My Life- My War- World War 2

MY LIFE- MY WAR- WORLD WAR 2

Stanley B. Loomis Sr.

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© 2010 Stanley B. Loomis Sr. All rights reserved.

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First published by AuthorHouse 9/28/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4520-7404-7 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-1708-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-7403-0 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010906447

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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Contents

    Introduction

1. The Rumblings Of War

2. My Remaining Days As A Civilian

3. The Beginning Of The Real World

4. I’m In The Army Now

5. The Big Mystery Trip

6. Our New Home--Away From Home

7. Not funny then Funny now

8. On With The Fun

9. June, 1943 Still In Camp Blanding, Florida

10. Camp Blanding, July 1943

11. Big Disappointment, August 1943

12. Our 66th Division On The Move.

13. My new home--Camp Joseph T. Robinson7

14. The last of Camp Robinson6

15. Time to quit playing and get on with the war.5

16. And Away We Go2

17. On Into Weird North Africa4

18. New Places to Go New Way To Travel3

19. Central North Africa2

20. Heading East On The 40 And 8s Once Again3

21. Leaving North Africa--Arriving Italy2

22. Back in training only this time for real-almost9

23. To the Front We Thought7

24. Quarto, Italy Training Again3

25. A Different Life with a New Family3

26. A different style of living8

27. Pozzuoli Home Away From Home6

28. Pozzuoli, Italy Still Here0

29. Still in Pozzuoli, Italy-April, 19446

30. Pozzuoli-May, 19448

31. June 1944 On The Move Again5

32. July, 1944 Our last month in Pozzuoli6

33. The Beginning of the End-August 19442

34. France Moving On North Grenoble and Besoncon, France3

35. Luxeuil Les Bains, France-September 20 to October 23, 19441

36. Remiremont-October 23 to October 30th, 19446

37. Bruyeres, France-October 30th to November 28, 19449

38. Rest Camp A Semi-Pleasant Hole In The War1

39. Molsheim-12/2/44 to 12/10/446

40. Advancing To The Rear To A Place Called Saales5

41. St. Die The City Rebuilt With American Funds After World War l--January 11 to February 5, 19454

42. St. Marie--February 5 to February 19, 19456

43. Toul, France-February 19, 1945 to March 19, 19451

44. The last of France and the Start of Germany.2

45. Going deeper into Germany7

46. An open city--Bad Kissingen-April 10th to May l, 19459

47. Heading To South Germany and the End Of The War In Europe9

48. On To Salzburg. May 9 to July 9th, 19453

49. Salzburg, Austria-June, 19458

50. Salzburg, Austria and Kassel Germany, July 19457

51. Still in Kassel, August, 1945 - Japanese Surrender Unconditionally3

52. Heading Home at Last0

53. Sailing into the West and home.0

54. My Return To France On The 17th Of September To October 3, 1999 With My Wife, Ruth And Our Daughters, Cheryl And Patricia0

Introduction

My name is Stanley Blanchard Loomis--My middle name is my Grandmother’s maiden name on my Mother’s side and my last name, Loomis, of course is through my Dad and my Dad’s Father who came over from England as a young man and settled in a small town in Massachusetts, called Huntington. There was a cloth mill there and he was a spinner by trade. My first name, Stanley, came from nowhere in particular other than the fact that my Mom and Dad both liked the name. Now I’m not going to go any further on this subject at this point. Actually, I intend to write the story of my life if I am fortunate to have the time to do so and if I find the time to do so in my retirement period. I am a bit of a procrastinator at times. I briefly started writing this book of my war years and years leading up to them in 1994 when I got my first computer. Then I started seriously writing this autobiography in January of 1997 and this part covering the war years is now completed. This is April of the year of 2008 and as of last June 8, I became 83 years young. I’m both happy about it and also sad--I’ve been married to a great gal since 1948 and we have four wonderful children, Stanley Jr., Annette, Cheryl and Patricia, that have given us so much happiness through the years. We both have been retired for many years now and are fairly comfortable, financially, through careful investing and careful spending--maybe a bit too careful as we should have done more things and traveled to more places. We aren’t rich but at least we don’t have too much to worry about at this point of time, except our health. We’ve been lucky on that score also------knock on wood.

I’m starting this autobiography in the period of the approach of World War II. My time in the service was a period of my life that was stamped vividly in my mind as was true in so many men’s and women’s minds in those troubled years----------- and I was one of the very fortunate who survived these years in one piece and in good health.. Those years should have been some of our best years while we were young and full of life. They were eventful, certainly. Sometimes we felt really alive but always uncertain what was just around the corner or even minutes ahead. We lived like a car out of control--we had no say about each day or night, next month. Our every minute was governed by forces beyond our control. We marveled at the constant traveling both in our country and in foreign lands and at the same time we missed our own freedom--even though that is what we were fighting for. We longed to be with our families and friends and hated every minute of our separation from them and the freedom we should have been entitled to in our young lives. We shook as we neared the front and the constant roar of the artillery echoed in our ears and within a relatively short time, it sharpened our senses and we developed the ability to joke about it, more or less as a defense against the hell and misery around us. We made friends closer than anybody could in peace time but also those friendships were uncontrollably interrupted by constant forks in the road---- injuries and violent deaths of many, many of our young friends that were, and no longer are--but hardly a day goes by that fleeting thoughts of each and everyone passes through my mind.

I figured that these war years would be the most interesting ones and if I don’t get around to writing about my early years or the years since the war came to an end, I figure that it wouldn’t be a big loss.

This story will include my war years and some years leading up to the war and will go to the time that I arrived back home as a civilian once more.

During the course of my writing, I changed the way I was writing from time to time. For a while, I had no particular pattern. I combined my memory with the letters that I wrote home which my Mother had saved. Of course, the letters we wrote home couldn’t contain much more than idle chatter because of censorship. Our location was considered private and in the event that they came into the hands of the enemy, they could possibly be important to them. Later on, in my writing, especially about my overseas travels, I started writing chapters entirely from memory and then I inserted parts of the letters that I wrote home. Because of censorship, actually I couldn’t write much of anything that we were doing but what I did write, jogged many memories. There were instances where my memory and the letters didn’t jive but I decided that it would make it more interesting to leave it that way. And, of course, reading the letters, brought back other memories of which I would have to go back and add to the main part of my story. So, it was almost a never ending task to complete my story. I shouldn’t say task as I enjoyed all the good memories that it brought back and, of course, also the bad memories---I survived them once as they had occurred and I just had to put up with them again but they had been dulled by the passing of over a half a century.

Before I start, I want to give thanks to my Mom and Dad for writing me every day hardly without fail and for saving all of my letters from the time I entered the service until I returned home---a period of over two and a half years. Of course my mail from home, didn’t arrive daily---I would usually get them two or three or more at a time. Some would come slowly by Victory Ships--(slow-slow cargo ships)---some by army planes or anything available. Without a doubt, some are sitting on the bottom of the ocean to this day as many of our ships were torpedoed and sunk.. After the mail arrived on these foreign lands, it would have to be loaded on trucks and of course we were moving most of the time so that must have been a big logistic problem for the mail section of the army. And of course, when we went overseas as replacements, we went through a series of shipment centers through the States and Casablanca, North Africa, Oran, Tunis, the race track in Naples, Italy and from there to the front in the area of Cassino. I left the States on October 6, 1943 and I received my first mail on December 25, 1943--Christmas-- and mail was spotty as it traveled from place to place, in search of me.. Some mail caught up to me months later. A few years ago in our attic, I found these cartons of perfectly preserved letters carefully packed in the order that they were received. I didn’t know that they still existed until shortly before I started my autobiography and they, without a doubt, were instrumental in my attempting to write my story. All were are in the same condition as when I wrote them back in the Spring of 1943 to November of 1945. Of course, regarding the mail that we received overseas, most of it had to be destroyed as we went. As we were constantly moving, we were unable to keep much of anything except for bare essentials.

In conclusion, I want to thank my wife, Ruth, for putting up with my hours and hours and months and years that I was glued to my computer and I want to thank that computer itself---if it were not for the computer, this never would have been written. And, finally, I want to thank our daughters, Cheryl and Patricia and my wife, Ruth, for traveling back with me to many of the places that I had been in, back in the war. On September 17th, 1999, we flew to Paris to an awaiting German Opel Station Wagon. We drove east from there and spent time in places where we set up our headquarters back then. We stopped in Toul, Mutzig, Molsheim, Strasbourg, Saales, St. Die, St Marie, Bruyeres, Remiremont, Luxeuil Les Bains and Bourbonne Les Bains and back to Paris for three days before flying back to the States and home.

Chapter 1:

The Rumblings Of War

It was in the early part of the 1930’s in the middle of the great depression that the rumblings of war began and Europe was already preparing to be the major battlefield. As of this time, Japan was not considered a problem, at least not in the minds of the general public. Hitler and his henchmen rose to power in the early to middle 1930’s and as he did, my family and I huddled in front of the radio and listened to Hitler’s voice, raised to a high pitch, shouting to his people how the German race was so superior and telling them what he intended to do for him. Of course there was an interpreter telling us in English, what he was telling his people but the roar of his shouting voice filled the background. He was a great orator in that he mesmerized them and when he would pause, the crowd went wild with their yelling and applauding. I remember when he issued the order to salute him with the cry of Heil Hitler or Sieg Heil and with their right arm extended toward him or the Nazi Swastika, whichever the occasion called for. The German public reacted as though they were completely hypnotized by his shouting speeches. Of course the radios in those days would be interrupted by fading in and out and periods of deafening static. Amazingly enough, in those days, we would all sit or stand in front of the radio and all stare at it as you would today with a television set and when it would fade, all heads would lean forward in unison to put their best ear toward the radio.

As soon as Hitler established himself and his crew in power, Germany started arming and of course brought about great prosperity within it’s country with everybody working long hours manufacturing tanks, airplanes, machine guns and all sorts of military supplies and equipment. Surprisingly, the countries surrounding Germany didn’t seem to prepare for any attacks to any great extent. However the French built an elaborate systems of forts connected by underground concrete tunnels to move men and materials, along the entire German-French border. It was called the Maginot Line. The forts were mostly underground with cannons etc. rising out of the ground in heavy steel turrets-- with rounded tops to deflect artillery etc when they were lowered flush with the ground. It was a very stupid oversight in that it didn’t continue along the Holland and Belgian borders. Their thought evidently was that those countries were good neighbors and so there was no need for a defensive line. Naturally, when Hitler made his move to take France, he went around the Maginot Line on the north side, through Holland and Belgium. The second big miscalculation the French made when they built it, was that the cannons could only be aimed towards Germany so when the Germans went around it, the French couldn’t turn their guns on the Germans as they came into France from the north. Most of the countries around Germany didn’t prepare to any extent that the Germans did and therefore, Hitler met hardly any resistance. Germany had, for years, been planning for these takeovers and they built superior tanks, airplanes and other military equipment--far surpassing anything the other countries had. They were busy building up their armies and navies and brainwashing their people that they were the greatest and it was a great honor to fight and die for the Fatherland and the Super Race. The countries around them were apparently living in a dream world and blissfully overlooked the rumbling and groaning of Germany’s war preparations going on just across their borders. United States also really had no modern equipment --We still had bi-planes with machine guns mounted on them and we too were in an unprepared situation. Our country also was Hiding it’s head in the sand like so many others. Our country was of the opinion that whatever was going on over there in Europe, was absolutely none of our business as it was being fought over there and there’s no reason at all for getting involved. Isolationism was firmly entrenched here in this country and on looking back, if we hadn’t had almost a year after the Pearl Harbor attack, to wake up and build up our army and navy and merchant marines, we’d have been a goner. A big ocean and slow transportation saved us. Things suddenly changed with the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan that terrible morning on December 7th, 1941 This country was jolted out of it’s Isolationism real fast and it was absolutely amazing the speed at which our manufacturing industry turned from luxury items to tools of war and the speed at which this was accomplished.

I was in the Senior year at Agawam High School, just across the river from the city of Springfield, Massachusetts when Japan made their murderous attack on unprepared Pearl Harbor. It was the main topic of conversation at school and at home. We, as young men, knew then that our future was put on hold indefinitely and the best part of our lives was in jeopardy. Strangely enough, I was in an army camp--Camp Edwards at the west end of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, at the exact time that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. No, I wasn’t in the service at that time. I was there because of a very good friend of mine, Donald Bucky Bennett. He lived up in another section of town called Feeding Hills, we were classmates and close friends. A couple of girls in his neighborhood, older girls who were out of school and working, had boyfriends in Camp Edwards and offered Bucky $15 dollars if we would take them down to Camp Edwards to visit for the afternoon. The camp was probably a little over 100 miles from home and even though $15 dollars was a good amount of money in those years ($25 or $30 a week was a darn good pay) it wasn’t practical for both Bucky and me and the car expenses to make the days trip and back but at that age, it seemed like a good deal, we were 18 years old at that time. Anyway, we had planned on going in my old 1933 Chevy but Dad insisted that I take his 1940 Plymouth, four door and we were really going in style. We drove in the gates of Camp Edwards with no problems as we were still at peace and we parked outside one of the barracks where the fellows were living, and the girls were visiting and Bucky and I were sitting in the car running the battery down listening to the radio to pass the time away. (In the tube radios of that day, without the motor running, the battery would die in a couple of hours and the car just would not start) As we were listening, all of a sudden, they broke into the broadcast with a special announcement--Pearl Harbor has just been attacked by the Japanese. Now this was afternoon our time but it was early Sunday morning at Pearl Harbor. A few minutes later the two soldiers and the two girls came charging out and wanted to get out of camp before the gates were closed and passes were canceled--if that hadn’t already happened. We gave it a try and sure enough, we sailed through the gates and out about 10 miles to Falmouth, a small city. They wanted to stop in a bar so we pulled up to the curb, parked and in they went. Well, several hours passed and they hadn’t come out and we still had the trip back to camp and the 100 miles to home and we knew our folks would be frantic if we didn’t get a move on. Back then, we didn’t have the pleasure of Interstate Highways with straight through constant speeds. In those days, just about all of the roads were two lanes--one in each direction--and they went directly into the center of every town and city with all their stoplights and traffic. We opted to go in and get them out and the guys weren’t drunk but were feeling no pain. We’d get one out to the car and in and returned for the girls and the other guy and when we got them out to the car, the first one had left the car and was back in the bar. This went on for a while until we got them all out and in the car at the same time and on the way back to camp. It was a cold December day and on and off during the day and driving back home, snow flurries started and stopped whenever they felt like it. We arrived back in Agawam safe and sound and delivered the girls home. That day, life as we knew it, was history and from that day on until the end of whatever was in store for us, we had practically no control of it.

I just want to mention one thing to put things in perspective. We were not really planning on getting into Europe’s problems, but Just In Case, our country initiated a military draft probably a year and a half before or possibly two years before the Pearl Harbor attack. They pulled names or numbers out of a huge jar in Washington and the Winners got the Opportunity ? to train and serve in the military for a period of one year and then they would be discharged back into civilian life and held in a reserve to be called back instantly in the event of trouble. Very few rifles were available and they were trained mostly with sticks and everything makeshift. Before the Pearl Harbor attack, our army and navy consisted mostly of men who, in the depression, were out of work or the ones that didn’t want to work and wanted three meals a day and a bed to sleep in. After the big buildup and the infusion of all the draftees, those men of our regular pre-war army were called the Three Hots and a Flop Men---meaning that they joined the service to be certain to get three hot meals and a place to sleep. This was really unfair as there were a lot of good men in the service. Actually, later, these regular army men would call themselves this, and were proud to do so in a manner actually looking down on the lowly draftees. By the way, when the draft for serving for one year was initiated, the popular song was So Long Dear, I’ll Be Back In A Year--Cause I’m True To The Army Now. and went on with a number of verses such as, You’ve Had Your Breakfast In Bed Before, But You Won’t Have It There Any More.

Chapter 2:

My Remaining Days As A Civilian

I was taking a Commercial Course in the last 4 years of High School consisting of Typing, Accounting, Shorthand, Business Administration, English and other courses that were required. I wasn’t really interested in sports--I could have been but the attitude that the guys in organized sports at school, had really turned me off. To me, sports were a game and a game was supposed to be fun. Somebody had to win and somebody had to lose. Am I right? I was always happy to win but it didn’t bother me whatsoever if I was on the losing end--just a game--Right. Not so with other fellows. I could hit three homers in a row and I was a hero---strike out once and I was a bum.

I had a 35mm Argus C2 camera which cost me the huge sum of $19 dollars and I think my total bankroll at that time was about $20. Believe me, it took a lot of guts to spend that much. You might say that it was glued to me most of the time. Even in my old 1933 Chevy 2 door, I built a hidden shelf under my dashboard and cushioned it and kept my camera with me most of the time. I also developed and printed my own pictures and thus I automatically was made the class photographer and the photographer for our publications and our yearbook. The school had a small darkroom just off the upstairs hall which I was given a key to and could use after school.

However, at home, I made a darkroom in the space under the cellar stairs and did a lot of developing and printing there even though the space was limited to say the least. One day, at school after classes, I was working, enlarging pictures for the yearbook and was just about done and there was a knock on the door and I unlocked it to find my good friend, David, standing there with violin in hand, checking to see how I was doing. He played the violin in the school orchestra and had just finished their session. I told him that I was just finishing and cleaning the darkroom and would be with him in ten or fifteen minutes so he came in, sat on one of the tables and started playing his violin. Of course, this being a darkroom where the work would be ruined if someone opened the door and let the light in, the door had an automatic lock on it when closed with only a key could open it from the outside or of course by me from the inside. This one day, I was cleaning up the equipment etc. and David was playing away on his violin--it was probably close to five p.m.--when suddenly the door flew open and there stood the Principal, Mr. Dacy. The strange look on his face turned to a smile as he saw what was going on. He happened to be walking down the hall and heard the violin and couldn’t find out where the music was coming from until he traced it to the door of the darkroom and didn’t know what he was going to find when he quietly inserted the key in the lock and whipped the door open. I’m sort of sifting through my memories and jotting them down for posterity and surprisingly enough, it’s amazing how many memories are being extracted from my old brain. Going back a bit, one Christmas, my Mom and Dad gave me a film developing and printing kit. I closed in a space under the cellar stairs and made a darkroom. They got me interested in photography. In those days, film speed was very slow and you could use a special red light to see by without damaging the film as I see-sawed the film through the developer in the tray, into the tray of water and then into the hypo to fix it. I remember one night, Dad was helping me in that cramped quarters under the stairs. I needed a hand and asked Dad to hand me something or whatever and I glanced around in that very dim red light and noticed Dad waving his hand around in front of him and then I looked up and even though it wasn’t necessary, he had his eyes shut. I told him that he didn’t need to shut his eyes and we both got a good laugh about it. This gift that my folks gave me, really got me interested in photography. It wasn’t long after that when I decided to purchase that 35mm Argus C2 camera.

I especially enjoyed my last few years of High School. One pleasant memory in the final months of school, was my participation in the Senior Play. I had Miss Phaelen as my English teacher and she was in charge of the Senior Play. I had always realized that I was scared to death to speak before my class. Actually I was practically paralyzed when I was call on to speak. I realized that this would be a real drawback in my future life so I joined the public speaking club--sort of to torture myself until the pain disappeared. One day, I was scheduled to give a speech--before the class, not the club--and I wrote one and was really fired up. Japan had attacked us and we had declared war against them and also against Germany and a lot of people were still of the opinion that we shouldn’t have done that. Actually, we had no choice if we wanted to be free. It was just a matter of time before we would be gobbled up. (Later on towards the end of the war in Germany, I found papers of plans they had made for future attacks and landings in our country) I named my subject , Do We Want Peace At Any Price? and I was really fired up and I gave a rousing speech with blood running in our gutters and all the works and it was sort of The Shot Heard Around the World and somehow the word spread all around the school almost immediately and several teachers mentioned it to me and even the Principal stopped me in the hall and remarked to me about it. That was evidently the high point in my speaking career. So you can see, as we were coming to a close on our school life, what we all had on our minds--not the normal things a high school student would look forward to but instead a dismal look at our future. If you don’t know from week to week, if or when you are going to be drafted into the service, how can you think or do anything to prepare for your future or even think whether or not, in fact, if you do have a future. There, I did it again. I started talking about the Senior Play and sort of wandered off but rather than rewrite it, I’ll just excuse myself and go on. Well, I wanted more experience with speaking before a crowd. At least I realized my shortcomings with public speaking. It was announced that tryouts for the senior play would be after school and a list was posted as to the different characters in the play for us to try out for. The play was called, Ever Since Eve. I wanted speaking experience but--you know--I decided not to try out for a major part so I picked what I thought would be a minor part, the son in the play--that sounded minor so I read for it along with a couple other students and Robert Davis--nicknamed Half Pint or Half Pint Davis got the part so I sat back down in the auditorium to observe the proceedings thinking that my acting career was already over. That was the only try-out that I signed up for. Then several of the girls tried out for the mother part and this tall girl, Mary Woodcrest, was picked. Miss Phaelen, our teacher then had the ones who signed up for the father part, try out and all of a sudden she called my name out to try for the part. I said, Miss Phaelen, I didn’t sign up for that part, only the part of the son. She said, Up on the stage and read for us so what choice did I have. I sort of had a relapse on my thoughts of wanting more experience in speaking before a crowd as I hadn’t even gone over any of that part and now I was going to read cold turkey on command to turn to page so and so and read the part along with the tall girl who had just been given the part of the mother. She was a good head taller than I was and up on the stage, I felt that she was at least two feet taller than me. I sort of gave it my all and threw my heart into it as all those would be actors were down there in the audience watching. I thought that I was really making a fool of myself when she said, OK. and we stopped and I figured that I really did a bad job and started to walk off when she said to stay up there and that I had the part and much to my surprise, it was one of the major parts. I thought to myself, now you’ve done it. Naturally, I dug into the script and I noticed that Davis Beaumont, who was one of my close friends and now my son in the play, was scheduled to come down with the measles in his senior year in school--in the play, that is. Two rehearsals later, I came down with the measles, myself and I figured that I was out of the play but they sent word that they are holding the part for me. I got back to school and on the stage rehearsing and I can understand why actors seem to enjoy it so much. I had a ball, we all did, in putting this play together. Once I opened my mouth and assumed my roll, as far as I was concerned, there was no audience out there, just us living out the play. We did have one bad place in the play where something happened that wasn’t in the script and we all broke out laughing and we went back a ways and tried it again. As soon as we reached that particular place, and every time we did go over that place, we all broke down and exploded with laughter. Now we got to the dress rehearsal on the final night before the big night and to give us an audience, we had the superintendent, principle, teachers and some parents watching. Would you believe, we reached that part and absolutely couldn’t keep a straight face and that was embarrassing and at that particular part, we had almost the whole cast on stage. I decided that we just couldn’t have this happen on our big night because the auditorium would be full, so without consulting with Miss Phaelen or anyone in the cast, I went to the fellow in charge of sound effects and asked him to watch closely and if there are any indications of anyone starting to break up with laughter, to ring the telephone bell. That was coming up a few lines after and nobody would miss what little we skipped over. Luckily it didn’t happen but you can bet we were all laughing inside. It went over big and everyone was happy. We had a great time during all of this. We all went bowling in Springfield, across the river from Agawam after each rehearsal. Believe it or not, bowling cost 10 cents a string or 3 strings for a quarter. Oh yes, I want to mention about the bad start at the very, very beginning and it was completely my fault. I have to take complete credit for it. My wife and son were on stage when the curtain opened. I was on the side getting ready to make my appearance and Miss Phealon was about two feet from me, looking at the script and seeing that I rushed on stage at the right time. I had a sign, maybe two by three feet in size, tucked under my arm that was a crucial part of our first lines and for some reason or other, I put it down and when Miss Phaelon said Go-----I went---without that sign. I rushed over to my son and wife and greeted them---supposedly I had just returned from the sign shop. As I spoke my greetings, my wife whispered under her breath and with hardly moving her lips, Where is the Sign? and I did a little ad-libbing--something like I picked up the sign and set it outside. Ill go get it. My wife and son---bless their hearts, started a completely unrehearsed conversation until I got back on stage. When I picked the sign up off stage, I glanced quickly at Miss Phealon and she looked a little pale and her mouth was open but she never said a word. Back on stage with a little more ad-libbing, we went on with the play with nobody being the wiser. However the cast from the high school in Athol--about 80 miles away, was in the audience as they were invited to observe our play since they were giving the same play in Athol. After the play was over, we were talking with them and right away, one of them said that they were putting on the same play and everything was about the same, except they started a bit different. I explained what I had done and they laughed and said they noticed the difference but thought nothing of it. So I guess we covered that up nicely. A couple of weeks later, all of us in the cast went to Athol and viewed their version of the play. That was part of the fun times that we were suppose to have at that age but looking over our shoulders every minute was that dark clouds of war and our future was On Hold.

We hardly missed a football game--at home or away. Our cheerleaders consisted of two fellows, Thomas Beatty and Donald Johnson and four girls, Doris Smith, Emily Fortune, Ruth Honey Maiolo and Loraine Chuddy Johnson. I used to transport two or three of these girls to the out of town games. I couldn’t take the fellows--I only had that 1933 Chevy two door. As it turned out years later, Donald Johnson married Ruth Honey Maiolo and Thomas Beatty married Emily Fortune. Which brings back another event--one that took place at our Class Picnic out at Babbs Beach at Congamond Lake and just might have helped to bring Thomas Beatty and Emily Fortune together---or not. It went like this. I rented a canoe for the big sum of $2.00 and took Emily Fortune out on the lake. Now mind you, $2.00 was a lot of money back then. While we were out canoeing, I spotted David Benoit and Thomas Beatty floating around in the middle of the lake--they had rented a motor boat or at least it was a motor boat----their motor had quit. And you know Stupid Me-------always helping my fellow man. That was mistake Number One. Emily Fortune and I pulled up alongside to see what the problem was and I wasn’t content to just sit in my canoe with Emily and relay all my great knowledge of motors from there---I had to transfer to their motor boat and give hands on help. Next thing I knew, Thomas Beatty was no longer with us and I looked up to see him and Emily Fortune paddling off in my canoe---He later married her and never did pay me back my $2 for the canoe. And, incidentally, David and I never did get that motor boat running again and hours later with one paddle and a seat cushion that doubled for a paddle, we returned to the place he rented it from, which was a couple of beaches from where we had our Class Picnic, jumped in his car and drove back to Babbs Beach where the party was over and only a few of the classmates still there. Which brings up another event regarding Emily Fortune that happened in my last year of High School. There was an ice skater with the Ice Capades by the name of Fortune who was a terrific comedy skater. The show was opening at the West Springfield Coliseum in a month or two away and she claimed to me that he was a cousin of hers and I called her on it. She said if I would take her to the show, that she would introduce me and visit with him. So I fell for it hook, line, and sinker but the show was a month or two away in the future, and my busy little mind forgot all about it. The show arrived and I asked a girl by the name of Marina Phillips, whom I had been seeing for quite some time, to go with me and I got tickets for about the second day of the show and we went. While I was watching the show, it dawned on me that I had asked Emily to go a couple of months before, so what was a guy to do---I was a bit short on cash and had to borrow from my Dad---those tickets weren’t cheap either--- and the next day at school I asked her what day she would like to go and I got the tickets and I went again to the show. To this day, I think she knew all along that I had forgotten and also that I had already gone with Marina previously but she played me along. Incidentally, at the end of the show when she was going to introduce me to that so called cousin, he was actually no relation at all and I didn’t meet him, naturally.

Now that I brought up the subject of Marina, it brings on another high point in my high school, that big day---the Prom. At the time I met her, she was a year behind me--I believe I was a Junior and she was a Freshman and when every little while, I would return to my home desk and I would find notes there from her and every once in a while I would catch her peeking in the door when I would glance up. She was a real nice person and we started going here and there and usually with her cousin--I can’t remember her name, from Springfield--nothing serious at all, just friends. I asked her to accompany me to the Prom and she accepted---so far so good. A couple of weeks later, another good friend of mine, John Ledger, who was in the Hi-Y Club, said that I should go to the dance that they were putting on--a formal event, (Now, bear in mind, here I was booked up for one dance and thinking about going to another and I never learned to dance in the first place) I called up Marina, who was going to the Prom with me, which was a couple of weeks after the scheduled Hi Y dance and asked her to go to the Hi Y dance with me. She said that she would love to go but she couldn’t afford another formal gown. So guess what Dumb Dumb me did----believe it or not I called her cousin on the phone a little while after hanging up the phone with Marina and asked her cousin if she would go with me. Of course, after asking Marina to go---no way would her cousin consent to go with me. I imagine that she called Marina right away and that made Marina mad at me but she still wanted to go to the Prom . She didn’t say anything about it to me. Dad had just bought a brand new 1941 DeSoto and it had only about 300 miles on it---it was white and a real beauty--that’s back in the days when a big white four door sedan was a rarity. White was not a normal automobile color in those days. I got into my tux with the cumber bun and all, jumped in that white beauty and drove to Marina’s house. Of course her folks were taking snapshots of her in her gown and me in my monkey suit and then we drove off to the Prom which was held in our school auditorium. Everything was just perfect. We were in the Grand March which ended with the first dance of the night but when it got around to the first dance, she disappeared and she disappeared for every scheduled dance with me and spoke very few times with me. We even drove about twenty five miles to a fancy restaurant afterwards down in Hartford where we met with a number of our classmates and their dates. Still,-----hardly a word spoken and I had kind of gotten the idea that possibly--just possibly, mind you, that she was a bit peeved with me for asking her cousin to the Hi Y dance after her telling me that she couldn’t afford another gown so she couldn’t go with me. I just have to admit that I had made one big mistake. As a matter of fact, that was pretty well the end of our friendship. However, many, many years later, Ruth, my wife, and I went over to Agawam Day in Tarpon Springs, Florida--a once a year event for all the residents of that little town of Agawam, Massachusetts, that now lived down here or travel down here for the event and she was there and recognized me and called out my name. We talked a while but she never mentioned that terrible Prom. It could be because of the approximate 52 or 53 years between our meeting then and that Prom.

Between the time that the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1991 and June of 1992, when we graduated, the grimness of war struck at our class. The German submarines were very active off the east coast and sinking our freighters day after day. A fellow by the name of Cody, I can’t remember his first name at this time, enlisted in the Merchant Marine. I believe that he just moved into our school area that same school year and I didn’t know him very well. His Father, seeing this, also enlisted in the Merchant Marine also and served on the same freighter together. Just off the coast of New Jersey and within easy view of the coast, their ship was torpedoed , burned and sunk and him and his father with it.

One of the curriculums that was required in our business course, was a foreign language and as I remember it, the only choices were Latin and French. I chose French. I didn’t really want to take it and so I concentrated on my accounting and business courses and let French slide to the point that it was the only subject that I ever failed in. It really didn’t bother me too much--all my other subjects were satisfactory to excellent and where in the world would I ever need to speak French? Just a waste of time--Right. I’m getting ahead of myself in mentioning what I am going to say now but the point would be lost if I didn’t include it right now. Less than six months after I entered the service, I found myself in North Africa where the language was basically French. Every once in a while, they would call out for anyone that could speak and understand French to report to them immediately to act as a translator--which could mean a possibility of getting a break from being a rifleman in the infantry. Later , we made a landing on---you guessed it--Southern France and you know what language they spoke. About all I could say was open the door or window or shut the door or window or Good Morning or something not too useful such as shut your mouth. Not too much of a demand for that. I wasn’t too good at shorthand, my hand would cramp up badly but on the typewriter, I did well. Now bear in mind that these were the old units that you manually pushed the keys and made the arm go up and hit the paper---unlike the electric typewriters and the computers of today. On familiar material, on tests, I have made over 100 words a minute without errors. Not bragging--just the truth. Accounting was what I was interested in the most and, if I say so myself, I did quite well with it. To sum it up, I saw no future for the use of French so more or less disregarded it and accounting, which I thought would be my future, after returning from the war, I never got back into it. I had one run-in with my accounting teacher which, incidentally, was also my shorthand and typing teacher. We had one fellow in our accounting class that was a tall, good looking football player, I won’t mention his name, who everybody could see that he was her favorite student. She came to me one day and accused me of copying his big complicated work sheets--I imagine you would call them spread sheets nowadays. Now in all my school years, I have never copied anybody’s paper in any class. Learning didn’t come easy with me--I worked hard in everything I accomplished, unlike those people with a photographic memory. When she accused me of copying, it was a real slap in the face and I denied it strongly but she wouldn’t listen. I finally told her something that I would never think of telling any teacher. I said, You won’t even listen to me--I might just as well go home and talk with my dog. and she said, Oh, you have a dog?. Later, another student in my home room told me that almost every day while I was out to lunch, this unnamed football player would sit down at my desk, pull out my worksheets and any other work I had done and copy everything word for word and figures by figures. Believe it or not, he ended up as our Valedictorian Speaker at our graduation.

I enjoyed the Manual Training Class and I made many things and pieces of furniture. I have an end table that I made in high school that is right in the next room now. One day, way back then, I had found a picture of an end table that I thought I would like. I showed the picture to the instructor and he said to make up plans for it and go to it and I did. To this day I enjoy working with wood and when something breaks down, I have an awful urge to take it apart and see what makes it tick or rather not tick. I find it a real challenge to make parts or use odds and ends and bring whatever equipment it is that’s broken down, back to as good as new and often better than new. I don’t really care how long it takes but it really bothers me to spent a long time repairing something and find out that it’s impossible to do.

In school, I won’t say that I was immensely popular but I had a number of real good friends. Our graduating class was small by today’s standards. We had 89 that graduated with us. It was larger a year or two before but in the depression a number of them had to drop out to help out on their family farm or get a job to bring in money for their families to live on. Things were tough back then. When the war broke out, many dropped out to get jobs in the defense plants.

Then came time for graduation. It was in June 1942 and as I remember it, it was an afternoon affair and the weather was beautiful. In those days we had a big choice of colors for our caps and gowns---black or white. We chose black. Now that was fine but I went down into the basement to the manual training room where we had a public display of some of the things we made during the year. Those gowns sort of flared out as we walked and wouldn’t you know, as I turned a corner, my gown brushed against a white table---the paint was wet. Let me tell you, white shows up very good on black. The owner of that table must have been a bit behind on finishing his project and evidently just painted it shortly before I arrived on the scene. They graduated me with the white paint anyway. I was a medium to good student so I didn’t get any special awards but the American Legion awarded me a Good Citizenship Award. I remember very vividly that after visiting with parents and bidding farewell to my various student friends, I walked out the front door with that rolled up diploma with a ribbon on it and I stopped at the very top step, looked all around and thought to myself, What am I going to do now? Our school days were over. I felt as though I had just been fired. As I scanned the horizon, I could almost hear a voice whisper----- Welcome to the real world.

Chapter 3:

The Beginning Of The Real World

I certainly wasn’t alone in this situation but here we were in the situation of wanting to get started with life but there was the war in our way. If we started out with our plans for the future and were interrupted by the war, would our efforts be wasted? It was also a very good possibility that our lives would be lost and that feeling would, from time to time, flash momentarily in the back of our minds. Should we take the path of seriously starting our lives or should we just flounder around enjoying whatever time we had left. It sorts of reminds me of the expression---and I don’t know what I’m quoting from---Eat, Drink and Be Merry for Tomorrow We May Die. In a way it was a very simple decision---only two choices. I signed up to start in the fall at the Bay Path Institute of Business on the corner of Chestnut and Hillman Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Actually it was just about five miles from my home in Agawam. So basically I had made my decision but now what to do for the summer---find a job or enjoy a couple of months of vacation. I applied at a number of plants feverishly producing war materials which were urgently needed and most places operated 24 hour a day. I finally took a job at a plant in Chicopee, Massachusetts called American Bosch that manufactured magnetos for airplanes and other war vehicles. It was on what was referred to at the time as the Graveyard Shift---11pm at night to 7am in the morning. I believe that the pay at that time was somewhere around 25 cents an hour which was good pay in those days. I went in on the first night and was put on a job with two other fellows. We had a real technical job that required lots of smarts. The part we were working on was much like the old style plastic automobile distributor cap. They came out of the mold with burrs on them that had to be removed with a file and that was our very important job. The roar of machinery was deafening, the smell of hot oil was stifling and the light was not too good. The parts came to us in a tray of maybe 12 units and we attacked one tray after another and each minute seemed like an hour. Some people think that these jobs are the best---no need to think, no real responsibilities and make great money. I had a mind that wanted to be used and jobs like this bored me to tears. On top of that, I had one guy on my right, nudging me and telling me to speed up and the one on the left nudging and telling me to slow down and that I was spoiling the job. And everything was run by a whistle---a whistle sounds, take a break. Next whistle sounds and it’s back to work. Another whistle and it’s lunch and another whistle and it’s back to work and so on and so on. and what seems like about sixteen hours--but it was only eight-- and on leaving the building and all that hot oil smell and deafening noise and the boring existence, it seemed that I was suddenly going deaf and the fresh air and daylight seemed so refreshing. I survived three days--or I should say, nights--and I told the fellow I was riding with to tell the powers that be that I had been run over by a truck and would not be in but would be in later to pick up my pay. However, I did pick out the right days to work--one was a regular straight time day--one was a Sunday double time day and the third was Independence day, also a double time day. So much for working on my last days before college.

The next six weeks before college started, I more or less, vacationed. I did repair work on my folks house and built a back porch, railing and steps that was rotted out and a bulkhead door to the cellar that had also rotted. I played a lot of tennis at one of our good neighbors home that had a tennis court and also at Forest Park in Springfield. In the evening we would go bounding. That was an expression meaning getting in my old Chevy and visiting a friend or two with no planned activity and from there, maybe going for a hamburger or maybe playing a couple rounds of put- put golf or going down to Riverside park and see who we might find there or maybe going roller skating there at Riverside park. In those days, I believe we paid thirty-five cents to get in and another five cents to have our skates put on. The skates were clamped on and ruined our shoes. Sometimes we would just sit around and discuss the war or what we have been doing or get to a phone and call up girls and maybe visit them and talk. In those days we would get together and play football in vacant lots or take long bicycle rides and usually end up having a banana split or a hamburger. I remember one time when I was with my good friend, Roy Jones, we got the great idea to paint his 1934 Plymouth 4-door. My folks had a vacuum cleaner with a spray bottle for spraying a moth ball type spray and we decided that it would be great for spraying paint. It was successful to a point--it turned the car jet black but the orange peel effect was outstanding Quite often, my Dad and I and two of the neighbors would pitch horse shoes until it was so dark that we couldn’t see the poles even though we had tied white ribbons around the tops of the poles. We had one real problem with the sport of horse shoes and that was the fact that the cats liked that chopped up dirt around the poles and used it as a great place to dig a hole and do their job and cover it up and without any further description, I believe you can understand what happened when we went to dig out the horse shoes. It was disgusting, at best. Ping pong was my big sport and we had a table in the cellar with a few obstacles in our way such as steam pipes, coal bin and general junk. Many happy hours were spent there. Also, my Dad and I would often go up to Otis, about 35 miles away, early in the morning with minnows and worms and go down about a mile of rut roads to a old house on the lake called Lands End where we would rent a row boat and go out fishing for five or six hours. One morning when we were ending our fishing expedition, I was rowing--as I usually did--and as the bow touched the shore, I dropped the