-

Camp Haan, Riverside California (March/April 1943)
At Camp Haan Dad became the acting Corporal in charge of the ammunition. One day right at chow time Lt. Bickel ordered him to get the ammo out to the firing range ASAP, so Dad and his crew went right to the front of the chow line so they could finish eating as fast as possible. Lt. Bickel saw them in line and jumped all over dad. Dad explained that the guns weren't fired until 2:00 so they had plenty of time. Bickel shot back, "That's not the point! I told you to go so you go! The sergeant Daniels will feed you when you get back." Dad reminded the Lt. that sergeant Daniels never feeds anyone between meals and finished his lunch. They got the shells out to the firing range in plenty of time but the next day Dad noticed on the bulletin board that he was no longer acting corporal.

One time at Camp Haan they needed volunteers to get out of camp. Getting out of camp sounded great to dad so he volunteered and ended up picking onions for a week. The money went to build a sports complex (gymnasium) on base. Another time everyone in camp was volunteered to fight a fire on a Saturday. Unfortunately Dad was one of the few soldiers in camp that day as most service men had weekend passes.

Dad became good friends with Riley Smith, who was from Oregon State College. If not on guard duty or KP, he and Riley would take the bus to Riverside to go rollerskating. Riley was quite a ladies man and he and Dad would pick up "Okie girls" (girls from Oklahoma) and take them to dinner. Everything was fine as long as they were back for roll-call in the morning.

Camp Kilmer, New Jersey (December 1944
Camp Kilmer was the staging area for GIs getting shipped overseas.

RMS Queen Elizabeth. When refitted as troop carriers, THE QUEENS did not just carry troops; they transported entire divisions. Together they moved over 1.6 million men to and from combat. Hitler offered $250,000 and an iron cross to any U-boat commander who sank a QUEEN.

Dad shipped out to England with the 574th around Thanksgiving of 1944. He remembers being in England at Christmas time and then shipping out for France right after Christmas.

Dad did KP duty on the Queen Elizabeth enroute to Great Britian. He kept busy washing pots and pans. "They worked us really hard so we didn't get sick." There were 22,000 troops on board and they were sleeping all over the place.

It was a 5 day trip from New Jersey to Great Britian. They landed at Greenock, Scotland (just NW of Glasgow). From there they took the train to Codford, England, which is near Stonehenge. The trip took two days because the train stopped so often. Dad never heard of Stonehenge while there. In Codford his unit was bombed and everyone had to hit the ditches.

While in Codford they took a 3-4 day trip to sight their guns over the Irish Sea.

Around mid-January 1945, Dad's unit shipped out to France from South Hampton, England. They got off the boat about 2/3rds of the way across because they were getting strafed. They evacuated into PT boats that had come to their rescue from France. They had to climb down rope ladders and the guys above you would be stepping on your hands skinning your knuckles. The English Channel was so rough that the boats were rocking 20 feet apart. Dad was scared he would drop into the Channel instead of the PT boat. He was on the PT boat the rest of the way before transfering to a landing barge which dropped his group off near Omaha Beach.

The A.A. M16 Half-track is the anti-aircraft version of the M3 troop carrier.

Once in France they were attached to the 4th Armored Division. They immediately loaded up their halftracks and headed due East 300 miles across France, into Luxembourg, and then North about 100 miles to Liege, Belgium. By now they suspected they were reinforcements for the Battle of Bulge (Jan 45). In Liege they had to sleep in their sleeping bags in the snow for a week or two and were wet the whole time. Dad says he wasn't dry again for weeks. Belgium wasn't all bad as they traded their rations for wine and cognac.

Dad remembers Rose never wanting to do his guard duty. Dad would have to drag him out of his sleeping bag into the snow every time. Rose would be swinging, Dad would be swinging, and Corporal Osik would have to separate them.

After the Battle of the Bulge, Dad's unit returned to Nancy, France to regroup and repair the halftracks. While there Dad was hospitalized with pneumonia. From there it was too Bavaria, the Ruhr Valley (March 1945) and crossing the Rhine River (April 1945).

In early April of 1945, Dad's unit was with 4 other halftrack units guarding a bridge over the Rhine River when General Patton's jeep drove up. Patton asked Dad, "Is anything going on soldier." and Dad responded, "Not much, Sir." Dad remembers that Patton had a Major driving and another Major on the machine guns in the back of the jeep. A few hours after Patton left the German's bombed the bridge with ME-109s and blew it up. Dad was manning the guns at the time and the other gunners were shooting like crazy with their quad-50 caliber machine guns. A few of the planes were smoking when they left. Engineers only needed one day to build a pontoon bridge. Dad remembers worrying about flipping off the make-shift bridge because of how much it swayed and twisted.

On April 12, 1945, just a week or so after crossing the Rhine River, Dad's unit was ambushed near Urbach, Germany.

They continued along the Ruhr Valley and ended up in Innsbruck, Austria when the European war ended on May 20, 1945.

Dad and a buddy somehow got ahold of a Mercedes touring car. They drove around Innsbruck in that until the commander made them give it back. They were making "moonlight requisitions" of gasoline from the motorpool to keep it running.

Dad grabbed German motorcycle and after several days of joy riding around Innsbruck it caught on fire. Dad bailed off and left it burning.

The GIs traded C rations for fresh eggs and chickens. The villagers didn't want to trade but they were scared of GIs. The GI's hadn't had meat for months and were short tempered. Austrians were generally friendly towards GI's because they had been occupied by the Germans.

After a week or so in Innsbruck they headed off to Wegshide, Germany, were they joined the 3rd Army. Wegshide is 40-50 miles from Munich. There they commandeered a German base and made the Germans their prisoners. They stayed there for quite awhile waiting to join the invasion of Japan.

While in Wegshide, Dad somehow became a guard on a prisoner train. The train had 10-12 cars full of SS trooper who were being taken from Munich to work in the mines at Brussels, Belgium. Each car had about 40 troopers and only 2 guards. Dad was the corporal in charge of his car. With nothing but a metal screen separating him from the troopers, Dad was very insistent that they stay back. Munich to Brussels is about 400 miles so the trip took several days. The prisoners were let out once a day to exercise. While away, Dad's unit, the 574th, was shipped out. Dad was reassigned to the 489th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion in Utenhoching, Germany. He was assigned to the the HQ Battery because of his typing and short-hand skills. Utenhoching was a small village just 7 miles from Munich. Not knowing that the 574th was going to be moving out, Dad left most of his belongings in the hotel in Wegshide and he never saw them again. He lost his camera and several keepsakes he had come across, such as a Walther pistol and German Luger.

Not long after joining the 489th, the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ending the war in the Pacific. Instead of going to Japan, soldiers slowly began to head home.

Zurich, Switzerland January 1946

Dad eventually became the highest ranking non-comm in the 489th which made him the acting Sergeant-Major. One of his jobs was to issue furloughs. In January of 1946 two 7-day furloughs for Pontresina, Switzerland came across his desk. He and Sandusky, the other acting Sergeant-Major, quickly issued themselves those furloughs. Dad hadn't been paid for several months so he had to sell cigarettes on the black market to finance the trip. He filled an accordian case with cartons of cigarettes which he bought for $.50. He sold them for $20 each. It was quite a trip as Zurich is over 300 miles W-SW of Munich, and Pontersina is 90 miles SE of Zurich.

The 489th's cook had a brother in Zurich, Switzerland, and he asked Dad and Sandusky to visit. The cook's brother was very friendly and spoke enough English to communicate. They got along very well and Dad and Sandusky ended up staying one night at his house. The picture to the left is of the cook's brother and Dad holding the cook's nephew.

Once in Pontresina, Dad and Sandusky went to all the sites, such as the world famous ski-resort of St. Moritz and the Palace Hotel. Dad also spent a lot of time in one of the local bars as he was sweet on one of the waitresses.

Having spent a lot of time on the 'slopes' at Ski-more in the Spokane Valley, Dad rode the lift right to the top of the mountain in Pontresina. Once on top he noticed that the slope was much steeper than it had looked from the bottom, so he carried his skis down the hill and went ice skating instead.-

Camp Phillip Morris Le Havre, France, March 1946

Elmer Nichols and Hank Phillips March 1946

In March of 1946 Dad had finally accumulated enough points to go home. Elmer Nichols from the 489th went home at the time. They headed from Utenhaching, Germany to Camp Phillip Morris in Le Havre, France (which is just East of the Operation Overlord (D-Day) landing sites.

The voyage home was on a "Kaiser ship". They were smaller ships made by Kaiser Aluminum in California. Later Kaiser became a major employer in Dad's hometown of Spokane, Washington. On the voyage home sergeants didn't have to do anything so Dad could relax. Unfortunately the guy in the bunk above his got seasick and vomited all over Dad. He ended up being sick the rest of the trip. He arrived at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, and spent a week there being processed before taking a train across the nation to Fort Lewis (Tacoma, Washington). He was honorably discharged from Fort Lewis on March 15, 1946.

-