V1943-01CO.DOC

School Boy to Soldier; KS to CO to FL; Feb 1943

Pre Induction

The United States and much of the rest of the world had been coping with the Great Depression after WWI. The great plains region suffered a combination of drought & dirt storms in addition to the economic depression. Steinbeck's book and the movie Grapes of Wrath depicted those conditions. Those who fought WW II had been conditioned by growing up in this period – they knew hardships and how to make do.

When Franklin D Roosevelt took office in 1933 one of the first things he did was closed the banks. He faced up to the difficult task of lifting peoples spirits and turning the economy about at a time when Hitler took over Germany, charming them with speeches, banners and torchlight parades – burning books was an ominous sign.

When I left grade school in 1937 the country was emerging from the depression. When I graduated from high school in 1941 others were at War. Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and the Battle of Britain dominated the news. Radio, motion pictures, magazines and newspapers kept all informed. Though the media preached non entanglement, my generation felt our involvement was inevitable. Wars in Spain, Ethiopia and China did not carry the ominous impact of Hitler's speeches and the cheering of the German people as if hypnotized. There was a confined revolution in Spain. Mussolini crushed Ethiopia but did not frightened the world. Russia met their match with tiny Finland – Stalin’s dictatorship was potentially dangerous but not ominous. Japan’s war with China was not considered a threat to us. The US was isolationist, intent on staying out of "other peoples" conflicts. Many didn't read but all listened to the radio. Hitler’s war like speeches and “Sig Hiel” cheers from the crowds were alarming.

Roosevelt’s depression years fire side chats of "All we have to fear is fear itself" provided a feeling things would work out. Things changed in Europe, Roosevelt's chats were often preceded or followed by rebroadcasts of Hitler's speeches at mass rallies. Hitler’s speeches were tirades intended to fan the emotions of the masses, they did and left us uneasy. One only needs to listen to the broadcasts and view newsreels to grasp the emotion, the Nazi were expanding their horizons to adjacent territory.

Japan too had plans and were buying all the scrap iron they could get. Farmers low on cash sold obsolete equipment, then said "we'll get that back someday, from the barrel of a gun.". but didn’t really believe it – tiny Japan would never attack us. We were safe, the Atlantic protected us from Hitler and the Pacific protected us from Tojo. Fear of war and wishful thinking caused many to feel safe.

Classmates; Five of the Six "Truck Drivers", Class of 41, last time together in 42'

Those in my class believed someday we would be called up.

The summer of 1940 I attended a National High School YMCA Conference, representing NW Kansas. The Yong Men’s Christian Association emulated the pageantry of German parades, we had a Torch Light Parade the last night of the conference. The feature article that week in the Cleveland Ohio paper was the French surrender to Hitler in the same Railroad car used when the Germans surrendered at the close of WWI,

I looked back on the events at that conference. There were adult speakers on the Oberlin Ohio campus trying to brain wash us young fellows into declaring we would not go to war. They didn't belong, they were not a part of the sponsored conference, yet they had free run of the place. Such actions was called the Fifth Column, applying weapons of propaganda on the target populace. Their message did not set well with me, if more mature I’d have rallied those about me to make them unwelcome, I’m convinced the others felt as I did. At that moment we didn’t understand what was going on.

Time Magazine, 12-23-1940, reported anti-war sentiment where Yale students supported America First, 60,000 strong 3:1 Their arguments: 1 Germany cannot invade America even if Britain falls. 2 US can and will do business with Nazis even if necessary to catalyze the trade. 3 If US convoys British shipping, that act is sure to put us in the conflict.

Those preaching anti war on the Oberlin Ohio campus must have been the same ones as on the Yale campus.

I had tremendous affinity to WW I veterans. As a member of the band, I’d marched with them to the Cemetery every Memorial Day. Their demeanor and marching style was much different than ours in the band. They wore the uniform of their branch of service – never mind that it no longer “fit”. They would come alive, as if reinvigorated with youth. They were there to pay honor to their comrades who didn’t return. Their service and actions commanded our respect.

In 1938 the topic for debated was: “should the US and Great Britain form a military alliance”. Our debate coach provided articles published in the US favoring both sides – I was amazed at the amount of anti war sentiment by respected columnist and celebrities as Charles Lindberg. This sentiment hampered US assistance to Britain.

Unknown to the public Churchill and Roosevelt met in the Atlantic to discuss mutual defense. "Old" Destroyers were given to Britain, restrictions were lifted on sale of arms, people provided "Bundles for Britain." The public commitment and idyllic dream of isolationism was developing cracks.

The American Legion post commander presented this to me in 1937 Bob Nelson Darrell Landau ROTC 1942

The abrupt fall of France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway was a real shocker. Americans were aroused, anger gave way to gut feelings of concern, casting a chill on their prior sense of security behind the Atlantic. Who was going to put Hitler back in the bottle. The plight of our Allies and the degree of our un-preparedness began to register, public support to do something was felt, if not openly stated.

In the fall of 1941 I enrolled in mechanical engineering at Kansas State College Manhattan Kansas, a land grant college required to teach ROTC. Engineering students were assigned to Coast Artillery as aiming guns required mathematical calculations. Later those with engineering backgrounds were often assigned as aircraft navigators, some, previously deferred, were pulled out of engineering school to fill the need for B-29 Navigators.

Dec. 7, 1941 united the nation, anti war sentiment ended. My father, Infantry WW I, remarked, I hope they keep their shirts on this time. I asked what do you meant, he said, the last time some with German ancestry were branded as anti-American, there were nasty incidents. Cool heads did not prevail, Japanese Americans on the West Coast were picked up. My father was made chairman of the local draft board.

Engineering students were urged to stay in school and were being deferred by draft boards per government directives, my age group would not enter the draft until late 1943. My reasoning said I should continue engineering school, there were more volunteers than facilities and weapons for training. It also said I had to consider my Fathers position, he would show me no favoritism, but if deferred for school, others might think so.

During our first semester sophomore year my room mate and classmate Bob Nelson and I saw a Jimmy Stewart poster in the Chemistry building stating that if we passed an aptitude test we could become flying cadets without the need for college. That was it, we’d become a couple of hot rock pilots.

In the fall of 1942 we took the bus to Fort Riley Kansas, I was worried about having 20-20 vision and Bob was worried about being color blind. I checked his color perception reading road signs and he check my vision by seeing if I could read the fine print. We took the 3 hour mental exam first, there must have been about 150 of us with at least 2/3 being college students. We next took the physical and met in a hall halfway through. He'd passed the color blindness test and I'd passed the 20-20 vision test. We happily shook hands confident that we'd both made it. From there I took the color perception test. I flunked! Being color blind probably saved my life, Bob didn’t return.

I couldn’t believe I was color blind and gave the nurses a hard time insisting that I could tell colors. They had a large bowl of colored yarn from which I could identify the right color every time. But I could not see the correct number on the speckled charts. My eyes did not contain an adequate number of color sensitive cells to see small red and green dots, but could readily see them if large enough.

I felt horribly crushed, I was not accustomed to defeat, I’d never have a chance, I just knew I'd be a good pilot. The final examiner, seeing I was down, said that’s too bad, you had one of the highest scores for the day. I said yeah, a lot of good that does, I flunked. He showed me the number, it was 130 something, I didn’t think it was worth remembering, I figured the examiner was trying to make me feel good. I didn't think I'd done very well, there were questions like "What's a Nacelle" , an easy questions to anyone who had been around airplanes but I didn’t have a clue, I must have guessed well.

During vacation, prior to mid semester, I went to the secretary of the draft board and asked to be drafted and placed on the bus at the end of the semester, thus I completed 1 1/2 years. I wanted people to think my Father drafted me. I believe the action pleased my Father although we never spoke of it.

***O***

They left Bob to finish his sophomore year before reporting and sent to Navigation school. He married his hometown high school sweetheart, Betty Musgrave for going overseas mid 1944. The last letter from Bob said he was on Saipan and lead navigator for their B-29 squadron. Later, when I arrived on Guam, I found that he'd been lost! Word via my parents was that he'd survived the crash and been taken prisoner. It was a relief to believe he was all right.

After the war I couldn't understand there being no word about Bob? The home town football coach lived next to my parents and came from Bob's home town. He had reason to believe Bob would not return, they didn't want to upset me. When back in school my parents wrote it had been reported in the papers that Bob had been beheaded ! I went to college library and spent hours searching newspapers for records – what happened to him was part of the War Crimes trials in the Philippines. Much later I learned his plane had been rammed in March, he and one other got out alive, and taken prisoner, then tried and beheaded.

***O***

Induction Ft Logan CO

There were over a dozen of us on the bus to Denver to take the physical. Milton Nitch was one of them, trying again to pass the physical, he looked in excellent health but had been turned down. Milton insisted the Dr. show me his x-rays. The Dr, pointing at the x-rays, said his heart is shifted to the opposite side from normal. Like my being color blind, Milton had an unseen anomaly. I hoped this quelled comments he was evading the draft.

Milton and I had gone out on the town the night before, he was a bit older and knew his way around and introduced me to bourbon and seltzer. We arrived back at the hotel about 2 a.m. and stopped at the “john” before going to bed. Abruptly it seemed like a great idea to wake the other guys so they to could relieve themselves. Milton suggested that might not be a good idea and held back. Confidant of the fellows sense of humor I went room to room calling out "Piss Call, rise and shine." They sleepily aroused them selves to comprehend what we were saying, their puzzlement turned to anger realizing it was not "chow call" we were saying. Our hilarity made our condition obvious. Post war when Milton and I meet we'd start laughing, a special kind of comradeship one remembers. Milton died too young due to a stroke, I miss him.

Herbert Graves was inducted at the same time and we went through Basic together. When we met years later he reminded me of our standing in the rain all night long in Florida, while a typhoon played out it's energy. Herbert too died of a stroke, another I miss.

The induction center was crowded, those who passed the physical filed past recruitment personnel for the Marines, Navy and Army. I was offered the opportunity to join the Marines and Navy but declined, I wanted the Army Air Corp, but the army made no promise's. We were then bused to Fort Logan outside Denver.

At Fort Logan we were given the Army General Classification examinations. Once seated for the test the examiner asked who was from Colorado, then Nebraska, then Oklahoma, then Kansas. The others laughed when we Kansans identified ourselves. Kansans had been the brunt of public jokes as if all farmers, like the straw man in the Wizard of Ozz, were not too swift. The instructor anticipated this and said, "I don't know what you fellows are laughing about. Kansas ranks 7 out of the 48 states in these Army General Classification test. That's higher than any of the rest of you."

I was assigned to clean the permanent party day room. Having been janitor of the Farmers National Bank I soon had the Day Room cleaned from top to bottom and ready for the next job, then realize that was supposed to take all day. In the absence of an assignment I took a lesson in killing time. I found a National Geographic with an excellent article on beryllium. When the officer in charge passed by he took note of what I was reading. I expected to be given and assignment, instead he asked what did I did before coming here? I said, I’d been an engineering student, He said, that figures – you have the rest of the day off, and walked on. I was 19 and took off to explore the base.

The next morning I was put in charge of a Negro (Black today) work crew. I’d never been around Negroes and was naive regarding race relations, I was void of prejudice or understanding of the south. I couldn't understand their attitude toward me, when I tried to help lift something they would quickly do it for me. If I spoke just to be friendly they'd stop their jovial chatter, become serious and answer yes sir or no sir. They were teaching me my place, I was not a member of their club; I was a white man.

We rode trains from Fort Logan for several days working our way south and east, becoming accustom to the clickity click and sway of cars. As we traversed this region, new to me, I studied the countryside. It much different than prairie country, there was and abundance of vegetation and trees. It was far removed from barren dust blown fields and parched buffalo grass I knew so well as a kid.

Railroads were not known for scenic routes through cities, but I assumed the rural homes were typical. The poverty in Kansas due to drought and dust was understandable, but with all the vegetation I couldn't understand the farm shack poverty I was seeing in the south. Basic ingredients as feed, food and timber seemed plentiful. Horatio Alger books, popular during my father and mothers generation, told how a person could improve their lot by diligence and hard work. Those books espoused what historians call The Protestant Work Ethic. I understood the toil of 12 hour days just to feed a family and the fatigue that can bind one to the soil. But I could build better homes than I saw, with hand tools in my spare time..... the dreamer at work......clickity click, clickity click...

The Air Corps had taken over resort hotels in Florida and train loads of us were arriving day and night. Our train arrived in St. Petersburg at night and we were quartered in the Princess Martha Hotel. The first day we were free to wander so we walked to nearby seashore and watched, the first time for most of us, sea gulls and mild white caps on the breeze blown sea extending out of sight beyond the beaches, it was a different world; sunny, expansive and tranquil.

We ate meals in the Princes Martha for the next few days while we took exams. These were aptitude tests to determine what specialist schools we’d be sent to. During a hearing test the nurse would periodically issued a beep sound, reducing volume each time. You raised your finger when you heard the beep. She maintained a constant cadence so after I could no longer hear I continuing to raise my finger, right on beat a few more times. She said your hearing is exceptional! I with held the impulse to say, would you repeat that please? I felt fit as a fiddle and full of fun..

After the exams I was offered Link Trainer School, Radar & Radio – I said I wanted airplane mechanics. They had no way of knowing my love affair with fixing old Model T's and Model A's and the desire to know more. They honored my request, I’d go to Airplane Mechanics school upon completion of Basic Training. If I couldn't fly em I could fix em.

We were given vaccination shots and filed into theaters to see films. As we filed by in a column, disinfectant was painted on each arm with a paint brush, then stabbed with two to three shots in each arm, The first film was one of seven titled “Why We Fight” compiled by Frank Capra using German propaganda film, except Capra inversed the meaning of the events. They were similar to the "March of Time" series of that period. These visual presentations with sound and narration were powerful and convincing. We indeed knew why we were fighting, we had no doubts, even before knowledge of concentration camps. Other films were on Malaria and the Anopheles mosquito, and the horrors of venereal disease – we knew gonorrhea and syphilis were not communicated by the anopheles mosquitoes. Sulfa drugs were new and penicillin unknown to us, there was no known cure.

The typhoid fever and other shots caused me to run a high fever during the night. I had a fitful dreams of being a gunner in a bomber and trying to shoot down German fighters while going down in flames. By morning I was exhausted and the bed soaking wet.

I was called in to talk with an officers in G-2, the Intelligence Branch. I was asked to keep my eyes open for unusual acts, conversations or circumstances. I was to correspond on plain paper in plain envelopes mailed to the Pineallas Box Company at a given post office box in St. Petersburg. Two days later we shipped to tent city where we didn't have the luxury of such discrete letter writing or stamps, so I never wrote to the Pineallas Box Company. But I felt there was someone around who did. Had I taken an interest I might have become part of the Secret Service.