Interview with Willis Wolfe [08/16/2002]

Harold Phillips:

Interview with Willis R. Wolfe Oral history interview of World War II veterans conducted by Harold Foltz (ph) for the Hanley Library Archives and the Winchester Frederick County Historical Society. Today is the 16th of August 2002. The veteran is Mr. Willis Wolfe.

Willis Wolfe:

My name is Willis R. Wolfe. I live at 575 Glengary Road, Winchester, Virginia. I'm 83 years old. My birthday was just August the 11th. I was drafted into the Army during the Second World War in December of 1942 and reported for duty at -- I think it was Camp Lee, 20 miles south of Richmond.

Harold Phillips:

What were you doing before you --

Willis Wolfe:

I was managing my father's orchard. We had -- well, maybe I better start at the beginning. I was born in Granville, West Virginia. That's in Preston County, West Virginia, right on the Mason/Dixon line between West Virginia and Pennsylvania. When I was three years old, my parents moved to Markleysburg, Pennsylvania. And that was in Fayette County, about 50 miles south of Pittsburgh. I went to school in the State of Pennsylvania for 12 years. Well, in 1939 my father wanted to get out of Pennsylvania and buy an orchard, so we came to Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley. And we located one out on the edge of the valley sort of in the mountains here, 50-acre apple orchard. And I was managing that orchard when the war broke out. And I was drafted in December, as I said before, in December of '42. And I reported to Camp Lee, which is south of Richmond -- Petersburg, about 20 miles south of Richmond. We were there for about a week. We was issued our uniforms and given a GI haircut and a few things like that. Then we were sent to Fort McClelland in Alabama for basic training. Well, I was in the infantry at the time. I wanted to get in the Air Force, but they put me in the infantry. And we went through our basic training there for several weeks, and I put in an application to transfer to the Air Corps.

Harold Phillips:

What was your basic training like?

Willis Wolfe:

Well, basic training was mainly how to handle a rifle and to march and right, left face, left face and about face and march all the time. That was the main training we had. And, of course, we had to do a lot of exercises; sit- ups and push-ups and pull-ups, different things like that. And it was pretty rough on the fat boys. I mean, when they had to do sit-ups, they had it kind of rough.

Harold Phillips:

Did you find the farm work had got you pretty well prepared?

Willis Wolfe:

The farm work, I was in pretty good condition. I could take it up -- I could keep up with the rest of them. I didn't have any trouble. And, finally -- I don't remember how many months it was, but finally my application for the Air Force went through. And they sent me down to Montgomery, Alabama, to take a test to see if I had enough sense to get in the Air Corps. Well, I was always good on tests. And the one test I took, I guess it was the general intelligence test, the IQ, I had an IQ of 134, which rated almost genius. So I was put in the Air Corps then. And we was sent to -- from the -- well, let me get back to Alabama. Fort McClelland, Alabama, we lived in a barracks, which was nothing but a wooden platform with wood up around halfway and then covered with a tent. And you had a coal stove in each end, and the cots were lined up all around that. And it was in the wintertime. I thought we were going south to Dixie. It would be nice and warm. But I darn near froze down there. Well, they shipped me out of there to Fort -- to Miami Beach. The Air Corps had taken over those hotels along the beach in Miami Beach. We were there for intensive exercise training. You'd go down and do push-ups and pull-ups and jump-ups. And then we would march through the City of Miami Beach. We would sing and march. You could take a dip in the ocean. And I thought the ocean was pretty cold at the time. Of course, it wasn't the fall of the year. It was November. Well, they shipped me from there --

Harold Phillips:

Did you actually live in a hotel?

Willis Wolfe:

We lived in a hotel. The rooms, instead of one person or two persons, they put four people.

Harold Phillips:

Did you eat in the hotel dining room?

Willis Wolfe:

We ate in the hotel dining room and everything. We had it pretty good in the Air Force. I thought it was a whole lot better than what the infantry was. Well, anyway, in November they shipped me out to Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, which is in the northern part of Vermont. And it was already a military school, but the Air Force had taken it over. There were no boys there. They were all men. The training there, evidently, I had had a good schooling in Pennsylvania. The high school I went to must have been pretty good because all the mathematics and physics and stuff that we had, I had already had it in high school. As a result, I made exceptionally good grades in everything. When they'd give tests, I made it from 95 to 100 on every one of them. Well, they shipped me out a month early. We was supposed to be there four months. Instead of that, I shipped out in three months. But let me tell you, while I was there, it was in the wintertime, dead of winter. And when we arrived from Florida, it snowed that night and covered the ground with snow; and I didn't see the ground the whole time I was there. It was covered the whole winter. And you walk guard duty, it was 30 below zero for a week. One week there it was 30 below zero. In the daytime it didn't even get up to above ten below. I mean, you would almost freeze out walking guard duty only for a two-hour shift. I remember that year we went to Burlington, Vermont. I got a leave of two days at Christmas. I went to Burlington, Vermont, which is on Lake Champagne. Lake Champagne was frozen over so thick that you could run your car out on it. They was out on it racing around with the cars on the lake. Well, as I say, I shipped out a month ahead of schedule there and went to San Antonio, Texas, for the basic Air Force training. I should mention that while I was in Vermont, I did fly. We had -- I flew a Porterfield mainly and also an Aeronca and a Piper Cub. But I had several hours of flight training there.

Harold Phillips:

Did you actually solo while you were there?

Willis Wolfe:

I never soloed, but I could take off and land. I could take off and land without any trouble. Well, we went from there to San Antonio, Texas. And it was nothing -- the first week there was nothing but tests, one test right after another, physical and then the mental. And I always made good on my tests. I come through with flying colors. I had the highest rating you could get on pilot, bombardier and navigator. And they issued me my uniform. I was just ready to go in for the intensive training there, learn to really fly a plane; and the order come out from headquarters that all men who had been in the service and had infantry or service field training would be immediately transferred out of the Air Force back to some outfit in the infantry or something. Well, I had to turn my uniforms back in; and we shipped out over to Camp Polk, Louisiana, in an artillery outfit.

Harold Phillips:

Before that -- what was your rank while you were at the Air Force school? Were you --

Willis Wolfe:

I was still just a private.

Harold Phillips:

Were you considered a cadet or a --

Willis Wolfe:

Well, we were a cadet there.

Harold Phillips:

Yeah.

Willis Wolfe:

But I was only in there for a week.

Harold Phillips:

Wow.

Willis Wolfe:

After I got out of the Norwich University when they shipped me down there, I was just there for a couple weeks in San Antonio. And another thing I might say, as long as you was in the Air Force, the food was better than in the infantry. And when they shipped out of there, they shipped us out in some of the oldest cars the railroad owned. They looked almost like cattle cars. Before, when I was in the Air Force, we was traveling in Pullmans. We ended up at Camp Polk, Louisiana. And I was only there, oh, a couple of month or so; and they decided they needed combat engineers. So I was transferred over to Camp Maxi in Paris, Texas. That's in the northern part of the State of Texas. And I was there for training to be a combat engineer. Well, the training was building bridges and dealing with all kind of explosives and land mines and things like that. We had training in that. And we built bridges, and I don't remember just how long we was there. But, anyway, it come time to go overseas. And I got a leave of absence. I got to come home for a week. That's the first leave I had had when I was in the Army. I had been in over a year without any leave. And we shipped to New York, and I forget the name of the place. I think it was Fort Dix, New Jersey, if I remember right. But, anyway, we shipped from there to York.

Harold Phillips:

Do you remember what year that was?

Willis Wolfe:

That was in -- I think it was in '44, starting the year '44. I was there in Vermont that winter before. This was '44. And we shipped out in a huge convoy. I remember it was a huge convoy of ships. Most of them were cargo transports, 5,000-ton and 10,000-ton ships. But the troop ships, the one I was on was the world's largest diesel engine ship, a 25,000-ton job, British ship. It was manned by a British crew, and we didn't have any KP there. The British crew took care of the cooking and everything like that. But when we went aboard, we were each issued a life preserver and a hammock. And we found out what that hammock was for. The first night they cleaned the dining room out; and what tables was there, a man could lay on each table, one man to a table. But the rest of us hooked our hammocks to the ceiling beams, and we hung there and swung back and forth the whole time. Well, we was -- I don't remember how long it took to go to Europe, but it was at least two weeks. I know there was a scare once that there was a submarine after us because two destroyers went racing up past, up and back, but I didn't hear that any of the ships were sunk or torpedoed. But it was a huge convoy that stretched for miles. Well, we landed in southern England. I forget what it was. Birmingham or someplace in southern England. And I was there, and that's where we really went into our intensive training. They had what they called a Bailey bridge. It was like a giant erector set, only the pieces weighed 600 pound; and a team of six men with poles would carry those and put them together; two in front, two in the middle and two behind. Then there was other men sticking the pins to pin it together. And we could build a Bailey bridge in a day. In fact, that's what we did. We built a Bailey bridge across nearly a 50-foot stream or 50-foot gulley then tear it down. That was the day's exercise. Finally, we went to the Thames River; and we really had a problem there because it was in flood stage. And it was wider than what we was used to building across, but we had to put a bridge across it in a day's time and tear it down. It took us the full day to get it up, then we had to tear it down that day yet. And then the next day we had to build another, so we didn't get hardly any sleep.

Harold Phillips:

Were they trestle bridges or pontoon bridges?

Willis Wolfe:

The one across the Thames was a pontoon bridge. And another thing, then, that I don't think was right, if any of the men dropped a piece of equipment or a tool, they took it out of his pay to pay for it, which I don't think was right. But, anyway, we had this intensive training. And that winter that we spent in England I think was the worst winter they had had for years. I know they had a foot of snow one night. We were out in our pup tents, and it almost mashed them down. And when we finally shipped out to Germany --

Harold Phillips:

Where did you live while you were in England? What were your housing quarters?

Willis Wolfe:

In England we had some of the old barracks of the English troops. They stacked us up, though, two high. All the cots were double-deckers. The plumbing, I considered it antique. It was a whole lot older than what we was used to here in the States. The English weren't near as modern, but I did get to visit London one trip. We went to London and saw the sites there. And I also saw the towns that was bombed out, saw the bombed section of London and Coventry, the places. Well, it was pretty bad. But when we hit Germany, you really found out what bombing did.

Harold Phillips:

Did you meet any of the British people, English people?

Willis Wolfe:

Well, we didn't have the opportunity to meet very many of them. We were in intensive training, and at night they were under a blackout. Everything was black. At night you couldn't show a light of anything. You couldn't get around at all after night unless you would almost feel your way.

Harold Phillips:

Do you think your training was to get to build a bridge over the Rhine River?

Willis Wolfe:

It was -- the training was building bridges and roads and things like that. Well, when we finally shipped out to France, we crossed the channel at night. And the next day we were going up the Sein River to Paris when I saw a group of people along the edge of the road. There was a bunch of ladies there and some children and a man. Well, the man had to relieve himself; and he just did it right out in public. I thought that was unusual, but that was my introduction to France. Well, we went straight on through France. We disbarked at a place north, oh, a little while past Paris. I don't know which way it was. But, anyway, a little past Paris, we got on truck transport, the truck. We had a convoy of trucks to go to Germany. And which way we went I don't know, but we went through Holland. I remember there because the first recollection of that, I saw the tulip fields. They were all red. It was acre after acre of nothing but red. And I learned it was tulips. Well, we came to the German border and crossed over into Aachen, which was a city of about 100,000 people. We went through there. The people were solemn faced. They looked sort of sourly at us because nearly every building had been damaged. It was some of them completely collapsed. And, I mean, they were in bad shape, all of them. And we went on to a little place called Geldern, and it was completely wiped off the map. It was a place about the size of Winchester here, and it was completely demolished. And the next place we stopped was at Droisdor, which was only about half destroyed. Well, we took over all the remaining houses; and that's where we lived. We didn't pitch our tents. We lived in the houses there. And I know that I had a nice bed, two of us to the bed, but it had modern fixtures. The lights, the electric light had a cord that extended down to the bed. I could turn the light on and off right without getting out of bed. And the plumbing in Germany was extremely modern, at least the building I was in was. It was better than what we had in the United States. You had nicer fixtures like the commodes and the wash basins. They even had -- oh, what do they call that thing? Bidettes.

Harold Phillips:

Bidette?

Willis Wolfe:

Bidettes I think they called them. They even had that in the bathroom. I don't know what they're for. And the plumbing -- the heating system, we had good heating systems in the house. The house I stayed in wasn't damaged at all. I had risen to the grade of sergeant at this time when I was in Germany. I was in charge of a squad of men, buck sergeant. And our job in Germany, the war was practically over, but they were building a bridge across the Rhine River called the General Hodges Bridge. It was a Bailey bridge they was throwing together; and they had got all these Rhine barges, the largest ships they could get that used the Rhine, these barges, and lined them up 100 feet apart or so and was putting two bridges across, one for eastbound traffic and one for westbound traffic. And our job was to get anchors to help anchor those there. They had to use more than the ship normally carried so that they would stay in place during high water. And we run up and down the Rhine River getting anchors. Wherever we could find an anchor, we took it. And after --

Harold Phillips:

Did you run into any German opposition?

Willis Wolfe:

No. We was on the side of the river we had already taken from the Germans. There was none on the side of the river we was on. We were on the west side of it. And the opposition had moved on. Even from the east side they were miles away from there. But, anyway, we got all the anchors we could; and they built that bridge. Well, then, the German people -- the war was practically over then. I think it was over. The people started coming back across the bridge, the Germans, people that had been displaced. And we had to take their names and address, where they were going, what their business was and had to de-louse them. That was -- they used DDT back then. I guess it's outlawed now. But, anyway, we used that to delouse the people as they were returning to their homes. And the next thing we knew, we were shipped out to Marseilles, France, to get ready to go to the Orient.

Harold Phillips:

Before you leave Germany, how did the people react to you then after the war was over?

Willis Wolfe:

Well, they seemed pretty good. We had two interpreters that worked with my squad. We had two German girls interpret for us. They could speak pretty good English. And we got along very well together, but there was a nonfraternization policy. You didn't dare to fraternize with the Germans. So we --

Harold Phillips:

Did you offer them -- did they ask for food? Did you offer them things to eat?

Willis Wolfe:

Nobody asked us for anything that way. But -- and we finally shipped out of there and went to Marseilles, France. Well, we was there for two or three weeks. I don't just remember what it was. That was on the Mediterranean Sea. I know I went swimming on the Mediterranean. And we shipped out on a transport. It was a regular troop transport. It was an American transport. And they were stacked up -- instead of hammocks, they were stacked up seven layers high on bunks. Each bunk had one just canvas stretched around the frame, seven layers high. There must have been close to 5,000 people on that ship. And it went without any escort whatsoever, just the one ship. And we had no naval escort at all. The Germans had quit by then. They didn't have any German submarines. But when we went through the Panama Canal, when the boys learned they was going to the Pacific without any vacation, some of them would have jumped ship, if they could. But they had a 15-foot high barbed wire fence all along the locks where you could get off of the boat. And, of course, we didn't stop, anyway. But we got through the canal. And then when we hit the Pacific Ocean, they figured this ship we was on could go as fast as the submarines. And we didn't have any escort at all. Well, we was on this boat for 42 days. The first stop was in Lae, New Guinea. And we heard in the news that they dropped the A-bomb on Japan. Well, we was only there, I think, one day for refueling or whatever; and we went on to the Philippines to Manila. And we landed in Manila. And, of course, then we really started our work. The war ended by then, but all these roads needed rebuilt and bridges built. All the bridges were blown up. We moved north on -- we was on an island. And I remember one bridge that we finally put up that stayed. It was a river about 100 feet wide; and they had blasted the bridge out, which had big metal girders. Well, we shoved our Bailey bridge in between those girders across the span that was blown out. And one of our men got crushed between the bridge once. I remember that. And other places we had to build roads up through the mountains. And I remember the scenery in the Philippine Islands was spectacular. These mountainsides were terraced with rice patties from the base clear to the top just like a set of stairs you go up. It was rice patties that were flat like a stair step clear from the top to the bottom. And the water, I don't know, they had it drained about every day. And it would come there and run to the top one and then overflow into the next one and then overflow to the next one clear to the bottom. And they were flooded with water most of the time to raise rice. And we lived in our tents then. We didn't have any barracks at all, just out in tents. And each one of us had a mosquito netting for around our cot, because the mosquitoes were bad. And the temperature, I don't think it went below 90 the whole time we was there, night or day. I know we didn't wear any clothes from the waist up. Most of us didn't. I didn't have a shirt on for a month there.

Harold Phillips:

Did you meet any of the Philippinoes, the natives +?

Willis Wolfe:

No. I didn't -- I just eat with the Army men. Some of the men went out and was fraternizing with the Philippinoes. That was all right. I know some of them was out, and they would get them to do their laundry. In the meantime, I had made staff sergeant, which was a platoon sergeant. And we had to do different kind of jobs; grading the roads, building these bridges. Some were just little. And we finally was shipped back to Manila and was just sort of loafing around, and we finally come home.

Harold Phillips:

Did you have any trouble getting your men to follow what you wanted them to do as platoon sergeant?

Willis Wolfe:

No. I had pretty good men under me.

Harold Phillips:

Did you meet anybody from Winchester while you were there?

Willis Wolfe:

No. I didn't meet anybody from Winchester. But --

Harold Phillips:

How about your food and mail?

Willis Wolfe:

The mail come through regularly. We had this -- oh, I forget what they called it.

Harold Phillips:

V-mail?

Willis Wolfe:

V-mail. We had that V-mail, and it come through regularly. And I know we got to see the latest movies. They would ship a movie over there. We would see about a movie once a week. And they had ice cream. I could buy ice cream for little to nothing. And since I didn't go out and drink, I didn't need to buy booze or I didn't go out for to buy some woman. I sent all of my pay home. At this time I was getting longevity pay and overseas pay and staff sergeant's pay, which amounted to a little over $100 a month I was making, which was a terrific amount for an Army fellow. When I went in, it was $37 a month, I think, $37.50. Another thing I might mention, in Germany we were given a pack of cigarettes a day. We were given a pack of cigarettes a day free. Well, I didn't smoke. So I would give mine all to my buddies. Somebody that smoked two packs a day, I helped him out. Another thing, when we got to the Philippines, we stopped -- no sooner we got off the boat and settled down that they announced we had a case of beer. Every soldier got a case of beer. Well, they give me my case of beer. And it was 90-degree heat, and I opened that can of beer and took one swallow of it, and I spit it out. It was the worst stuff I ever had in my mouth, and I've never tasted beer since. That was the first and the last. Maybe it was for the good. That hot beer, that sure didn't strike me as worth swallowing.

Harold Phillips:

I guess your buddies took it, though?

Willis Wolfe:

The buddies were glad for it, some of them. And another thing, they were warned don't drink any of the native liquor. Don't do that. We had a couple of our fellows went out and bought a bottle of hooch or whatever it was, and one went blind, and the other went crazy. They got wood alcohol or something. And it was a bitter experience, but the rest of the men learned to leave it alone.

Harold Phillips:

You mentioned a loss of one life in an accident. Did you have any combat casualties?

Willis Wolfe:

Well, actually, I don't know if you'd call them combat. We was coming home with the trucks one day from up in the mountains. We had been building roads. And one of the trucks got stuck in the middle of the stream and flooded out. The water was too high, and they were laughing and carrying on about it. Instead of getting to shore, they was in that truck. And before anyone knew what had happened, there had been a cloudburst upstream; and the rush -- a wall of water come down there and swept that truck away. It was a big ten-wheeler truck. It just took it like it was a toy. And we lost 13 men in that one accident. And along with the one that got crushed, that was 14. But, actually, for gunfire, we were shot at a few times, but nobody was ever hit. And none of the explosion shells was close enough to kill anybody.

Harold Phillips:

This was when you were working on the bridge?

Willis Wolfe:

When we were working, yes. We had -- for a while, when we first hit Germany, while we was working there, you had to carry your rifle on your back at all times, even when you was working. The same way with the Philippines. We had our rifle all the time.

Harold Phillips:

The bridge you put in in Germany, was that to replace the Remagen Bridge?

Willis Wolfe:

Well, it was several miles north of the Remagen Bridge. It was down river from the Remagen. And I guess it would be. They replaced the Remagen Bridge, though they built another one there after that. But they needed more bridges than just them two.

Harold Phillips:

The Remagen, I think they overused it and it --

Willis Wolfe:

It collapsed, yes. They had to build a new one, but the one we built -- well, helped build. I won't say we built it because all we did was get the anchors for it. But it was the General Hodges Bridge. That's when the people started streaming across. It was mainly walking. Of course, the bridge was 12 feet wide. The interior was 12 feet wide. And our outfit, the bulldozers had a 12-foot blade on them, and it was a booger to get that 12-foot blade through that 12-foot bridge. I mean, you had to go exact. It didn't dare to be a hair's breadth off.

Harold Phillips:

How was the trip home?

Willis Wolfe:

The trip home, I was on a big transport. I don't know how many people was on it, but it was American operated. And I was a staff sergeant, but I pulled one shift of KP on that boat.

Harold Phillips:

KP?

Willis Wolfe:

Yeah. Kitchen duty. That's when we went over the sea on the English boat, the English crew took care of all of that. But this was an American ship, and they just drew out of a hat or whatever for KP duty. And I know that the odor of the cooking and things, it almost made me sick. I had to rush up on deck once and get some fresh air. And I made it home, but I was on that other boat for 42 days without getting seasick. Of course, it was a mild crossing. It crossed the Pacific. It was very calm. I didn't mention, but the first one of them when we was in that Navy convoy going from New York to England, it was an awful rough Atlantic, North Atlantic. Those 10,000-ton ships were tossed around. We could see the propeller come up out of the water sometimes. But the big 25,000-ton ship we were on, it went pretty smooth.

Harold Phillips:

Where were you released?

Willis Wolfe:

I was -- we landed in San Francisco through the Golden Gate and went up -- what's that? The Sacramento River, is it? But, anyway, we went up to a place called Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh, California. And that's where we disembarked. And I was there for a couple days where we finally got a train. We shipped out to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, clear across the nation. And I remember one night on the train we was going up the Rocky Mountains, and I ----- looked out down below, and there was another railroad. And it just happened the porter was there. And he says, "Well, we'll be going there in a few minutes." We went for miles up around, make a hairpin turn and come back. That was -- and when we went down into Denver, we could lean out the windows of the train and look at the brakes were red hot. The wheels and the brakes were red hot coming down the Rockies. They didn't have the diesel engine to hold them back. They were steam engines. And I mean they don't hold back, the steam engines.

Harold Phillips:

When you were released, did you have any trouble making the transition to civilian life?

Willis Wolfe:

No. I was -- we was tested when you come out, took a sample of blood. And I know the man in front of me fainted. When they took his blood and he saw it, he fainted. And that -- End of Tape ----- Tape No. 2

Willis Wolfe:

-- loss of hearing, which I didn't mention to anybody. I was so glad to get out, I didn't even mention it. And I just got discharged from Fort Bragg and took the bus to Roanoke.

Harold Phillips:

You were talking about hitch-hiking home?

Willis Wolfe:

Yeah. When I got to Winchester, there was no bus line out to Siler, where I live. I live between Siler and Glengary, West Virginia. So I thumbed, and I got a ride to Gainsburg. But from getting from Gainsburg to Siler, then home, I finally got disgusted; and I hired a fellow. I think I gave him $5 to make a special trip to take me home. And my parents were waiting there. We didn't have a telephone then. We didn't get a telephone for, oh, ten years after that, I guess.

Harold Phillips:

Did you join the National Guard or the Reserves?

Willis Wolfe:

I didn't join the National Guard or any Reserve, and I didn't join any military organization. I maybe should have, but I just ----- didn't. I was -- I didn't mind going in the service. I got along all right; and I hope I did some good fighting for freedom, as I said. But when I look at how conditions are today, I think a lot of it was maybe wasted.

Harold Phillips:

You said you sent your money home. How did you use it once you got home, then?

Willis Wolfe:

We -- the farm next door to where my dad bought was up for sale while I was in the service. Back, in fact, before I went overseas it was up for sale. And we agreed to buy it. Well, they put it in my dad and mother's name; and I had given them Power of Attorney over my -- anything that I had. I owned a truck at that time, and I give him Power of Attorney in charge of that. And I sent this money home when I was overseas. This $100 a month was a good bit, and I sent every bit of it home because I didn't need to spend anything. I wasn't running around. And when I got home, the place was about paid for. So they just went into the office, the county clerk's office, and deeded it over to me. So that's how I have the property where I live now. In the meantime, my father ----- and mother both died. Well, when my mother died, my dad sold his place over there. And I moved into my own house and fixed it up and remodeled it and got married and had four children. And they're all out on their own now, and my wife and I are living there alone. I'm retired, and we're getting along fine. I still do a little bit of farming. I have some cattle and keep the place mowed and make hay. And we have a beautiful garden this year, although we need rain right now.

Harold Phillips:

Do you keep in contact with any of the men that you knew in the service?

Willis Wolfe:

No. I lost all contact with the men. And I used to hear from them. The 1268th Combat Engineering Battalion was what I was in. I don't think I mentioned before. I was with the 1268th Combat Engineers. And they had their annual reunion, but I was unable to go at the time. And the post office has changed my address five times out there where I live. I lived in the same place, and it's changed five times. And I think it let go for over a year. And if they tried to notify me, it went to the ----- old address and the Post Office sent it back, so they lost contact with me.

Harold Phillips:

Is there anything else you would like to add about your time in the service?

Willis Wolfe:

Oh, I don't know. I thought the food was pretty good. The food was good, and the barracks was pretty good. Of course, we laid out on the ground sometime. I might mention in Alabama we went out to the Taladaga National Forest for extensive -- intensive training. And we were only allowed one quart of water a day. You can imagine that. One quart of water to do your laundry, your washing and your drinking, one quart a day. And I mean that was rough because I drink over a quart of water at a time usually. And it was kind of rough. But you meet all kind of people. There in Taladaga Forest we was out with a big bunch of men. It wasn't just our outfit. It was others. And I know there was a lot of rattlesnakes around there. Well, we run into one man that used to play with them. He was a snake charmer. He'd go around and pick those rattlesnakes around up like they were toys. And another man ----- in the outfit was a hypnotist. He could hypnotize you. And I mean, he was the real thing. He would hypnotize you. He'd demonstrate there where you could hypnotize somebody and burn them with a cigarette. They wouldn't even feel it. And different things like that. I mean, he was for real.

Harold Phillips:

So you got to meet a lot of different people?

Willis Wolfe:

I met a lot of different people. I met a lot of comedians in there. Some people would get up and give a pretty good show, but I never had any USO show. I didn't get to see Bob Hope or any of those.

Harold Phillips:

Well, would you like to add anything else?

Willis Wolfe:

Oh, I think I've said enough.

Harold Phillips:

Well, I appreciate it. I really enjoyed visiting +.

Willis Wolfe:

I don't know how it will sound.

Harold Phillips:

Would you like to add anything, Mrs. Willis?

Mrs. Wolfe:

(Inaudible.)

Willis Wolfe:

The other outfit did most of the ----- work, actually.

Harold Phillips:

What was that?

Willis Wolfe:

Where we hung that road on the side of the cliff. The other outfit had done the original. We just had the repair. But, oh boy, I mean that was a complicated system of cables and anchors thing. You'd drill a hole in the rock and put in a peg and then a cable over the -- kind of hold the road around the rocks and things, hold the road from sliding away. And some of them turns up there, those 10-wheel Army trucks, you couldn't hardly get them around the turns.

Harold Phillips:

Yeah.

Willis Wolfe:

And, boy, I mean, when you sitting on the back of that truck and look down a thousand feet.

Harold Phillips:

It makes it interesting.

Willis Wolfe:

Yes, sir

Harold Phillips:

They turn so sharp they could wipe their tail lights while they went around the turn.

Willis Wolfe:

Yes, sir. One truck had a flat tire once up there, and they didn't have any jack. ----- They just run the wheel out over the edge of the cliff and put a rope around one guy and a rope around the wheel. They took the one off and put the other one on hanging out over the cliff.

Harold Phillips:

Well, thanks again.

[Conclusion of Interview]

Harold Phillips:

Mrs. Wolfe was present during the interview. Mr. Wolfe received the following medals and special service awards: Europe, African, Middle East Service Medal with one star; Asiatic Pacific Service Medal; Philippine Liberation Medal; World War II Victory Medal and a Good Conduct Medal.