they pulled me out of the fox hole by my right arm and drug me across the snow, ice. Where their footprints had made indentations in the snow my ribs would catch. I would go in and out of consciousness. And come to lying on a concrete platform by a German field hospital. There they took me in the operating room.

Some time during the night -- I have no idea what time it was -- I was on the operating table and a doctor walked in. And I tried to talk to him in French, in English, and German, which I didn't do a very good job of any. And he laid his hand up on my right shoulder and he said, "Son, you're abusing the hell out of the King's English." And he was trained in America.

So, when I woke up from the operation, they had treated my left leg. They did nothing whatsoever to my ribs or my left arm. I don't know how long I stayed there in the field hospital, but then I was transferred to a German POW hospital, which at one time had been a -- an insane asylum they converted into a POW hospital. I was told that there was around 800, 850 Russians there who occupied mostly the basement and the first floor. I was on the third floor. There was between 250 and 300 Americans there. They tell me that most all the Russians had tuberculosis. Well, in the hospital, we laid on straw mattresses with paper bandages and we had two American doctors, a major and a first lieutenant, who would steal as much as they could the medical supplies and take care of us.

Well, we had our wounds treated maybe once a week. They were -- I had thirty-some wounds. They were all infected. And they would even bring maggots in to eat up the dead meat. And we had lice. The -- the beds were so full of lice that they would move the patient from bed to bed. They were that big. {Laughs} And you could hear those that were able taking their thumbs and mashing them. {Laughs}

So, our food there was carrots, carrot top, and peeling -- potato peeling soup. Today I don't eat potato peelings and I don't eat carrots. {Laughs} The day we was -- I was captured -- or the night before I was captured, we ran a team up in the Manglano Line and we found a pair of scales. I weighed 167 pounds. And there's a cute story there, too. In the basement, there was an old bathtub with feet on it. So we built a fire under that bathtub and drew straws who was to take a bath first. Well, I don't know whether it was lucky or unlucky, but I drew the first bit and I got in there and sat down on that old bathtub. And you know what part of my body I burned. {Laughs}

Well, in the hospital at Heppenheim -- that's H-E-P-P-E-N-H-E-I-M -- the treatment we got was nil from the Germans. We had a German commandant who wouldn't even feed his own troops. When we were liberated, I understand that there was one room in the basement filled with nothing but Red Cross packages. I have no idea what a Red Cross package contained.

We were liberated on March 27th, 1945. It was around 11:00 in the morning. The troops that liberated us were coming down off of a hill, we could (inaudible) and look out the window and see a vineyard. These troops, Americans, were coming out of the vineyards down the hill. In the room there was one fella who had lost his left arm right at the shoulder, and when he looked out the window and saw those troops coming, he run through the ward; and every step he took his bowels moved. {Laughs}

So -- I saw that same fella pick up a mouse and eat. As I said, we was liberated March 27th, 1945. And they asked us to stay over -- if we could stay over one more day so they could build a bridge across the river and evacuate us. Well, we did. On the 28th, we were evacuated back to an American field hospital. There they weighed me. I think they put me in a diaper. They weighed me and I weighed 65 pounds. I was sent back to Paris, and there they cleaned up my wounds, got rid of my lice, and I was sent back to the States. And we come back on a C-47, which had been converted to a hospital plane. We landed at the Azores (ph) to refuel. Or to refuel.

And when we took off and hit the point of no return we lost one motor. They sent us in -- or they directed us into Columbia, South Carolina. They had no room for us. Sent us up to Washington. No room for us. Went into Grenair Field (ph), New Hampshire, landed, and while taxiing up to the ambulances, which were waiting there for us, we run out of fuel. From there I was sent back to Woodrow Wilson. They took good care of me, treated my wounds, healed them, and, umm, operated on my left arm. Well, they operated on almost all the wounds, but my left arm in particular, they took out the dead bone.

And now my left arm is about 1 and 7/8th inches shorter than my right arm where they took out my dead bone. There's no elbow there. It's just bone rubbing against bone.

When they closed Woodrow Wilson, I was sent to Martinsburg. At that time there was an Army hospital. And I was discharged from the Army on June the 11th, 1946. My birthday was June the sixth. They wouldn't let me out on my birthday. They held me over another day. I returned to civilian life, and in August of '46, I married a very sweet girl I met in Oklahoma. She come in, we were married. We've now been married near fifty-six years. We've raised two children, a boy and a girl. I took advantage of GI benefits. I went to Winchester Business College, took up accounting. And from there I went to on-the-job training at the MJ Blind Company in Stephens City. From there I went to the Virginia Department of Highways for nine years.

In 1960, I went with the federal government and retired on Disability in 1978. And from then on it's just been one day at a time.

Harold B. Phillips:

Now, could you give us your date and place of birth.

Loring R. Carper:

I was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, June the sixth, 1921. My parents moved back to Virginia when I was nine months old. From then on Virginia has been my home.

Harold B. Phillips:

Where did you go to school?

Loring R. Carper:

Middletown.

Harold B. Phillips:

Middletown. What -- what year did you graduate?

Loring R. Carper:

I didn't graduate.

Harold B. Phillips:

What year did you leave Middletown, then?

Loring R. Carper:

About '38.

Harold B. Phillips:

'38. What did you do before Pearl Harbor?

Loring R. Carper:

Umm, I was a truck driver, helped my dad paint, hang wallpaper, and just day-by-day jobs.

Harold B. Phillips:

Uh-huh (yes). Did your friend tell you about Hawaii before Pearl Harbor?

Loring R. Carper:

Yes. It was before Pearl Harbor.

Harold B. Phillips:

So you enlisted before Pearl Harbor?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah. I enlisted January -- err, March the 18th, 1941.

Harold B. Phillips:

18th, '41. Where did they send you for basics?

Loring R. Carper:

Newfoundland. Took basic --

Harold B. Phillips:

That was basic also?

Loring R. Carper:

Took basic aboard ship.

Harold B. Phillips:

My goodness.

Loring R. Carper:

The (?USA P. Leonard Wood?) was docked in Newfoundland and that was their barracks until they built us -- until they built us barracks.

Harold B. Phillips:

And that was just weeks after you enlisted?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah. I didn't know that.

Loring R. Carper:

It was cold up there.

Harold B. Phillips:

I bet it was. {Laughs} It's cold up there in the summertime. So you took your weapons training and all that at Newfoundland?

Loring R. Carper:

Yes.

Harold B. Phillips:

And your billets were on board there?

Loring R. Carper:

After awhile. And then they built us temporary billets out of tents.

Harold B. Phillips:

Uh-huh (yes.)

Loring R. Carper:

And they were cold. And they had us permanent barracks built out on Lake Quodi-vide (ph).

Harold B. Phillips:

And your training was mostly with --

Loring R. Carper:

Communications.

Harold B. Phillips:

Communications. Telephone, radio, walkie talkies, handy talkies. What was the handy talkie like in '41? Did you have one?

Loring R. Carper:

It was -- we call them cigarette cartons.

Harold B. Phillips:

Did you?

Loring R. Carper:

Just like a -- about the size of a cigarette carton.

Harold B. Phillips:

And the same general shape?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah.

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

And what about the telephone? The old EE-8, as they called it?

Loring R. Carper:

EE-8. And we hung all them on a TR-double E. {Laughs}

Harold B. Phillips:

{Laughs} Yeah. I remember something like that. Something like that. Then after that you came back to the Rainbow Division, I believe you said.

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

And from there? Where did you go next from there? From the Rainbow Division.

Loring R. Carper:

Overseas.

Harold B. Phillips:

Did you go with the division or did you go --

Loring R. Carper:

No. I went over as a replacement.

Harold B. Phillips:

And what unit did you join overseas?

Loring R. Carper:

The Sun Demay (ph).

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah, you mentioned that. In England?

Loring R. Carper:

I joined it in France.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah, you mentioned that. After D Day then?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

What time? What date did you get there?

Loring R. Carper:

September '44.

Harold B. Phillips:

And is that where you got your first wound?

Loring R. Carper:

Correct.

Harold B. Phillips:

You were in the Black Forest at that time? What route did you take across France?

Loring R. Carper:

I have no idea.

Harold B. Phillips:

Do you remember where you crossed the line?

Loring R. Carper:

No. I don't.

Harold B. Phillips:

Okay. And when you came back after your first wound, did you go back to the 79th?

Loring R. Carper:

Yes.

Harold B. Phillips:

Joined your old unit?

Loring R. Carper:

Joined the old unit.

Harold B. Phillips:

And from where did you go -- where did you go then?

Loring R. Carper:

Oh, I went up in the Manglano Line and then from there I went into the little town of Rightshaden.

Harold B. Phillips:

Rightshaden. I see.

Loring R. Carper:

And that's where I was really wounded.

Harold B. Phillips:

And were you with an infantry company? As a --

Loring R. Carper:

Yes.

Harold B. Phillips:

-- as a (?relay officer?)?

Loring R. Carper:

Yes. I had an SCR-45 on my back. The batteries weighed fourteen pounds.

Harold B. Phillips:

Wow. Is that with a whip antenna?

Loring R. Carper:

With the whip antenna.

Harold B. Phillips:

Okay. You were -- was the German counterattack that hit you there or -- or were you advanced and forward and ran into the Germans?

Loring R. Carper:

We -- we woke them up.

Harold B. Phillips:

You woke them up. Shouldn't have done that. {Laughs}

Loring R. Carper:

{Laughs} Yeah. No, we should've let them sleep. We woke them up and they had us outnumbered. We didn't have any support.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah. And your company, your unit had to pull back and you were left, then, on the field?

Loring R. Carper:

I don't know what happened to them.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah, they thought you were dead or something.

Loring R. Carper:

I have no use for the 79th Division.

Harold B. Phillips:

That was a reserve division; wasn't it?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah. I still claim the 42nd Rainbow, because we -- we had a good bunch of people there.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah. MacArthur's own.

Loring R. Carper:

Yep.

Harold B. Phillips:

The doctor that operated on you spoke a lot of English, and you said you thought he got his training in the States?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah. He said he did.

Harold B. Phillips:

He said he did?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

Okay.

Loring R. Carper:

What he -- actually, he was from Austria.

Harold B. Phillips:

Austria. Do you have any idea what the general conditions were with the civilian Germans around there? Did they have anything to eat or anything like that?

Loring R. Carper:

I went in on a stretcher and come out on a stretcher.

Harold B. Phillips:

I see. You didn't get to see.

Loring R. Carper:

I don't know what the outside of it looked like. I do know that when -- the day we were liberated, we were on the third floor; and it was -- it was some contention now as to how many was in that ward, but we'd wake up every morning and call roll to see who was dead. And the -- the conditions there were just unbelievable. Now, the -- everybody but the Americans got food. When -- the day we was liberated -- no, the day after we was liberated, when they evacuated the first one from our ward, the minute the fresh air hit him, he died. From shock. So they took the rest of us out with sheets over our face and went back to the field hospital. And we were some of the first, I guess, POWs liberated. They didn't know too much about treating us. And the first meal I got was a pork chop. Nurse set beside the bed or a cot and fed me a pork chop. And it darn near killed me.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah.

Loring R. Carper:

When they got back to Paris, they moved me in on the orthopedic ward, and the nurse there stopped at the -- or littered right at her office door and she said, "Don't you bring him in here; this is orthopedic, not maternity." My stomach was swelled that big.

Harold B. Phillips:

In fact, at the German hospital, would most of the patients -- you -- unable to take care of themselves or anybody else?

Loring R. Carper:

Well, we were mostly taken care of by the ambulatory patients.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah. That's about the only care that you got. You didn't get any care from the Germans.

Loring R. Carper:

No. No. From our own. Two captured doctors. And the Italians treated us royally. The rest of them didn't give a darn. The Italians would throw their cigarettes to us. Not their food. But -- And the day we were liberated, General Patch heard about it and he didn't believe it, what the troops had told him. So he come in to see us. And my bed partner, a fella from Albion, New York, he was a triple amputee, and -- well, both of us were on the death beds. He asked us what we wanted and we said we want a cigarette. And he gave us a cigar and we smoked that cigar between us. Between us. After I retired, I started looking for people who were held at Heppenheim. During my retirement -- or during my work with the government, I had access to telephone wires throughout the United States, and I used them to try to contact these people. And I contacted about sixty -- well, sixty-five of them. We've had thirteen reunions: Portland, Oregon; Kansas City; Niagara Falls; three in Winchester. And it got to a point where I just felt I couldn't handle them. So we haven't had any. Well, our last one was in 2001. And now, in fact, we sort of got all those scrapbooks I'd like to know what to do with.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember the name of the unit that liberated you?

Loring R. Carper:

No. So far as I know it was the 106th Division.

Harold B. Phillips:

General Patch was the Army commander?

Loring R. Carper:

He was the commander.

Harold B. Phillips:

And what was he? Was he 7th Army?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah. 7th? Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

There's a barracks named after him now over in Germany. Patch Barracks they call it.

Loring R. Carper:

Named after him or his son?

Harold B. Phillips:

Well, I'm not sure, but it's probably his son. Probably him, because he was the Commander General that came up through that area. Might have been his son.

Loring R. Carper:

I was his son's radio operator the day that he got killed.

Harold B. Phillips:

No kidding.

Loring R. Carper:

And Mrs. Patch used to come to Woodrow Wilson hospital and sit by my bed and read to me, talk to me, bring me cigarettes.

Harold B. Phillips:

No kidding.

Loring R. Carper:

Yep.

Harold B. Phillips:

Was he a West Pointer?

Loring R. Carper:

I don't know. I presume he was.

Harold B. Phillips:

Was he the company captain or what -- what rank?

Loring R. Carper:

Oh, he was the company captain.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah. And that reminds me: What rank were you?

Loring R. Carper:

A sergeant.

Harold B. Phillips:

Sergeant.

Loring R. Carper:

I was buck sergeant, and then an Act of Congress made us all one grade higher.

Harold B. Phillips:

Staff Sergeant.

Loring R. Carper:

Staff Sergeant when I was discharged. About ten to fifteen years ago, I wrote to St. Louis to ask them what medals I was entitled to. Six months later I got twenty-seven.

Harold B. Phillips:

Twenty-seven?

Loring R. Carper:

Twenty-seven different medals, including the Ruptured Duck.

Harold B. Phillips:

The Ruptured Duck?

Loring R. Carper:

The discharge.

Harold B. Phillips:

Oh, yeah. {Laughs} Do you remember what they were?

Loring R. Carper:

No. I have a list of them at home, but I didn't bring them.

Harold B. Phillips:

Obviously, the Purple Heart.

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah. Well, there's two -- there's only two that I don't really cherish. That's the Combat Infantry Badge. That means your butt's been shot at.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah.

Loring R. Carper:

And the -- the POW Medal. We had a heck of a time getting that approved. And it was only approved about five years ago.

Harold B. Phillips:

Oh, I didn't know that. And so you got two instances of the Purple Heart for sure.

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

Was there a Bronze Star?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

If -- when you go back, if you see -- find that list, you could call me or tell me if there are others that you'd like to --

Loring R. Carper:

I never thought to -- but that's the only two that --

Harold B. Phillips:

That means anything.

Loring R. Carper:

-- that means anything to me. They've got their place of honor in my -- this place.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah. And you used the GI Bill and got accounting training? Were you active in any veterans' affairs? VFW?

Loring R. Carper:

{Coughs} In 1946 and '47, a fella from Stephens City and I formed a VFW post there. I was the first commander of it. For some reason or other, I drifted away until about six years ago. And they sold it -- they sold it out from under us.

Harold B. Phillips:

Oh. That's too bad.

Loring R. Carper:

But I've been there since 1983. I've been very active with the ex-POWs. I'm now commander of the local chapter, which includes the area from Lexington to Martinsburg. We have our meetings in New Market. And this is my second term as commander. And, too, I took care of the -- we called ourselves the Heppenheim POW Survivors. I took care of all that and did all the correspondings and so forth.

Harold B. Phillips:

Did any of your children serve in the military?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah. Our son was in Viet Nam.

Harold B. Phillips:

Did you compare times --

Loring R. Carper:

No.

Harold B. Phillips:

-- in the service?

Loring R. Carper:

He --

Harold B. Phillips:

No comparison, is there?

Loring R. Carper:

He -- he still to this day don't talk about it. He handled Agent Orange, he spread Agent Orange. He was the crew chief on a helicopter. And he won't go -- he just don't like the military.

Harold B. Phillips:

Doesn't like to talk about it. Did you ever go back to Heppenheim?

Loring R. Carper:

No. I was scheduled to go back, had all the arrangements made. And about two months prior to our departure, I had a heart attack, and I was afraid to go over there and not have the treatment that I could use here.

Harold B. Phillips:

Did you have any difficulty at all adjusting to civilian life after you got out?

Loring R. Carper:

No. They treated me like a baby.

Harold B. Phillips:

Did you need to use the, umm, veterans' hospital facilities?

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah. I still do.

Harold B. Phillips:

Still do?

Loring R. Carper:

Oh, yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

There's an office out of Stephens City now. Are you --

Loring R. Carper:

No, I use Martinsburg.

Harold B. Phillips:

Martinsburg, yeah?

Loring R. Carper:

I -- we have a POW coordinator over there and -- who thinks the world of all -- every POW that -- who visits or uses Martinsburg. And, incidentally, she just got married Sunday.

Harold B. Phillips:

{Laughs}

Loring R. Carper:

Had a big reception.

Harold B. Phillips:

That's nice. You went through some really tough times. In spite of that, do you think the military time was of any value to you? Your service?

Loring R. Carper:

If I could, I'd go back and do it all over again. For the education. I really would.

Harold B. Phillips:

It was that good?

Loring R. Carper:

Well, it wasn't good, but I just feel like it was -- it straightened me out.

Harold B. Phillips:

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Loring R. Carper:

No. Unless you have more POWs in the area that I don't know about, I'd like to get in touch with them.

Harold B. Phillips:

That was going to be something I asked you, if you could tell me who -- who I could get a hold of and talk with them.

Loring R. Carper:

Well, I have a neighbor who was a POW. You might know him: Henry Flowers.

Harold B. Phillips:

No. Ray Flowers, but not a Henry Flowers.

Loring R. Carper:

Henry Flowers.

Harold B. Phillips:

Well, if you can't think of anything further, thank you very much. It's been a -- been a pleasure.

Loring R. Carper:

Well, I've enjoyed it. And if you know of anyone who would like for us to talk, well, I would like to keep -- well, not keep, but present World War II, or what I know about it, to the students. Because we don't get it in history.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah, that's right. That's the purpose of this program. Twenty, thirty years from now when they read a book, it's going to talk about the Allies invaded here, but there won't be word one about what you did or any individual, so --

Loring R. Carper:

In reading Tom Brokaw's book, he described the day I was captured to a T.

Harold B. Phillips:

Did he?

Loring R. Carper:

I don't know who told him about it, but --

Harold B. Phillips:

{Laughs}

Loring R. Carper:

-- he described it to a T.

Harold B. Phillips:

Could have applied to you, as well.

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

Well, thanks again. Do you have any incidences when you first joined the unit in France that you'd like to relate?

Loring R. Carper:

Well, yes. We went -- we went ashore at Omaha Beach. Of course, this was after the invasion. And they told us exactly where to walk through the hedgerows, and we had one smart aleck that he wanted to get ahead of everyone else, and he went through another area, and he stepped on a land mine, which blowed -- well, I don't know whether he was dead or not until they -- they carted him off. And then that night we were at St. Lo, and the only thing alive in St. Lo was one man and a cat in one room at the railroad station. And after we bedded down -- it was dark -- and a fella come in and laid down beside us. Or with us. And was talking, asking us all kinds of questions and so forth. And we dozed off, went to sleep. Woke up the next morning and found out he was sleeping with his head on a hardened cow pile. And we asked him his name and it was Ernie Pyle.

Harold B. Phillips:

Ernie Pyle.

Loring R. Carper:

So he went with us that day. Up to -- he was with us when the replacements -- when I joined the 79th.

Harold B. Phillips:

Do you know if he wrote about any of the conversations you had --

Loring R. Carper:

I don't know. I tried to read everything I could Ernie Pyle wrote after that, but you didn't have much of a chance to read.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah. Speaking of that, did you have any trouble getting mail through to you, especially while you were in the hospital?

Loring R. Carper:

Oh, yeah. I didn't get any at all.

Harold B. Phillips:

Nothing at all?

Loring R. Carper:

No, nothing.

Harold B. Phillips:

How about while you were with the unit before you were captured?

Loring R. Carper:

Umm, first time I was wounded, I was in Southern France, in Marseilles, and they come in one morning and said, "Is your name Carper?" "Yeah." "Loring Carper?" "Yes." And they went back out and brought a great big box of mail in and dumped on my bed. I started ripping into the letters. I had no idea who they were from. There was another Loring Carper from Winchester.

Harold B. Phillips:

Okay. {Laughs} From Winchester.

Loring R. Carper:

He's since died.

Harold B. Phillips:

Did you meet any people from Winchester while you were there?

Loring R. Carper:

No, I didn't. I met a lot of people from Oklahoma.

Harold B. Phillips:

Uh-huh (yes.)

Loring R. Carper:

I was stationed in Oklahoma and I met an awful lot of people. As a matter of fact, I met my wife there.

Harold B. Phillips:

And were you part of the St. Lo break out in -- when --

Loring R. Carper:

No.

Harold B. Phillips:

-- Army?

Loring R. Carper:

No, no. I was there as a replacement. Just going up --

Harold B. Phillips:

I see. They'd already gone through.

Loring R. Carper:

Gone through. And after my hospitalization with the first wound, they had sent us or were going to -- were sending us up to the Belgian Bulge. And the old freight train broke down, thank goodness.

Harold B. Phillips:

Yeah.

Loring R. Carper:

So, the Bulge was over when I got back up to the -- to the outfit.

Harold B. Phillips:

Which was a lucky break.

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

{Laughs}

Loring R. Carper:

Yeah.

Harold B. Phillips:

Any other incidents from there across that you would like for us --

Loring R. Carper:

No. Nothing worth talking about.

Harold B. Phillips:

Okay. Well, thanks again.

Loring R. Carper:

Uh-huh (yes). (End of interview. )