9 24 1541 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/213cab337dfd7548314b04b428e8149c.mp4 ea4b8285f1fbc5d41d31ea418be89e4a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a60ff699e3607439e7143d643c411fc4.pdf 7ed3d1d524500276beab1215548d871d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project William Van Dop World War II 50 minutes 54 seconds (00:00:12) Early Life -Born in Muskegon Heights, Michigan on July 20, 1926 -Parents were immigrants from the Netherlands -Came to the United States in 1919 -He was one of seven children -After completing the eighth grade he moved to Spring Lake, Michigan -Older brother had a farm and needed some help working it -Father died when he was three years old -Mother remarried in 1933 -Stepfather owned a truck farm -He and the rest of the family worked on the farm and brought crops to market -Fairly young during the worst of the Great Depression -Remembers feeling bitter about having to work on the farm -The upside to that though was the family had enough to eat -Always had fruits and vegetables -Also raised chickens and had one dairy cow -Able to stay in school -Went to ninth grade and tenth grade in Spring Lake -Went through the eleventh grade and twelfth grade in Grand Haven, Michigan -Graduated in June 1944 -Hitchhiked to school -No buses at the time -If he didn't catch a ride he had to walk to school -Five or six miles (00:03:47) Start of the War -Didn't pay too much attention to when the Second World War began in 1939 -Sister-in-law predicted that the war would be over before he would have to serve -Remembers riding in a friend's car in Grand Haven when he heard the news about Pearl Harbor -Didn't know where, or what, Pearl Harbor was -Rationing went into effect shortly after the United States entered the war -Worked at a gas station and remembers people using gas ration stamps -Felt the system worked well enough -One brother joined the 32nd Infantry Division -Another brother served in the Army Air Force -The brother that was in the 32nd Infantry Division got a medical discharge -Had to drive his brother's car from Louisiana back to Michigan -Only 15 years old -As the war went on he assumed he would eventually get involved -Tried to enlist in the Army Air Force between his junior and senior years of high school -Wanted to become a pilot -Turned away due to poor eyesight -Could have enlisted in the Navy at 17 years old, but the Navy didn't appeal to him �(00:07:29) Getting Drafted -Registered for the draft in July 1944 when he turned 18 -Thought he would have to report for service as soon as he was registered -Called up for active duty in November 1944 -Went to Fort Sheridan, Illinois for processing -Spent three days there (00:08:19) Basic Training -Sent to Camp Joseph T. Robinson near Little Rock, Arkansas for basic training -Did a lot of physical training -Got up early, then fell into formation, and marched to the mess hall for breakfast -The first three or four weeks were focused on getting recruits into good shape -Went to the rifle range -First week of rifle training consisted of “dry runs” (loading a rifle, but not firing it) -Learned how to shoot with the M1 Garand rifle and the M1 Carbine -Learned how to use other infantry weapons -Went to the grenade range and learned how to use hand grenades -Shown movies on how to protect themselves in the field -Dug foxholes -Learned that foxholes were the most basic, and sometimes best defense in the field -Went on the infiltration course -Crawled under barbed wire while a machine gun fired live rounds over their heads -Teaching soldiers how to approach an enemy position while taking fire -Finished basic training with a two week bivouac -Marched to various places then set up camp -Sometimes had to set up camp during the day, sometimes at night -Always made sure to find a level place in case it rained -High emphasis on discipline and following orders -Began to anticipate what an order would be, then the drill sergeants changed their routine -Learned that when you were ordered to do something it was best to just do it -Not difficult for him -Enjoyed it because it provided him with structure -Made him mature -Working on a farm physically prepared him for military service -A lot of the men couldn't march long distances -He found the long marches easy after walking to school as a boy -Basic training lasted 15 weeks -Ended sometime in spring 1945 (00:14:16) Fort Ord, California & Deployment -Given ten or 11 days “delay en route” -Meant he had a little over a week to get out to Fort Ord, California, so he could visit home -Took a train to Fort Ord, California -Spent a month at Fort Ord waiting for his next assignment -Went out each day for more training -In late May/early June 1945 he went to Oakland, California and boarded a troopship -Received advanced training at Fort Ord -More shooting -Combat training -Knew he would be sent over as an infantry replacement �-Issued heavy coats, so they thought they were being sent to Alaska -He was made part of the Advance Guard on the ship -Meant he went on first and did a security sweep of the ship -Got to go to the commissary and buy as much chocolate as he wanted -Ate his chocolate then threw it all up when they were only five miles out to sea -3,000 troops on the ship -Got a midday meal because he was part of the Advance Guard -It was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich -Trip was uneventful -Planes flew overhead with tow targets -Note: tow targets are targets towed by planes for antiaircraft practice -Chance for the 5 inch gun crews to have some practice -Sailed alone until they joined a convoy at the Mariana Islands -Missed Hawaii going across the Pacific Ocean and missed it when he came back to the United States (00:18:32) Arrival in the Philippines -Landed at Manila -Boarded trucks and taken to a replacement depot -Pulled guard duty at night on a rice paddy on the perimeter -Incredibly dark and he was nervous -Japanese had been defeated, but there were Filipino guerrillas in the area -Didn't know if they were friendly or not -Confined to the camp (00:20:30) Military Police (MP) Duty -Selected for Military Police duty -Disappointed that he wouldn't get to move on with his friends -Assigned to MP duty on August 1, 1945 -Posted to various gates at a camp located on Manila Bay -Patrolled the beach as well -Stayed on the compound -Guarding people on the base -Base was used as a transit center for freed civilian internees, soldiers going home, and nurses -Compound had a variety of barracks, a command center, and a mess hall -Civilian internees were kept separate from the military personnel -Unhealthy people -Only saw them for about two or three weeks before they had all been sent home -Incoming nurses stayed with them for a long time -Officers drove 70 miles just to meet the nurses -Not supposed to fraternize with the nurses, but the enlisted men still struck up conversation -The nurses did not stay on the base long because they were assigned to other bases -Didn't talk with the soldiers returning home -Different group of men and he could tell that they had been in the war for a long time -Most of them just wanted to focus on getting home -The nurses passing through the base came straight from the United States -Stationed at the base as an MP from August 1, 1945 – October 1946 -Became corporal of the guard then became sergeant of the guard -More assignments and more leadership responsibility -A Seabee unit left their compound, so it became a satellite compound for William's base -Used it for USO Shows -Meant the Military Police had to guard that too �-Remembers a 30 or 40 foot water tower they had to climb and use as a vantage point -Eventually got placed in the MP Command Center pulling telephone duty -Worked 4 PM to Midnight one day -Had the next day off -The day after that he worked from Midnight to 8 AM (00:28:28) Downtime in the Philippines -Had a lot of free time -Once he became a corporal he was allowed to check out a jeep from the motor pool -Used it to drive into Manila and into the nearby mountains -Took a tour of Corregidor (00:29:27) War Damage -The roads were in bad shape -Could tell that the Philippines were a war torn country -Living conditions were much better on the base than off the base -Civilians were living in primitive conditions (00:30:08) Filipino Civilians -Hired Filipino women to wash their laundry -They used stones and cold water to clean the clothes -Had to watch out for theft from the Filipino laborers used on the base -Had to search their bags when they went home at night -Allowed to take scrap food home -If they stole too much they lost their job -Filipinos he talked to were friendly -Filipinos didn't talk about what life was like during the Japanese occupation -Probably didn't want to relive those years -Most of the civilians he saw didn't have proper clothing and had definitely gone through a lot (00:32:25) Crime -No issues with gambling that he was aware of -There was probably prostitution going on around the base -Way for the Filipino women to support themselves (00:32:58) USO Shows -Saw USO Shows while in the Philippines -Entertainers would come to their compound and stay in the area for about two weeks -Perform at other nearby bases and camps -Doesn't recall seeing anyone famous, but got to meet the performers he did see -During basic training the singer, Lena Horne, performed for the men (00:34:25) Coming Home Pt. 1 -A lot of the senior enlisted men were being sent home -Men started to count their “points” -Points were awarded based on rank, length of service, and number of dependents -Once a soldier had enough points he was sent home -By the time he was ready to go home there wasn't much to do in the Philippines anyway -Men were encouraged to reenlist -Go home for 30 days then return to the Philippines for more service -Got two weeks advance notice before he knew he was going home (00:36:52) Filipino Independence Day -On July 4, 1946 the Philippines became an independent country -Remembers being in a crowd of Filipinos celebrating their new independence -They were excited about that �-Had been a Spanish colony, US territory, and under Japanese occupation (00:37:51) Coming Home Pt. 2 -Came back on a smaller ship -Ran into the tail end of hurricane -Rough voyage -Took 21 days to get back to the United States -Landed at Oakland, California -Brought into an enclosed area with beds, a mess hall, and a bowling alley -Got to have fresh milk and all the ice cream they wanted -Stayed in Oakland for one week -Sent to Camp Beale, California -When he arrived the base was already partially shut down -Waiting to be discharged -Discharged from there in the fall of 1946 (00:39:20) Life after the War -Returned to Michigan -Parents were getting ready to move to Florida, so he had nowhere to go -Brother was going to college at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan -Visited his brother and discovered that old high school friends were also attending -Had never entertained the idea of going to college -Brother and friends encouraged him to enroll -Enrolled at Ferris State University in November 1946 -Studied business management -Graduated in February or March 1950 -Worked for the IRS as a revenue agent in Muskegon, Michigan -Got married shortly after he graduated from college -Worked in Muskegon until 1973 then got transferred to Grand Rapids, Michigan -Met his wife on a blind date during college (00:43:00) Contact with Home during Service -Wrote to his mother -Occasionally wrote to his brothers and his step-brothers -Didn't get a lot of mail from home -Mother had to write to a lot of sons -She also didn't write English that well, so it was difficult for her to write letters (00:43:48) Spirit of Grand Rapids Honor Flight -Son encouraged him to go on the Spirit of Grand Rapids Honor Flight on May 16, 2015 -Felt it was an outstanding experience -Impressed by how organized and on time everything was -Greeted at Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport by a crowd of people -Completely taken aback that so many people would be greeting them so early in the morning -On May 15 he and the other veterans were treated to dinner at Thousand Oaks Country Club -Saw the national war memorials in Washington DC -Got to explore the World War II Memorial on his own with his son -Saw all of the monuments and memorials on the National Mall -Served dinner in a mess hall style in large WWII-era tents -Got back on the buses just as a rainstorm began -Only delay during the trip was due to the weather, not human error -Greeted at Gerald R. Ford International Airport by firetrucks giving them a salute with the hoses -Went to East Kentwood High School where thousands of people waited for them �-Thanked and honored for their service -Saw children as young as five years old and people as old as 80 years old -Grandchildren were there (00:50:15) Reflections on Service -Didn't enjoy all of his time in the Army, but is glad that he served -Impressed by how much people want to honor veterans for their service � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_VanDopW1926V Title A name given to the resource VanDop, William (Interview outline and video), 2016 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-02-23 Description An account of the resource William Van Dop was born in Muskegon Heights, Michigan on July 20, 1926. He was drafted in late summer 1944 and reported for duty in November 1944. He received basic training at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas then received his advanced training in Fort Ord, California. He boarded a troopship in late May/early June 1945 and sailed to Manila in the Philippines. He was assigned to Military Police duty on August 1, 1945 and worked at a base on Manila Bay. William was stationed in the Philippines until October 1946. He sailed back to the United States and was discharged at Camp Beale, California in fall 1946. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource VanDop, William Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ed8007adac6587e46e7918ee74f06340.mp4 579207fff8b287e63824161b7b732167 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0197c2702b9dc6a2823d06947980229c.pdf 6bca15a67283fb8b73ac09bedc5fbf1f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project William Vander Wall (1:39:36) (00:15) Background Information • • • • • William was born in Spring Lake, Michigan in 1922 He grew up during the depression and his family was very poor William went to high school in Grand Haven, but flunked out during his senior year in 1940 William began working for his father, but decided that he wanted to join the Marines after Pearl Harbor was attacked William was accepted into the Army on April 1, 1942 (4:45) Training in Tennessee • William began infantry training in Tennessee for six weeks • He was training as a gunner on a mortar squad • Later on his father advised him to get out of working as a gunner • William then volunteered to take part in amphibious training (11:00) Camp Edwards, Massachusetts for 2.5 months • William began amphibious training with mock landings on the coast every day starting at 6am • They each had to carry a large box full of sand, that simulated a package of ammunition • The coast was divided up between the Army and the Navy for training • They also worked on clearing mines and barbed wire to make way for tanks and trucks (16:30) Baltimore, Maryland • William was sent to Baltimore to help clean up the ship they were going to take overseas • The ship had been rammed and needed to be cleaned up and fixed • William had fun hanging out in Baltimore during his nights off (19:45) Trip Overseas • William had been living on the ship while they were loading and getting ready to leave • They left on October 19th towards North Africa with General Patton • There were two battalions on the ship, which was a troop transport ship called the USS Harrison • They had good sea weather with few submarine alerts and no attacks • William was given five books describing all the five areas they were planning on invading �(24:45) French Morocco • They ship landed on the beach and William was chosen to carry the flag, which was a bad idea because everyone was shooting in the flag • All the men were running off the ramp of the boat and they were being shot at by the Vichy French with machine guns • The men were stuck on the beach being shot at until tanks came in to help (31:50) Traveling Through Morocco • The men got past the shooting and ended up in a small town near Casablanca • They traveled through Casablanca and across North Africa without much opposition • William traveled through Algiers and Medennine; it was the first time he had ever seen any Arabs • They helped unload supplies in port towns while the US was getting ready for the invasion of Sicily (38:40) Sicily • William traveled with many others on an LST for three days • The weather was very stormy and William was sick the whole time • After landed in Sicily they established a beachhead and were not attacked during their landing • William remembered the first time he was very scared, July 10, 1943 when a German came flying and shooting at the men • The torpedo dropped seconds too quickly and hit the water, missing the LST • The men quickly traveled North towards Palermo and then went towards Messina • Many Italians gave up and were taken prisoner (48:30) Salerno Invasion September 15 • The Germans had known the Americans were coming and met them there on the beach • William arrived two days into the invasion with fading resistance • He helped bring in supplies into the devastated area while a bulldozer cleared the way for the men • They moved on into Naples to clear a port that had been blocked up by bombed ships (53:30) Anzio Invasion January 22 • This area was very wet and it was constantly raining • There was no resistance and they set up a beachhead, but were attacked by Germans later that night • They fought the Germans for five months before finally moving on • They began working in Anzio fixing devastation caused from fighting �• They area had been hit hard by German tanks and air raids (1:07:15) Rome • Rome was already an open city and the Germans had left heading North • The men spent two days touring Rome and relaxing • They then headed North for the Germans, but had to pull all the way back to Salerno again Where they began preparing for the invasion of Southern France (1:08:40) French Invasion • They traveled through Corsica and Sardinia with very nice weather • They then landed at Saint Rafael where they ran into some German resistance • A US LST was being bombarded by Germans and later blew up on the beach • The infantry continued to fight and some Germans began surrendering near the Rhone • German resistance continued near Alsace and Lorraine • They were fighting in December and it was very cold (1:18:50) Battle of the Bulge • William and others were moving towards the Battle, but were not aware of it • They were sleeping in an old abandoned German barracks when they were ordered to immediately move out • They traveled towards the battle, still unaware of it, and began blowing up roads to slow down any German movement (1:25:20) France • The men moved back into France and were preparing to cross the Rhone with the 85th pontoon outfit, which took 9.5 hours • They crossed the river and headed towards a labor concentration camp than built underground air craft • There were many Jews and women working there with dead bodies in the streets • They finally got news of the war’s end and headed to Marseilles to leave on a hospital ship � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_VanderWallW Title A name given to the resource Vander Wall, William (Interview outline and video), 2008 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-09-04 Description An account of the resource William Vander Wall was born in Spring Lake, Michigan in 1922. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, he was very anxious about joining the service and was accepted into the Army on April 1, 1942. William trained with a mortar squad in Tennessee and also went through amphibious training in Massachusetts. On October 19th, they left on the USS Harrison towards French Morocco. William proceeded to help in the invasions of Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, and Southern France. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vander Wall, William Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7ee00b9103001e3a6b61d094818491bc.mp4 5bcdb6a5b17d2465bcf23713612eb8f4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5227d4dc811205bd6d9e632c914b1f19.pdf 010778e74438462f1d32963de67c12c1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Jim Vanden Hout Vietnam War 1 hour 35 minutes 26 seconds (00:00:13) Early Life -Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on February 7, 1942 -Born in a “birthing home” not a hospital -Parents were laborers -His father worked on the railroad -His parents divorced when he was young -His mother went to work at a furniture factory -He was one of four children -He grew up in Lowell, Michigan -Played on the rivers there -It was a good town to just run around in and use your imagination -Had the Showboat and the 4H Fair for entertainment -Attended Lowell High School and graduated from there in 1960 (00:02:36) Adult Life -Tried college for one semester -Lost interest in college and left after that semester -He worked for his brother in law, Gurney Hahn, at Hahn Hardware Store -He got married and moved to Arizona with his wife where he worked for Continental Airlines -Moved back to Michigan and found work at Old Kent Bank (00:03:53) The Cold War -Remembers President Kennedy getting assassinated more than the Cuban Missile Crisis -He was living in Grand Rapids during the Cuban Missile Crisis -He remembers his step-father being on the Civil Air Patrol -Involved going to a shed with a telephone and watching the skies for planes -Report back the planes that you saw and where they were -Part of it was to look for Soviet aircraft -The other part was to just keep track of what planes were in the air -He did air raid drills in school -Remembers that the atomic bombs were still a fresh memory in the minds of average citizens -Remembers that during the Crisis there was the feeling that nuclear war could break out -He remembers the Kennedy assassination well -Everyone was shocked and upset by it -For two, or three, days businesses were shut down -Everyone stayed home and mourned the death of the president (00:09:02) Awareness of the Vietnam War -He initially didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Vietnam War -Americans had been in Vietnam aiding France for a while -So a U.S. presence wasn’t that surprising or newsworthy -Most people didn’t pay attention to Vietnam before it escalated in the 1960s �-Remembers hearing about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954) when France surrendered -Remembers that things didn’t get serious until the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 (00:11:44) Getting Drafted -He got divorced which made him eligible for the draft -Got drafted on January 22, 1968 -The Vietnam War had dramatically escalated by this time -He had been exempt because he had had a wife and children -He didn’t care that he was drafted -Felt adrift after losing his family -Wanted to do something new with his life -On February 7, 1968 he would have been twenty six years old -This would have made him ineligible for the draft -He boarded a bus in Grand Rapids on January 22 and went down to Detroit -Received an Army physical -Took an oath to defend the Constitution -He didn’t notice anyone trying to get out of being drafted at the time -Noticed some men in basic training that wanted to get out though (00:16:40) Basic Training -From Detroit he went directly to Fort Dix, New Jersey for basic training -They had to wear heavy clothes during training because it was still cold -It didn’t feel like preparation for Vietnam -He found basic training to be interesting -He had a brother that served in the Marines so he had an idea of what to prepare for -Being twenty five he was more willing to accept discipline and instruction -The focus in basic training was to work as a unit and to respond as a unit to orders -Given hygiene training and first aid training -Given rifle training with the M14 rifle -The physical training was designed to get everyone in shape together -The fat lost weight and the skinny gained weight -After completing basic training you felt a little cocky -Some of the recruits from Detroit decided to leave, and they were never caught -Also did some mental testing to see what his aptitude was -Most men were going to wind up in the infantry -His testing showed that he would be placed into a mortar crew -Not the infantry, but almost the same -The drill instructors in his training company had not been to Vietnam -Some of the other instructors had been though -Those that had automatically commanded respect -Basic training lasted ten weeks (00:23:47) Advanced Individual Training (AIT) -After basic training he was not given a leave home -He was sent to Fort Polk, Louisiana for AIT -Called “Little Vietnam” because of the climate and the focus of the training -If you went to Fort Polk you were going to go to Vietnam -He arrived at Fort Polk in mid-March 1968 -Went from winter to summer in an instant �-It was humid, there was a lot of vegetation, and there were a lot of hills -Very similar to Vietnam -The barracks and training facilities were old, wooden, and had been built in World War II -The mortar training was interesting -Not allowed to fire the mortars during training -Trained on how to set up, aim, and prepare a round to be fired -The aiming process involved a scope on the tripod of the mortar -Firing involved attaching a charge to a round to propel it out of the tube -The more charges you attached the farther the round will go -Almost all of the instructors had been to Vietnam -There were mock villages set up for training exercises -Taught how to conduct house searches and what to look for -Realistic training -He was exposed to the M60 machinegun, M79 grenade launcher, and the M16 assault rifle -The M16 is what he would use in Vietnam as opposed to the M14 -AIT lasted eight (to ten) weeks (00:31:00) Deployment to Vietnam -Given twenty days of leave including travel time before deploying to Vietnam -After about four months of being gone it didn’t feel like that much time -He went to Oakland Replacement Depot, California -You took all of your gear with you and then handed it over to the Army for shipping -Confined to a building called a “shipping shed” (similar to an auditorium) -Full of bunk beds and soldiers waiting to get deployed -Stayed in it for a few das waiting for his orders to deploy -Spent most of the days sleeping or getting something to eat -Not allowed to leave the shipping shed -He made a phone call home before leaving -Found people that he knew from AIT to talk to -Flew over to Vietnam on a chartered commercial airliner -En route stopped in Hawaii and Okinawa to refuel (00:35:38) Arrival in Vietnam -Arrived in Bien Hoa Airbase, Vietnam in May 1968 -Remembers that his first impression of Vietnam was that it was hot and humid -The hostesses were the last American women you would see for a while -Before leaving the plane men would give them various service pins and ribbons -The idea was that they would hold onto those things until the men came home -He went to another replacement station in Bien Hoa -Stayed there for four (or five days) -Waiting for his orders to join a unit (00:38:03) Joining the Americal Division (23rd Infantry Division) -From Bien Hoa he was flown up to Chu Lai to join the Americal Division (23rd Infantry) -The division had been formed on the island of New Caledonia during World War II -The men he joined had all trained together on Hawaii and went over to Vietnam as a unit -He started off in the mortar platoon of Echo Company, 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment -Echo Company also had the recon platoon and the radar platoon -Upon arrival he learned that the mortars they used were the 4.2 inch mortars �-Stationary because they were too heavy to carry -Dug into an emplacement on a base and manned by a crew there -This meant he wouldn’t have to go into the field too often, if at all -Also meant getting to sleep in a bed and eating hot food (00:43:45) Joining the Recon Platoon -Upon arrival his 1st Sergeant told him that the recon platoon was better than mortars -You didn’t have to fill sandbags or do other labor on the base -You were largely left alone on the base and in the field -No one had been killed or hurt yet -There was a good officer leading the platoon -He decided that the best thing to do would be to join the recon platoon so he did -When he joined the recon platoon he was considered the “FNG” -He hadn’t proven himself in combat yet -He was not welcomed with open arms -But because he had volunteered he wasn’t completely shunned either -He went out and joined his unit in the field where a firebase was being built -He helped dig bunkers and fill sandbags (00:46:40) Mission and Living Conditions in the Recon Platoon -Lived out of his backpack while in the field -Stayed in the field for extended periods of time and moved on foot -The mission for the recon platoon was to gather intelligence and report it back to the battalion -The objective was to do this without being seen by the enemy -They would fly into an area by helicopter -After leaving the landing zone they would patrol that area for two or three days -Afterwards one of two things would happen: -Half the time they would get picked up by a helicopter -Other half of the time they would be ordered to walk to a new area and patrol it -At the start of each day they would find a place to leave their backpack and conduct patrols -At night they would come back to that spot and pick up their backpack -They were operating north of Chu Lai and south of Da Nang (00:51:12) Enemy Contact -When they had contact with enemy soldiers it was mostly North Vietnamese and not Viet Cong -They were operating closer to the demilitarized zone (border of North Vietnam) -The Viet Cong had been effectively wiped out during the Tet Offensive -Remembers that their first contact was probably an ambush at a river crossing -Didn’t see the enemy every day -Part of this was because as a recon platoon their job was to avoid enemy contact -They would occasionally get sniped at by Viet Cong soldiers -His platoon was never in a major fight -Mostly small and quick firefights (00:53:55) Interactions with Vietnamese Civilians and Armed Forces -They would run into members of the South Vietnamese Popular Force -Pro-American militiamen that guarded local bridges and their villages -Never encountered South Vietnamese Army units in the field -The militias were primarily just defending the areas that they lived in -The Popular Force was worthless as a fighting force �-They were operating in an area inhabited by the Montagnard people -Never made direct contact with them -Only saw where they had made camp -The Montagnards mostly kept to themselves -They weren’t enemies of either party -Probably weren’t aware of what the war was even about (00:56:40) Downtime in the Rear -Very rarely got back to a rear area -Most soldiers in Vietnam spent upwards of ninety days in the field without a break -They would occasionally go to a base in the rear for a stand down -It was a chance to clean up -Chance to drink beer, eat steak, there was plenty of marijuana, music, and movies -Stand downs only lasted about two or three days (00:58:25) Racial Tensions, Drug Use, and Morale Problems -There were only two black soldiers in his unit -One was in the recon platoon and he knew him from advanced individual training -The other one worked on the firebase in supply -They were both good men -Remembers that everything in his unit was friendly between black and white soldiers -Most problems came up in the rear, or were worse in the rear -The enemy did not discriminate, they shot at everyone equally -As a result, soldiers in the field worked together regardless of race to survive -Drugs weren’t a major problem in the recon platoon -Marijuana was widely available in the country -You could buy a pack of marijuana cigarettes for $1 -It grew everywhere -Men didn’t smoke it in the field, or if they did it wasn’t often -Officers turned a blind eye to marijuana use in the rear -Remembers that the beer drinkers were loud and aggressive -It was more relaxing to be with the men that were smoking marijuana -He smoked once in the field and never did it again -It made him feel tired and helpless -Only smoked it two or three times while in the rear -He never enjoyed alcohol because it tended to make him sick -Never heard of “fragging” in his battalion -Fragging: intentional killing of an inept or overbearing superior officer -After their original lieutenant left the new lieutenant was not received well by some men -There was talk of “dealing with him” but nothing ever came of it (01:08:05) R&R to Malaysia -He went to Penang, Malaysia for his R&R -It was not a popular place to go like Japan, Australia, or Hawaii -He went with his platoon’s medic -Stopped in Thailand -It only lasted four or five days -It was chance to get some good food, sleep in a good bed, play golf, drink, and see women -On returning from R&R he had a feeling that he was going to die in Vietnam �-He took the R&R in December 1968 -Missed the Bob Hope Christmas Show (01:11:28) Bronze Star -A bronze star was awarded for either meritorious service or for valor -He was awarded a bronze star for meritorious service -The commendation was based on good work in a combat zone -Because he was a sergeant he was awarded the bronze star -If he was a lower rank he would have received the Army Commendation Medal (01:13:44) Getting Wounded -Prior to getting wounded his platoon had been operating near the Laotian border -They were completely alone and outside of artillery support -They were monitoring the Ho Chi Minh Trail -They had been dropped into a landing zone that was covered in elephant grass -Had to walk through triple canopy jungle -Found a hardened dirt trail that went through the jungle -Not a good sign because it was a sign that the area was used by somebody -Once they got to a clearing they were picked up and taken to a firebase -They were placed on bunker security to guard the perimeter of the firebase -While he was there a major engagement occurred just beyond the firebase -Remembers seeing wounded and dead soldiers carried back to the base -After a few days the fighting died down -His recon platoon was charged with going out and tracking down the remaining enemy troops -On the patrol they came to a rice paddy that had a dike -It was easier to walk on the dike, but more dangerous to -The first squad made it through without incident -Second squad (his squad) did not -The man in front of him tripped an explosive booby trap which severely wounded Jim -He was taken by medevac to the firebase and stabilized there -From there he was taken to a surgical hospital in Chu Lai -He was conscious through the whole thing -He had been peppered with shrapnel and his corroded artery had been nicked as well (01:21:04) Evacuation and Recovery -After being stabilized he was sent to a surgical hospital in Japan -He was wounded on January 23, 1969 -He spent a week in Japan -From Japan he was sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington D.C. -Stayed there for a few weeks and was able to get a leave home (01:22:05) End of Service -After recovering he was sent to Fort Carson, Colorado to the 10th Mechanized Infantry -He still had ten months left to serve -He was afraid that he would get sent back to Vietnam to complete his tour there -Fortunately he was no longer considered fit to be in a combat zone -He initially worked in the motor pool then became the company armorer -Repairing the various weapons for the company -He was discharged from the Army on January 22, 1970 �(01:24:05) Coming Home & Life after the War -He returned to Grand Rapids and continued to work at Old Kent Bank -Upon returning home he wasn’t harassed by protestors -He didn’t have problems readjusting to civilian life -Credits this to being older and to being able to go back to his old job -Most of his coworkers were interested to hear about Vietnam (01:28:17) Veterans’ Groups and Associations -Upon returning home he wasn’t welcomed home by the VFW or American Legion -Felt that was tasteless considering they were supposed to support returning veterans -Member of the Disabled American Veterans -He has had no problems with the Veterans’ Administration -They have been helpful getting him any necessary medication -Part of that may be attributed to the fact that he is considered 40% disabled -Remembers when he first visited they measured his scars -Part of seeing what he qualified for in terms of assistance (01:31:54) Reflections on Service -Vietnam was a profound life moment that couldn’t be duplicated -He wouldn’t volunteer to do it, but he was glad that he didn’t miss the experience -Feels that new veterans have a more difficult time -Due to the fact that they have to get redeployed multiple times as opposed to once -Doesn’t feel that he has any major psychological scars from his wartime experience -He didn’t see any close friends killed in front of him -Believes that because he was older he was better off than the younger men -For some of them it was their first major life experience and it scarred them � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_VandenHoutJ1731V Title A name given to the resource Vanden Hout, James (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-02-12 Description An account of the resource Jim Vanden Hout is a Vietnam War veteran who was born on February 7, 1942 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. When he was twenty five he was drafted into the Army on January 22, 1968. He received training at Fort Dix, New Jersey and Fort Polk, Louisiana before being deployed to Vietnam in May 1968. He was sent to Chu Lai where he was assigned to Echo Company of the 4th Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment of the Americal Division (23rd Infantry Division). He momentarily served with the mortar platoon before volunteering to join the recon platoon. He conducted numerous patrols in the area between Chu Lai and Da Nang and near the Laotian border. On January 23, 1969 he was wounded in combat and was ultimately evacuated to the United States. He finished his service at Fort Carson, Colorado and was discharged on January 22, 1970. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vanden Hout, James Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jones, Adam (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/28ce446056b9987ad55412af983ab6f8.mp4 cff89701cec9485d6c8585cf3bea8b05 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6d8fa7d382db7aca0b67990821856f8f.pdf 06162bfa2d2aa38515a131493e1545e2 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Chuck VanCleve Vietnam War 1 hour 38 minutes 55 seconds (00:00:17) Early Life -Born in Linwood, California in 1950 -Grew up in Linwood -His father had a company that produced silicone products -He had flown with the Flying Tigers in China during WWII -Chuck’s older brother and sister were born during the war -Found work with Pan-Am -He got his GED after getting into the Army in 1968 -He had changed high schools during senior year -The different school had a different system which made him fall behind -He just wanted to get out of high school and get into the Army (00:02:38) Enlisting and Basic Training -Enlisted in the Army on May 6, 1968 -Didn’t know a lot about what was happening in Vietnam -Raised in a patriotic household and grew up around WWII heroes -Joining the military seemed like the only sensible option -He wanted to get right into service, so the fastest route was to join the Army -Went to Los Angeles for his Army physical -Went to Fort Ord, California for basic training -The introduction to basic training was rough -He had been prepared for any eventuality though, so it wasn’t too shocking -Decided to go through basic training with a compliant attitude -Lots of the trainees were uncooperative -Trained alongside enlisted men as well as draftees -There was a racial divide between the black and white soldiers -Each race would form their own group and associated exclusively with their own race -Trainers actually encouraged the division and the attention -Felt it would be good for competition between soldiers and for entertainment -Enjoyed watching the recruits get into fights -He was disappointed about the lack of camaraderie and teamwork -Basic training lasted eight weeks (00:07:51) Overview of Advanced Individual Training and Officer Candidate School -Went to AIT and also qualified to go into OCS -His specialization was selected for him and it was going to be field artillery -Went to AIT at Fort Sill, Oklahoma -After AIT went into OCS -He was the youngest officer candidate -During AIT trained with 105mm and 155mm howitzers -Trained on how to set up the guns, load them, and then fire them �-Consisted of a lot of classroom work as well as physical work -Received more small arms weapons training while in AIT -There was still some physical training -The area around Fort Sill was rugged, cold, and windy -There was a greater degree of freedom in AIT -AIT was a better experience than basic training -The trainers never really emphasized anything that would be particularly helpful in Vietnam -Worked with a better group of men in AIT -Attributes that to field artillery AIT requiring a higher aptitude -Didn’t maintain any friendships in AIT though -AIT lasted eight weeks (00:12:49) Details of Officer Candidate School -He took his artillery OCS at Fort Sill -The upper classmen would verbally harass the lower classmen -Get in your face and scream at you -OCS lasted six months -OCS consisted primarily of classroom work -It was difficult for him because of how much work was done in the classroom -The content itself was easy for him though because he was good at math -Started training at dawn -Got up, got showered, and got dressed in fifteen minutes -Did some physical training -Went to the mess hall for breakfast -Did a five mile run up and then down a hill -Ten hours of classroom work for the rest of the day -Days started at 5 AM and ended at 7 PM -A high percentage of the candidates washed out or were kicked out -During OCS he was given more hands on, practical experience with artillery -Taught how to call in artillery on a position -Worked primarily with 105mm howitzers and got some limited training with 155mm howitzers -Given weekends off as he got closer to completing OCS -There wasn’t much to do in Oklahoma for entertainment -It was just enjoyable to get off base, get a hotel room, and buy some McDonald’s -He was the youngest candidate in his OCS class -Still able to go to the noncommissioned officers’ club on base and drink though -Never had any major doubts about enlisting in the Army -He was totally committed to seeing it through to completion -At the end of OCS he signed up to go on to helicopter school -He was colorblind but was still able to get into the school -Wound up washing out at the end of the school due to his colorblindness -Couldn’t pick out safe terrain for an emergency landing -Completed OCS on June 17, 1969 (00:25:09) Helicopter School -Helicopter School was at Fort Walters, Texas -He was able to complete the entire course, but had to wash out on the final check ride -Due to aforementioned colorblindness �-Course lasted ninety days -Most of the trainees were warrant officers; he was only one of a few commissioned officers -During Helicopter School he was still the youngest officer -It was a much different environment than the other training courses that he had completed -Allowed to live off of base -Learning to fly a helicopter was the easy part -The hardest part of the school was the classroom work -He feels that he may have been too young to handle the work -The navigation classes were easy for him though (00:29:18) Jungle Training -After washing out of Helicopter School he went back to being an artillery officer -He was sent to Jungle Training in Panama -He had been called by a colonel at the Pentagon and was offered three choices -Go to Fort Lewis, Germany, or Vietnam -He wanted to go to Fort Lewis, Washington because his godfather lived there -At the last minute he was told that he was in fact being sent to Vietnam -Remembers being taught how to kill a chicken with his bare hands in Jungle Training -Panama was a hot and humid country -Trained during the monsoon season which didn’t help that at all -Feels that Jungle Training was at least somewhat helpful in preparing him for Vietnam (00:34:11) Deployment to Vietnam -After completing Jungle Training he was given three weeks of leave home -Able to spend Christmas 1969 with his family -Reported to San Francisco and flew out of there -Landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, South Vietnam -Stayed there for only one night -From Tan Son Nhut he was sent up to Camp Eagle to join the 101st Airborne Division -Transported there via Huey helicopter -Stayed in Camp Eagle for one night -The night that he was there the Vietnamese broke through the perimeter -Remembers that it was chaotic and a memorable introduction to Vietnam -The next day he was taken by truck to Camp Evans (00:36:41) Joining His Unit -At Camp Evans he was given a short orientation -After that he was assigned to his unit -B Company 2nd Battalion 319th Field Artillery Regiment 101st Airborne Division -Attached to D Company 2nd Battalion 506th Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne -Both of which were based out of Camp Evans -He met the men that would be in his battery and then flew out to Firebase Jack -Joined D Company at Firebase Jack and met Captain Rollison -He would serve as the forward artillery observer for Captain Rollison -He would call in artillery during a firefight if necessary -He would also calculate the coordinates for an artillery strike -He would also call in defensive fire at night around their perimeter -The goal of that being to drive away the North Vietnamese �(00:41:31) Operating in the Field -If they established a new camp for the night, or cut a new trail he wouldn’t call in defensive fire -That was only used if they had been using old trails, or a previously used camp site -They would go into the jungle for a few weeks then return to Firebase Jack for a couple weeks -He stayed with D Company for about five and a half months -While in D Company he served under Captain Rollison and Captain Hewitt -He liked Captain Hewitt well enough -Captain Rollinson is the one that taught Hewitt to set up a hammock at night to sleep in -This advice wound up leading to Hewitt getting killed on Hill 902 -Before Firebase Ripcord they spent most of their time operating around Firebase Jack -Patrolled the jungle around Jack for about two months -During those two months didn’t see any significant action -Occasionally ran into an enemy soldier and killed him, but that was about it (00:46:15) Being a Forward Observer -He was complacent being an artillery forward observer -He was detached from the rest of the company with a radio operator -Further away from a large force meant not attracting so much attention (00:47:38) Firebase Ripcord and Reassignment to C Company -Went to Firebase Ripcord for a stand down in late June 1970 -He was only one week away from an R&R -It felt good to be back on Ripcord -Chance to relax and eat some decent food -Only stayed at Ripcord for one night -He was reassigned to C Company 2nd Battalion 506th Infantry Regiment -Flew out and joined them on Hill 902 on July 1, 1970 -By the time he got to C Company it was late in the day and had to work on limited time -Had to call in defensive fire and dig a substantial foxhole before nightfall -Hill 902 was an oval hill that had its “points” going east and west -It was also incredibly close to Ripcord which meant 105mm howitzers couldn’t be used -Instead had to rely on Ripcord’s mortars which were ineffective in the jungle -His foxhole was forty feet away from Captain Hewitt’s position -At the time Hill 902 was being used as an observation post for Ripcord’s artillery -C Company had used the landing zone the previous night and was staying the same place -A major strategic error because the North Vietnamese knew where to find them -Hewitt had made camp in a place on Hill 902 where he was completely exposed to enemy fire (00:56:44) Battle of Hill 902 Pt. 1 -On the morning of July 2, 1970 Chuck was on radio watch -Communicating with platoons that were camped around Hill 902 and with Ripcord -It was a one man watch and was considered part of the command post -He was monitoring the radio when a call came in from the perimeter that there was movement -Told the caller to confirm that it was enemy movement -One minute later the caller confirmed that it was North Vietnamese troops -Chuck ordered the caller to detonate his claymore antipersonnel landmine -Caller reported that the claymores did not detonate and had been disarmed -Chuck started to move to his foxhole when the rocket propelled grenade barrage happened -He was wounded in his hand but was still able to function �-He collected his radios and his rifle and got set up in his foxhole -He didn’t know that Captain Hewitt had been killed in the RPG barrage -Learned from a medic named Cafferty that Hewitt was dead (01:05:09) Battle of Hill 902 Pt. 2 -He started calling in artillery fire directing the American barrage to the eastern edge of Hill 902 -This was the sector that had been breached and was closest to Firebase Ripcord -The mortars would fire in flares, but they didn’t last long and were mostly ineffective -He tried to call in “beehive” antipersonnel rounds -Used exclusively if a position was overrun, and C Company was overrun -The NVA had broken through the perimeter and were starting to throw satchel charges -During the fighting accepted that he was probably going to die and kept doing his duty -A satchel charge fell into his foxhole, but the fuse went out and it didn’t explode -At one point Huey helicopters flew in and started dropping flares to provide light -At this point Chuck is coordinating the helicopters as well as artillery fire -In the middle of this all Major Koenigsbauer radios in and wants to know what’s going on -The major was being largely unhelpful and kept asking for unnecessary updates -Chuck orders the major to get off of the radio -Believes that this is why Koenigsbauer would later resent him -During the fight he had to set down his radios and pick up his rifle and start shooting -The North Vietnamese were mere feet from his position -As the fighting began to die down Ripcord radioed in and told him to redirect the mortar fire -He refused because it meant leaving his foxhole which would get him killed -His getting killed would be a dereliction of duty -Since Hewitt was dead he was now the acting company commander -The total fighting lasted for forty minutes -After the initial RPG barrage the intensity began to taper off -The majority of enemy fire they received was explosives (01:19:38) Battle of Hill 902 Pt. 3 -After the fighting stopped they were ordered to hold their positions until daybreak -There was concern that there would be a second attack -At daybreak they started looking for American and North Vietnamese survivors -Collect the American survivors and look for surviving North Vietnamese -Chuck ordered all undetonated grenades and satchel charges to be placed in one foxhole -Didn’t want to run the risk of an explosive going off and causing unnecessary casualties -Oversaw the collection of American and North Vietnamese dead -Stacked each in a separate pile to be sorted out later -Remembers throwing half of Hewitt onto a medevac and being frustrated -Hewitt had been blown in half during the RPG barrage -Chuck refused to leave the landing zone until a replacement for him was flown in -Remembers the medic, Cafferty, tending to the wounded even though he was shell shocked -Remembers that the first helicopters that came in were the medevacs -At the end of the counting learned that only twelve North Vietnamese had been killed -Frustrated because he feels that there should have been more dead (01:25:25) Leaving Vietnam and Coming Home -He was evacuated from Hill 902 to Firebase Ripcord for a debriefing -They started taking incoming fire and so he was moved again �-Went to Camp Evans to debrief with B Company of the 2nd/319th -After the debriefing he was sent to the hospital in Camp Evans -While there he was awarded the Purple Heart -Also told he would be put in for the Distinguished Service Cross -He would have rather just had the Combat Infantry Badge -He recommended that Cafferty get the Silver Star -Felt he was due for that for doing his duty even while being in shock -From Vietnam he was sent to Kanazawa, Japan -From Japan he was sent to William Beaumont Hospital at Fort Bliss, Texas -The first phase of treating the wounds in his hand lasted six months -Consisted of physical therapy and massage -Once he had healed enough he was assigned to be a Reserve Officer Training Corps trainer -He had two operations on his hand, both of which were unsuccessful (01:30:20) End of Service -He was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma to be with the Headquarters Company there -After a short time he returned to Fort Bliss for a third operation which was successful this time -He was reassigned to Fort Bliss to act as an ROTC instructor there -While at Fort Bliss he began to exhibit signs of post-traumatic stress disorder -He started having trouble with money -He couldn’t relate with the men on base, because they hadn’t been to Vietnam -He was still the youngest officer on Fort Bliss -He began to see therapists at Fort Bliss, but unfortunately they had no effect on him -In 1974 his commitment with the Army was up and he left the military (01:33:13) Life after the Army -He got a job through Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker -He had a lot of trouble just sitting behind a desk and answering phones all day -He also had trouble relating with his coworkers -After leaving Merrill Lynch he met a man who wanted to start a swimming pool company -Started the company and moved on to doing landscaping and then on to building houses -He felt much better working outside and actually meeting people to do business with -Remembers that their first project wound up being a 48,000ft2 house in Acapulco -After coming home his family noticed and addressed that he needed help -He was distant and exhibiting signs of alcoholism -He didn’t want to go to the VA (Veterans’ Affairs) or have anything to do with the military -Started seeing independent psychologists -He was diagnosed as being an alcoholic -Told that he could have one drink per night to help keep it in check -The PTSD wasn’t addressed until later -He got married and got divorced twice -Just really felt that he needed some kind of companionship -He eventually went to the VA to receive help for his PTSD -He also met and befriended men who were also suffering from PTSD that had been to Vietnam -One of his friends was a colonel that served as a psychiatrist for the Navy SEALs (01:38:03) Reflections on Service -The Army helped him learn that he was a leader -In a way he already knew that, but his service just cemented that and exemplified it � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_VanCleveC1677V Title A name given to the resource Van Cleve, Charles (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-11 Description An account of the resource Chuck VanCleve was born in Lynwood, California in 1950. He grew up in Lynwood, California and enlisted in the Army on May 6, 1968. He qualified for officer training despite his young age, and received his commission on June 17, 1969, and went to Helicopter School at Fort Walters, Texas. He completed the entire course, but was forced to wash out on the final check ride due to colorblindness. From there he went to Jungle Training in Panama to prepare for a deployment to Vietnam. Upon completing that he was sent to Vietnam in late 1969. After travelling to Camp Eagle he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and travelled from there to Camp Evans where he was assigned to B Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 319th Field Artillery Regiment attached to D Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Infantry Regiment as a forward observer for artillery. He served under Captain Rollinson and took part in patrols of the area around Firebase Jack and later around Firebase Ripcord. On July 1, 1970 he was reassigned to C Company of the 2nd of the 506th under the command of Captain Hewitt. On July 2nd Hill 902 came under attack by North Vietnamese forces and he was wounded in the initial rocket barrage. Despite being wounded he assumed the role of acting company commander (Captain Hewitt was killed immediately in the barrage) and directed mortar fire and flares to ward off the North Vietnamese onslaught. After the battle he was evacuated to Camp Evans where he was awarded the Purple Heart and later the Distinguished Service Cross and then eventually to Japan and finally to Fort Bliss, Texas to receive treatment for the wound on his hand, and served as an ROTC instructor at Fort Sill, Oklahoma until he left the Army in 1974. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Van Cleve, Charles Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2d88727073214362a279453842b30deb.mp4 53d98020d50acb6332010adbe2947811 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5e739863199a53d9aacf095e39f97471.pdf 183ad761a0dc0a57d1928a0b530817b7 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project James Turner Cold War 1 hour 36 minutes 33 seconds (00:00:13) Early Life -Born on March 8, 1940 in Guntown, Mississippi -One of 13 children -Moved to Missouri when he was four years old -Lived there for one year -Moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan when he was five years old -Family of migrant workers -Lucrative fruit farms in Benton Harbor area -Older brothers worked in the automotive industry -Father got a factory job at Superior Steel -Went to school in Benton Harbor -In the summers the family went down to Missouri to pick cotton -Came back late to school near the end of October every year -Attended a one room school for kindergarten through the sixth grade -Went to Bard Elementary School in Benton Harbor -Had to repeat the fifth grade because of missing some of school due to work -No program to make up school work -Remembers some student that had to repeat eighth grade -One brother was 17 years old and still in the ninth grade -Left school and joined the military -Enjoyed working in Missouri as a child -Taught him to love work -Coincidentally, he wound up working at Bard Elementary School in 1995 -Remembers the family member that picked the most cotton got an additional 50 cents -Sometimes he got the 50 cents, but wound up sharing it with his brothers and sisters -Visited New Madrid, Missouri on the weekends when the family was in Missouri -Always a lot of fun -Remembers a huge flood in Missouri -Only a barn on a hill escaped the flood -Remembers over one hundred people staying in the barn to escape the water (00:07:29) Race Relations Pt. 1 -Too young to be aware of racial tensions in Missouri -Black and white people worked the cotton fields together -Bard Elementary School was integrated -Slightly more black students than white students -Best friend was a white boy -Killed in a hunting accident (00:09:18) Early Life Pt. 2 -Graduated from Benton Harbor High School -Played basketball at Bard Elementary School -Played with Chet Walker, now in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame -James is featured in a photo in a book about Chet Walker �-Lived in the government housing projects (government apartments) in Benton Harbor -Good place to live at the time and better than living on a farm (indoor plumbing for one thing) -Remembers a lot of friends lived in the apartments -Had sports teams for recreation -Played tennis at Hall Park -Curiosity in the 1950s for black people to play tennis -Went on to play tennis at Lake Michigan College and in the Air Force -He was the first black captain of the junior varsity basketball team -Only lasted one week due to local political pressure -Played football in the summers -Remembers one boy began to hate James after James critiqued his passing abilities -He became the starting running back in junior varsity high school football team -When he was in the upper class he got snubbed for a varsity position because of local politics -When he was in the Air Force he played basketball -Played against a team from the Greenland air base -The kid that hated him played on the Greenland air base team -Graduated from high school in 1958 -Tried to enlist in the Army -Rejected due to high blood pressure -Went to Lake Michigan College -At the time it was called “Benton Harbor Community College & Technical Institute” -Graduated from there after two years (00:20:23) Enlisting in the Air Force -Enlisted in the Air Force after graduating from college -Sneaked in a pencil to change his blood pressure records -Went on to have a successful, 20 year career in the Air Force -Having high blood pressure never gave him any problems (00:21:39) Racial Relations Pt. 2 -Racial tension caused stress which led to high blood pressure -Wasn't a problem when he was overseas due to a more integrated environment -Experienced racism and tension at Benton Harbor High School -More white students coming in from the surrounding area -This led to black students being the minority -By the 1980s the black students were the majority -Didn't have a black professor until he got to Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, Texas -Remembers black teachers and their families moving up to Benton Harbor -As time progressed, jobs vanished, followed by government programs, which led to poverty (00:27:11) Chaplain's Assistant & Military Police in the Air Force -When he first went into the Air Force he wanted to be in the Military Police -Guaranteed he would get that position by the recruiter -Got to Lackland Air Force Base and was told he would go into administration, not MP -Future brother-in-law advised him to talk to Representative Henry B. Gonzalez -Talked to the general at Lackland Air Force Base on James's behalf -While he was waiting to hear about the MP position he helped in the chapel -Learned that there were positions available to help in the chapel and help the chaplain -Went to a technical school to serve as a chaplain's assistant -When he was in Turkey he conducted tours of the Holy Land and other religious locations -Retraced the path of St. Paul's first missionary journey -Visited Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the Church of Antioch, Nazareth, and Mount Ararat �-Stood on the banks of the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile Rivers -Surreal to be in places he'd learned about in school -Eventually sent to a university after he returned from Turkey -Studied police administration, law enforcement security, and correction -Went through Officer Training and the Police Academy -Served as the project officer when Bunker Hill Air Force Base became Grissom Air Force Base -Remembers being there on April 4, 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated -After Dr. King's assassination racial tensions flared at the base -A black airman and a white airman got into a fist fight -They were brought before him which led to an idea -Started the first ever human relations council and race relations program (00:34:01) Basic Training -Enjoyed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base -Whole life changed in a matter of days -Had never had that kind of structure -Only two other black recruits in his training flight -Technical sergeant was a “redneck,” but he made sure everyone was treated equally -Everyone looked the same regardless of race when they had shaved heads and uniforms -Everyone had to meet certain standards -If you couldn't keep up you were discharged -Enjoyed the sense of fairness -He was placed in charge of the men cleaning the latrines -Didn't mind washing dishes when he pulled kitchen patrol duty -Always wanted to work on the pots and pans -Nobody ever bothered him when he cleaned pots and pans -Pots and pans shined when he was done -Gratifying to see immediate results of a job well done (00:39:35) Race Relations Pt. 3 -Received race relations training in the Air Force -In 1971 the Department of Defense created the Defense Race Relations Institute -James worked there which led to getting selected to work in the Nixon administration -Assistant to President Nixon's secretary of defense -Told James race relations were so bad in the military national security was at stake -Race relations classes lasted 40 hours for one week -Had to repeat the classes if necessary -Helped the Department of Defense become the first government institute to integrate race and gender -Military has become an environment where race relations can be successful (00:42:33) Benton Harbor School Board & Race Relations -He is now a member of the Benton Harbor School Board -Benton Harbor's high school football team had only won 22 games in 13 years -Had lived in Texas for 13 years -Knew the new coach and the athletic director -First game of the season (away) the team lost -Next game was at home, and the team won -Won the game after that, and the game after that -Boys on the team regained their confidence -Some of the black people in Benton Harbor didn't like having a white coach -He defended the coach because he helped the boys regain the confidence -Victories brought the community together again �-Brought in people from the surrounding area that had gone to Benton Harbor High School (00:49:50) Service as a Chaplain's Assistant Pt. 1 -Chaplain's assistant does clerical work for the chaplain -Laid vestments out for priest (he is Catholic) -Conducted mass a few times because the chaplain was not available -Chapel conducted Dynamic Moral Leadership courses for personnel on the base -Everyone had to go to those classes -Played films about scenarios then discussed the scenarios -Inspired him to get into race relations and human relations work in the Air Force -Showed him that communication was key to dealing with issues (00:52:56) Race Relations Pt. 4 -Best race relations classes were when airmen were open and honest in the discussions -Worked with a master sergeant to help teach the airmen -Remembers a white sergeant that complained about things during Black History Month -Felt Soul Food should be called “Southern Food” because he ate it growing up too -Why did the base have to play “black music” during Black History Month? -In another class they discussed interracial marriage -Same racist sergeant from earlier opposed to interracial marriage -One female airman said her fiance was a black man -Sergeant went to the other end of the room to be away from her -Remembers a black airman saying it was always difficult for him to encounter a “good” white person -Felt like he was supposed to unconditionally hate white people -Taught 10,000 personnel during his time in race relations -Saw it as a war he had to fight with the people (00:58:15) Patriotism & Black Veterans Pt. 1 -In 2010 he started to work with black Americans on patriotism -Started the Glad to be American National Association -Trying to teach black Americans to participate and be proud of being American -Remembers running into an old friend that was a black veteran, but he never showed it -He didn't feel patriotic because he fought alongside other black soldiers and white soldiers -Came home to racism, discrimination, and police brutality -On the anniversary of 9/11 he conducts a commemoration at Benton Harbor High School -Lowers the flag to half mast at the time when the first jet hit the first tower -Had 500 people come for the commemoration (01:02:36) Terrorism in Europe -Worked as the police chief in Spain then worked at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany -Stationed in Germany from 1976 to 1978 -Dealt with the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Red Brigades -Terrorist groups robbed banks and carried out bombings -Assassinated a German industrialist -Hijacked a Lufthansa airliner -The terrorists wanted to get a hold of American “special weapons” at Spangdahlem Air Base -James was responsible for keeping the terrorists off the base -Stressful because his family and other American families lived on the base -Served as the terrorist threat liaison at Spangdahlem Air Base -Worked with local German police and the FBI -Difficult job -In Turkey he worked with Muslims when he was a chaplain's assistant -The Muslims admired him and some of the men wanted him to convert to Islam �-They explained, in 1965, that they were going to kill all Christians and Westerners -Shocked him that they felt that way -Saw their plans come to fruition on September 11, 2001 -Which in turn made him want to memorialize 9/11 in a formal way -Now he talks about his firsthand experiences with terrorism and terrorist mentalities (01:09:58) Stationed in Spain & American Bicentennial -He was in Spain from 1971 to 1976 -Started off working with the police then moved on to race relations -At the time American citizens living off the base could not fly the American flag -Even on July 4th -He reached out to the Spanish government because America's Bicentennial was fast approaching -Felt Americans ought to be able to celebrate their country's bicentennial -Knew someone who worked closely with King Juan Carlos I and General Francisco Franco -Told James he could talk to those men about the flag issue -On July 4, 1976, the Spanish government allowed Americans to fly the American flag (01:14:30) Patriotism & Black Veterans Pt. 2 -When he was a young recruit he laughed at older veterans that got emotional about patriotism -Now, he understands and feels the same way -Numerous black Americans have fought for the United States since the Revolutionary War -One of his uncles fought in World War I -An older brother fought in World War II -Received five Bronze Stars and had a metal plate in his head from wound he sustained -Three of his older brothers fought in the Korean War (01:17:57) Serving at the University of Michigan -Served as assistant professor of aerospace studies at the University of Michigan with the Air Force -Recruited minority students and minority students from the Detroit area -Talked to black high school students from Detroit -They excelled at math, but didn't believe in their abilities -Enjoyed working at the University of Michigan -Met with the governor of Michigan and state representatives (01:20:30) Work Ethic -Mother and sisters worked for the Whirlpool Corporation -Saw billboards in Europe advertising Whirlpool products -Proud that his relatives helped make that corporation successful -Parents and older siblings taught him to work hard and have aspirations (01:24:36) Service as a Chaplain's Assistant Pt. 2 -Worked as chaplain's assistant in New York -Wound up in the film The Hustler -Asked if he wanted to be in the movie as an extra -Movie wound up winning an Academy Award -He made $600 or $700 from working in the movie (01:26:46) Connection to the Tuskegee Airmen -Felt a powerful connection to the Tuskegee Airmen -Has met white bomber crewmen that were protected by the Tuskegee Airmen -Swore by those pilots -Knew the famous black flying ace Lt. Colonel Lee Archer -James's basketball coach at Stewart Air Force Base in New York -Made James the captain of the basketball team -Said that James should strive to become a captain in the Air Force �-Eventually became an officer in the Air Force (01:28:59) Becoming an Officer -First time he saw a black officer was at Stewart Air Force Base, New York -James introduced himself to the officer and they wound up talking for quite a while -Officer invited James to continue the conversation in his office -When they entered the law enforcement building everyone stood and saluted the officer -After he graduated from the police academy he reported for duty with the Military Police -Walked into the law enforcement building and everyone stood and saluted James -Never thought that he would be an officer -Black officer and Lt. Colonel Archer inspired him to become an officer (01:33:20) Work at Eastern Michigan University Pt. 1 -Took terminal leave from the University of Michigan to work at Eastern Michigan University -Interim minority affairs officer (01:33:54) Vandenberg Air Force Base -Prior to taking terminal leave from the University of Michigan he worked at Vandenberg AFB -His flight came in last in every competition and every field of study -He managed to turn them around and make them the first in everything (01:35:27) Work at Eastern Michigan University Pt. 2 -When he worked at Eastern Michigan University he received university and Air Force pay -Thought it was luck, but in reality it was because he worked so hard � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_TurnerJ1909V Title A name given to the resource Turner, James F.A. (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-12-08 Description An account of the resource James Turner was born on March 8, 1940 in Guntown, Mississippi. When he was five years old his family moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan. In 1960 (approximately) he enlisted in the Air Force. He received basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. After that he served as chaplain's assistant both in the United States and in Turkey where he conducted tours of the Holy Land and holy sites in the area. He went on to receive Officer Training and training from the Police Academy and got into the Military Police of the Air Force. He served in Spain as part of the Military Police and at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany where he dealt with the Baader Meinhof Gang and Red Brigades (terrorist groups). He also served at Stewart Air Force Base, New York and at Bunker Hill Air Force Base, Indiana (now Grissom Air Force Base). During his 20 year career in the Air Force he also helped establish human relations courses and race relations courses, specifically with the Department of Defense and President Nixon's Secretary of Defense. He concluded his Air Force career at the University of Michigan where he worked in aerospace studies and recruited minority students. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Turner, James F.A. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d72ded5dbd77f446fe91076424865b22.mp4 d8242d4726fdab50000a86fd65e659ef https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4dc9fe9248ce6a0b39bf9491496f172c.pdf 22a18a5d519fd9090156d57f41175d1a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Woodrow J. Tromp (01:07:26) Introduction (00:26) Family and childhood (02:15) • Tromp mentions that he grew up in Grand Rapids, with 5 sisters and 1 brother. His father owned and operated a grocery store while his mother was a homemaker. Pre-enlistment (04:57) • • Graduated Central High School in 1937. In 1935, at the age of 17 Tromp mentions that he enlisted into the National Guard even though the age to enlist was 18. He also mentions that he got away with this by writing down the wrong birth year. Worked in a grocery store and General Motors while still training with the National Guard in the summertime. • Went to Camp Grayling, Michigan, in 1935 where he learned his Guard training. Tells of how this was before the Guard was federalized. • Describes briefly his part in quelling the rioting in Flint, MI with the National Guard while still in high school. (1:25:52) Enlistment and Training (06:20) • In October, 1940 when the National Guard was federalized Tromp was sent down to Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. While there he describes the different maneuvers that the men had to perform. From there he was transferred to Camp Livingston, Louisiana. • While at Camp Livingston, Tromp mentions his time as sergeant with the mortar section. Later, as platoon sergeant he was responsible for the operation of 60millimeter mortars and 30 caliber light machine guns. Describes that while marching he carried a carbine and that in combat he carried an M-1. Also mentions an encounter with Captain Shirley where he carried his commanding officer’s automatic weapons. (10:48) • Tromp then gives a detailed description of how mortar training range estimation works. Tromp mentions that it was an observer’s job to see how a mortar operator reacted and responded to the exercise of hitting a mortar target. (13:37) �• During this time, Tromp briefly describes his time in Alexandria, Louisiana where he attended a Baptist church. Tromp also shares his thoughts on the recruitment of Southern soldiers. (14:43) • On the Sunday afternoon of December 7th 1941, Tromp describes how the people of the town he was stationed at went out into the streets and yelling sharpen your bayonets. Trump relates his thoughts on Pearl Harbor. (15:39) • Trump then describes how the National Guard was sent to guard various areas in Louisiana for fear of sabotage. Afterwards, he was transferred to Fort Devens, Massachusetts where they were told they were going to go fight in the European theater. (17:55) • From Fort Devens, Massachusetts he took a train across the country and ended up in San Francisco, California. (20:14) Trump describes his brief stay in San Francisco. From there he mentions boarding a luxury liner bound for Honolulu, Hawaii where they were briefly delayed. Briefly mentions that General Harding [commander of 32nd Infantry Division, his regiment’s parent unit] was aboard. Australia (23:20) • From Hawaii, he and his company boarded a cruiser and disembarking at Adelaide, Australia. He describes the fear that the Australian authorities had of a Japanese invasion. Tromp also mentions that while there a woman sang a ditty about his ancestor Admiral Tromp of the Dutch Navy. Further mentions that an Australian general taught him and his men how to fight like the Japanese. (27:18) • From Adelaide, Tromp went to Brisbane, Australia. Briefly describes the different train gauges used by each Australian state. (28:27) Once in Brisbane, they went out into the boonies where they set up camp. While there Trump describes receiving jungle training. Papua New Guinea (36:01) • From Brisbane, Australia they went to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Tromp describes a fierce storm that they ran into and the rescue of 6 Aussies. While based in Port Moresby he describes in some detail the frequent Japanese air raids on the base. (35:44) • After this experience, they were sent to Buna, Papua New Guinea. It took them 40 days and 12 days forced march to get there. Trump describes what the conditions were like in the mountainous regions of Papua. �• Tromp describes how his company used flamethrowers and grenades to clear the way of Japanese positions. Also mentions that his company began using quinine when falling sick with malaria. (40:28) • Detailed description of himself and his company setting up a roadblock behind Japanese lines. Once out of a swamp, he mentions how they were hammered by the Japanese and how their battalion commander got hit in the leg and carried off. It was then that Captain Shirley made the call to flank the enemy. Tromp describes an encounter with a battalion commander ordering him to take mortar men on patrol to secure a trail. (44:16) • Tromp also mentions that once they had performed their flanking maneuver around the Japanese lines and secured a roadblock behind their lines that they faced the problem of Japanese snipers and infiltration. (46:58) For 23 days Trump and his company had to deal with Japanese snipers and 103 of his men coming down with malaria. (48:52) Malaria Recuperation (51:24) • Tromp describes his bout with malaria and how he was loaded into a jeep and then airlifted to an aircraft carrier which then went to northern Australia where he spent 17 days in a hospital. (51:24) Trump was then transferred to another hospital where a doctor fixed him up with medicine, which he had already been receiving for 17 days previously. Trump further mentions that he was there for a period of 6 weeks. • Afterwards, he joined a unit in a malaria camp. He describes that during his recuperation in Coolangatta, Australia he had a closer encounter with a tiger shark. (56:31) Upon review, the Medical Board told time told him to recuperate for another few weeks. • After malaria recuperation, he was assigned to the 32nd Infantry Division Company I. (1:00:29) Upon joining his unit, they are sent to take Saidor, farther up the coast of New Guinea. Island Hopping (1:03:26) • Describes the landing on Saidor and tells of how they encountered no resistance. What it amounted to was chasing a few Japanese soldiers. • Trump tells of an encounter in battle with new replacements of how the Japanese were firing their machine guns and how they joined up with M-Company to help reinforce and overwhelm the enemy. (1:07:01) �• He also describes landing on Morotai which was part of the Dutch East Indies. While there he mentions that his company guarded a radar station. Tells of an encounter with friendly island natives. Only stayed there 24 hours because they couldn’t find fresh water. • Then went to Raul where they encountered no Japanese opposition. While there, he describes how they set up a radar station on the island. Stayed there 3 weeks. (1:10:05) The Philippines (1:10:58) • Was then transferred to Leyte where his unit reinforced a battered outfit that was fighting there. Tromp then tells of how they were well supplied and had air, sea, and land superiority. (1:11:30) He describes the Japanese guerilla techniques in some detail. Tromp also mentions the continuous fighting that took place until the Japanese gave up. (1:14:10) • Also tells of fighting on Leyte in December 1944 where they were dug in the mountains. Tromp mentions an encounter at night while guarding of where he could the fighting going on. Going Home (1:17:44) • Tromp tells of an encounter in which his 1st sergeant tells him that he would be going home. Had choice of how he wanted to get home: by air or by ship. Tromp decided on a 6 week trip by ship back to the states while battling a case of jungle rot. (1:19:06) • Arrived at San Francisco, CA, Tromp tells of an encounter where he saw Japanese prisoners while checking in at Angel Island. The men there called the place “wire city” because there were so many wires up. From there Tromp was then sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois and stayed there for a short time. From here, he took a train to Grand Rapids. (1:19:45) After the War (1:19:50) • 11 days after getting back, Tromp got married. Had been separated from his sweetheart for 3-4 years in which time they had written to each other. For a brief time, he took on temporary jobs working with a friend painting and putting up basements for a Dutch man. It was then in September that he took a job working as a postal man for the city of Grand Rapids and stuck with it for many years. (1:25:49) Also shares his thoughts about the concept of war before and after his time in the Army. (1:26:56) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_TrompW Title A name given to the resource Tromp, Woodrow J. (Interview outline and video), 2008 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-01-24 Description An account of the resource Woodrow J. Tromp is a WW II veteran who served in the U.S. Army with the 32nd (Red Arrow) Division Company I, 126th Infantry Regiment from 1940 to 1945. In this account he discuses his time with the National Guard before and after it was federalized as part of the U.S. Army. In addition, he discusses his training in the U.S. and Australia, combat experiences in New Guinea and the Philippines, along with problems caused by terrain and disease. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tromp, Woodrow J. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2e168d6e5f7bac3055d841d0c9146723.m4v b33e478169e18f5dd5d2fe9730efed8d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/172e7d97d5da59b0d9b0efd72742849f.pdf 56a831a2950da8e0fe7b6460ef2936a1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Richard Thelen World War II 1 hour 29 minutes 46 seconds (00:00:18) Early Life -Born in Lansing, Michigan in March 1927 -His father had a job delivering ice and coal until 1940 -In 1940 got a job at General Motors and worked there until he retired -Throughout the Great Depression he always had work -His mother was a cashier at a family friend’s grocery store -He was the oldest of his siblings -He had a younger brother and a younger sister (00:02:03) Awareness of the War and Start of the War -He and his family would go to the Fowler, Michigan area to visit grandparents -Didn’t have access to radio when they would visit -When he got home on December 7, 1941 he went down to the corner grocery store -Heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed -Went back to his house and told his father about Pearl Harbor -Remembers that on December 8 war was declared -Prior to Pearl Harbor he had paid some attention to the war in Europe -He was too young to comprehend the gravity of the situation, or to be nervous about it -Even after Pearl Harbor he didn’t think that he would have to fight in the war -The older he got, the more he realized there was a chance he would have to fight (00:03:55) Enlisting in the Navy -When he was seventeen and in the eleventh grade of high school (1944) he enlisted in the Navy -Had to get his parents’ permission -They both approved of his decision -He wanted to go on the water even though he had never gone sailing before -Knew the risk involved in joining the military -A son from a family in their neighborhood had been killed in a bombing run in Europe (00:06:02) Basic Training -Reported to Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois in January 1945 -Went to Detroit and from Detroit went to Great Lakes Naval Station by train -There was a large group of recruits -He had joined up with two friends -At Great Lakes they were given their uniforms, haircuts, and vaccinations -Went on marches and took swimming courses -He thought that the training would be harder than it actually was -He was in good shape at the time -For the men that were out of shape it was more difficult for them -There was a heavy emphasis on discipline and following orders -If your uniform or bunk was unacceptable you would be punished for it -It wasn’t too hard for him to adjust to military living �-He missed his home and his friends -Even though he adjusted easily it was still a culture shock for him -Not all of the recruits were teenagers; some of the men were older and had been to college -At the end of basic training took tests to see what your specialization in the Navy would be -He was assigned to “General Sea Duty” -He spent January 1945 to mid-April 1945 at Great Lakes -He was not given any leave during his time in basic training (00:11:42) Assignment to USS Indianapolis -After basic training he was given a week of leave -After his leave he reported to the Federal building in Detroit -From there returned to Great Lakes -From Great Lakes he was sent to Schumacher, California by train -It was a long train ride -Had to sleep in their seats -They were fed on the train because it had a dinner car -They were essentially stuck on the train for the whole trip -The upside was getting to see the American landscape like the Rocky Mountains -Schumacher was being used as an outgoing post for the Navy -His assignment, with one of his friends, was on board the USS Indianapolis -The ship was in dry dock getting repairs and it needed replacements -Earlier in the year it had suffered a devastating kamikaze attack -He spent a week at Schumacher working in the mess hall -Prior to going to California he had never even heard of the Indianapolis -The ship was being repaired by civilian welders, and as per protocol a welder needed a sailor -He was assigned to one welder and just watched over the man with a fire extinguisher -Stayed with that same worker for about a month -Got along well with him -He was given some downtime in California -Visited San Francisco and explored the city and went to bars (00:18:22) Boarding the USS Indianapolis -Boarded the Indianapolis sometime in early/mid-July 1945 (most likely July 12) -Assigned a bunk and a locker -Not much space -Went on the “shakedown cruise” (seeing if there was anything else that needed repair) -Went out into the Pacific Ocean and then came back to San Francisco -Some men got seasick on the cruise -He didn’t get seasick -They were only out for one night and then they came back (00:20:43) Voyage to Tinian -They were in port for about two days and left San Francisco on July 16, 1945 -The components for the atomic bomb intended for Hiroshima were loaded -They were stored in a nondescript crate -Sailed fast and straight across the Pacific Ocean stopping only in Pearl Harbor on July 19 -On board the Indianapolis he helped stand watch over the seaplane hangar -Place where the atomic bomb components were being kept -He also stood watch with Marines �-Everyone knew there was something important and strange in the crate -The atomic bomb trigger mechanism was kept in the officers’ quarters -They sailed independently without a convoy -The weather on the voyage to Tinian was good, ordinary Pacific weather -Stood watch for four hours and then got eight hours off -Only got about four to five hours of sleep -During downtime had to eat, shower, and shave -They set a speed record going from San Francisco to Guam -Delivered the components to Tinian on July 26, 1945 -The unloading process was largely nonchalant -From Tinian went to Guam -Stayed aboard the ship -Didn’t stay at Guam very long -Just stopping to refuel and resupply -Left Guam on July 28 and sailed towards Leyte in the Philippines -Going to join the 7th Fleet to aid in the invasion of Okinawa, and later, Japan -They were still travelling alone, but not with the same haste as when they went to Tinian (00:29:07) Submarine Attack and Sinking of the USS Indianapolis -The conditions were perfect for the sinking -The Japanese sub (I-58) had come up to recharge its batteries -Indianapolis was in the area just as the I-58 surfaced -It was a full moon and the sea was calm -He was asleep when the first torpedo struck the ship -In the first strike the front portion of the bow had been destroyed -A minute or two later the second torpedo struck the ship -He remembers being called to general quarters and seeing the deck of the ship in flames -Men began to put on life preservers and prepare to abandon ship -He essentially rode the ship as it sank, when it finally went down it did so without suction -When he got into the water he didn’t know how many men were with him until daylight -He was in a group of fifty to seventy five other survivors -Fighting the waves and the wind (00:36:35) Stranded in the Ocean -The first day in the water they all worked together to keep each other alive -Remembers one man drowning due to exhaustion -He remembers feeling incredibly hungry -Eventually passed a threshold and no longer noticed his hunger, or thirst -Second day started to give up the will to live -While in the water realized that if you stayed in a group the sharks stayed away -If a man ever drifted from the group the sharks would get him -He remembers a shark coming close enough to poke his life jacket, then swam away -Realized and accepted that they probably weren’t going to be rescued and would die -Kept himself alive by thinking of what his father told him when he left for training -“I want you to come back” -That gave him the will to live, because he didn’t want to let his father down (00:41:17) Rescue -On August 2 a PV-1 Ventura flew over their position, they had been in the water for three days �-The pilot happened to spot the oil slick of the Indianapolis -Flew lower and then saw the survivors -He made sure to let the survivors know that he had seen them -Later on August 2 a seaplane was sent out to begin gathering survivors -The Navy had not been aware that the Indianapolis had been lost at sea -The USS Doyle was sent out early August 3 to begin the larger scale rescue operation -Prior to the arrival of the Doyle and the other ships later survival gear had been dropped off -Out of a group of three men he was the only one to make it to a survival raft -One man had been grabbed by a shark, and the other died of heart failure -He stayed in the raft for another eight hours waiting to be picked up by a ship -Later on August 3 six more ships arrived to rescue the survivors and search for men in the water -He was picked up by one of the destroyers -Given 100% alcohol to get his heart rate back up -Given food -Given a shower to wash the saltwater, diesel, and oil off of his skin -When he got to his bunk he ran into his friend from the Indianapolis who had also survived (00:50:14) Recovery and Aftermath Pt. 1 -He doesn’t remember going to the hospital on the island of Peleliu -Once stabilized he and other survivors were taken to a hospital ship in the bay -Stayed on the hospital ship for two or three days -From there they were taken to a submarine rest camp at Guam to wait for transport home -The survivors were kept together on Guam -Officers and enlisted men were still kept apart -Out of the twelve black sailors on board none of them survived the sinking -Their quarters were near where the first torpedo was hit -Believes that eleven died in the torpedo strike, and the other died in the water -Out of 1,197 crewmen 900 got off the ship alive, and 600 of those 900 died in the water -The captain of the ship, Charles B. McVay III, survived the sinking -Later, wrought with guilt, he committed suicide in 1968 -He stayed on Guam for about a month -Taken back to the U.S. on an aircraft carrier, the USS Hollandia -Got to sleep on the flight deck, which was a good thing -Given good food -His family knew that he had been wounded in action -Shortly afterwards heard about the sinking of the Indianapolis in the newspaper -He got back to the United States sometime in October 1945 (00:57:53) Coming Home & Post-War Service -He was given thirty days of “survivor’s leave” and was allowed to go home -After his leave was up he reported to the Federal building in Detroit -Served at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile, Michigan for one year -Worked in transportation and maintenance -Running bulldozers and keeping the runway clear of snow and debris -Went to Bunker Hill Naval Air Station, Indiana and learned to drive trucks -Led to him getting a career driving civilian trucks for forty four years after the Navy (00:59:40) The Invasion of Japan -They were told after Tinian that they would be preparing for the invasion of Japan �-No one seemed to be phased by that information (01:00:37) Emotional Impact of Sinking -He will not watch movies like “Jaws” or “Titanic” after experiencing the sinking -Saw one ship sink and that’s enough for him -Saw all the sharks that he’s ever wanted to -He didn’t know until much later that “Jaws” referenced the sinking of the USS Indianapolis -He didn’t talk about his experiences until long after the war -He was married in 1951 and didn’t tell his wife until seven years later about his experience -Bought a book in 1958 called Abandon Ship! about the sinking which gave it away -His experiences had, unbeknownst to him, caused PTSD which caused damage to his family -Eventually realized it and dealt with it (01:04:09) Opinion of Captain McVay -Never really met Captain McVay -Only ran into him once on the ship, and it was a brief encounter -All the men that he has run into who knew the man sang his praises (01:05:47) Details on Being Stranded -Feels that the mixture of diesel fuel and oil on their skin protected them from the sun -Saltwater couldn’t penetrate the oil and it also acted as a sort of sunscreen -Without the fuel and oil he feels that more men would have died -When he was in the water he thought that his group was the only group of survivors -The spread of survivors was two miles wide and sixteen miles long -He was surprised to see more survivors after being rescued (01:07:52) Miscellaneous Details -He didn’t know that they were carrying the atomic bomb components until after the war -Informed that they had been carrying the material on August 15, 1945 -After Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombed and Japan surrendered -The information was shocking to him -He was shocked to learn that Captain McVay was being court-martialed after the war -He and the sinking broke two records and have kept them since -Broke the record for the most men killed in a shipwreck during wartime -Broke the record for the most amount of time spent in the water -Anymore time and they would have died (01:09:40) Recovery and Aftermath Pt. 2 -Learned later on that he and the other survivors had been in much worse shape than they knew -Later met a doctor who had been a corpsman on Peleliu who had helped -Told him that he and the others were incredibly close to dying -When the USS Doyle returned to the site of the wreck they found men floating in the water -Checked them and found that they were dead -Their legs had been bitten off by sharks and they died in the water (01:13:54) Court Martial of Captain McVay -Captain McVay’s trial began on December 3, 1945 -He was found guilty of putting his ship in harm’s way by failing to zigzag -Later exonerated of his “crime” -Considered to have been the scapegoat for the Navy -The survivors felt that it was terrible that Captain McVay was being tried -Other Navy men, when the situation was explained, also shared those feelings �-The Japanese commander of the submarine was brought in for the trial -Felt that the trial was unfair because not even zigzagging would have saved the ship (01:16:21) Movie Deals -He has been solicited by directors and producers to give his input for a movie about the sinking -Any time a film is in the works the Navy shoots it down -The Navy considers it to be a black mark, and they don’t want it to be too public -He doesn’t believe a movie will be made until everyone involved in it has died (01:19:05) Veteran Group Involvement and Memorial Involvement -It is an education for him to meet with people at the survivor reunions -Gets to hear different stories, both from the survivors and the rescuers -He was one of the 120 men who contributed their story to the book Only 317 Survived -Offers the varying perspectives of the sinking and of being stranded -The only attention he enjoys receiving is from students writing him to ask about the sinking -Glad to be part of an educational experience -He doesn’t like to be seen as a hero because he doesn’t feel that he is a hero -He shares his story because he feels that it is his duty to inform people of what war is really like -He was part of the push to get the city of Indianapolis to commemorate the ship -There is now a monument to the USS Indianapolis -There is also a museum about the USS Indianapolis -It took until 1995 for the monument to be built, and 2007 for the museum (01:27:10) Reflections -He has learned that the psychological wounds heal and that you can talk about your experiences -He wants to keep the history of the ship and of its sinking alive -To honor the memory of the men who died, and for Captain McVay � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_ThelenR1674V Title A name given to the resource Thelen, Richard (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-09-20 Description An account of the resource Richard Thelen was born in Lansing, Michigan, in 1927. He grew up in Lansing and enlisted in the Navy in 1944. In January 1945 he reported for basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois and trained there for four months until he completed his training in April 1945. After basic training he want to California and was assigned to the USS Indianapolis which was in dry dock at the time receiving repairs due to a kamikaze attack. With the cargo of the atomic bomb components the USS Indianapolis left San Francisco on July 16, 1945 bound for the island of Tinian. After delivering the bomb components they were ordered to the Philippines to join the 7th Fleet. At roughly midnight on July 30 the Japanese submarine I-58 spotted the Indianapolis and torpedoed her. The ship sank quickly, and Thelen and other survivors were in the water for three days before they were spotted and rescued, during which time many men died. After extended time in hospitals, Thelen was assigned to duties on bases in the US until his discharge. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thelen, Richard Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Hammond, Steven (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/044b00b05f92325eee1a022f06a5c1eb.m4v c7db6cd52d7916f603e578de424371b9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/527104cf07c2bb085c43dfd9279b0f2a.pdf f4830b8d99df6e32444ec921921f6bb1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Simeon Switzer Iraq War and War in Afghanistan (00:00:42) Early Life -Born on August 10, 1985 in Bogota, Colombia -He doesn’t know much about his early life -Knows that he was transferred to several foster homes then an orphanage -He was adopted on July 23, 1987 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen later that year -He grew up in Jenison and then Grandville, Michigan -His father was a physician and his mother was a social worker -She left her job to homeschool him and his siblings through the tenth grade -For eleventh and twelfth grade attended Tri-Unity Christian High School -Graduated in June 2003 (00:02:10) September 11 Attacks -He was in his U.S. History class talking about current events -Remembers seeing his teacher get a text message in the middle of class -The principal addressed the school over the intercom and said there were some plane crashes -Shortly after the truth became evident classes were cancelled -Students were gathered in the auditorium where there were a few large televisions -Able to watch the news throughout the day of the events unfolding in the country -The September 11 Attacks only reinforced his desire to go into the military (00:03:47) College and Enlisting -He had always been fascinated by American military history -Grew up reading about American war heroes and past American conflicts -In his senior year he began to talk with a Marine recruiter -His father advised him to at least try college before he enlist in any branch of the military -He attended college at Cedarville University, Ohio from 2003-2005 -Found it to be a great school, academically challenging, but difficult to adjust to -Transferred to Grand Valley State University in Michigan -At that point decided to look into his options concerning the military -Talked to a friend that had completed basic training for the Michigan National Guard -Went and talked to a National Guard recruiter who wound up being unhelpful -He ultimately enlisted in the Michigan National Guard in May 2006 -He scored high on the ASVAB (military entrance exam) -His high scores made him eligible for an intelligence position -Want to serve in the infantry instead -Felt that it was a more challenging and more rewarding specialization -The ASVAB basically gauges a person’s intelligence and aptitude -Finding out what you’re smart enough to do, and what you would be good at doing (00:09:25) Basic Training -Basic training began on July 12, 2006 -He flew down to Atlanta, Georgia then took a bus to Fort Benning, Georgia -He was part of the 30th AG Reception Battalion for two weeks before starting training -For basic training he was assigned to Bravo Company 1st/150th Infantry Training Regiment �-At the beginning of training he had difficulty with the transition into military life -He was out of shape (scored second to last on the physical examination) -The mental adjustment was difficult for him as well -The primary focus was to breakdown the concept of individuality -Make individuals into soldiers, and thus part of a unit -Difficult for him because he was stubborn, independent, and antiauthoritarian -Trained with both small arms (rifles) and heavy (rocket launchers) weapons -Received land navigation training and infantry tactics training -Remembers that the temperature was 90oF, humid and all around exhausting weather -They were told they would be facing 100oF+ weather in Iraq -He trained with men who were going to go into active duty -He was one of only sixty National Guardsmen returning to their home state -At the time the active duty and Guardsmen had the same experience -No one had been deployed, and thus there was nothing distinguishing -Drill sergeants would pick on the National Guard recruits -They were the only ones allowed to do that though -If an active duty recruit picked on Guardsmen the drill sergeants would intervene -All but one of his drill sergeants had been already been deployed -He learned that deployments mattered in the Army -Soldiers, and especially leaders, were respected if they had been deployed -The one drill sergeant that had not been deployed was not respected -Basic training lasted sixteen weeks -He graduated from basic training on November 10, 2006 -Remembers that it was in the sixth week that he finally made the full transition -He and the other recruits were sent to the “gas chamber” for poison gas training -Entered wearing gas masks and then the chamber was filled with tear gas -Ordered to remove gas masks and take a deep breath of tear gas -While choking had to give name and social security number before leaving -Because he was out of shape he was sent back in to do it again -Second time wasn’t so bad -At that moment realized he could complete basic training -By the end of basic training succeeded in physical training, weapons training, and leadership (00:20:22) Assignment to Charlie Company -He returned to Michigan after completing basic training -His first drill with the National Guard was in January 2007 -He joined his unit and was greeted by the staff sergeant of that company -Told that deployment orders were probably coming, so expect it -In February (or March) received their preliminary orders -At the end of the summer of 2007 received official order -His unit was Charlie Company was 1st/125th Infantry Regiment at the Grand Valley Armory -Trained at Fort Custer and at Camp Grayling with them (both located in Michigan) -It was the first deployment for half of noncommissioned officers and most of enlisted men -In his platoon most of the senior leaders had been deployed already -He and the rest of his unit went through normal training, but with a more intense attitude -Training would last longer, they would work longer on a particular area -Basically preparing for the reality of being deployed �-They did at least eight to nine weeks of nothing but training before deploying -They did three weeks at Camp Grayling, Michigan -Two weeks at Camp Atterbury, Indiana -Two weeks at Fort Custer (00:24:47) Deployment to Iraq -In November 2007 they received complete orders for a deployment -On January 5, 2008 they had a farewell ceremony at the armory -From the armory took buses to Gerald R. Ford International Airport -Flew down to Fort Hood, Texas -Stayed there for three months receiving more training -Given a four day pass to see his girlfriend and family -From Fort Hood flew to Bangor, Maine -From Bangor to Sherman Island, California -From Sherman Island to Kuwait City International Airport, Kuwait -Took buses to Camp Bhuering, Kuwait -From Kuwait travelled to TQ (Al Taqaddum), Iraq -From TQ (Al Taqaddum) got transported to their base in Iraq (00:26:10) Pre-Deployment Training at Fort Hood -At Fort Hood had to qualify in several areas to be able to be deployed to Iraq -Pass medical exams to make sure you were healthy enough to be deployed -Had to qualify with weapons -Had to complete language and cultural competency courses -Received more land navigation training -Received convoy security training -He was part of the largest deployment in Michigan’s history -The primary mission they were training for was to provide convoy security -About one month before being deployed Charlie Company’s orders were changed -Their new task was to be part of a Personal Security Detail (PSD) in Ramadi -It was a shock to all of a sudden be shifted into operating solely out of Iraq -Originally thought that they would be spending a decent amount of time in Kuwait -He learned enough Arabic to help keep himself out of trouble with the locals -Basic commands and basic greetings -He picked up the language fairly quickly -Led to him primarily being placed at checkpoints -Most face to face time with locals and requiring high language competency -The cultural competency training focused on introducing soldiers to Arabic culture -Common cultural practices -How they eat, and just how they live -Learned certain customs -Point with the whole hand, not just one finger -Thumbs up is basically equivalent to “the finger” (00:31:44) In Kuwait -The best training that he felt he received was while he was in Kuwait -Stayed in Kuwait for about two weeks -Received live fire combat training -Running “shoot houses” �-Clearing a house in a mock drill with live ammunition -Move and shoot training -Remembers that Kuwait was miserably hot -Part of being in Kuwait was getting adjusted to the Middle Eastern weather (00:34:15) Getting Established in Iraq -Went to TQ from Kuwait and late at night got picked up by Marines -Given only one magazine of ammunition for the trip -Travelled in flatbed trucks without substantial armor to Ramadi -He was so exhausted that he wasn’t concerned about being attacked -Wound up sleeping on the ride there -When he and the rest of Charlie Company arrived Ramadi was in the middle of a sandstorm -A sandstorm that would wind up lasting eleven days -They had to find a place to sleep since arrangements hadn’t been made for them -The Marines didn’t even know that they were coming -C Company found a bombed out Iraqi barracks and got established there -They had to scavenge cots just to sleep on, as well as other material (00:39:09) Duties in Iraq -For the first month they were all assigned to watchtower duty -Had to stand guard for about ten to twelve hours -After the first month started working with the Marines on the Personal Security Detail -Going into Ramadi to escort key personnel -NATO officials, businessmen, electricians, educators, etc. -During PSD missions got to see the university and various business schools -Provided security during transport of personnel and during their meetings -Aside from doing PSD work they would also go on patrols in the city (00:41:29) Ramadi, Iraq -By the time he arrived in 2008 Ramadi had quieted down -The city was a “complete dump” -Ravaged by war -Saw buildings riddled with bullet holes or half destroyed by bombs -Poverty was rampant -There were Coalition and Iraqi forces patrolling almost the entire city (00:42:33) Conditions in Iraq -Conducted PSD missions for the next eight months of his tour to Iraq -It was a pretty calm deployment to Iraq -Didn’t get into an active firefight and didn’t have to kill anyone -Felt strange to be an infantryman, conditioned to fight, and then not have to fight -Initially wanted to see some action -Halfway through his deployment his attitude changed -His roommate was in a convoy that suffered an IED attack -Initially didn’t know if his friend was dead, alive, or alive and wounded -It wasn’t because he was afraid to fight, but realized that it was serious (00:46:56) Interactions with Iraqis -Most of the interactions with Iraqi civilians were positive -Remembers one Iraqi businesswoman who was incredibly grateful that the U.S. had come -Ramadi’s mayor was corrupt and wound up embezzling $120,000 donated to the city �-Only one example of corruption at the highest level in Iraq -The Iraqi officials loved the U.S. because it meant they could get quick, easy money -Iraqi women were the most appreciative because of the new opportunities given to them -The overall consensus was that Iraq was better, but there was still a lot of corruption -There were more opportunities for the youth and for the women of the country -Saw that it was actually quite a peaceful country aside from the fighting -There was not as much animosity from the Iraqis as there was from the Afghans -An example of how calm the deployment was and how peaceful Ramadi was: -There were only a few IED attacks in the city that didn’t cause too much damage (00:50:43) Downtime and Contact with Family -He never had a cellphone while he was in Iraq -Mostly relied on email as his primary source of communication with home -There was a computer building with ten computers and three phones for the soldiers -He learned that his dog died while he was in Iraq -Only time that he remembers crying while in Iraq -He learned not to create communication habits -For example: he would only call, or email once a week, or every other week -He didn’t want his family used to hearing from him everyday -Because if he got too busy and didn’t one day then they would worry -He did write a letter every day and received mail every day -There was a huge gym on base -There was a small market on base -Iraqis could sell their wares; you could buy Green Bean Coffee, and smoothies -There were two mess halls on base -One was nicer than the other -The base had a 5.4 mile perimeter and there was a berm in the middle of the base -You could go up on the berm and overlook the city when the sandstorms stopped -At night you could go out and see more stars than you ever had in your entire life -There was a small church on the base for the soldiers -There was a small PX (general store) for tobacco, energy drinks, and sugary snacks (00:55:20) Coming Home from the Iraq Deployment -He got back to the United States on December 23, 2008 -They flew in to Fort Hood and stayed there for five days of processing -Medical processing and getting readjusted to American society -They had already done a lot of social readjusting while in Iraq -He didn’t quite understand the profound effect a deployment could have -Learned that your life had been paused while everyone else’s continued -He took the winter and summer semesters of college off -Went back to college for the fall 2009 and winter 2010 semesters (00:59:27) Transfer to the Military Police (MP) -Transferred to the 144th Military Police Company in April 2009 -In 2010 went to Military Police School -After that went to a leadership school -The decision to transfer to the Military Police came as a result of a fight in Iraq -He had a fight with a platoon sergeant in Iraq which ruined his chance of promotion -His girlfriend at the time was also in that MP unit which influenced his decision �-Went to Fort Custer, Michigan for four weeks of MP School -Consisted of learning how to properly fill out paperwork -Infantry skills that he already knew from his time in Iraq -MPs were starting to also be used in infantry roles in Iraq and Afghanistan -It was strange to go from an all-male unit, to a unit that also had women in it -The training was nothing new for him -He also didn’t have to go through basic training again because of transferring (01:03:50) Problems Adjusting to Civilian Life -The major issues came after his deployment to Afghanistan -After coming back from Iraq he didn’t have a lot of direction in life -Had to get a job and go back to school, but from there didn’t know where to go (01:05:02) Deployment to Afghanistan -He joined the Military Police and was originally assigned to the 144th MP Company -He decided to take a promotion that was offered in the 1775th MP Company -The promotion also came with a deployment to Afghanistan -Decided to take the deployment -He wasn’t ready at the time to take on the full responsibilities of adulthood th -The 1775 received its warning orders and then its official deployment orders -The 1775th was basically a collection of Military Police from all over Michigan -Also had a lot of soldiers with combat experience, especially in his platoon -His platoon sergeant and all the squad leaders had been deployed -Left on January 27, 2011 -Prior to leaving went to Camp Grayling, Michigan for a couple weeks of training -Left out of Pontiac, Michigan -Flew from Detroit, Michigan to Fort Bliss, Texas -Stayed at Fort Bliss for about one month going through deployment training -Took new language and culture courses for Afghanistan -Different languages and culture in Afghanistan -Much stricter culture to work with in Afghanistan -Flew from Fort Bliss to Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan (KAF) -While at KAF there was a mission change for the 1775th -Most of the company would be sent to a nearby combat outpost -His squad was selected for Personal Security Detail for the company commander -Took a convoy to Combat Outpost Sheridan after landing at Kandahar -Just as they got into KAF there was a rocket attack on the airfield -For the first month in Afghanistan carried out PSD missions for the company commander (01:12:10) Leave in Afghanistan -After being in country for only one month he was able to go home for leave -He was the first to go home for leave because he was the senior enlisted soldier -He knew how to handle a deployment unlike the new soldiers -He went home for about fifteen days and visited his family and girlfriend -After returning to duty realized he had nine months of nothing but deployment (01:12:55) Duties in Afghanistan -During the first month in Afghanistan he didn’t do much -Went into the city with the unit that his unit was replacing -The unit they were replacing had been involved in the Abu Ghraib Incident �-Got to know the area and got introduced to the Afghan National Police in the area -As soon as he returned to Afghanistan from his leave the mission was changed -His unit would link up with a Canadian Special Forces unit -Train with them for a couple weeks -Then be placed in charge of a Provincial Response Company -Basically like an Afghan SWAT team -First time that non-special force troops were going to do this -His unit was moved to Combat Outpost (COP) Graceland -A Canadian base -It was a great base to be stationed at -Used to be one of the bases for the Taliban’s head leader -They had a “shoot house” to train in -While at COP Graceland they were introduced to the Afghan National Police in the area -Conducted a few police raids with them -Stayed at COP Graceland for a couple weeks before being transferred again -From COP Graceland moved to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Walden -They were assigned a base, within the base -FOB Walden was roughly the same size as the base at Ramadi -There were Afghan forces stationed at FOB Walden as well -His unit didn’t have to abide by the same rules as regular soldiers -This was because of their affiliation with the Special Forces -It was a more relaxed atmosphere at their base within a base -There were times where he would have to get up at 3 AM to go on a raid -Within fifteen minutes everyone was ready to go -Conducted bilateral missions with the Afghan forces (01:19:09) Conducting Raids -A raid’s purpose was to aid the Afghan National Police if they got overwhelmed -Raids also consisted of stopping and searching convoys -Mostly focused on searching houses -Most of the Afghan police were totally inept at the beginning -After they trained the police they were at least somewhat competent -Raids usually began before dawn and then they would go to the target -Most of the intelligence they received for a raid was done by informants in the area -During a raid a few teams would guard the house while one team would go into the house -Both Afghan and American forces would enter the house to do the search or arrest -Most of the time it would have been better to have just had U.S. troops do the raid -Afghan police were more of a hindrance than a help -Conducted raids for nine of the ten months that he was in Afghanistan -During Ramadan NATO high command ordered a large amount of raids -Terrible for the Afghans because it interrupted their holy holiday (01:23:30) Dealing with the Taliban and the Afghans -The main enemy during his deployment was the Taliban -There was a Taliban leader near one of their Military Police substations -They were not allowed to arrest him because he was friends with the local police chief -There was a lot of corruption, a lot of laziness, and a lot of hatred for Americans -While in Afghanistan learned that there were simply not the logistics for creating a democracy �-Too many tribes that were too separated that had too much bad history with each other (01:24:38) Training the Afghan National Police -The majority of what they did with the Afghan National Police was training them -He helped create the training manual that outlined the four week training course -There was a cycle: -Four weeks of training the Afghans -Four weeks of being on standby with the Afghans (yellow stage) -Four weeks of being ready to go on missions with the Afghans (green stage) -Afghans were allowed to go home during the yellow stage, but then they wouldn’t come back -There was a mix of police from the Kandahar area as well as men from outside Kandahar -They tried to organize the squads so that tribesmen would be kept together -There were multiple languages spoken, just in Kandahar, which created barriers -Tribes also didn’t get along with each other which created problems (01:28:40) Threats in Afghanistan -2011 had the second highest kill rate for NATO forces in Afghanistan -Highest percent of those killed were in the Kandahar Province -It was very common for the internet to go down during a “blackout” -Basically the military preventing soldiers from reading about a dead soldier -The raids were inherently dangerous -Involved searching the house of, or arresting, a known terrorist suspect -Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were a major threat -There were organized attacks that would happen in the city -Suicide bombers -The Sarposa Prison Escape of 2011 -485 prisoners escaped during one night -These prisoners just also happened to be high level terrorists -Fortunately the 1775th never sustained any losses during that deployment -The units that took losses were the ones in more populated areas, like the city -Began to have to deal with “friendly” Afghan forces killing American forces (01:32:18) Living Conditions in Afghanistan -The living conditions that his unit had were good -He was able to have his own room -They had access to electricity and the internet -While other soldiers had to live in tents they were able to have individual rooms -He had better access to the internet -He was able to call his girlfriend and family via Skype -He had his own cellphone -Made for easier communication with his soldiers in Afghanistan -Totally impractical for calling home though -It was expensive to make calls out of Afghanistan and it was terrible service (01:34:47) Impact of Afghanistan Deployment -When he got into the National Guard he wanted to make it his career -During the deployment to Afghanistan learned more about the military and the war in general -This caused him to change his mind and wanting to get out of the National Guard -Once Afghanistan was over he wanted to get out and figure out the rest of his life �(01:35:58) Coming Home -On February 3, 2012 he was back in the United States -The process of the end of the deployment began in early January 2012 -Regrouped with the rest of the 1775th at Combat Outpost Sheridan -Went as a group to Kandahar Air Field -Flew from Kandahar to Manas, Kyrgyzstan to Rammstein, Germany to Bangor, Maine -Spent three days in Manas -Finally landed at Camp Atterbury, Indiana -From Camp Atterbury they were bused up to Pontiac, Michigan -Spent six days going through the readjustment process -Now included being shown what resources were available to them -Getting registered for the Veterans’ Administration Healthcare -He rode from Pontiac to Grand Rapids, Michigan with his brother -He stayed at his cousin’s house for a week by himself while his cousin was in South Africa -Felt good to be able to just be alone and by himself for a week -In May 2012 his six year commitment to the National Guard ended and he did not reenlist (01:39:14) Life after the War -His transition back to civilian life was more difficult because his military career was over -He had to make plans for a future that did not involve the National Guard -He had some stress issues to deal with after the deployment to Afghanistan -He was able to address those issues and deal with them -His girlfriend and cousin played a large part in helping to deal with that -There was a lot of stress in deciding what direction his civilian life would take -He had a lot of experience, but not experience that would apply in the civilian world -He went back to college at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) -Received his bachelor’s degree in communication in 2013 -After that began working on his master’s degree in August 2013 -Public Administration with an emphasis on Public Management -Expects to graduate in 2015 -After returning home he got involved with helping a number of local veterans’ groups -Groups active in Kent County, Student Veterans of America at GVSU -He has totally immersed himself in the world of helping veterans -He wants a large focus of his future to be on helping veterans -Believes that more needs to be done to help American veterans � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SwitzerS1699V Title A name given to the resource Switzer, Simeon (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-09-25 Description An account of the resource Simeon Switzer is a veteran of both the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan. He was born in 1985 in Bogota, Colombia and was adopted by a Michigan family in1987. He grew up with his adoptive family in Jenison, Michigan then Grandville, Michigan. After college, he enlisted in the Michigan National Guard in early summer 2006 and was assigned to Charlie Company 1st of the 125th Infantry Regiment Michigan National Guard, and deployed with them to Iraq in early 2008. His unit carried out Personal Security Detail missions escorting NATO officials, electricians, businessmen, educators, and other high profile personnel through the city of Ramadi, Iraq. After his return, he transferred to the 144th Military Police Company, and then to the 1775th Military Police Company. He deployed with them to Afghanistan in January, 2011. During the first month he and his squad carried out Personal Security Detail missions in Kandahar, Afghanistan and then were transferred to Combat Outpost Graceland to work with the Canadian Special Forces on learning how to train the Afghan National Police. From there they were transferred to Forward Operating Base Walden where they helped carry out raids with and train the Afghan national Police until the end of the deployment in early January 2012. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Switzer, Simeon Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Iraq War, 2003-2011--Personal narratives, American Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American United States. National Guard Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans< Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1372cf2399aadd00cc8554c5121269ec.mp4 1159a2c926ce1e26cfb1d28e9e9f6986 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/102621eba5b91281045376d241b10581.pdf 75c36561de9a1e2aecb980956ed21a4a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Donald Stout World War II 1 hour 1 minute 49 seconds (00:00:13) Early Life -Born in Muskegon, Michigan on July 20, 1923 -Grew up in Muskegon -Father worked at Continental Motors -He was able to keep his job during the Great Depression -Had to do side jobs to support the family -Grew vegetables on a plot of land -He was able to work various jobs as a teenager during the Depression (00:01:37) Michigan National Guard – Michigan -Didn’t complete high school because of enlisting in the National Guard at seventeen -Joined the National Guard on June 30, 1939 -Served as an infantryman -Went up to Camp Grayling, Michigan during the summer for two weeks of training -Trained at the Muskegon Armory once a week -Learned basic Army maneuvers at Camp Grayling -Didn’t pay much attention to the war in Europe (00:03:58) Michigan National Guard- Camp Beauregard, Louisiana -On October 15, 1940 the National Guard units were mobilized -He was in G Company of the 126th Infantry of the 32nd Division -His unit was sent down to Camp Beauregard, Louisiana -He had a car and was allowed to drive down there -Road trip took about two or three days -Camp Beauregard was primitive at the time -Consisted of basic tents to sleep in -Stayed there about a year (00:05:33) Michigan National Guard- Camp Livingston, Louisiana -Built a new camp called Camp Livingston and the unit was moved there -Slightly more sophisticated than Camp Beauregard -More stable housing than tents -Given infantry training to prepare for combat -Used some equipment from World War I -Eventually started to get more modernized uniforms -Started off with the Springfield 1903 model rifle and then transitioned to the M1 Garand -Over time more men were being added to the regiment -At the time he was seventeen years old when his unit was mobilized -Later on was made a platoon sergeant when he was only eighteen years old -Allowed to go to town during downtime -Camps were close to Alexandria and Pineville, Louisiana -His unit took part in a war game with another division while in Louisiana �(00:09:33) Overview of Start of the War & Deployment -After Pearl Harbor his unit was sent down to New Orleans -Ordered to protect the industrial canal and the Lake Pontchartrain area -After New Orleans they were sent to Fort Devens, Massachusetts -Plan was to prepare them to be sent to fight in Europe -His unit wound up getting sent over to San Francisco -More soldiers were needed in the Pacific than in Europe -From San Francisco they were deployed to Australia -Sailed over during the Battle of the Coral Sea -Had to sail around where the battle was taking place to avoid getting attacked -Landed in Port Adelaide, Australia (00:10:40) Start of the War -Remembers hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor on a Sunday night -He was heading back to base from Alexander, Louisiana -Heard the news on the radio -When he got back to Camp Livingston the unit was being prepared to be moved to New Orleans -Stayed in New Orleans for about three months -Tension started to dissipate when it became apparent no further attacks were coming (00:11:54) Deployment to Australia -After being rerouted to San Francisco from Fort Devens they were kept on fairgrounds -Kept busy by getting ready to ship out -He was afraid of being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine en route -Couldn’t swim -Went aboard the SS Lurline -First voyage as a troopship -Lucky enough to get assigned to a stateroom -Whole division was onboard -He didn’t get seasick on the voyage over -Had to get used to the ship shaking in rough weather -Took part in a “ceremony” when the ship crossed the Equator (00:15:33) Arrival in Australia -After arriving in Port Adelaide they received more infantry training -They were prepared to fight in Europe, but not in jungles -Given advice from Australian soldiers on how to fight the Japanese -Remembers that Australia was like America at the turn of the 20th century -Used horses and wagons to unload ships -Railroads were far more basic than anything in America -After Port Adelaide they were sent over to Brisbane -Established Camp Tambourine there -He was placed on forward detail for Company G -After Sergeant Gerald Cable was killed the camp was renamed: Camp Cable -The training they received in Australia wasn’t very in depth -Just general information about preparing for jungle warfare (00:18:20) New Guinea Campaign and the Owen Stanley Range -Sent up to New Guinea on a troop ship in September 1942 -Landed in Port Moresby, New Guinea �-Moved up to the Owen Stanley Mountain Range -Idea was to go into the mountains and deny Japanese access to key trail -Unit he was a part of was made famous for this march through the mountains -Nicknamed the “Ghost Mountain Boys” -Companies went into the mountains a day apart from each other -Rations were dropped into the mountains every four days -Had to store rations in their socks to keep them dry -Remembers that the rain started at about 3 PM every day and forced them to stop -Used the opportunity to eat dinner -Worked together to pool rations to make them last longer -Whole march took forty two days -Physically trying march (one of the most harrowing in American military history) -Some men were able to handle it better than others -Fair amount of soldiers got sick along the way -Had to leave them behind and hope the following company would pick them up -Used New Guinea natives to carry their weapons, ammunition, and supplies for them (00:25:26) Buna-Gona, New Guinea -After leaving the Owen Stanley Range they moved into Buna-Gona -Before reaching Buna-Gona they had to cross a major river -Wound up extremely close to a Japanese outpost -Machine gun battle ensued -Eventually led to an American bayonet charge -Allowed them to overrun and defeat the Japanese soldiers there -Took heavy losses during the engagement due to bad military intelligence -Made camp at the outpost and a few days later he was wounded by incoming artillery fire -Black soldier helped him back to an aid station -Natives helped get him to an airfield and from there he was flown to Port Moresby (00:29:50) Return and Reorganization in Australia -Loaded onto a modified Flying Fortress that needed repairs and was carrying wounded -During the trip back to Australia he was selected to be a gunner on the plane -Landed in Townsville, Australia -Prior to their landing they started having severe technical problems -Engine was starting to go out and the landing gear wouldn’t go down -Landing gear had to be lowered manually by one of the crewmen -Sent to a resort area called Coolangatta, Australia after leaving the hospital at Townsville -Spent a while there recovering from leg wounds and relaxing -Got reattached to his outfit again after they returned from New Guinea -After the campaign they had gone from over 3000 soldiers to just over 500 soldiers -Didn’t spend a lot of time in Australia -Just had to get reorganized and back up to combat strength (00:34:30) Return to New Guinea -After regrouping in Australia the unit was sent back to New Guinea -Made landfall at Aitape and established a defensive position -After getting reestablished on New Guinea he was assigned to guard an outpost -Received word that he was being promoted to 1st Sergeant at Battalion Headquarters -Decided to go back to headquarters on his own �-A Japanese patrol managed to follow him back to base and a firefight ensued -Landing at Aitape consisted of heavy shelling from the Navy to soften up the defenses -After they landed and started to move up the beach then the Japanese would open fire -Fortunately their landing at New Guinea wasn’t too intense -Still took enemy fire, but nothing too dramatic (00:37:40) Becoming 1st Sergeant and Details of Pacific Campaign -As first sergeant he was the top sergeant of his company -Did most of the paperwork for his company -Acted as an assistant to his company commander -Led to him not having to go on as many patrols as he had before st -Became the 1 Sergeant after the landing at Aitape -Eventually the unit was sent over to Morotai -Very small island part of Netherlands East Indies -He encountered very little fighting there -After reorganizing at Australia the first time the unit never returned to Australia -As the war went on the battalion continued to shrink in size due to mounting losses -Didn’t receive very many replacements because the war in Europe took priority (00:42:29) Philippines Campaign-Leyte -Travelled to the Philippines as a part of a large convoy -Landed at the island of Leyte -Didn’t land during the Battle of Leyte Gulf -Does remember Japanese planes attacking American ships though -His ship was able to make it through unscathed -Remembers that when they landed on the beach it was raining -Everything was a mess from the bombardment -Japanese had been pushed off the beach into the hills -Took part in breaking the back of the Japanese defenses there -Remembers seeing dead bodies on the side of the road and contaminating water -Japanese tried to break through their lines on Leyte multiple times -On one occasion the black soldier that helped him in New Guinea was killed -Didn’t have artillery or air support -Jungle made it too difficult to properly pick out targets -Relied heavily on smaller mortars for support -Learned to be on the alert at all times (00:46:53) Philippines Campaign-Luzon -After Leyte they were moved over to the island of Luzon -Encountered Japanese resistance in the hills -Not as swampy as Leyte had been -Japanese were extremely dug into the hills -Had to go up to fortifications and plant explosives to destroy Japanese defenses -He would often do it himself to lead by example -Worked with the Filipinos as translators -Never encountered larger civilian populaces while he was in the Philippines (00:49:53) End of the War -In July 1945 he left the unit and on July 12, 1945 he was discharged from the National Guard -He had the most “points” (rank/commendations/combat) so he could go home �-Got sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois and was discharged from there -Offered a chance to reenlist there -Decided not to test his luck and he left the service -Got back to the United States by way of a liberty ship -Landed in San Francisco -Got escorted out of the Philippines warzone by a U.S. destroyer (00:51:50) Going Home and Life after the War -After being discharged the Army paid for him to go home -Went back to Muskegon, Michigan on a Greyhound bus -Stayed home and rested for a couple weeks -Got a job at Continental Motors -After two weeks got laid off because the war ended -Decided to join the police force -Stayed in despite the low wages at the time (00:53:04) Rejoining the Michigan National Guard -After the 126th Infantry Regiment was reorganized he decided to rejoin the National Guard -Got to go to Fort Benning, Georgia for training and was given a commission -Retired as a major in the 2nd Battalion in 1968 -Retired due to scheduling conflicts between being a police officer and a soldier -Remembers being sent to Detroit during the riots to provide security and order -Different type of fighting because you didn’t know who your enemy was -Got stationed inside of a school -Conducted patrols in the city during the riots helping to restore law and order (00:56:08) Other Details about Buna-Gona & Becoming a 1st Sergeant -When his unit charged the Japanese outpost at Buna-Gona he was recovering from malaria -The way he got wounded at Buna-Gona was essentially a total chance occurrence -Changed position in a foxhole and shrapnel hit his knees instead of his stomach -After returning to New Guinea the outpost he was at was extremely remote and isolated -He and the other soldiers had no connection to the rear for support -No radio and no transportation -Expectation from command was to retreat if necessary and not engage the enemy -Had to ignore the expeditionary Japanese patrols so as not to give away their position (01:01:18) Reflections on Service -Military service made him grow up in a hurry -The way he had been raised by his parents helped him to survive what he experienced � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_StoutD1598V Title A name given to the resource Stout, Donald (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-06-06 Description An account of the resource Donald Stout was born in Muskegon, Michigan on July 20, 1923. He grew up in Muskegon and enlisted in the Michigan National Guard on June 30, 1939. In October 1940 his unit, G Company of the 126th Infantry of the 32nd Division was mobilized and sent to Camp Beauregard, Louisiana and later to Camp Livingston, Louisiana to train to prepare for an American involvement in the war in Europe. After Pearl Harbor the unit was sent to Fort Devens, Massachusetts for further training until it was decided that they were needed more in the Pacific Theatre. They were sent first to Australia and later to New Guinea in September 1942 where his unit crossed the Owen Stanley Mountain Range leading to them being nicknamed the "Ghost Mountain Boys." He participated in the Buna-Gona Campaign in New Guinea and was wounded there. After healing and rejoining his unit they went back to New Guinea. After New Guinea was liberated his unit was sent up to participate in the invasion of the Philippines at Luzon and Leyte. In July 1945 he had enough points to go home and returned to the United States and was discharged at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He worked briefly for Continental Motors until the end of the war and from there joined the police force. After the 126th Infantry Regiment was reorganized he decided to reenlist in the Michigan National Guard. During that time he was sent to Detroit to be a part of the military presence in the city helping to restore order during the race riots. He retired from the National Guard in 1968 with the rank of major. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stout, Donald Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. National Guard Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e891f838e0489772a6f2abdb7764526f.mp4 97b02752fe06ab348515d52d36f4d663 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2d95c650c8e22f52f95091ffe5679db6.pdf 7653fcf5a5cb9f30c262e31b1249209a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Jack Stoepker World War II-Postwar (00:00:10) Early Life -Born on February 7, 1928 in Holland, Michigan -Moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan when he was two years old -Has lived in Grand Rapids ever since -His father was a salesman for a Holland business -Once in Grand Rapids he became a staff manager for Prudential Life Insurance -He was regularly employed during the Great Depression -Family managed to stay in the “upper middle class” during the Great Depression (00:01:05) Start of the War and Following the War -He was in middle school when Pearl Harbor was attacked -Remembers hearing President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech -His father became a Civil Defense patrolman -Patrolled the city streets at night looking for any signs of unrest -Nothing ever happened though; the city was calm and uneventful -Remembers products like gas, coffee, and sugar being rationed -In high school they would pray for the servicemen, especially the ones they knew (00:03:06) Enlisting in the Army -He was in his last year of high school and began to take college classes at Calvin College -He and his friends began to talk about service -On the afternoon of graduation rehearsal he and his friends went to the recruiting office -Did this unbeknownst to their parents -When his parents found out they were upset -He enlisted in the Army with the hopes that he’d wind up doing something with dentistry -In college he had begun the pre-dental courses (00:05:55) Reporting for Duty -He reported for duty in summer 1946 -He took a bus from Grand Rapids to Detroit then another bus to Fort Knox, Kentucky -Basic training was a shock for him -Complied with the orders and discipline and adjusted (00:07:10) Transfer to Dental Clinic -During a basic training exercise he twisted his knee -He was sent to Valley Forge General Hospital -A military hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania -The second floor dealt with dentistry, specifically for facial reconstruction -He never went back to basic training -During his recovery he got acquainted with the colonel in the dental clinic -This led to him getting transferred to the dental clinic at Valley Forge General Hospital -His recuperation took a lifetime -But the initial stage took about a month -The surgeons did well with what they had available to them �(00:11:36) Working as a Dentist’s Assistant -He assisted dentists by: -Assisting dentists with routine dental work -Making sure dentists had sterile instruments -Kept records of patients -He mixed fillings -Also helped with the creation of prosthetic jaws for wounded servicemen -He helped get the records organized -Helped dentists with the creation of new jaws -Did this by working with the dentists and the laboratory in the dental clinic -Made sure that patients were matched up with dentists that could best help them -He received no formal training, everything he did he learned how to do hands on -He did some basic business management in high school through his church -Helped him when he organized the records -There were originally six dentists in the clinic, and then it was reduced to four -This was because the frequency of men with severe facial wounds was decreasing (00:15:43) Working with Patients -Dentists and doctors at the hospital worked together to rebuild jaws -Creating artificial jaw bones, gums, and teeth for each wounded man -Then teaching them how to use their jaws again -About half of the patients also had brain damage -Needed to have an escort wherever they went -There was one patient that needed to be escorted to Little Rock, Arkansas -Jack was the man’s escort and personally took him there -The problem was that the man was incapable of making his own decisions -Delivered him to the VA Hospital then took a train back to Pennsylvania (00:19:21) Living Conditions -The living conditions were crude, but sufficient -He and the other medical staff lived in a barracks behind the hospital -It was cold in the winter, and snow got in, but they kept warm with a stove -Accepted the conditions for what they were -Lived with twenty-twenty five other men -There was a section of the barracks meant for getting fed -The hospital cook fed the patients and the staff (00:20:51) Visiting Philadelphia -While stationed at the hospital he also got to see Philadelphia -Did this because of the work he had to do with patients -Needed to help the patients get used to people staring at them because of being disfigured -They looked different, even after surgery, and had to psychologically adjust to that -Took them to football games and other social events where there were a lot of people -Took the patients to Philadelphia on the weekend -Took the patients around the city to see the sights -Some were able to walk, but others were bound to a wheelchair (00:22:30) Big Bands -Big bands that were touring in the area would come to hospital to play for the patients -There was a little stage on the front lawn so the patients would get wheeled out there �-He remembers when Xavier Cugat and his band came to play at the hospital -Xavier led the band while he would go out and meet the patients (00:24:20) End of Service -He spent the entirety of his military career, except for Fort Knox, at the hospital -He had signed up for an eighteen month enlistment instead of a two year one -This places his discharge date as sometime in late 1947/early 1948 -There were attempts to encourage him to stay in -He was a T4 (technical sergeant) at the time -Told that if he stayed in he would be promoted to master sergeant -He was ready to get out of the Army and go to college when the time came though (00:25:14) Life after the War -He returned to college on the GI Bill -Did the first two years of pre-dental work -Changed degrees after the final dentistry course because he stopped enjoying it -Changed his major to business -Civilian dentistry was far more routine and boring than military dentistry -Prior to graduation he was offered a job offer to be a business manager and took that job -National Union of Christian Schools (later known as Christian Schools International) -Wound up being able to work one job for about a decade, then move on to a new job -Home was always Grand Rapids, but he worked around the country -California, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula -He wanted movement in his life and was fortunate enough to get it (00:28:06) Reflections on Service -He doesn’t stare at disfigured people even today -His time in the Army taught him that they are people with feelings -After a while you stopped seeing them as just a body, but as a person � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_StoepkerJ1745V Title A name given to the resource Stoepker, Jack (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-04-16 Description An account of the resource Jack Stoepker was born in 1928 in Holland, Michigan, and grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He served as an air raid warden during World War II, and enlisted in the Army in summer 1946. While training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, he injured a knee and was sent to Valley Forge General Hospital, Pennsylvania and during recovery there was transferred to the dental clinic at the hospital to work as a dentist's assistant. He specifically aided patients that had suffered severe facial trauma during the war and needed reconstructive surgery as well as physical and psychological rehabilitation. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stoepker, Jack Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f3f430d446f986878512359c5c26a09e.mp4 e6acaa15918746f9486416e199544692 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/57621feb9a4d1627384b2063e45919e0.pdf d234124c19ac2ad4d80a0ae01429cf2f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Raymond Start World War II 42 minutes 21 seconds (00:00:15) Early Life -Grew up in Galewood, Michigan -A suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan -Had four brothers and one sister -He attended Grand Rapids Christian High School until he was sixteen -Born in 1927 -Parents were named Dick and Alice -Lived within five minutes of a good wooded area -There were a lot of other kids in the neighborhood that he grew up in -Didn’t enjoy school, so he decided to drop out -Drove truck for a local company until he entered the service (00:01:41) Enlisting Pt. 1 -He enlisted in the Navy when he turned seventeen -Felt a duty to go fight the Japanese -Enlisted in 1944 -The Allies were making gains in Europe -Had aspirations of being a gunner (00:02:07) Overview of Service -He was qualified to be a radioman -Sent to the University of Wisconsin Radio School -Five months of training -Boarded a troopship in San Francisco -Sailed across the Pacific and arrived at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines -In the Philippines he was assigned to an attack personnel destroyer -Working with “frogmen” teams (precursors to the Navy SEALS) -They had four Higgins boats (landing craft for personnel) -The job was to destroy reefs and other obstacles for larger ships -The underwater demolition teams were training to clear a beachhead -Preparing for the invasion of Japan -They were on their way to Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped and the war ended -Returned to the United States -Spent three months in a transfer station in San Diego -Got assigned to an aircraft carrier -Duty was to go around the Pacific collecting aircraft and officers -The aircraft carrier was largely empty when they went to sea -Had plenty of room to play basketball in a hangar and softball on the flight deck -Wound up at Harbor Island in Tacoma, Washington -Putting the ship into the “mothball fleet” -Worked on that process for six months �-Discharged in July 1946 -Got to go skiing on Mount Rainier twice -Spent a lot of time with one good friend and went to social gatherings with him to meet girls -Total time in the service was twenty two months (00:04:49) Enlisting Pt. 2 -He enlisted at the recruiting station at Reeds Lake -His oldest brother had been in the Navy since 1942 -His father had served in the Army in World War One -Sent to Detroit for a physical examination and an aptitude test (00:05:57) Basic Training Pt. 1 -From Detroit he was sent to Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois -Taken to a large gymnasium the first night that he was there -Navy was the first time that he had ever been outside of Grand Rapids -Made good friends in basic training (00:06:16) Radio School -Life was good at the Radio School at the University of Wisconsin -Only had to share a room with one other sailor -Served three full square meals a day -Could go ice skating on campus in the winter -Allowed to mingle with the female students -Taught Morse code -Didn’t have to take a typing class because he had already learned to type in high school -Learned about what his duty as a radioman would entail -Sitting behind a typewriter, wearing headphones, listening to and transcribing code -Four hours of radio duty and eight hours off -Wouldn’t have to do manual labor aboard the ship -Radio School lasted five months (00:07:52) Deployment Pt. 1 -Sent to California by train -Went through the desert and had to open the windows because it was so hot -This led to being covered in soot from the train engine -Took a streamliner that was air conditioned from Los Angeles to San Francisco -Sent to Treasure Island and boarded the USS General CH Muir -Remembers sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge -Sailed with 3000 other men -When they reached the tropics they were allowed to sleep in hammocks on deck -The men got along well with each other -There was some minor tension with the Marines though (00:09:49) Adjustment and Rank -He had no problem with adjusting to the Navy -When he graduated from Radio School he was a Seaman 1st Class (RM) (radioman) -Meant that he would get to serve the watches that he trained for -Didn’t have to be part of the “deck force” for cleaning (00:11:24) Deployment Pt. 2 -Took thirty days to cross the Pacific Ocean -Only served two meals a day on the ship �-Became acquainted with a cook and got a job washing dishes -Meant that he could get extra food (00:12:15) Contact with Family Pt. 1 -He was allowed to visit his family before he was deployed -Only given a week -He also had a girlfriend at the time of his deployment (00:12:55) Stationed aboard the Attack Personnel Destroyer -They were bound for the Philippines -He was transferred from the USS General CH Muir to the attack personnel destroyer -Never set foot on the Philippines -They were anchored offshore -They would lower the Higgins boats to the water with the frogmen teams aboard -They would go in close to shore with dynamite and then dive down -Practicing blowing up natural and artificial obstacles -All communications were coded -Meant that he never really knew what was going on -Sometimes the duty got kind of boring -On the attack personnel destroyer for a few months sailing towards Japan -Changed course and sailed for home after the bombs were dropped (00:16:00) Transfer to the Aircraft Carrier Pt. 1 -Pulled into Oceanside, California -Some men were allowed to go ashore, but the rest had to stay aboard the ship -Some men got into the pyrotechnics locker and set off rockets in celebration -There was no alcohol allowed aboard the ship though -He was taken to a transfer center in San Diego to be reassigned -Got assigned to an aircraft carrier -He didn’t have any rank so he wound up being assigned to the “deck force” -He got along well with the recreation officer on the carrier -He was able to get him time off to go skiing on Mount Rainier -Sprained his right ankle on the second day of skiing -Got him light duty for three weeks so he could recover -Recreation officer also organized a target practice club -Also organized the softball games, but the balls were always lost overboard (00:20:24) Life after the War Pt. 1 -Went back to high school after the Navy and got his high school diploma -Graduated in 1947 -Used the GI Bill for flying lessons through Wolverine Air Service -It was fun learning how to fly small planes -Would take rides over Lake Michigan -He met a girl after he came home and got married to her -He became a delivery truck driver for Nabisco (00:23:40) Stationed in Washington -He had good liberty in Tacoma -Could go to local roller skating rinks to meet girls -Had to rely on buses and hitchhikers to get from the base to the city -One time got taken back to base by two friendly drunks �-He would also drive officers to Seattle -He had a chauffer’s license from before the war -Gave him a chance to buy some civilian clothes (00:26:02) Transfer to the Aircraft Carrier Pt. 2 -Morale was good, especially in the radio unit -He served aboard the USS Bougainville -Never had any major discipline issues -Only event he remembers was two sailors getting drunk and wrecking a phone booth -Life aboard the Bougainville was much better than aboard the attack personnel destroyer -On the APD their meals were terrible -Got served canned chicken that was two years past the expiration date -There were maggots in the mashed potatoes (00:28:14) Contact with Family Pt. 2 -Able to write home and receive letters from his family and his girlfriend -Used V-Mail (short for Victory Mail) -Mail system that used microfilm to allow for faster, simpler transport (00:29:15) Signs of War -Did not go ashore in the Philippines, but could still see the mainland -The entire area that he could see was bombed out and flattened -Saw Japanese prisoners of war that were being kept in a fenced in area -Knew that the Filipinos despised the Japanese -Saw children throwing stones at the Japanese soldiers -They were guarded by soldiers that were ready to shoot the prisoners -A lot of ships were still in the harbor and most were half sunk (00:30:24) Places of Interest -Anchored off Ulithi once and got to go scuba diving -Stopped at Guam -It was a B-29 base at the time and he got to see the bombers that were stationed there -Got treated to a USO Show at a USO Club on the island -Had free beer and girls to dance with -Got to see a lot of Tacoma -Got to explore San Diego -Went to the San Diego Zoo -Sent to Balboa Naval Hospital for a tonsillectomy -Almost bled to death because they did a rush job on his tonsils -Wound up in the hospital, again, for a week of recovery -Could only eat small amounts of ice cream and lost fifteen pounds -Got to see Bob Hope and his troupe perform (00:35:00) End of Service -Got discharged in July 1946 -Sent to Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois to be discharged -Took a train from Washington to Illinois -Enjoyed being able to see the mountains and the countryside on the train ride -From Illinois he took a Greyhound bus back to Grand Rapids (00:36:18) Basic Training Pt. 2 -Basic training lasted eight weeks �-Enjoyed it because he was in good physical shape -Trained alongside young men and old men -Felt bad for the old men because they were taken from their wives and children -The young men enjoyed the training -Trained by a man that was good natured and easy going -Received some rifle training (00:37:44) Reflections on Service Pt. 1 -Made him appreciate home more -Hasn’t left except for trips (00:38:01) Life after the War Pt. 2 -Has travelled around the United States and the Caribbean -Visiting children and grandchildren -Has four children: Doug, Jan, Rick, and Lisa -Has fifteen grandchildren -Has sixteen great grandchildren (00:39:12) Reflections on Service Pt. 2 -Made him more mature -Instilled in him confidence and people skills -Good experience for him at the time (00:39:57) Veterans’ Organizations -Not involved with any organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars or the American Legion -Did take part in the Spirit of Grand Rapids Honor Flight in May 2015 -Tour of the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C. for WWII veterans -Escorted by grandson, Michael � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_StartR1770V Title A name given to the resource Start, Raymond (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-13 Description An account of the resource Raymond Start was born in 1927 and grew up in Galewood, Michigan. When he turned seventeen he enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and was sent to Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois for basic training. From there he was sent to the University of Wisconsin for Radio School and after five months of that he was sent out to California to board a troopship. He was sent to the Philippines where he boarded an attack personnel destroyer in Leyte. They sailed toward Japan with underwater demolition teams, preparing for the invasion of Japan until the atomic bombs were dropped in August 1945. He was sent back to the United States where he was assigned to the aircraft carrier the USS Bougainville. He took a cruise around the Pacific collecting aircraft and officers, and then helped decommission the ship in Tacoma, Washington until July 1946 when he was discharged. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Start, Raymond Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Moore, Deb (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/be7029beaa6cf25f4c2241ee02cf8853.mp4 f38487b4bc6fa06cc7ccf649c1a231c1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/995bfb7e3bd322bf57981c8f30b38f40.pdf 399eded3937418530a3b6570b53d9f4b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Bob Smoker Vietnam War 1 hour 26 minutes 39 seconds (00:00:12) Early Life -Born on October 25, 1949 in York, Pennsylvania -Grew up there -Mother worked in a department store -Father worked for a heating and plumbing company -Delivered fuel, oil, and worked on air conditioners -Graduated from high school in 1967 -Granted a scholarship to Williamsport Area Community College -Sponsored by GTE Sylvania to pursue a degree in tool making -After first year of college felt like it was high school all over again -Tried for a second year and dropped out after the second year -Shortly after dropping out of college he began his apprenticeship with GTE Sylvania (00:01:27) Awareness of the War and Getting Drafted -Aware of the Vietnam War and the draft during his adolescence -Had some friends who had been deferred because they were apprentices for various trades -He wasn’t allowed a deferment because he had dropped out of college -Wasn’t surprised that he was eventually drafted -Noticed that in Vietnam it looked like continuous combat based on the news coverage -Followed some of the politics during 1968 -Received his draft notice in April 1969 -Reported for his Army physical -Didn’t notice anyone trying to avoid getting drafted (00:03:30) Basic Training -Went to Fort Dix, New Jersey for basic training -Went to the induction center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania prior to basic training -Boarded a troop train and had been put in charge of tickets for the recruits -Due to miscommunication concerning the tickets they all arrived late to Fort Dix -Wasn’t punished for his mistake though -Remembers taking a lot of tests before training actually began -Army was seeing who would be good for what roles and who was fit for service -Received physical, hand to hand combat, and weapons training -Remembers marching and taking hikes in the sand as part of physical training -There was a lot of emphasis on military discipline and following orders -Didn’t have any personal difficulty with following orders -Kept a low profile to avoid being noticed by the drill sergeants -Trained alongside a variety of men that were other draftees -Some had a college education, came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds -His drill sergeant had been to Vietnam -Occasionally would give advice about fighting and surviving in Vietnam �-Didn’t find the physical aspects of basic training all that hard due to being in good shape -Basic training lasted eight weeks (00:09:07) Advanced Infantry Training (AIT) -After basic training applied for a compassionate reassignment -Father was in a veterans’ hospital and wanted to stay stateside for his father -With a compassionate reassignment it would have delayed AIT and deployment -Application process took forever -Eventually got denied compassionate reassignment anyway -Sent to Fort Lewis, Washington for AIT -Advanced Infantry Training was a more intensive version of basic training -Went through the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) program -Knowing how to survive cutoff from your unit and how to survive being captured -Trained with heavy weapons -Specifically missile launchers, grenade launchers, and heavy machine guns -Practiced combat maneuvers -Participated in larger scale war games where rifles were replaced with BB guns -Trained how to execute a “rifle quick kill” -Point at target, fire, and kill the target without looking at the target -Felt that he did well with weapons training -Trained by Vietnam veterans as well as “shake and bake” sergeants -“Shake and bake” sergeants: gained their rank in an NCO school, not in combat -They were not trained how to deal with the Vietnamese populace during AIT -Spent eight weeks in AIT (00:14:06) Deployment to Vietnam -After Advanced Infantry Training he was sent home on a thirty days leave -Arrived in Vietnam in October 1969 -First had to travel on his own to Oakland, California -Spent three days being processed by the Army there -Flew over to Vietnam on a commercial airliner -Stopped at Hawaii, Wake Island, and then the Philippines -Allowed to walk around the airports when the plane stopped at each place (00:16:00) Arrival in Vietnam -Landed in Bien Hoa, Vietnam at night -First impression of Vietnam was that it was hot and humid -No enemy activity upon their arrival -Assigned a place to stay as well as put on a rotation for guard duty -Felt a lot of uncertainty during his first days in country -Stayed on the base so he didn’t know what the countryside was like yet -Spent a couple days at Bien Hoa before he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division -Went through SERTS at Camp Ray near Saigon -SERTS: Screaming Eagle Replacement Training School -Physical training, introduction to 101st, jungle survival, introduction to Vietnam -Doesn’t ever remember any real world application of what he learned in SERTS (00:19:40) Assignment to Charlie Company -Flew up to join the division at Camp Evans in a C-130’s cargo hold -Got assigned to Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Regiment �-Charlie Company was in the field when he arrived at Camp Evans -Pulled bunker duty on the perimeter of Camp Evans waiting to join Charlie Company -Got flown out to a firebase in the Lowlands onboard a helicopter to join C Company -Wound up being the first time he ever rode on a helicopter -Fairly quiet at the firebase Charlie Company was operating out of -Could see fighting in the hills and the mountains at night -Was instructed to observe the other soldiers and follow all the orders that were given to him -Was not given any kind of formal introduction to the unit (00:24:40) Conditions in the Field -Went out on patrol for a few weeks at a time -After patrols the unit would return to a firebase or to Camp Evans -Always got transported via helicopter to and from firebases -Recalls how every plant in the jungle seemed to have thorns on it -Amazed that no one ever seemed to get the cold or the flu while in the field -Learned quickly to keep quiet and to keep track of his supplies -Once your supplies ran out you would have to wait for a resupply to happen -Soldiers were allowed to smoke cigarettes in the field -Not allowed to at night though, so as to maintain light discipline -Never encountered drugs other than one time when they were sent to an abandoned firebase -Found a bag of marijuana that the soldiers had left behind -Wound up destroying it -Original commander of Charlie Company was a gung ho type leader -Wanted to make sure that C Company was involved in all available action (00:30:14) Operating in the Lowlands -Stayed in the hills until the monsoon set in -During patrols the unit would dig in during the day and move at night -Also set up ambushes at night -Operated in the Lowlands to insure that they could be resupplied -Usually worked at the platoon level, sometimes even broke down into the squad level -Remembers when Captain Vazquez became their commanding officer -Heard rumors about his grit, tenacity, and former Special Forces career -Also heard that he was a strong and effective leader worthy of respect -With him as their commander they always stayed off the trails and cut through the foliage -More difficult to cut through the jungle, but always proved to be safer -Eventually got sent on a mission to secure a landing zone that would become Firebase Gladiator -While at that firebase heard about how a sister platoon had been wiped out (00:33:43) Establishing Firebase Ripcord -In the spring of 1970 Operation Texas Star (also known as the Ripcord Campaign) began -At the start of the campaign had no idea how big of a deal Firebase Ripcord was going to be -His company, Charlie Company, was the third company to be sent in to secure the hilltop -Eventually managed to clear out the enemy forces and secure the hilltop -Had noticed an increased amount of enemy activity prior to the assault on the hill -Once the hilltop had been secured a perimeter was established and engineers were moved in -Spent most of their time building perimeter defenses -Bunkers, digging trenches, setting up land mines, and laying down wire -Had to dig all of their defensive positions by hand �-While building up Firebase Ripcord they didn’t receive enemy fire -After Firebase Ripcord was established his unit was returned to the field (00:38:12) Spring and Early Summer of 1970 -During April, May and June of 1970 his unit carried out mostly search and destroy missions -Noticed a marked increase in enemy activity during this time -Got sent out on a bomb damage assessment mission during this time -Went down into a valley and spent the night there -During their time in the valley they noticed enemy movement towards Ripcord -Upon returning to base got debriefed by an intelligence officer -Told that enemy forces were building up and moving towards Ripcord -Engaged in sporadic firefights over the course of the spring and early summer -Usually brief engagements with the enemy -During this time got assigned the “over under” -Experimental design of the M16 rifle with an attached grenade launcher -Also became a supply representative for his unit -Checked on what supplies were needed -Transmitted those needs back to a base for more effective resupply missions (00:42:25) Battle of Ripcord-Hill 902 -At the end of June 1970 he was moved over to Hill 902 ` -One of the key hills surrounding the main hill for Firebase Ripcord -On July 1st the Battle of Ripcord began to intensify and the enemy stepped up their attacks -Hill 902’s main value was in spotting and targeting of enemy positions -His unit spent two nights in a row in the same positions on Hill 902 -Strategically bad move, too predictable -He hadn’t been assigned anything other than to simply be another person on Hill 902 -When the attack began on Hill 902 he had to run from the barracks to his foxhole -Didn’t even have time to put his boots on -Remembers a huge amount of light and noise -Gunfire, screaming, explosions, and the light from flares and artillery -Realized that Vietnamese forces had broken their line and were deep within their territory -Instinctively shot and killed an attacking Vietnamese soldier -Implemented the “rifle quick kill” technique that he had learned in training -Was able to use a grenade to effectively kill a group of dug in Vietnamese soldiers -After the firefight helped to secure the perimeter and look for Vietnamese survivors -Remembers watching as Cobra attack helicopters provided fire support -Managed to make it through the fighting at Hill 902 uninjured -Believes that the charging Vietnamese overlooked his position -As it got lighter he could see jets flying bombing raids on the remaining Vietnamese (00:53:19) Battle of Ripcord-Interim and New Commander -Got taken off Hill 902 and was rotated back to Firebase Ripcord -Company captain [Hewitt, recent replacement for Vazquez] was killed and replaced by Captain Wilcox -He was able to serve as Wilcox’s radio operator for a short time -Walked over to Hill 805 under the leadership of Captain Wilcox -Whole area felt tense after the attack on Hill 902 like an attack could happen at any time -Had been impressed by Captain Wilcox since they were first introduced �(00:56:50) Battle of Ripcord-Hill 1000 -His unit was sent over to Hill 1000 on July 8, 1970 -Very close to Firebase Ripcord and extremely strategic -D Company had tried to assault Hill 1000 earlier and failed -C Company was going to work with D Company for a second assault -On the morning of July 8 artillery and air raids bombarded the hill -So intense that shrapnel was still falling from the sky when they walked up the hill -Managed to reach the top of the hill without incident -Once they reached the top that’s when the Vietnamese opened fire -Company’s medic was killed on the hilltop -Received word that a large enemy force was moving towards their position -Advised to retreat from the hill and regroup at a landing zone -Had no idea what had become of D Company -Regrouped at landing zone and Captain Wilcox defied a direct order from Colonel Lucas -Colonel Lucas wanted a second assault, Wilcox knew it was suicide -Second assault was abandoned, but Wilcox was relieved of command (01:04:04) End of the Ripcord Campaign and End of Tour -Throughout July 1970 the fighting around Firebase Ripcord only intensified -Vietnamese attacks got more vicious and chipped away at the resolve of the troops -Remembers that after Hill 1000 C Company joined D Company to rescue D Company, 1st/506th for an operation -Helping to secure a landing zone so troops could be evacuated out of the area -On July 22/23 Firebase Ripcord was abandoned and bombed by B52 bombers -Last ditch effort to wipe out Vietnamese troops that were attacking the firebase -By this time C Company had been evacuated and put on station at Camp Evans -Last major assignment was to be assigned to Firebase Rakkasan -Acted as the supply representative for the firebase -Was starting to count down the days to being sent home (01:08:40) Drugs, Civilians, and Morale -Doesn’t ever recall seeing or hearing about soldiers using drugs -Soldiers would occasionally drink beer and get drunk on base during downtime -Never ran into Vietnamese civilians during his tour -Towards the end of his tour he started to notice racial tensions building up -Remembers hearing about a racially motivated incident at “Rocket Ridge” -Didn’t know the details -Heard that it had been resolved peacefully though -In general most men wanted to follow orders and do their job as best as they could -Just wanted to help each other survive and get home -In the field he noticed that they were always able to act effectively as a unit (01:12:49) A R&R in Australia -Received an R&R while in Vietnam -Picked Australia to be his destination -Took his R&R there in May 1970 before the Ripcord Campaign intensified -Australia was an eye opening experience for him -Got scammed by a local woman and wound up losing most of his money there �(01:14:30) Coming Home and Leaving the Army -Went to Cam Ranh Bay and got processed out there -Flew back to Fort Lewis, Washington -Spent a day there -Prior to leaving Vietnam got promoted to the rank of sergeant -Being a sergeant he was assigned to Hunter Army Air Field in Savannah, Georgia -After a short leave home reported to Hunter Army Air Field -Given easy assignments because he was a sergeant and an infantryman -Never experienced any war protestors or harassment upon coming home -At the end of his service the Army made an effort to get him to reenlist -Declined, just wanted to get out and go back to being a civilian -Got discharged on May 12, 1971 (01:17:37) Life after the War -Went back to work for GTE Sylvania -Eventually completed his apprenticeship as a toolmaker -Worked for them until about 1981/1982 -In 1975 started attending Bible College -Graduated from there in 1981 -Went to seminary and wound up being a pastor at a church in Vermont -In 2001 became a fulltime pastor -Prior to that had also worked in a machine shop -After becoming a fulltime pastor became a part time machine shop worker -Acted as a full time pastor until 2010 (01:19:00) Volunteerism in Vietnam -In 2001 got a call asking if he wanted to go back to Vietnam for mission work -Accepted the offer and in January 2002 went to Vietnam for three weeks -Met with American missionaries and Cambodian church builders in Ho Chi Minh City -Worked on teaching Vietnamese villagers English -Had to go over as a “tourist” and not as an official missionary -Learned that the new experiences in Vietnam replaced the old memories he had -Has since returned, and continues to return to Vietnam with groups of Vietnam veterans -Associating the country with a positive experience has been extremely therapeutic (01:22:40) Reflections on Service and Mission Work -Harbors no resentment towards the Vietnamese people -Feels that God has given him so much and he should share himself with everyone -Wants to continue to help the rural Vietnamese to learn English -Wants to repay the debt that he feels he owes to God -Has never been harassed by Vietnamese officials for being a Christian -In fact they welcomed an American who is willing to help the people -Wants to continue to work to show veterans that Vietnam is now how they remember it -Finds it a shame that Vietnam is so closely associated with the war and the culture ignored -At the end of the day just wants to help veterans not to be stuck with old, bitter memories � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SmokerR1656V Title A name given to the resource Smoker, Robert (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-07-08 Description An account of the resource Bob Smoker was born in 1949 in York, Pennsylvania. He grew up there and graduated from high school there in 1967. He attended college briefly, and then took a job, which cost him his deferment. In April 1969 he received his draft notice and shortly thereafter began basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. After Fort Dix he was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington for Advanced Infantry Training and upon completing that he was deployed to Vietnam in October 1969. He arrived in Bien Hoa and was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. After completing Screaming Eagle Replacement Training School at Camp Ray (near Saigon) he was sent up to Camp Evans and was assigned to Charlie Company,2nd of the 506th Regiment 101st Airborne Division. During his time in Vietnam he participated in patrols of the Lowlands, in Operation Texas Star (the establishment of Firebase Ripcord in the spring of 1970) and the subsequent Battle of Firebase Ripcord during July 1970. After leaving Vietnam he finished his service at Hunter Army Air Field, Georgia and was discharged from the Army on May 12, 1971. After a professional career, he became a minister and got involved with a group of American missionaries that work in Vietnam to help teach the rural Vietnamese English and to help American Vietnam War veterans find peace with their memories. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smoker, Robert Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/07c597b4f2e27d133503e2987c1c4300.m4v 11f86b0938de586e52917f4c67589930 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/466426f698a80ce7b0c898ed0ec4f309.pdf 4b2ab14fa3ce9ad8f8c3196ac6ff410f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Vietnam War John Smith Length: 123 Minutes Pre-Enlistment Born in Fredericktown Missouri in 1946 (0:20) Grew up in Southeast Missouri, in the town of Mable Hill (0:27) Father was shoe factory supervisor, eventually became plant manager (0:33) Mother was a part time factory worker (0:47) Had a brother and a sister, he was the oldest sibling (0:51) Went to High School in Bollinger County until junior year, when the factory closed, and family moved to Tennessee (1:04) Graduated from High School in Springfield Tennessee, in 1964 (1:23) He went to college at Austin Peay State University 25 miles away at Clarkston for one year (1:36) ROTC and Enlistment His father’s job moved and his family moved to Cookeville Tennessee and he transferred to Tennessee tech (01:51) He got involved in the military ROTC there (1:57) He had to do ROTC for the first two years (2:15) Father was supportive of becoming an officer, because he was World War II vet (2:21) Took double the ROTC classes to catch up to his class level (2:54) He was very aware of what was happening in Vietnam, some of his instructors had severed there (3:30) There was communication between grads in Vietnam and the ROTC and some trained with them (3:49) Should have graduated in 1968 and did met the ROTC requirements (4:16) �Received a distinguished military student designation. (4:25) Left Tennessee Tech after he fell behind, in a tax class that he could not retake until the next year (5:00) He did not want to wait to join the Army (5:08) Got a reserve commission because he needed a college degree for a regular commission (5:23) Training at IOBC He went to IOBC (infantry officer basic course) in Fort Benning (5:54) He could choose from many options (5:58) He choose to be an infantry officer in Southeast Asia (Vietnam) on his dream sheet (6:09) He felt that his training was leading him to go to Vietnam and he wanted to go (6:21) Started IOBC on June 9th 1969 (6:37) Was primarily classroom work with some outside work, called practical exercises, designed to teach you skills needed to be an officer (7:01) Such as map reading, calling in artillery, and leadership qualities (7:04) ROTC was focused on war with USSR in Europe, IOBC was focused on Vietnam War (7:39) Many of the trainers had been in Vietnam (8:00) Videos and diagrams from real battles in Vietnam were used frequently (8:22) Much of the training was based the experience of the instructors in Vietnam (8:34) All of the training was focused in Vietnam because everyone knew they would be sent there, and most were (8:41) His class was the class of 1969, 1369 was the designation (9:13) In his training class around 50% were National Guard Lieutenants (9:29) A few regular army, mostly reservist (9:58) Military intelligence officers had to go through the training, before they went to MI school (10:11) The Guardsmen went back home after training (10:15) They were somewhat disliked, but he could not remember any fights breaking out (10:20) West Pointers were in a different training class (11:18) Half a dozen enlisted who had become officers, they were 5 or 6 years older (11:50) More physically demanding than ROTC (12:10) �He joined Tech Rangers, which did PT and other extra training (12:32) He went to some camp between junior and senior year that was similar to Basic Training for enlisted (12:48) In ROTC did some marching between the quads but did road marches, took buses to and from training sites (13:18) So it was not as physically demanding (13:28) Training at Fort Riley and Jungle School He did not go to specialized training, he went straight to Fort Riley Kansas where he became a platoon leader in the 24st Infantry division (13:39) He was a platoon leader in the mechanized infantry for 6 months (13:48) He felt like he did know what he was doing at the start (14:19) Being able to do real training with his platoon, such as map reading, helped build up his confidence in his leadership (15:10) Everyone in his platoon had served in the war (15:42) It was common for injured troops to be reassign to these training platoons (15:55) Every six months old Lieutenants left, and new ones arrived (16:19) It was sobering to read that some of the Lieutenants he trained with were killed in Vietnam, while he was still in training (16:52) The troops talked about Vietnam, was not a secret (17:10) Some of the troops felt they were to dumb to do anything else, but he did not feel that way (17:30) Many soldiers under his command were proud of being soldiers (17:55) Many of the enlisted did not want to be there, so had a negative attitude (18:10) Not really any advice on how to an effective officer (18:33) The enlisted reflect the view of America, thinking that the war was screwed up and that the war should end (18:46) Did not get much encouragement from the enlisted (19:39) While some had issues, most did there did their jobs well despite being draftees (19:54) There was not a lot of back talk (20:24) Some were screw ups (20:30) Most were very good (20:45) �Was temporarily part of the 1st Division (21:28) The biggest difference between the States and Vietnam was that in Vietnam every job seemed important, particularly planning (S-4) and operations (S-3) (21:51) He received his orders in February of 1970 (22:22) He had got to home for about thirty days in March (22: 39) Family had moved to Kentucky and he had married a girl in Kentucky (22:45) He went to jungle school in Panama (23:02) Jungle was fun sometimes (23:13) Jungle school was important because it helped him learn how to move through the jungle (24:32) Nice climate and firs time he had been outside of the United States (23:34) The people did not speak English and learning to commutate with them was good training for Vietnam (23:50 Most of the instructors were Hispanic and sometimes hard to understanding (24:10) Was pretty relevant to Vietnam (20:41) He also learned how to use maps in the jungle and how to cross streams (24:49) Counted towards his year overseas (25:01) Leaving the States and Arriving in Vietnam He returned to the States at Charleston, South Carolina, had five days to get to San Francisco, and spent two days at home (25:18) Had a great time at home, felt better then when he left the US the first time (25:30) Did not know he was going to Jungle school (25:48) His father cried at the airport which made him uncomfortable (25:25) This time they were all smiles (26:00) He felt like he was going to make it (26:06) Was in San Francisco for maybe two days (26:17) Arrived at night, and thought the city looked like the Rice-a-Roni commercial (26:59) He was bought drinks by the locals in San Francisco, which surprised him (27:00) They were very supportive of him (27:20) The anti-war movement was active (27:31) �One of the captains he served with at Fort Riley was shot an anti-war rally (28:18 Flew on civilian plane and it was the longest flight of his life (28:22) From San Francisco he flew to Alaska, than to Japan, and the to Vietnam (28:34) Landed in Bien Hoa, was processed there (28:36) Got a dream sheet to pick his assignment He was sent to the 101st after three days in the replacement depot, (29:33) Long Binh was vary stateside like, it was the first time he saw slot machines (29:39) Was flown to the 101st by C-130 (30:05) The further north you went the worse the facilities got (30:33) They could assigned all over, his friend was assigned to the Cambodian border (31:07) He had to go Screaming Eagle training center before he knew what unit in 101st he would be assigned to (31:14) The training was focused on teaching the new soldiers how the 101st operated (31:20) Everyone trained together including officers and enlisted (31:31) They were trained to look out for traps, refresher training, and how to move through the jungle (31:53) They did a road march, but no training patrol bit most the training was focused more on technique (32:05) The training ended after five days and he was assigned to D company 1st Battalion, 506th regiment (32:45) Camp Evans was their base camp (32:57) Platoon Commander When he and Lt. Thompson came they met with the XO and were taken to 3rd Brigade's officers club for the briefing (33:13) The XO said that they were going to be assigned to the best company commander in the battalion (33:47) He found out that there were no other officers at the meeting because they had all been killed (34:01) They joined the company in late May of 1970, in early May the platoon had taken heavy losses at an abandoned fire base called Maureen (34:43) The platoon leader had been killed (34:45) �When he arrived they were a few days from stand down, 2nd Platoon had loss so many men that it was combined with 1st and 3rd platoons (35:14) The commanding officer, Captain Don Workman (nicknamed Ranger), wanted to reorganized the company after stand down. (35:31) After the men came back for the stand down he able to be introduced to the (35:45) He was made the pay officer, and had to roster everyone and pay them in script (36:28) He came across a guy named Dean Finch who was from Fredericktown Missouri which was near where John Smith was born (35:56) He became friends with Finch, who it turned out was in 2nd Platoon (37:12) The stand down gave the company time to get cleaned up, eat decent food, change clothes, and other things they could not do in the field (37:45) They did some training, including zeroing the weapons (37:50) It was mostly a time of rest and realization for the men in the field (38:02) They started to get replacements but not very many, they were understrength when they went to relive another company that was due for R and R, though they were able to return having three platoons (38:30) 1st Platoon guarded the western flank of [Firebase] Ripcord while 2nd and 3rd patrolled, 2nd was about 20-30 men at the time (38:49) Some of the men who were left from the original 2nd platoon wanted to transfer because it was consider a hard luck platoon (39:40) They had been mauled before Maureen (39:11) This lead to shifting of personnel, leading to much of 2nd platoon being new (39:26) In the Field When they flew out of Ripcord, he could not see much because they were in a Chinook, which had no windows (40:02) They did not have any time to get acquainted with area around Firebase Ripcord, though he did get a medic (40:19) He was impressed by how steep the hill that Ripcord was on and which made him think the base could not be take. (40:38) By this time it was June and 2nd platoon began its patrol of the area around Ripcord (40:59) During this time they made no contact with the NVA, they found abandon bunkers but nothing else (41:11) �They were on patrol for one week (41:18) It was good practice for Smith to lead the men without an attacks, helped him get used to leading in the field (41:33) It was physically demanding to patrol in the field for the first, his pack weighed a third as much as he did (41:47) He spent most of his time walking up and down hills (42:20) It gave him time to talk to Ranger, who instilled trust in the unit, though some though he was too gun ho. He was not a joker, he did care about his men. (43:05) 2nd and 3rd platoon operated as one unit, while 1st platoon was operating independently (43:45) Ranger spent his time with the 2nd and 3rd platoons (43:48) He had a platoon Sergeant who was serving on a second tour (44:12) His name was Bustamonte, who was able to help Smith was his first patrol 44:23 He was very calm and was Puerto Rican, spoke with an accent (44:44) Everyone else was relatively new (44:59) They were all kids, mostly draftees (45:20) They were trained through NCO school, but were not experience (46:13 Bustamonte was with them for only two weeks, because he was supposed be with the 4th Division but was reassigned (46:13) After that it was Smith and some inexperienced NCOs (46:47) The most experienced had been there for a month (47:00) Firebase Catherine After leaving Ripcord, they were sent to Firebase Katherine, as the Company was rebuilt (47:26) 2nd platoon were there for about month, managing security, they would get new men every day one or two at a time (47;46) They did repair on the barbed wire outside the base, and tried to improve the defenses (48:03) Did some local patrolling and ambushing (48:16) Ranger grew concerned they were losing their edge (48:21) The troops liked firebase duty, because you had prepared defense against attacks, which you often did not in the field (48:49) They also sleep and ate better, had shelter from the rain. In the field it was hard to sleep in the rain. (49:02) �Any kind of shelter was too dangerous because it could give their position away (49:22) Ranger and Smith wanted to get into the field (49:40) On the firebase there was no drug use to his knowledge, but it was common in the rear (50:21) One of the main reasons that it was too dangerous (50:51) Katherine was some minor attacks, mostly mortar attacked (51:24) One night there was huge explosion, and two guys went missing, still unknown what happened (51:49) They were found dead the next morning, possibilities including sabotage attack or accident, no real proof 52:20 They moved off the firebase shortly after July the 4th , on July 1st ripcord came under a major attack, (53:32) Ranger told them Ripcord came under attack during the normal meeting, Smith did not think much about it (53:53) However each every day the attack continued, which surprised Smith (54:12) Return to Firebase Ripcord They were then moved south of Ripcord (54:32) They patrolled the jungle, reconnaissance in force, which made up most of the action in Vietnam (54:48) That was the opposite of what he envisioned, he thought they would be attacking the enemy at a known position (54:59) He was told how things would be at fort Riley, but it did not sink in (55;26) They were on patrol for about a week (55:40) They still made no contact, which was good because they need the training for all of the new men in the unit (56:03) He felt fortunate that they had not be attacked, he did not want to look for trouble but to ready for trouble went it happened (56:29) They assembled back at Highway 1, after which they returned to Camp Evans, where they were told they were going to be sent to Ripcord (56:51) It was rainy when they arrived at Camp Evans, which delayed their move to Ripcord for a day (57:33) They got the night off, Smith ran the bunker line as favor for friend (57:51) Everyone else had a big party, known as the last supper (58:08) �The 3rd Platoon leader took them into his office told them that they were going to Ripcord where they would see combat (58:45) Smith told his Platoon Sergeant to get the platoon ready, mentally and physically (59:17) Much of combat is mental. You can do everything right and still end up in bad place (59:54) The next day they were dropped off in an LZ (60:21) It was the 17 or 18 of July (60:31) They found bandages and boots around the LZ, showing that something bad had happened (60:58) They stayed closer together then usual, but were able move out without much trouble (61:30) By night they were looking for a defensive perimeter (61:44) After the perimeter was set up they sent out patrols (61:50) The first two or three days nothing happened, they just patrolled looking out for an ambush (62:19) They found more bunkers, but no Vietnamese (62:54) They set up camp on hill, they had to go investigate a cave that was in the hill (63:21) He went into the cave because he did not want to send anyone else, but there was nothing in the cave (63:29) That was the last night they spent patrolling that area, the next day they were moved to a new area (63:23) They restocked got to the LZ and got ready to leave for the new area (64:41) They got mail and Smith found out that his wife was pregnant with their first son (64:54) Fight around the LZ As they approached the LZ in helicopters, the door gunner open fire, because the LZ was hot (66:41) Smith felt vary exposed on the helicopter (66:23) They had to jump of the helicopter, as they hovered five or six feet off the ground, so they hit the ground hard (67:40) This made him disoriented when he hit the ground (67:45) He remembered that his Dad begged him not to go into the infantry, and he thought that he was going to be killed (68:10) But he came to his sense and was able to secure the LZ, the fire on them stopped (68:23) �AS the 3rd Platoon arrived they took more fire, but he could tell how heavy the fire was (69:03) The helicopter his platoon sergeant was on, had to turn around after being damaged, so he arrived with 3rd platoon (69:15) They were getting organized to take nearby high lands when, three NVA walked into their position and were killed by heavy fire (70:25) It was the first time he saw an enemy killed (70:30) He had a lack of feeling, which he thought was strange (70:36) After that it quieted down, and they spent the rest of the day getting organized (70:58) He then led a patrol in the direction that NVA came from, they found freshly moved dirt, but no NVA (71:31) They then secured the hill for 2nd and 3rd platoons, while 1st platoon on the other side of the LZ (72:18) He did not know much what was happening around 1st Platoon, and they were digging in to set up their base (72:45) Around 4 o’clock they heard 1st platoon come under attack, Ranger was nearby so he heard that they were taking causalities (73:10) He was expecting to be sent to reinforced but was sent to secure the LZ so they could land Medevacs (73:45) They had a big LZ, so they could land 2 helicopters, and it was inside the saddle of the LZ making it defensible (74:12) 1st Platoon was withdrawn to the north Hill, with 2nd and 3rd, and Smith saw Lt Thompson who he trained with, who had been wounded (74:34) The whole platoon seemed shocked (74:48) Smith could tell that they had been in harrowing position, and Thompson told him that they had left men behind on the hill (75:03) They went back up the north hill, and Smith was surprised that sleep came easily (75:30) He was so tired that he had hard time staying awake during his shift to stand guard (75:47) They saw enemy movement so Ranger told the medevacs to back off (76:20) Everybody was on edge, but nothing happened ( 76:32) He knew the next day they would have to find the bodies left behind, which they both dreaded and felt obligated to do (77:26) He knew that they were going to have to fight to get there (77:40) �That morning he heard mortar fire, that was moving closer, Ranger tried to call in counter battery fire and Smith told the men to get into the fox holes. (78:20) He was expecting only some light fire, but they took very heavy fire, probably because NVA had an observer watching them (79:41) They had few dead, but many wounded (79:48) Smith was wounded, and the platoon medic was dead, Ranger decide they should pull back to the LZ (80:55) They were getting ready to evacuate the wounded, there was short fight when patrol was sent to retrieve an abandon machine gun but no losses (81:41) They were waiting for medevacs, but they came under attack again, one of the medevacs were shoot down over the LZ (82:31) During came under sporadic attack, but were supported by artily and fighters, so they held there position (83:39) They had lost 25-30 men since being dropped off (83 52) Withdrawal They were exhausted, so they stayed in the same spot, which they were not supposed to do, but there was nowhere else to go (84:28) At this point his morale hit the lowest point because he thought that they were going to get hit hard, but they were withdrawn (85:25) He thought that his unit got a bad rap in Nolan’s book, because they did not quit (85:42) Smith had been wounded in the lower back but could still get around, the wound was minor but he ended up spending 3 weeks in the hospital (86:34) It felt like got hot a baseball, but later on in hurt much more (87:11) They stayed the day, they felt had taken a lot fighting during the two days (87:56) Reinforcements came the same route they did, came from hot LZ but light losses. (88;28) Ranger and Rollison, the new company's [D/2/506] CO, talked and then the perimeter was reinforced (89:27) There was no more heavy fighting (89 33) They were waiting to be extracted, his mind was on the dead left behind, Ranger said to for Smith to get out on the first bird (90:42) He got on the helicopter fine, but another one had shot down and the LZ had to take off due to debris (90:59) �The fourth helicopter was shot down and crashed on the LZ, and killed Ranger (91:34) He founded out how latter when he talked to the helicopter crew (92:48) The First Sergeant told Smith that Ranger did not make it (93:10) Smith told his unit, and then went to get checked out, and was put under hospital care (94:18) He was stripped completely naked, they cut through his uniform (94:35) He was sent to the rear area to recuperate for three weeks (95:34) In the Rear He had find his own transportation to his unit, got on plan to Phu Bai processing center, had to hitchhike to Camp Evans (96:36) The unit though he had been sent back to the States, he stayed with the company for two months, they were moved many different areas (97:53) He got pulled the rear after collapsing, he was moved to being the property book officer, he was in charge keep track of their possessions and doing inventory (98:33) He was part of a security platoon in the rear area where he would stand guard in the rear area (100:17) He had all the problem men from the battalion, and was threatened more than once (100:38) His son was born in early March ( 100:52) He became frustrated with his assignment, and was sent back to the field as part of convoy (101:05) They came around a corner and ran into another group that had been ambushed (101:28) The he replaced an officer who had been wounded when his helicopter had been shot down (102:56) He lived on the firebase, which was safer than in the field (103:23) His job was coordinate air support and was part of the planning for air strikes (104:17) It was not a bad job, but he never got used to the job (104:44) He marked enemy location with White Phosphorous grenades, they then napalmed the spot, which was questionable effectiveness (105: 45) There was problem with drugs, particularly marijuana and heroin, overdoses were common (107:15) He had arrested men for having drugs (107:40) Racial issues were not uncommon, that reflective of problems in the US (108:08) �He had been involved in possible riot suppression back into the US (108:31) They had a party, were a fight had happened leading to a racial fight, while lead to the party being broke up (110:38) There was a lot problems, but he did not see much of it Vietnam, (111:50) He tried reason with men to stop the fights (112:28) Army was deeply divided, though they were not problems in the field, more problems in the rear area (113:48) Return to the US His tour came to end in late spring of 1971 (114:45) He flew back to Kentucky. In his uniform, and did have any problems (115:14 After returning to the US he was reassigned to Fort Campbell, which was near where he went to high school. (115:28) He worked in train center and was promoted to Captain, and stayed there until April of 72 when it was shut down (115:47) It was basic training center, and he went through three training cycles, was there as they began transition volunteer army (117:58) Filled out many reports, was part changing style of basic training away from hazing (118:55) Some all the drill sergeants were Vietnam veterans, but most were not combat veterans (119:32 He was reassign 101st when it came back in April before left army in June, he was involved in recruiting to rebuild the units (121:34) After he left the Army he sold insurance for year did not make money, went work for a brick company, where he stayed (122:34) Was in the reserves but he did not like it, was too much training (122:55) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SmithJ1681V Title A name given to the resource Smith, John (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-10 Description An account of the resource John Smith was born in 1946 in Fredericktown Missouri, he later moved to Tennessee. He joined the ROTC in college, then joined the Army in 1969. He trained at the IOBC at Fort Benning, then at Fort Reilly. He served with the D Company, 1st Battalion, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, as platoon leader of 2nd platoon, and was involved in the fighting in early July 1970 around Firebase Ripcord. After he was wounded he served as the properties officer, later air coordinator. After returning to the US he was involved in the training base at Fort Campbell, before leaving the Army in June of 1972. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, John Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e12fe26d95a109438d5499362288ec74.mp4 d149a59509eaae6e7e030a05ba619f07 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4bc4d8e128d73967b372fc4059a5e325.pdf 5268c119337d65f9ba4de1757e7a9184 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Ralph Slager World War II-Post War 28 minutes 52 seconds (00:00:10) Early Life -Born in Comstock, Michigan on January 9, 1928 -Grew up in Comstock and lived there until he got married -His father worked in a lumberyard then for the Upjohn Company during World War II -He had steady work during the Great Depression -The pay wasn’t good, but it was consistent -He had one brother and two sisters -He was the third child (00:01:19) World War II -Remembers hearing President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech -Remembers the paperboys hawking newspapers after Pearl Harbor was bombed -The attack came as surprise to him because he didn’t know about Japan’s ambitions -Remembers the rationing of tires, gasoline, and sugar going into effect -He became involved with local paper drives where he would meet his future wife -Seemed that the war would go on long enough that he would have to serve (00:02:50) Enlisting in the Army -He graduated in June 1945 while the war was still on -He was seventeen at the time though which meant he was safe from getting drafted -He had worked on celery farms growing up but knew he didn’t want to do that as a career -Prior to receiving his draft notice he worked at an ice cream factory -Even after hostilities ceased the draft was still in effect -This was because the war wasn’t declared officially over until 1951 -He received his draft notice and reported to the local draft office -Told that if he accepted the draft he could be in for an indefinite amount of time -Went to an Army recruiter and was told about the perks of enlisting -He could sign up for an eighteen month commitment -He enlisted in the Army on March 8, 1946 -Reported to Fort Custer, Michigan for his Army physical -Reported to Fort Sheridan, Illinois to be inducted (00:05:37) Basic Training and Artillery Training -He was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training and artillery training -Processing involved getting a haircut, being given a uniform, and being assigned to a barracks -Trained by World War Two veterans that weren’t too hard on the new recruits -Trained with the 105mm howitzer and the M1 Carbine -There was a lot of marching and a heavy emphasis on discipline -If a recruit didn’t follow orders they would be assigned to kitchen patrol duty -Artillery training began with getting acquainted with the howitzer -Learning about the parts of the gun and how it worked -Received field training with the 105mm howitzer, learning how to load and fire it �-Remembers pulling the lanyard and watching the shell being shot -Learned how to calculate coordinates for the gun -Using wind speed and how to adjust the elevation of the gun -Went out to the firing range for training with the M1 Carbine -He was accurate up to one hundred meters -He went on five mile marches around the base -Trained with men from Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania -Spent three months at Fort Knox (00:10:30) Stationed at Camp Campbell -From Fort Knox he was sent to Camp Campbell (now Fort Campbell), Kentucky -Assigned to a signal company in the 5th Division -He doing general duty at the camp because he had no signal corps training -He stayed there for the rest of the summer of 1946 -He visited Clarksville, Tennessee a lot -Attended the Cumberland Presbyterian Church there -There were also bars to go to off base, but most of the men in the unit were more reserved -Remembers that it was hotter at Camp Campbell than it was at Fort Knox (00:13:00) Radio Training -He was sent up to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey for high speed radio operator training -Learning how to receive and translate Morse code -He had to be able to receive and type twenty five words per minute -He took typing in high school which helped him with that -It was still a challenging process and took some getting used to -There was a morning session and an afternoon session that he attended -The school was one mile from his barracks -Every day he and the other men would march there and back -Stayed at Fort Monmouth for five months -He was allowed to go off base there -Visited Long Branch, New Jersey and found a church to attend there -Visited New York City with a friend from Kalamazoo -Travelled there via bus -Got to visit the Empire State Building th -The 5 Division was deactivated so he was reassigned to the 3rd Division (00:16:48) Stationed at Fort Meade -The 3rd Division was based out of Fort George Gordon Meade, Maryland -He reported to Fort Meade in late February (or early March) 1947 -He was assigned to a signal company there -There were roughly 160 men in the signal company -At that time the Ohio River would flood every spring -Mobile units would be sent out to the flooded banks of the Ohio River -During that time he would report to the Army Headquarters in Baltimore -Travelled there by bus from Fort Meade -He was the chief radio operator, maintaining contact with the mobile units -Had to deal with a tremendous amount of static due to being in the city -The mobile units were looking for any emergency situations or people that needed help -Similar to things that the National Guard would do �-After flood season he was assigned to the Army hospital at Fort Meade -Working as one of the announcers and disc jockeys for the hospital’s radio network -His job was to read the news, make announcements, and play music -Did that duty until he was discharged -Enjoyed that duty -He would take requests for music and would play a wide variety of music -Fort Meade was twenty five miles from Baltimore so he pretty much stayed on base (00:22:48) Beginning of the Cold War -Remembers when the Marshall Plan began and thought it was right to help the Europeans -Provision of aid to help the recovery of allies and former enemies -Remembers hearing about the Berlin Airlift -Provision of food to Berlin after the Soviets blockaded the city -Would have been after he got discharged, but it was still a moment of tension -As the Cold War began there was fear that his time in the Army might be lengthened -China was still fighting a civil war and tensions were rising with the Soviets (00:23:56) End of Service -There was an offer for him to reenlist -There was no chance that he could be promoted though -Decided that if there was no career it would be best to get out -Got discharged on September 7, 1947 (00:24:56) Life after the War -Came home and joined the Christian Male Chorus on September 17, 1947 -Organization that one of his wife’s relatives had started -He is still active in it today and still performs -Attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan for one semester -Decided that college just wasn’t for him -He went to work as a buffer for Gibson Guitars -After Gibson he worked for Atlas Press which made home tools -He was given an assignment to design a tool and enjoyed doing that -Began taking night classes to get shop training and got a job in the tool room -Wanted to learn how to make tools that people would like using -Spent two years in the tool room and became an apprentice tool maker -Gradually worked into engineering -He was later hired into Brunswick School Furniture -Worked there for twelve years as a tool designer until he was laid off -Went to work for Pemco Wheel Company in Kalamazoo -Worked there for eight years as a tool designer until he got laid off in 1982 -Went to work for Lear Siegler Inc. Plastics in Mendon, Michigan -Worked there for twelve years and then retired (00:28:08) Reflections on Service -Learned how to pick and choose what to say and when to say it -Taught him how to be disciplined -Got to meet a lot of good people -Got the chance to travel around part of the United States -Enjoyed his time in the service, but was ready to go home when it was done � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SlagerR1767V Title A name given to the resource Slager, Ralph (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-18 Description An account of the resource Ralph Slager was born in Comstock, Michigan on January 9, 1928. He grew up in Comstock during the Great Depression and World War Two and graduated in June 1945. The draft was still in effect after the war ended, and after turning eighteen in January 1946 he was susceptible to being drafted. He decided to enlist in the Army for an eighteen month commitment on March 8, 1946. He reported to Fort Custer, Michigan and Fort Sheridan, Illinois for his physical and getting inducted, and was then sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training and artillery training. He was then stationed at Camp Campbell, Kentucky with a signal company in the 5th Division, and then was sent to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey for high speed radio operator training. After that training he was reassigned to a signal company in the 3rd Division at Fort Meade, Maryland where he worked as a radio operator in Baltimore, Maryland and at a hospital on base. He was discharged on September 7, 1947. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Slager, Ralph Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/31012a76c097d9d5cdc8f15d7f45984d.m4v bbf224827662f9c0776b9e5a58b7cbc9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/22b3d496a8e0e0caba0720c40699ca36.pdf a06ab61e72c6765c2b797fa71afd29bb PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Marc Skinner Vietnam War 51 minutes 36 seconds (00:00:20) Early Life -Born in Richmond, Indiana in 1948 -Grew up in Richmond, Indiana and graduated from high school there in 1966 -Went to Ball State University -Stayed for a year and a half -Being in college protected him from getting drafted -His father was a printer -His mother was a beautician -She was a French war-bride from when his father fought in WWII -He had a younger brother and younger sister (00:01:41) Awareness of the Vietnam War -In his junior year of high school a teacher’s brother was killed in action in Vietnam -In high school that was the most exposure he had to the war -In Richmond they didn’t receive a lot of national news -Once he went to college he was able to find out more about the war (00:02:19) College and Dropping Out -At Ball State he majored in political science with a minor in physical education -For the first semester he lived in the dorms -In his second semester he joined a fraternity -He went from having a C+ average to a C- average -With his grades slipping he decided to drop out and try again after taking a semester off -He worked at a Burger King and prepared to go back to college (00:03:57) Getting Drafted -Because he dropped out he was eligible for the draft -He was drafted in late January (or February) 1968 (00:04:24) Basic Training -He was sent to Fort Dix, New Jersey for basic training -It was shocking to get rapidly immersed into Army living -Especially coming from a small town -For the first six weeks of training the trainees had to stay on the base -The physical training was challenging, but not impossible for him -He had an athletic background, so the training took some adjusting, but not too much -The toughest part of basic training was the psychological adjusting that had to take place -Trained with a mix of enlisted men and draftees -Everyone had their own story as to why they were in the Army -Trained with men from all over the northeastern U.S. and the northeastern Midwest -Basic training lasted eight weeks -During last week of basic training received orders for advanced infantry training �(00:07:28) Leadership Course -Before he went to advanced infantry training he took a two week leadership course -He had served as his squad leader while in basic training -Felt that being in a leadership position would allow for greater survivability in Vietnam (00:08:01) Advanced Infantry Training (AIT) -He took his advanced infantry training at Fort Dix -He was made a squad leader during AIT -They had been introduced to weapons and tactics in basic training, but AIT built on that -Began working with the M-16 assault rifle and grenade launchers -Learning how to build bunkers -Learning how to carry out field maneuvers -He also received land navigation training and map reading training -AIT lasted another eight weeks (00:10:04) Noncommissioned Officers Training (NCO Training) -At the end of AIT there were three possible routes that could be taken: -Go to Vietnam, Officers’ Candidate School, or Noncommissioned Officers’ School -Because he showed some leadership potential, he went to the NCO School -It was a twelve week course on how to be a squad leader -Land navigation training was heavily stressed -Had to go out at night and reach a destination with a compass in a limited amount time -Did team building exercise with other NCO trainees -Mostly involved obstacle puzzles and how to solve it with your team -Also received further hand to hand combat training -He received his NCO training at Fort Benning, Georgia -Learned how to rappel out of helicopters -The NCO training ended with him being promoted to the rank of E5 (sergeant) (00:14:25) AIT as an NCO -After NCO training he was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington to work with an AIT training unit -His task at Fort Lewis was to lead soldiers through AIT -Throughout his training experience the instructors had been Vietnam veterans -They mostly relied on scare tactics to train the recruits -He stayed at Fort Lewis for eight weeks (one training cycle) -By the end of all of his training he had already satisfied one year of his two year commitment -He just had to survive one year in Vietnam and then he would be discharged (00:16:00) Deployment to Vietnam -He left for Vietnam on March 31, 1970 and arrived in country on April 1, 1970 -He had been sent over as a replacement for a unit that needed a sergeant -Arrived in Cam Ranh Bay -From there went to Da Nang and spent a couple days there -His first impression of Vietnam was that it stunk -When he arrived he and the other replacements were greeted by soldiers that were leaving -The veterans greeted them with insults and slurs -Upon arriving he didn’t have any specific unit orders (00:17:50) Assignment to the 101st Airborne Division -In Da Nang he received orders to join the 101st Airborne Division -The 101st was based out of Camp Evans, so he went there to join them �-Upon arriving at Camp Evans he received Screaming Eagle Replacement Training Section -The course lasted about one week -It consisted of learning how to survive in Vietnam -One of their tasks during SERTS was to guard the camp’s perimeter -They also received an introduction to booby traps and how to recognize them -This also included a minor introduction to rural Vietnamese culture -The locals used primitive snares to catch animals (not booby traps) (00:19:55) Assignment to Delta Company -Before he arrived the 101st had already established Firebase Ripcord -In the process, Brave Company and Delta Company had taken heavy losses -His initial assignment was to Bravo Company, but then it was changed to Delta -At Camp Evans he was instructed to put together a rucksack -A rucksack usually weighed about seventy pounds after all supplies were loaded -Carried 3, or 4, inflatable one gallon rubber bladders for carrying water -Ammunition -Rifle cleaning supplies -Eating utensils and food -Water proof containers for documents and personal effects -From Camp Evans he was picked up by a helicopter and sent into the field -He was going to be a replacement sergeant for a squad in Delta Company -Specifically serving as an assistant squad leader -There were initially eight to ten men in each squad (00:23:05) Introduction to 3rd Platoon -The third platoon of Delta Company was the platoon that he was assigned to serve with -The introduction of him into his specific squad happened fairly seamlessly -He was placed in charge of five men out of his squad to help set up ambushes -He paid close attention and learned from the veteran soldiers in his command -The first thing they taught him was to not walk on the trails -The other thing they taught him was to always stay quiet, and always stay aware -Always made sure to settle disputes without having to rely on pulling rank (00:26:24) Operating Around Firebase Ripcord -Around every firebase there was what was called an area of operations -Companies would go out and patrol the surrounding area to keep the enemy away -Firebase Ripcord was located on the edge of the A Shau Valley (divided Vietnam & Cambodia) -Ripcord’s primary mission was to disrupt the movement of the North Vietnamese -One company would stay at Ripcord and the other four would go out into the field -While patrolling the Ripcord area they would generally run into small enemy patrols or bunkers -It was a mountainous region -Usually covered 1200 to 1500 meters a day in a straight line -In reality they covered roughly 5000 meters a day due to going up hills/mountains -They made sure to never camp in the same place for two nights in a row -They would leave their camp at 7/7:30 AM -Move to a new position and establish a camp site there -From there they would send out patrols -Squads were sent for a couple hours, or platoons for the whole day �(00:30:50) Enemy Presence around Ripcord -Routinely discovered North Vietnamese bunker complexes -If they did they would gather intelligence and look for signs of enemy activity -Never carried enough explosives to actually destroy a bunker -Instead they would throw tear gas canisters into the bunker -This would make it so that no one could truly live inside the bunker -One time they found a 500 pound unexploded American bomb -Checked it for booby traps and decided that it was still safe -Called in a team and a few days later it was destroyed by a U.S. team -In the field they kept track of any enemy positions they found -Once they were clear they would call in artillery on those coordinates -Not only to destroy the positions, but to send a clear warning to the North Vietnamese (00:34:02) The Battle of Ripcord -As the Ripcord Campaign continued enemy activity continued to increase -Eventually there were 10,000 North Vietnamese soldiers against 1,000 U.S. troops -It became clear that it would be physically impossible to hold Ripcord -At times they would be routinely cut off from being resupplied or getting help -The help that they did get was in the way of helicopters -Eventually the North Vietnamese could time when helicopters arrived at the base -Once the helicopter landed they would fire mortars at the landing pad -If a helicopter was destroyed as it landed they would lose those supplies -From mid-April to July 1970 he had been stationed at Ripcord without going to Camp Evans -This meant that you couldn’t get clean, or get fresh fatigues -Also meant that you had to use what was available in the way of supplies on base -Because of the lack of hygiene he wound up getting a parasitic infection in both legs -He was evacuated back to Camp Evans for treatment -Spent ten days in the hospital receiving antibiotics and special washes -Wound up missing the fighting on Hill 1000 (part of the Battle of Ripcord) -One of his best friends was killed in the fighting on Hill 1000 (00:39:46) The Fall of Firebase Ripcord -Returned to Delta Company the day of the first attempt to rescue Alpha Company -Alpha Company of the 2nd/506th of the 101st Division was trapped on Hill 902 [805] -The first attempt was not carried out because the landing zone wasn’t secure -The next day Delta Company was sent out and was finally able to rescue Alpha Company -He was on the first helicopter into the landing zone (LZ) -Alpha Company had been pinned for three days and had 80% wounded -When they reached the LZ he watched as Cobra attack helicopters bombarded the NVA -When he got on the ground he was able to disable a NVA machine gun nest -In the process he wounded in the leg and was evacuated -It turned out the wound had been minor and he was able to rejoin his company the next day -The day he rejoined Delta Company Ripcord was abandoned and destroyed by the U.S. -Firebase Ripcord fell on July 23, 1970 (00:44:38) End of Service with Delta Company -After Ripcord fell his company was able to go for a stand down at Camp Evans -Lasted five, or six, days -Men were starting to get into fights �-Racial tensions flared -His company was sent up to Firebase Kathryn which was in the hills near Camp Evans -It was a quieter area of operations than Ripcord had been -From Kathryn they continued patrols in the field -He received an R&R in mid-October 1970 to Sydney, Australia -Celebrated his twenty second birthday in Australia -When he returned from R&R Delta Company had a new commander -More inept than their old commander which made him uncomfortable (00:47:35) Serving at Camp Evans and End of Tour -He was able to get a reassignment to Camp Evans until his tour was up in mid-June 1971 -He worked with the S5 section (military-civilians relations) of Headquarters Company -He would go out with doctors to local villages to give aid to the people there -Basically acting as a security detail for the doctors -Never had any problems with the villages that they went to -Saw that the Vietnamese were just people trying to live their lives too (00:48:44) Coming Home and Life after the War -He left Vietnam out of Da Nang and returned to the United States -Upon returning to the United States he was honorably discharged from the Army -Returned to his hometown of Richmond, Indiana -After Vietnam, it felt like a very small town -He got a job in Indianapolis as a bill collector for a while -Returned to college for another year and a half, but never graduated -After Indiana changed its liquor laws women were more acceptable at bars -He got a job at the first singles bar that opened in Indianapolis -Worked in the alcohol service sector for thirty five years until he retired � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SkinnerM1686V Title A name given to the resource Skinner, Marc (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-11 Description An account of the resource Marc Skinner was born in 1948 in Richmond, Indiana. He grew up in Richmond and graduated from high school there in 1966, and then went to Ball State University for a year and a half until he dropped out. He was eventually drafted into the Army, and opted for NCO training, which delayed kept him in the US for a full year before he was sent to Vietnam in the spring of 1970. He was assigned to D Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Camp Evans. His company fought in the battles around Firebase Ripcord, April-July 1970. He later served in the battalion's headquarters company before returning to the US and getting discharged. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Skinner, Marc Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McGregor, Michael (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/599c0939b68133cac6f245c0a5f3bae4.m4v 627706bc324aa9c0e5fd6a09a3ac9236 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/17c33886719e28085c5bb3a7c5410f58.pdf b4b08f534582e8842046037cda93168d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Bob Short Vietnam War 1 hour 11 minutes 15 seconds (00:00:40) Early Life -Born in July 1949 in Vandalia, Illinois -Grew up in Mulberry Grove, Illinois -About ten miles west from Vandalia -Small, rural community of 750 people at the time -Father was a truck driver, so he was gone frequently -Mother was a housewife -Graduated from high school in 1967 -Had always intended to serve in the military -Inspired by his father who was a World War Two veteran -Grew up believing that it was an honorable thing to do (00:01:42) Applying for West Point -He was granted a congressional appointment to get into West Point -West Point is the prestigious Army academy in New York -A month after graduating from high school he was a cadet at West Point -All he had to do was follow the application process to get in -Contacted his local congressman -Got high school teachers and administrators to be his references (00:02:40) Awareness of the Vietnam War -He was aware of the Vietnam War -He felt that he was naïve about the reality of war -Grew up seeing the glorified portrayal of war in WWII movies -Curious about how he would perform in combat -News on the war in 1966 and 1967 was fairly objective and mostly positive -Once he went to West Point he didn’t have access to much news -No access to television and little access to newspapers (00:03:39) Attending West Point -He arrived at West Point in July 1967 -First two months there were referred to as “Beast Barracks” -Constant physical training -Constant verbal harassment -Intense memorization of irrelevant data that you were tested on -Example: memorize the menu for a certain day and then tell a trainer -Essentially it was Army basic training, but intensified -He expected it though -Academic year started in the fall of 1967 -Completed three academic semesters there -Fall 1967, Winter 1968 and Fall 1968 -Spent some time training at Fort Knox �-Learned how to drive armored personnel carriers and tanks -Learned how to operate their weapons systems -Received artillery training while at West Point -Actually went to the artillery range and fired guns -At West Point he also received land navigation training -He went to school six days a week -Monday – Friday: full days -Saturday: Half day with marching in the afternoon -He carried twenty credit hours at West Point -Got through the first year (also known as “Plebe Year”) well (00:05:43) Leaving West Point -At the end of his first year he was given a month of leave -Mother died while he was on leave -Finally succumbed to the cancer that she had been fighting -He returned to West Point and began to lose focus -Didn’t feel like he was learning relevant information -This led to him feeling unfulfilled -He began to consider the fact that he didn’t want to make a long term military commitment -After graduating from West Point you had to serve for five years -After the fall semester of 1968 he decided to leave West Point -In February 1969 he officially left West Point (00:07:15) Volunteering for the Draft -After leaving West Point he decided that he wanted to go to a civilian college -Didn’t have enough money at the time -Decided that the GI Bill was the best way to have college paid for -He went to his local draft board and told them that he was ready to be drafted -Shortly after volunteering for the draft he was sent to St. Louis -Got sworn in at the induction center there (00:07:52) Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri -After being sworn in at St. Louis he was sent to Fort Leonard Wood for basic training -At Fort Leonard Wood he ran into an old high school friend who worked in processing -Friend found out that he had spent a year and a half at West Point -This led to Bob not having to complete basic training or advanced infantry training -As a result he received no formal preparation prior to going to Vietnam -He feels that the training he received at West Point was substantial enough though (00:09:42) Deployment to and Arrival in Vietnam -He went on leave and after leave was deployed to Vietnam -He was first flown to the replacement depot in Oakland, California -From Oakland he boarded a chartered flight and flew to Vietnam -En route stopped at Hawaii and Guam to be refueled -Landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Vietnam -First impression of Vietnam was that it was hot -Felt anxious upon leaving the plane -He was sent to the replacement center at Long Binh -Stayed there for a few days waiting for his assignment to a unit -At Long Binh he met and befriended a soldier �-They were both assigned to guard the paymaster building (similar to bank) -Given an M14 rifle and a clip of ammunition -Felt like the Old West -After that he was assigned to the same company, but different platoon, as his new friend -Within four or five weeks that friend was killed in action -He arrived in Vietnam on May 26, 1969 (00:11:16) Unit Assignment and Going to Chu Lai -He was assigned to Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion of the 46th Infantry -Originally part of the 198th Light Infantry Brigade -Component of the Americal Division (23rd Infantry Division) -In July they were reshuffled into the 196th Light Infantry Brigade -His unit was operating out of Quang Nam Province in South Vietnam -Part of I Corps (there were 4 “corps” in Vietnam: military operating areas) -Operating north of the city of Chu Lai -Area was described as mountainous and a “free fire zone” -This means that it was a combat zone and heavily depopulated -From Long Binh he flew up on a military aircraft to Chu Lai -After landing he was bussed to the Americal Division Combat Center -There he received refresher training and given a chance to get adjusted -After being processed at the Combat Center he was taken by truck to the battalion area -Also located in Chu Lai -Stayed there for a day or two -From there he was flown to his unit’s firebase on a Huey helicopter -Remembers that it was a tense flight -Recalls how hostile and inhospitable the terrain looked -He landed at the firebase and stayed there for about a day (00:13:57) Introduction to Charlie Company -The next day he rode on the resupply helicopter to join Charlie Company in the field -The other soldiers were wary of him at first because he was the “new guy” -Company Field 1st Sergeant introduced him to the company commander -Sergeant informed the commander that Bob had West Point training -Impressed the company commander and made his acceptance easier -After being introduced to the commander he was assigned to a platoon, then a squad -Operating in thick jungles and a hilled/mountainous area -He arrived at dusk and wound up staying the night in the field -He was put on guard duty his first night there -It was so dark that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face -They were dug in in foxholes -Noise discipline was heavily enforced -At the time Charlie Company was operating as a single unit -Company strength was about sixty to eighty men -Rarely saw other soldiers in his company though because they were so spread out (00:17:37) Introduction to the Field -The next day was uneventful and spent hiking over the hills -Even with his training he had to get used to carrying equipment and walking all day -They walked both on, and off the trails �-Trails allowed for faster movement, but more dangerous because of booby traps -Cutting through the jungle was more arduous, but much safer -He mainly observed what other soldiers were doing so as to learn how to survive -He grew up hunting and camping so his adjustment didn’t take as long -His squad leader was understanding and gave him time to get used to Vietnam -In a short time he was put on “point” (leading the squad through the jungle) (00:20:50) First Contact -His first contact with the enemy was within his first week of being in country -His unit was moving up a hill when a soldier behind them fired his grenade launcher -The grenadier alerted them to enemy contacts further up the hill -His squad then proceeded to find cover and open fire -They didn’t receive any enemy fire, so they moved up the hill -They didn’t find any enemy soldiers, but they did find Vietnamese equipment (00:21:50) Working off Landing Zone Professional -His unit worked off of a base camp known as Landing Zone (LZ) Professional -One company would stay at the LZ providing security while the other three were in the field -Rotation schedule was three weeks in the field and one week at the LZ -Enemy activity had decreased shortly before his arrival -North Vietnamese had hit all the companies in mid May prior to his arrival -His squad (of about ten to twelve men) lost six soldiers -He was a replacement (00:23:50) Contact with the Enemy -Whenever they did make contact with the enemy it was sporadic -Patrols were always tense because there was no consistency in making contact -Some days they ran into enemy soldiers, other days they didn’t -Combatants that they ran into were mostly soldiers from the North Vietnamese Army -Very few Viet Cong (insurgent) forces operating in their area -His unit’s job was to stop NVA forces coming into South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail (00:24:35) Conditions at Night -At night his unit would move to the top of a hill and make camp -Establish a perimeter of defense and spread out -You would pair up with another soldier and make tents out your ponchos -The squad would set up landmines and take rotating guard duty -They would split into platoons at night, but the other platoons stayed close to provide security -North Vietnamese forces would try to assault their camps at night -Remembers one instance where they heard the NVA creeping up on them -Started throwing grenades at the Vietnamese -Avoided using rifles so as not to give away their position -Managed to successfully neutralize the threat -The NVA never successfully broke through their lines in the field -LZ Professional was a bigger target which made staying there more dangerous -Remembers one instance where the NVA got through the outermost defenses -In the morning he found a wounded enemy soldier just outside his bunker (00:27:49) The Men He Served With -Served with a diverse group of men -Because of the draft there were men in his unit from a myriad of backgrounds �-Some of the men in his unit had enlisted -Most of the soldiers in the company were young -Only about eighteen or nineteen years old -Twenty two year olds were considered “old guys” -Very few of the men in his company planned on being career soldiers -Most men dealt with the situation well and followed orders -All in all, they were a dependable group of men (00:28:46) Leadership -His squad leader had already been in Vietnam for over half a year when Bob arrived -After his squad leader left, Bob was promoted to the position of squad leader -At the time of his promotion he was only an E4 (corporal, or specialist) -Next rank above private, and below a sergeant -Most of the sergeants in his company didn’t have any combat experience -As a result they were placed in positions where they could learn how to lead -Original company commander he didn’t know much about -Second company commander was too gung ho and took unnecessary risks -Third company commander was an adept and respectable leader -His platoon leader was also adept at being a leader (00:31:08) Overview of His Time in Vietnam -Spent a year and a half all toll in Vietnam -Standard full year in Vietnam plus the time he was supposed to have spent in training -Spent his first year as an infantryman -After being in the infantry for a year he requested to be transferred to a different position (00:31:53) Overview of His Time as an Infantryman -During his time with the infantry the daily and monthly pattern stayed the same -Worked on and off of LZ Professional -For a short time his company worked off of Firebase Maryann in the west -After that returned to operating out of LZ Professional (00:32:45) Casualties -In his unit five men were killed in action -The men in his unit mostly sustained minor injuries though -Shrapnel wounds and similar injuries; burns, cuts, general abrasions -A few men were severely wounded (00:33:08) Encounters with the North Vietnamese -Whenever they encountered the NVA it was in small groups -Never ran into large groups of enemy soldiers -At the time it seemed like the NVA was laying low and regrouping (00:33:25) Morale, Downtime and Conditions -Overall morale was pretty good in his unit -Everyone stuck together and took care of one another -Generally just complained about the situation, but never did more than that -Credits the cohesion of his squad to having strong leaders -Didn’t spend a lot of downtime back at LZ Professional -After about three quarters of the year he was given an R&R pass -Went to Australia to vacation there -His company went on “stand down” a couple times (chance to relax for a couple days) �-C Company would get rotated to the base at Chu Lai -Allowed to unwind, drink beer and eat steaks (and other good food) -The company was resupplied about once a week when they were in the field -Lived off of C Rations when they were in the field -Had to drink water from local water sources -When they were in the mountain water was flown in in rubber containers -This made the water taste like rubber -Weather was always either really dry, or really wet -During monsoon it rained incessantly -Skin was either dried and cracked, or wet and pruned -Led to serious skin infections developing requiring medevac (00:37:10) Race Relations -Had people of different races and different regional backgrounds serving in his company -He noticed racial tension more on the base camps than in the field -In the field, units couldn’t afford to have soldiers divided by racism -He feels that combat broke down the racial barriers that existed outside of war -At base camps troops would self-segregate -White soldiers would go with white soldiers, black soldiers with black soldiers -Soldiers who drank beer/alcohol would separate themselves from soldiers who did drugs (00:38:38) Substance Use and Abuse -He wasn’t aware of soldiers using drugs in the field -Feels that most soldiers had enough sense not to because it put other lives in danger -If a soldier was doing drugs in the field other soldiers would make him stop immediately (00:39:04) Contact with Vietnamese Civilians -In the firebases or on landing zones they had very little contact with Vietnamese civilians -Even when he was in Chu Lai there was very limited contact with the Vietnamese workers -Army required soldiers to turn in their weapons when they were in civilian areas -Wanted to prevent accidents or war crimes from being committed (00:39:50) Artillery and Air Support -Commonly called in artillery or air strikes while they were in the field -Remembers one time he and another soldier were on the top of a hill -They saw about a company size force of North Vietnamese moving below them -Proceeded to call in artillery fire on the NVA forces -One of the few times he felt sorry for the North Vietnamese -He could see them getting blown to pieces, carrying wounded friends (00:40:45) Attitude towards the North Vietnamese -He, and the other soldiers, had a lot of respect for the North Vietnamese -Felt that they were tough and well trained soldiers -To an extent they even feared the NVA -NVA knew the terrain better and had been fighting foreign soldiers for twenty years (00:41:12) Progress of the War -By late 1969, early 1970 he and the other soldiers knew that the war wasn’t going well for U.S. -No one cared if they “won” they just wanted to survive the deployment and go home -Towards the end of his deployment he knew that U.S. forces were being withdrawn (00:41:42) Contact with Family -While he was in Vietnam he had pretty limited contact with his family �-The primary form of communication was “old fashioned” mail -He would receive care packages from friends and family in the U.S. -He received and sent letters to his father -He had a favorite aunt who would send care packages and letters in lieu of his mother -Mother had died while he was attending West Point -His aunt had kept all the letters that he had sent her -Care packages that he and other soldiers received for Christmas 1969 was memorable -Someone had kept the packages at LZ Professional -Did so, so that the soldiers would have something to open Christmas Day -Everyone had received at least one fruitcake -Mostly received canned goods and baked goods (00:43:40) Transfer to Combat Center in Chu Lai -For the last six months of his tour he was at the Combat Center in Chu Lai -Dealt with processing new troops before being sent to their units and assignments -While there he was promoted to the rank of E5 (sergeant) and worked with a 1st lieutenant -His task was to help build a course on Vietnamese customs and relations -The idea was that a happy native populace was a safe and helpful one -Received mixed reviews from the soldiers -Command also wanted to make sure that the United States was being represented well -Wanted to humanize the Vietnamese to prevent incidents like the My Lai Massacre -He had more contact with Vietnamese civilians when he was permanently stationed at Chu Lai -On occasion Chu Lai took rocket and/or mortar fire -Still safer than being in the field -Early one morning remembers rockets landing immediately behind his barracks -Another day remembers a mortar attack happen while he was teaching soldiers -He saw a lot of troops at Chu Lai that were busy during the day, but not at night -Resulted in heavier drug and alcohol use at night -Race relations were much more strained (00:48:18) Attempting to Transfer to C Company -While he was at Chu Lai Charlie Company got into some pretty heavy fighting -Lost a few people -He requested a transfer back to the field to rejoin C Company -Felt that it was the right thing to do -Wanted to see if he knew anyone who had been hurt, or killed in the fighting -Ultimately his lieutenant at the Combat Center would not approve the transfer -At the time felt guilty about not going, but it was ultimately for the best (00:48:47) Race Riot at Chu Lai -While he was at Chu Lai he witnessed a race riot break out -He was on guard duty when he saw a white sergeant and black sergeant get into a fight -This initial fighting was not race related -Other soldiers perceived it to be a racially fueled fight and got involved -Hundreds of soldiers from clubs and barracks jumped in to fight -He was almost dragged out of his guard post -Managed to scare off the assailant with his M16 rifle -A black captain was called in to break up the riot -Soldiers finally listened and went back to their quarters �-Most of the trouble with race on the base came from the newly arrived soldiers -Coupled with soldiers who had too much time on their hands it was a volatile combo (00:51:50) Awareness of Black Markets or Corruption -While he was in the rear he never saw any evidence of black markets or corruption -Heard stories from other soldiers about the existence of such things though (00:52:20) Funny Incidents -There were funny things that happened in the field in Vietnam -Tries to look back on the good times breaking up the bad times -Remembers one night where they set up a perimeter -They had just seen intense fighting with the NVA -Everyone was on edge waiting to be attacked -In the middle of the night they heard a bloodcurdling scream from within their camp -Everyone went on alert and thought someone had been bayoneted -Turns out that a new guy had found a leech on his body -This led to having to abandon their position and find a new place to camp for the night -Wound up staying up the whole night and being thoroughly annoyed -Looks back on the incident and laughs at the absurdity of it (00:54:56) Walking Point -While he was in the field he walked point quite frequently -Over time he became more confident in his tracking and scouting abilities -Led to a sense of invincibility which he later realized was incredibly dangerous -He had hunted in his youth, so the experience there had helped him in walking point -Fortunately he didn’t run into much in the way of booby traps -He does remember one time where he and another soldier stumbled onto a NVA squad -He and the other soldier killed most of them -Later the day after that the remnants were able to ambush his squad -While he walked point he didn’t find many tunnels or “spider holes” (one man hideouts) -He did find a NVA bunker once and a soldier was sent in to search it -Wound up finding a one hundred pound bag of rice from Houston, Texas (00:58:14) Working with Vietnamese Soldiers -In his company there were Vietnamese scouts -He and another soldier were sent to Chu Lai to pick up a couple Vietnamese scouts once -These men had been part of the Viet Cong -He spent a couple days getting to know his platoon’s scout -Make sure he was trustworthy and a valuable asset -He was able to converse with him in both French and English -Initially his platoon didn’t trust the scout at all -Over time began to find that he was trustworthy -Most men even began to see him as a friend and as a comrade -He never knew what happened to their scout after the war -The other scout that his company picked up turned out to be extremely loyal -One of the men in the company tripped a booby trap -Scout jumped out to knock the grenade away from the American soldier -Unfortunately the American was killed -Scout lost a hand and sustained shrapnel wounds �(01:01:25) Leaving Vietnam and Coming Home -He left Vietnam on Thanksgiving 1970 -By that time he was ready to get out of the country -From Chu Lai he flew down to Cam Ranh Bay -He flew out of Cam Ranh Bay on another chartered flight to Japan and from there to Seattle -Flight arrived in the middle of the night -It was a way for veterans to avoid being harassed by protestors -At Fort Lewis, Washington he got discharged from the Army -Remembers sitting in the Seattle airport waiting for a flight -Relaxing with his Army jacket unbuttoned -Young MP (military police) came up to him and told him to button up his jacket -Bob was surprised by this, but understood the young soldier was doing his job (01:04:01) Life after the War -After returning home he attended college at Illinois State -He had applied and been accepted while he was still in Vietnam -Prior to college he was able to go home, enjoy Christmas 1970 and decompress -Started at Illinois State in January 1971 -First semester was a little difficult -He had made sure to take easy classes while he was still readjusting -He felt very alienated being in college -Didn’t fit in with the largely naïve and young students -While in college he wound up finding housing with other veterans -Lived in a big rented house together -Able to talk about their experiences with each other and be with likeminded people -Over the years he internalized a lot of issues from his experiences in Vietnam -He wound up having enough GI Bill money to get his master’s degree from Illinois State -Field of study was employee health and safety -First got a job in the northwest working for Alcoa Aluminum manufacturing plants -Worked as a safety and training supervisor -From the northwest he transferred to Indiana and from Indiana he was sent to Michigan -Worked for the Upjohn Company (made Rogaine) in Kalamazoo in 1979 (01:07:20) Buddy to Buddy Veterans’ Program -He is now involved in the Buddy to Buddy Volunteer Veteran Program -Non-profit group based out of the University of Michigan -Use grant money from various sources to aid veterans -They provide support and outreach assistance to post September 11th servicemen -The main focus of the program is for veterans to be helping veterans -He finds that it is fulfilling to work with this new generation of veterans -He is the coordinator for the western portion of Michigan -Program works in conjunction with the Army National Guard -Volunteers spend time at armories getting to know veterans -Figuring out what they need help with: employment, finances, family, etc. -From there help them access available public and private resources -He has found that veteran unemployment is improving, but the unemployment rate is still high -Tends to lead to family issues, or substance abuse -The Army now supplies veterans with the information to access resources �-Most veterans, understandably, are more focused on just getting home though -About sixty percent of the volunteers are Vietnam veterans -They see it as a chance to provide new veterans with the things they were denied � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_ShortR1552V Title A name given to the resource Short, Robert (Interview outline and video), 2013 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-10-15 Description An account of the resource Bob Short was born in 1949 in Vandalia, Illinois. He grew up in the small town of Mulberry Grove, Illinois and graduated from high school there in 1967. Upon graduating high school he attended the West Point military academy in New York. He attended there for three academic semesters until he decided that it was time to leave. In February 1969 he formally left West Point. After leaving the academy he volunteered for the draft and was soon thereafter sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. He was able to skip training because of his West Point experience and by May 26, 1969 he was in Vietnam. He was assigned to Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion of the 46th Infantry part of the Americal (23rd Infantry) Division. His unit operated off of Landing Zone Professional and around the area of Chu Lai. Over the course of a year and a half he would serve in a variety of roles, from walking point to working in the Combat Center at Chu Lai developing a Vietnamese relations course. In November 1970 he left Vietnam and by January 1971 he was attending college at Illinois State. He would go on to get his master's degree in employee health and safety, and working all over America finally settling down in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is now a prominent member of the Buddy to Buddy Volunteer Veteran Program based out of the University of Michigan helping veterans in the post-9/11 era. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Short, Robert Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/747cbbee0058a38afc97c0a0d9b6b380.mp4 68dc50e551c6130c92b8f3f3ece34651 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/76e297ca2ee85b67950a6313836a5ae8.pdf d14ce15937d4f3c67e58bdb54365dbb7 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project George William “Bill” Sefton World War II Part 2 Interview length: 55 minutes 36 seconds Tape length 1 hour 57 minutes 26 seconds Interview repeats after the 00:55:36 mark (00:00:09) End of Operation Market Garden -He and the rest of his unit served under British General Montgomery for seventy two days -It was supposed to be a three day mission in Holland -The unit returned to Mourmelon, France to regroup and get replacements -They had lost thirty percent of their unit’s forces in Holland -After returning troops started getting to go to Paris for R&R in December 1944 -They got back to France in November 1944 -Spent three weeks in Mourmelon (00:01:38) Beginning of Action in Bastogne -In December 1944 the unit was alerted to go to Bastogne, Belgium -They had been told they wouldn’t see action until they crossed the Rhine -He had no idea where Bastogne even was -He was loaded onto a cattle truck with fifty nine other soldiers -Even the regiment’s band insisted that they be placed in combat roles -They arrived at Bastogne at 3 AM -He got two hours of sleep, sleeping in the mud -They were short on supplies -The one saving grace was that the weather was still mild -His unit crossed the line of departure (LD) at 6 AM -Their mission was to go into Bastogne and join the 9th Armored Division -They were trapped in a valley by Germans and needed help out -When they arrived in Bastogne 1st Battalion Headquarters was pulling out -They wound up running into an advancing Panzer Division -They engaged the Germans at the villages of Neffe and Bizory near Bastogne -His company, D Company, was third in line in the attack -They were able to eventually push the Germans back and retake the area (00:07:58) Promotion and Continuing Action in Bastogne -After his unit’s executive officer (XO) was wounded he was made the new executive officer -The next day their medical unit was captured which only hampered things further -The old XO was able to be evacuated to the U.S. and survived -The colonel of the 9th Armored Division arrived with an entourage of armored vehicles -He, Bill, directed him to go to into the town of Bastogne -The armored vehicles were too large of a target and compromised their position -The next move was for him to take a squad out and to lay down landmines -As they began to move out they received fire from a German railroad gun -Long distance, high powered artillery piece situated on railroads -One man was wounded, but was able to make his way back to their lines �-Dawn began to break and they were forced to abandon the mission and go back -As they approached their company’s line an American machine gun began firing -Bill identified that they were Americans and the firing stopped (00:15:22) Aiding the 506th Infantry Regiment -The 506th was on their left and had been hit pretty hard by the Germans in Noville -The next move then was to help take the pressure off of the 506th -D Company was ordered to pull back three miles and join A Company -The next move was to attack a German position in a pine grove -At dawn they sent out a reconnaissance patrol to find the railroad tracks and look for Germans -The recon patrol found the wrong set of tracks and said the area was clear -They started down a road and got to a nearby railroad station which was their destination -They saw unknown contacts in the distance and another patrol was sent out -Upon arriving at the train station a German opened fire on them -They moved to a better position and returned fire on him, wounding him in the process -The German soldier was captured and looked to be only sixteen years old -From their new position they could see another German soldier digging a foxhole -The German soldier looked old and weary -Bill decided not to shoot him, because he didn’t want to -They created a machine gun position and held it until they were ordered to take Jack’s Woods -Over the next few days they would routinely take artillery fire at dawn -Subsisted on two meals a day -A pancake in the morning and stew in the evening (00:23:23) Pushing the Germans away from Bastogne -They held their machine gun position until General Patton’s forces arrived -As they mounted the offensive they worked with local farmers for various tasks -As more of Patton’s troops arrived the Germans began to fight more tenaciously -Once Patton’s troops arrived they began to move into Jack’s Wood outside of Bastogne -They had to move through the woods on foot -No visibility due to heavy fog -Once they were well into the woods German tanks attacked them on the flank -On top of that they began to receive mortar fire as well -Due to perfect timing he was able to escape the barrage unscathed -Another soldier fell on top of him and both of them escaped injury -At the end of the fighting in Jack’s Wood two U.S. soldiers were killed -One German soldier was wounded in the woods -A U.S. soldier killed him and put him out of his misery -When they moved into Bastogne they were surrounded by Germans -This was no issue for the paratroopers since they were accustomed to being surrounded -At the end of the fighting he only had nineteen men (out of forty) left in his command (00:30:51) Moving into Alsace-Lorraine -After Bastogne, D Company was moved to Alsace-Lorraine to stop Himmler’s advance -Himmler was the commander for all of the German SS soldiers -When they arrived the 42nd Division was already pushing across the Moder River -He remembers arriving at night and going into a barn to sleep -Tucked himself into his sleeping bag and fell asleep in a pile of hay -They would go to the frontline for six days, and then return to a nearby town for three days �-At some point the snow started to melt which filled their foxholes with melted snow -This meant that they had to dig into frozen ground to establish new defensive positions -They had had to dig all night to create a substantial enough foxhole -Used bundles of wood and local rutabagas to help fortify their position -At noon the next day the Germans brought up a self-propelled artillery piece and began firing -A self-propelled artillery piece is similar to a tank, but with an artillery cannon instead -Their position took twelve hits and on the thirteenth hit a paratrooper was hit -By the time they reached him he had already died -He had been killed by the last shot that the Germans fired on their position -This was the last major action that they saw (00:38:02) Returning to France -With the Battle of the Bulge finally over his unit returned again to Mourmelon, France -Their next missions were scheduled to be drops into prisoner of war camps to liberate them -This was in the event that SS forces began to slaughter Allied prisoners of war (00:38:35) Communication in the War -His job as a superior officer was to censor outgoing mail -He had to look for any sensitive information that might be in letters -This included their location, their strength, and where they were going next -It was an unenjoyable task for officers -Either had to black out portions of text, or physically cut out the text (00:40:33) End of the War -Word came down through their radio network that Germany had surrendered -There were no major celebrations on Victory in Europe Day (May 8, 1945) -They all knew that they were most likely going to wind up in the Pacific -Japan was still fighting and they knew an invasion would likely involve them -They moved onto Berchtesgaden, Germany -Location of Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest” -They stayed there for about one week -From Germany they moved down to Austria -They were right across from the Russian lines -Men started to get sent home because they had enough “points” -Combat experience and length of service equaled a certain amount of “points” -You needed 85 points if enlisted, 80 points if an officer (00:42:13) Transfer to the 506th Infantry Regiment -He was transferred to the 506th Infantry Regiment after Austria -“Band of Brothers” (HBO miniseries) is centered on E Company of the 506th -Upon transfer to the 506th he was made the athletics officer and the club officer for his unit -This meant he was in charge of athletic supplies and officers’ club supplies -Attached to him was their unit’s French interpreter, George, who became their bartender -Bill eventually helped George immigrate to the United States -At one point they needed softball supplies, so they “acquired” them from the Air Force -While he was in France he met his wife who was a nurse -She was later transferred to the Philippines, so they communicated through letters -Having one of her letters on hand helped carry out a ruse to “acquire” those supplies -At one point Colonel Sink came to inspect the supplies that they had -He was astounded, and concerned, at the amount of athletic supplies they had �-Bill reassured him that the truck he used had been covered in mud -Thus, it was completely untraceable -Later on they needed more officers’ club supplies, specifically alcohol -George took him to Brussels to talk to a black-market liquor supplier -They were eventually able to negotiate an alcohol supply (00:50:18) Going Home -He eventually got orders to go home -George set out to help throw Bill a going away party -In exchange for George’s help he took George to the American Embassy in Paris -The plan was to get him a travel visa so that George could immigrate to the U.S. -When they arrived there was a swarm of French civilians looking to get visas as well -Bill took George directly to the ambassador and got George his papers -For Bill’s party George got nine trucks filled with civilians, and plenty of girls -On top of the guests George also provided a massive amount of clams and alcohol -After the party the city of Paris requested that U.S. soldiers rent hotel rooms next time -The troops and French girls had occupied flowerbeds instead of hotel rooms -When he returned to his hometown of Anderson, Indiana he went to an immigration center -Insured that George would be able to make it easily into the United States � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SeftonG0738V2 Title A name given to the resource Sefton, George William (Interview outline and video, 2 of 2), 2003 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Description An account of the resource George William "Bill" Sefton was born in 1922 in Anderson, Indiana. Prior to the war he was taking classes at Ball State Teacher's College. He enlisted in the Army shortly after the war started, trained as an officer and served briefly with the 131st Infantry Regiment guarding the Soo Locks in northern Michigan before being accepted for paratrooper training. He went to Camp Taccoa, Georgia and began training with the 501st Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. He went with his unit to England and jumped into Normandy on D-Day. He served with his unit in Normandy until they withdrew to prepare for Operation Marked Garden. He made his second jump as part of that operation in September, and served with his unit in the Netherlands until they were withdrawn in Novermber, and then went to Bastogne, Belgium in December 1944 to fight back against the German advance during the Battle of the Bulge. After the fighting at Bastogne, his unit moved to the Alsace-Lorraine region and on into Germany. With the war over he was transferred to the 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division where he served with them in France as the athletics officer and club officer (in charge of athletic supplies, and officers' club supplies) for his unit. At the end of the war he met his wife who was an Army nurse at the time. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sefton, George William Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f148226b715287318d3661ff7bfd6e56.mp4 81a9fda67a9ae607d5acae1c54b7d2ab https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9e851eb8043fef0e62120c0f23edf7aa.pdf 341cacd2f1ee25467393fa83b1b383df PDF Text Text Bill Sefton Interview Michigan Military History Museum 9/18/2003 Interview By: Frank Boring Part 1: 1 hour 53 minutes 29 seconds (length) (the time code will read as „1‟ not „0‟, then „2‟ not „1‟) (1:00:44) Bill I would like to start off by just asking where were you born and when were you born? I was born in Anderson Indiana on March 5, 1922. My parents were…my father had been a infantry company commander in WWI. The biggest day of the year for me was the opening day of quail season when I got to go hunting with my father, grandfather, the dogs and what have you and pretty much grew up in an aura, if you will, of outdoor sports and the love of the country side. (1:01:23) The fact that your father was in the military, did that have an impact on you? Well it certainly did. I thought that I had a tremendous admiration and affection for him Even though he was rather an austere figure back in the days of the depression. My mother was smart enough to have us four kids in bed before he got home (laughing)…before he closed up the furniture store and got home so……..except things like hunting trips, I didn‟t really see near as much of him as I did my mother. (1:01:55) At the point of schooling, what kind of schooling did you have? Well I went through a catholic parochial school through the 8th grade and through high school…and then after the war, I mean after school, I didn‟t have enough money to go to college right away so I worked a year and then I started taking classes at Ball State Teacher‟s College in Muncie, IN, 30 miles away, driving over…At that time I was working seven nights a week in Delco-Remy doing defense work so I would go to work at 11 get off at 7, drive down to Muncie and take 3 classes. I took English, Chemistry…Typing, English and Chemistry because those were the only three I could get in a row...(laughing) (1:02:44) So at this particular point in time was there any intention of getting involved in the military at all. Well actually…when the National Guard was mobilized. They formed in Indiana State Guard which is really a militia and my father was the company commander and a close buddy of mine, of course we both joined, and my dad said, one thing, “you‟re welcome to come in son, but you got to realize one thing, I can never promote ya.” (laughing) A year later, his executive officer said, “Pete, he‟s the best drill instructor and bayonet instructor we got, you gotta promote him (laughing) so he did promote me to corporal. But that did turn out to be a tremendous advantage and I actually got in the Army. �(1:03:30) Well let‟s talk about that part. How did you actually get into the Army? Well, the war broke out and I was determined to go and my parents at that time you had to be 21 to join without your parents‟ consent and they were saying,”look why don‟t you just finish out the year at Ball State so at least you gotta…running…leg up on college. And my closest friend had taken a job out in San Diego at Consolidated Aircraft and so we agreed that during the course of break that…I said, “I wanna go out and visit with him.” They agree, ok, but they did sign my papers before I left…(laughing…so nobody was really fooling anybody) They knew as well as I did that I wasn‟t going to be coming back….(laughing)….. (1:04:27) Well let me ask you this, why the Army, why not the Navy or the Marines? Well, two reasons I suppose. Mainly because my father had been in the Army and the other thing I had read about the new branch of military, headed up by the army, the paratroopers and that intrigued me enough that early on I had gone down to Indianapolis at the reception center there and asked them about how do you get in this. I still remember there were these two sergeants sitting there, one of them turned to the other one and says, “hey, here is a guy that wants to jump!” They looked at each other and then the guy said, “you got to understand, we‟ve only have thirty openings a month, of course there‟s still twenty-nine open.” But anyhow, I guess the main reason was I knew that my dad had…I thoroughly admire that…he had been a commanding infantry company in the trenches and I figured if you got in the paratroopers you‟re probably going to get into the fight and not be shunted off to something else. And that was the main reason I joined. (1:05:35) Well, what did you know about paratroopers at that time? Only what the Army was putting out. That you had to be able to fight independently, on your own at night, etc. and you had to be highly trained and that was uh…ya know they polished it up pretty good. (laughing) (1:05:52) Yea but Bill, what I guess what beats me, here‟s this sergeant telling you that there‟s 29 out of 30 opening, okay and they‟re telling you about flying at night and all this kinds of stuff …this appealed to you, or this is something you found…? Oh, it appealed very much to me. I wanted to be at least as good as my dad was and I figured that was one that I could do….there would be no doubt that at least I tried. (1:06:19) So you arrive in San Diego….is that right? Yup…I got to San Diego (1:06:24) So, what happens when you arrive in San Diego? �Well, I went out to the recruiting office and enlisted and they sent me out to Ft. Rosecrans which is a coast artillery post and they gave, started giving me these, these physicals and I had as it turned out what I didn‟t know anything about at that time was called a “low threshold”. With a low threshold I could drink a chocolate malted and flunk any urine analysis in the world…(laughing) and I had been drinking a lot of chocolate malteds. He said your sample was 4+ sugar, but we‟ll give you four more tries. So I started drinking water and eating nothing but sweets and by the time I got to the fourth one, not a trace of sugar. But I had drank so much water…..the specific gravity was too low (laughing) and then the fifth…just a trace of sugar showed up and they said, “sorry, we can‟t use ya.” I said, “well you‟re losing a damn good man to Arizona!”…I hitchhiked to Tucson and went to the recruiting office as soon as they opened up. The physical there consisted of counting my eyes, listening to me breath and saying, “raise your right hand!” (laughing..) (1:07:49) So …now you‟re in Arizona…. I am in Arizona and I apply again for airborne and I am sent to Ft. Bliss, TX. And we go through a whole bunch of psychological tests and what have you and this corporal said “you don't want to go into the airborne infantry, there are a lot of jobs where we can use you better..you know and so forth…..so I said airborne infantry…put it down there……so he did. (laughing)….there‟s a sideline here I got to tell you…in the perennial tent we had two Mexican kids who could barely speak English and one of them had just come back from going through a test and I said to him, well what happened…..he says…I go through zee test, I come back…talk to this little man behind zee desk …he said do you like to go for walks, I said yes. Do you like to be in the woods….I said yes….he says……”Good, you‟re in the infantry!” (laughing) But the infantry historically…had always gotten that kind of cannon fodder. (1:08:55) Let me ask you this, your first attempts to get in, you drank too many chocolate milks or chocolate shakes, the second time and then finally you had to go to Arizona. Was there a sense of frustration there, or is it just you‟re going to do this and you‟re going to do this no matter what? I had no doubt that I would get in……(laughing…) none whatsoever. (1:09:16) Bill, just hypothetically, what would have happened if you couldn‟t get in in Arizona? I would have gone somewhere else (laughing) doctors or something……. (laughing)…I suppose…I would have hired my own (1:09:29) So now you‟re actually joined up, you have gone through the psychological tests, what were those like. I realized it was a long time ago but what basically were they trying to find out? They were mostly measuring IQ and measuring aptitudes and things of that nature, that is primarily what they were. I don‟t remember what all they were. I do remember when we got to Camp Roberts for basic training, when they called me up, the psychologist to go over the �interview with him, he just asked me questions like, “what do you call a hill.” I said, terrain feature…(laughing)…and never told me why I was there…and the next day they called me the “platoon idiot” (laughing)……apparently I had the high IQ and whatever the reason for it I don‟t know…I just know that they called me in in the next day or two they called him and that was all they ever called out of our platoon. (1:10:38) So let‟s talk about, first of all…basic training, but I also want you to talk and give us a sense of what it looked like, the area…Camp Robertson, you said…look liked Camp Robertson [Roberts] California…when I first went there the vast drill field was covered with vehicles primarily because they were still afraid of Japanese air attacks …landings and the cadre formed a task forces…we had to fight but it didn‟t last very long. It wasn‟t long after that we were using it just for a drill field. But that was out in near San Luis Obispo…it was dry and pretty much dessert. You lips would split, chap and split. We started in February and were there through April. (1:11:32) What were your buildings like in billeting? They were World War II vintage barracks. They were all built…the whole camp was built. They certainly never had that capacity before and they had artillery and infantry there. (1:11:47) So just so that those of us who don‟t know or fully understand, you‟re not technically in the paratroopers…yet…right? Oh no…no…no! (laughing) (1:12:04) What was the daily routine of basic training? Well, the daily routine was (laughing) the basic rudiments of infantry…..you went from close order drill, you went into weapons training with all the weapons that the infantry had at that time and then you had maneuvers…not really maneuvers but you had tactical exercises. Basically their job was in that thirteen weeks to prepare you for going on to unit training and everything else. So it was nothing like going through Marine boot camp, but it was rigorous. They kept you very busy and it was pretty interesting. (1:12:50) I was going to asked you, “you wanted to be a paratrooper?” Yup! You have to get through basic training even to get to that point…… Oh yes…yes indeed! So did you feel…..I guess what I am trying to get from you is….you‟re with a whole group of people who really don‟t know where they are going to go, including yourself, you may �not make it to paratroopers…you may end up in somewheres else, were there other people there that was specifically knew what they wanted like you did. Oddly enough the whole third platoon of our training company, almost the whole, were all the guys that had asked for airborne so they were all “gung ho” to go….not every man but I would say at least 75% of them were. They were there for that reason. They wanted to go airborne and they were mostly from the southwest. Course I enlisted in the southwest, in fact, I was the only one from north of the Mason Dixon line in our platoon so my nickname became “Indiana”…(laughing) (1:13:57) So during the off hours from basic, what did…. especially the guys who wanted to be in the paratroopers…..what were you guys talking about? What were your bull sessions and stuff? Just about how we intended to make it someway or other. You know, that‟s what we what we wanted and we were determined to get. (1:14:16) What age were you around this time? Well, I was 19 at that time and I turned 20 in March of that year. (1:14:25) Was that pretty much the age of the people you were with then? Pretty much because they weren‟t drafting 18 year old kids yet. So I was probably one of the younger ones actually. (1:14:37) What did you know about the war? How were you learning about it and what did you know? Only what we got to read in the newspapers and the radio. You know…. about Pearl Harbor, we knew about that before and we did not really know…there wasn‟t a lot to know at that time….Baton still hadn‟t fallen if I remember correctly. It was getting pretty close. We knew that was trouble there, but we were mostly concerned with learning the trade so to speak. (1:15:11) So you get through basic training, what is the next step? Well, they also at that time had decided, the Army had, that graduates from basic training could apply for officer candidate school, and they put the notice up on the bulletin board and I guess they had thirty, forty guys fall out. The other three…two platoons incidentally were all from Pittsburgh. A lot of them were just like the dead end kids….you know (laughing). One of these Pittsburghers came by and saw all his buddies in line you know and he started laughing. He said, “you idiots!” “Only guys going to make it and that is Sefton!” and to this I don‟t know why he thought that…and actually three of us from our platoon…the company commander was the first hurdle, and I think the First Sergeant he probably had something to say about it too. Then the battalion commander and the regimental commander they were rubber stamps. If the �company commander said, “this man is qualified.” They would automatically….then you went before a board, infantry board, and there would be a Major, a couple Captains, and a couple of Lieutenants and they would fire these questions at you. The first one they fired at me was, “Sefton, what makes you think you want to be an infantry officer?” And I thought to myself, who said there is no God! (laughing)…..I said “Gentleman, my father was an infantry company commander in WWI and I always thought that was a thing a man should do…when the defense of the country‟s at stake.” Later on they said, “What do you do for a stoppage of a third position with BAR, Browning Automatic Rifle? Well just by happenstance, I had been reading the thing again the night before and I rattled off the immediate action with every comma in place (laughing) and they all looked at each other and said “my what soldiers we‟re training here.” (laughing). He said that will be all Sefton, your company commander will let you know. So I am walking back and I am thinking, “oh, my God, I gave him the immediate action for the wrong position….” (laughing)of stoppage…and not a one of them knew the difference (laughing)…… Anyhow the three of us, two of us did go and we had both requested Airborne. (1:17:49) I know this is really difficult since it was such a long time ago, but how were you actually notified that you the officer‟s…that you were gonna be an officer? The First Sergeant said…….the company commander called us up and congratulated us. But the thing I remember most about that was when the two of us were now leaving the post to go and this gray hair World War I age, “potbellied” First Sergeant who was so rough everybody was afraid of him. He came right over to me, picked up our duffle bags, carried them across the road to where the busses were going to pick us up and he said, “You men are going to become officers and gentlemen. I have only one request. Don‟t ever forget the enlisted man‟s point of view.” ….and I never did (laughing). But I can still see the expression on his face. I can still see that day so clearly. (1:18:48) So you board a bus….. Oh yeah… (1:18:52) Where you going? I was going to a railroad station and then they took us on the land grant railroads up through Utah, I think it was about a three day ride to get there and some bridges were out, so we got there actually a little late to start class 74. But they created a new class 74A for those that came late. And O.C.S. was a, oddly enough, in our class there was really three major parts. The ones that were just out of basic training, there were others that were already non-coms with two, three, four years of experience and then there were the VOCs. The VOCs were volunteer officer candidates and they were people with college degrees. Most of them were up in their thirties or so and were successful in some field or other and they could volunteer for this and they would �take basic training first until they flunked out of O.C.S. you were free to go back to civilian life and take your chances on being drafted. So it was about a third and a third and a third the way it was split up. The training was very intensive, you were learning the tactics, you were learning terrains, you were learning all this sort of stuff and you have a lot of not only the lecture instruction, but also hands on instruction and I remember one instructor, we went out and he said, “I can always tell the O.C.S. class from a basic officer class.” “The Basic Officer Class, were once with R.O.T.C. commissions coming in. He said, “When I say good morning to the Basic Officer Class, they all say….Good morning!….When I say it to an O.C.S. class, they write it down.”……(laughing) Getting that little gold bar put tremendous pressure on everybody in there and the worst part of it was that at the end of each month you had to rate every man on your floor of the barracks from one thru twenty, or the first twenty four or whatever it was. And the first five, you had to tell why they were in the first five and the last five, you had to tell why they were in the last five. And that was really tough to do. It was the worst thing about it, but when we finally got through the course and they call us out for the last time as enlisted men and they read of six or eight names, and said you men will report to the variety room and we went off on this victory march….no packs…no weapons…singing …(laughing) When the Saints Come Marching in!…..(laughing) Head back and those guys were gone, their bunks were gone, the other bunks were neatly spaced as if they never existed. Like they had never been there. I forever residing memories of that I took from there [?]. (1:22:03) This may seem like a stupid question, but you know you‟re going to war…don‟t you, what was the mood now you are now becoming and officer which means you are going to be responsible for other people. Were you too young to really realize this? Did this weigh on your mind at all? I think this is just what you gotta do…it is what you are supposed to do…you‟re going to defend your country and you do as well as you could. As soon as I got the officer position I applied again for the airborne and so did my buddy. The cadre company commander went on leave and neither applications were forwarded. I ended up guarding the locks at Sault Saint Marie with the 131 Infantry Regiment and barrage, balloons, aircraft weapons…(laughing……)…we never saw each other again…course as soon as I got to Sault Saint Marie, I put in my application for airborne again (laughing) within a month it came or two months it came through I went to Toccoa, Georgia, and joined the 501. (1:23:18) Was there any knowledge of where you were going …like you say to join the 501. Did you really know what that meant or did you just sort of went and then you found out? Well, we knew it was a parachute unit, we knew we were going to go to parachute school eventually and that the paratroopers were going to be the highly trained infantry and in all probability going to be used. (1:23:45) So you are on your way there now and you travel by what……train……okay? I had a 10 day delay on route which happened to coincided with Christmas time and went right through my home town so that….my father was already overseas so my mother was delighted to see me (laughing)… �(1:24:00) Tell us about that. That must have been an amazing moment coming back for Christmas, you‟re now and officer and your dad greets you? Oh he wasn‟t there….he was already overseas. It was just my mother, my brother and sisters were there. (1:24:19) So that must have been a high point for you? Yes, I was just glad to be there but then the ten days went up pretty quick…(laughing) and I was on my way to 501 at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. (1:24:40) Let us get as much detail as possible, describe your arrival at what has been something you‟ve worked so hard to do coming to parachute school. Well, as I recall I got there and immediately interviewed by the Regimental Commander and assigned to Easy Company and that night I was going to get into the shower and I had my towel over my shoulder and it was already not quite dark but awful close. The Regimental Commander came bye and said, “Hello, Sefton”….that guy had that kind of memory for names. I was not the only officer that had come in that day. They were streaming in …(laughing)….and it really impressed me that he paid that much attention to the people he got and where he was assigning them. Well, actually I had been in “E” Company one day and they switched me to “F,” They were filling these companies up with draftees and this Colonel Johnson, the Regimental Commander had this policy, they got off the troop train, they were marched down to the mock tower which is a structure up 40‟ high which you got up and put on a parachute harness and you jumped out the door and you were held by a cable so you only dropped about 20‟ and then you went sliding down this long cable….anybody that did not jump got right back on the troop train….right then and there…(laughing) and I remember we had one first lieutenant that he looked like a very experienced first lieutenant …his face was hard…you know this guy had been through a lot….he could not make himself jump out of that tower, and he was shipped out immediately. In fact there was an old story supposedly true, but probably not, that they got this new recruit in on a Sunday and they said all you have to do is to jump out that 40‟ tower over there. The recruit said, “Hell, I can do that!” so he jumped, no chute….(laughing)…broke his leg….(laughing)….you didn‟t have to be all that bright to be a paratrooper (laughing)…. (1:27:22) What was the routine? You told us about the routine in basic training now what was the routine here at the school? Well, now the routine is, as an officer you were working with the new recruits in basic training so we are going back to a thirteen week cycle training them in weapons and all the way up through squad tactics and that was about the size of it. But it was pretty intensive you know and we also had great ideas like the company commander would say, Okay, we are going to do a 15 mile march in three hours…..(laughing). We had jeeps parked along the side passing out chocolate bars as you were double timing by.... and the thing I remember about it was that �battalion headquarters, S-3 and/or commander got us lost and at the end of the three (3) hours we were still twelve miles from camp…(laughing) and I remember yet, the company commander was determined we would get back across the line and the guys were falling out and we tried to help them….the first sergeant started yelling up to the head to the company commander, lieutenant….the are strung out from Hell to breakfast…….. (laughing) I was carrying two men‟s weapons besides my own and this one guy, all he had was a carbine….he was dragging and dragging and I said, “soldier, if you can‟t keep up, give me your weapon!”…and he handed it to me…(laughing)….. I had three in my platoon to say lieutenant, “you gotta let us set our own pace our feet are bleeding, we just can‟t do this!” I said, “Alright!….you set your own pace, but I‟ll be at the finish line and you‟d better be there too!” (laughing) About twenty or thirty minutes later, one of the guys that‟s marching beside you just past out….just boom! Right face down on the highway and I splashed water in his face and it took me about five minutes to get him to come to and just then this big old car came down the road an old Hudson I think it was….a farmer driving….coming toward camp from behind us. So I stepped out and stopped him you know. I said, I got a man here that has got to be dropped off at the camp dispensary and you‟re going to drop him off. So I yanked open his back door and here on the floor sat my three little Geronimos (laughing) let me tell you they led the platoon the rest of the way, but that was the kind of stuff you had to go through. I hadn‟t gotten to parachute school yet, but that is the kind of stuff I had in training. (1:30:16) You know that brings up an interesting question, if you can‟t answer don‟t, how do you compare your training to the training you guys put into effect? The training you actually went through in basic training and then the training you actually…… I think we were more “gung ho”. I think we thought….you‟re something special…you‟re not just infantry…you‟re parachute infantry you know and I think that imbued the instruction and we had a lot more physical instruction. We had a lot more pushups and gorilla stomps and runs….we ran everywhere we went virtually. A five mile run before or immediately after breakfast. Physical training we were in really good shape by the time we had finished, that was the biggest difference of all. (1:31:05) So the training ends and how were the people notified whether they…… Oh everybody went to jump school. Nobody flunked out of the training. But actually about half of the officers had already been to the jump school, the other half of us hadn‟t. And the 75 promotions that came through in that cycle they were many of the officers that had already been through jump school already and they were riding us that hadn‟t all the time….”you guys may make it”….you know….so if anybody was determined to make that first jump, it was those of us that had been taking all that ribbing all that time. But at jump school we were in such good physical...jump school is divided into four phases. The first was physical conditioning…and we were in such good condition, we skipped that and the regiment and then you went into “B” stage and that was jumping out of a fuselage sitting on the ground and jumping off a twelve foot platform and sliding down it and I believe there was an instruction coming behind that would trip the thing and whatever you did, you‟re supposed to hit the ground and go either into a right front role or a left front role landing technique. The third stage was off the towers. You were going �up these 250” towers, release and actually landing. The fourth stage was the jumps. You make five jumps and that first jump I made was the easiest jump I ever made….it was nothing that was going to keep me in that plane……(Laughing)….I was going to go out regardless and that first jump, you‟re supposed to count when you go…1000….2000….3000…if you get beyond 3000 it means your chute hasn‟t opened, but the opening shock will tell you that your chute is open….that comes just about the time you get to 3000 and it does rattle your molars and that puts what we called strawberries, if you happen to go out upside down you end up with bruises, we called strawberries on your shoulders and you‟d crack like a whip at the end. Theoretically, you crouch in the door. We would practice that all the time. You would put your left to the front and you kick straight out with your right leg. Theoretically the wind would give you a quarter turn and the chute would open slowly…..(laughing)…I never heard about it from anybody…but it never worked for me (laughing)… then when it did open and you look up and see that beautiful canopy up there and the silence and drifting down and the other guys are coming down and chattering …you know…and you hear the birds chirping on the ground. There is no other sensation quite like it. (1:33:58) So what is the sensation of landing like? It all depends on the technique. The best technique in landing is you climb your two front risers…each one goes to a suspension line. If you climb them it tilts the chute. You go a little faster but stop that oscillation if you‟re oscillating and happen to hit the ground on the back swing, you get some very serious injuries…broken backs….cricked necks, whatever. So you learn to glide and if you see that you got a woods over here, you grab the two left risers and pull them down and you‟ll glide off that way because the air has filled out on the other side of the chute and that puts you into the glide. (1:34:53) How much does fear factor enter into this? How much is fear? In jumping….? Oh….there is probably in some cases…never. You‟re always edgy….you‟re always..what am I doing here?…..you know. If you made enough, you go out and do it for fun so….laughing….it takes a while acclimate you on that. I don‟t think you ever get an all overall fear in fact the second jump was probably the hardness because I knew all the things that could have gone wrong on the first one….(laughing)…also we‟d waited in line for three hours because President Roosevelt was coming through and I always got the impression that we were waiting in line, and it felt like somebody had opened the pit cocks on your energy vats…..and were slowly running out. So that was the hardest. (1:35:50) Well tell us more, that‟s out of the blue, I didn‟t even know about this, tell me about this….Roosevelt came to your camp. Yes and we stood in line with our chutes on and the backpack reserve chutes in line for him to go through and he was late, of course…as usual, and we stood out in that Georgia sun, it was May at the time. It was warm in Georgia….for three hours waiting until it was okay to go back and get ready to jump. (1:36:17) So did you see him? �Oh…yeah we say him sitting in the car that drove by….had to be him….(laughing) (1:36:29) Lets go on then to your first jump, your second jumps, how many jumps do you…. Five jumps to qualify. (1:36:37) Okay And then, if you were an officer, you had a jump mastering thing…where, you didn‟t jump, you threw bundles out. We were the jump masters you know…there was a sixth flight and it was training to see if you‟d be able to see your DZ and if you were dropping…didn‟t make any difference, that was only a very short course……… (1:36:59) I‟ve lost you, I have no idea what you mean in terms of the sixth jump, you‟re throwing stuff out the …….. Your equipment bundles. The jumpmaster is the guy who gives the orders to jump. He may lead the jump. He may follow the jump or if he‟s the training jump master like in parachute school, he didn‟t jump at all. He just saw that everyone else jumped and rated you on your exit. You could do that too. Man had a weak exit, all of the sudden he isn‟t going to graduate. But the jumpmaster is the guy that calls the shots of when to go and what have you and it was training for officers if they were on a supply mission or if they were to…what else. How to spot the DZ or that kind of thing. (1:37:48) Okay, so you have done your five jumps, you‟ve done the jump master…what‟s next? Then we went to Camp McCall a new camp, still being built, and there we took up unit training. (1:38:00) Where is Camp McCall? It is in North Carolina not far from Fort Bragg. Not far from Charlotte, but anyhow that was unit training right up to maneuvers in Tennessee and that was the end of training. That was also of course continuous weapon training, continuous physical training, and continuous discipline all the way through. (1:38:29) What do you mean by maneuvering training? Maneuver is a large scale…that is where you talking at division level regiments. That is really training primarily for the staffs. Before that the first one they had was in Louisiana maneuvers. That was before the war that everyone still talks about (laughing)…you would have a…the weekends were administrative bivouacs…you had the pup tents. But from then on it was tactical bivouacs…if you had pup tents at all, they were camouflaged, you were undercover or sleeping on the ground in a foxhole or whatever. And those would probably last anywhere from three to �five days and then you would move to another area by convoy and you would prepare for the next one. Our last one was to be a parachute jump and the weather cancelled that…the very last one of the six weeks we were on maneuvers. (1:39:29) All right…so you got through that…where did you go next? We went to the staging area to go overseas. (1:39:40) For those of us who don‟t know what a staging area is. Well, it‟s a port when you get on the ships. You have barracks there and everything, and they wouldn‟t let us un-blouse our pant legs so they couldn‟t see that we were parachute troops…you know….no insignia…no helmet. (1:39:58) Now I don‟t understand any of this, why would they do that? Because those German spies might say….ahhh!!! (laughing) so we gotta get on the boats…and there stands our regimental commander, with jump boots, jump uniform, even the cup of his jump helmet is hanging down. (1:40:21) So at this point Bill, were you aware where you were going? We knew we were going to England. We knew that, yes. (1:40:28) How were you told or just explain to us….. Well, in the first place, we were on the east coast (laughing) that was the first clue. No, they told us that we were going to England. (1:40:39) Then beyond that….? Well, when we got to England we found out that we were going to be attached to the 101 st Division and I imagine the top commander and the top staff knew it. He probably knew that too and I was the battalion S2 and nobody told me (laughing) …. (1:40:58) Well, first of all, where did you arrive in England and two, what were your accommodations? Well, we arrived in Scotland actually, and then they put us on the train down to England and we were near the town of Newberry. It was actually called the Craven Estate...Lady Craven and it was also known as Hampstead Marshall...Which now incidentally has been turned into Hampstead Park and, they yesterday, if I hear it right, they unveiled a monument to the 501. �Some guy up there had become interested and is going to send me some pictures of it. He was using our regimental newsletter. (1:41:40) So this is what I am in visioning this to be like an English Estate or manor kind of thing? Yea, but we lived in tents. (1:41:47) Okay? We got in trouble for poaching trout with grenades…(laughing) and my S2 section never did get caught shooting pheasants down out of roosting trees with darts at night (laughing) (1:42:06) So beyond the training there was a few extracurricular activities that were going on…..well…that brings up a good point, beside the stuff you could get by…at night and in the streams, what kind of food were you eating? Oh mostly food, it wasn‟t “K” rations. It was garrison rations, the cooks got beef, potatoes, everything else and they cooked it and we would eat in the mess hall. (1:42:33) So it wasn‟t like can food it was actually like a buffet type that they would slop stuff onto a tray. Oh yeah….you‟d go through the line and you‟d get gravy, potatoes or whatever..(laughing) (1:42:47) So what was the mood of your group knowing that you were pretty close to putting this training into action pretty soon? I‟d say pretty up beat…very upbeat. There was a lot of kidding going around, but you know, but this is what we had been training for two years. It was like what we…….you got to understand, one thing I didn‟t mention, when you went through the parachute school, they somehow made you feel like were some kind of superman by the time you got out. The smallest enlisted man could whip any two armored men or five MPs all by himself (laughing)…..and some of us went over to Calumet City there and would try to prove it and come back with less three teeth…….but they did. You came out of that training feeling you had accomplished something that most guys wouldn‟t even try to accomplish and that spirit kind of stuck with you…all the way. (1:43:58) What was your first indication that you were out of training and all the training is over with and now you‟re going to be doing what you are sent out there to do? Well we came…they started biggeting people, that meant if you were biggeted you were “top secret” now. That filtered down from Eisenhower‟s staff which if…it started back in about 1943, early down to the battalion level where I was biggeted, before even the company commanders were that was so I could take the aerial photograph maps and start teaching my S2 crew without saying where it is. See this barn here we gotta know if that‟s being held. And they had a terrain map also, the last thing, in color, every farm house, every tree, every bomb crater, �every dirt road and I thought the engineers had done that …you know and that is one of the things I mentioned in my memoirs. It was just a couple of years ago when the guys had come to this first one or second one and bought my book and read it. He said, “I‟ve read all the books about going with the MU, the first time they ever mentioned those things and I was one of the guys that helped make them. We were detached from division and sent down to make those things.” They weren‟t made by engineers, they were made by people with art talent I guess in the division, but they were absolutely fabulous, and I assumed they made them for the entire coast of Europe. Bu they were…and they were right on the money! Of course you had to land on the money to mean anything (laughing). (1:45:51) OK, so I guess one of the points that I need clarification on, there were people higher in rank than you that did not have access to these things as you did? Only at the battalion level, the company commander…you know were theoretically all captains and they always would say, “Bill, where‟s it going to be?”….(laughing)…..and they were always biggeted a couple of days later…you know…but for a while I was a junior officers….only one who knew where we were going (laughing). (1:46:20) That brings up another point. Do you know…You were training your guys. You called them S2? That was intelligence, the intelligence section. The army is broken down into these…first of all you have the commanding officer, the executive officer, and then the G1 or Division or the S1 for regiment, that is personnel. S2, G2 is intelligence. S3 or G3 that‟s operations and S4 or G4 is administrative supply. That breaks it down about as close as you can. (1:46:55) So you are going over these maps, they don‟t really know where the locations are, but did you know where it was? Did you know where you were going? I knew it was going to be the coast of Normandy, but I didn‟t know beyond that. (1:47:22) What were the preparations for….see this is where it gets difficult for me to ask you questions because I want details at the same time, I don‟t want you to get too far ahead of yourself. Your studying the maps…are there briefings going on in terms of the operations started already? Not yet. Not for the troops. Not for the troops at all. They didn‟t get that until we got to the marshalling area. We moved out to the marshalling area and the marshalling area was behind barbed wires and guarded by MPs and our tents were in there and so forth. There was no communication with anybody. No letters going out…nothing while you were in there. And that‟s when the troops were then briefed and the missions. The troops themselves really only had to be briefed by their commanders. Our mission is our company is going to do this, you know they didn‟t have the overall picture. While we were there, all of the sudden our drop zones were changed shortly before we were there I guess, actually. We were supposed to jump at Sainte-Mère-Église where the 82nd changed, but the Army intelligence had learned that the Germans had moved a whole another division in that area and that‟s why they condensed the �drop zones and put the 82nd and put the 101st down to capture the causeways off of Utah beach and take Omaha and the locks at La Barquette…etc. (1:48:56) You are at the marshalling area and now everybody is being briefed in terms of what you are going to do, what was your next….what was your responsibilities, I guess, at this point. What were you supposed to be doing? Just keep rehearsing with my S2 section what they were going to do. What are we going to do with these two folding bicycles we got from the British. They were going to be thrown out with their own shoots….(laughing) and someone was going to get on this bike and ride down to that corner and see if that tree branch really got machine gunned there or not…(laughing) and this here other strolling bike and we threw them out and never saw them again (laughing) some French farmer probably still has them in his hayloft (laughing). (1:49:41) So gives us some other examples of things like the bicycles and what not. What other types of things were you practicing about? While there were, you know…everybody had the cricket…the well-known cricket. This was General Taylor‟s idea. The night jump…they jumped at night in Sicily and at Anzio and utter chaos…especially identifying them to friends so he thought that ….the British make them…these dime store crickets…. You would click…click…click….. click …click…and everyone had one hanging around their neck and that was supposed to click it and the other guy would then say “flash” and the other guy is supposed to click it back twice and say “thunder!” and then you say….”welcome!” because the German‟s couldn‟t say “Welcome”…they would say “Velcome” ….(laughing) that was our sequence. But that was the identification at night. It worked pretty well really. (1:50:48) All right, so now are we at the point now where you are actually going to the staging area or marshalling area? Yeah…the staging area is for shipment overseas. Marshaling area was getting ready to jump. (1:51:04) So what happened next then? Okay….of course we were supposed to jump on the 5th and the weather called it off, so you are told to relax (laughing) and the next day we went through again and get the word that it was going to be on and we were blackening our faces with burnt cork or whatever and getting all of our gear on ……you know…you start out weighing about 150 lbs. More than you did by the time you get it all back on. (1:51:38) That‟s what I want to get into…tell us about the gear. Alright. First place, now this is from head to toe. You have your steel pot helmet with liner and sometimes you have a first aid pouch tied to it or not. You had your main chute on your back. You had a musette bag which you flipped over and let it hang below the reserve chute. The �musette bag was all full of your extra odds and ends, the clothing and what-have-you, and so it is actually now resting below the reserve chute which you have on here over that you have a “Mae West” life preserver in case you land in the water. Hanging from there you have a roll of what looked like clothesline rope, rolled up and hanging there; that was in case you landed in a tree. A little pocket up here, you had a jump knife, the first switchblade knife; that was so you could cut yourself free. Working on down, you had your belt on and you had a canteen and you had a trenching tool and you had ammunition and you had, if you were an officer, you had binoculars, some guys had wire cutters and ammunition pouches and a “D” ration which was a sealed chocolate and the chocolate being back to World War I, to be “opened only under order of an officer”…..supposedly (laughing). In your side pockets you had three “K” rations and a Hawkins landmine which is about like a small cigar box and three grenades, and you had bandoliers of ammunition hung on you according to what your weapon was, and if you carried an M-1 rifle, it was broken down into three components and put in what we called a “Griswold Container” which is a flat, canvas bag, that you stuck through your webbing. The only problem with that was, you stuck it through on and angle and when the opening shock opened, it squared up under your chin, and if your knees hit the ground you could lose teeth and so, not everybody used them after that and the crew served weapons they had, like the machine gun, they have in a leg bag that was attached with like a 20‟ rope so the guy could release it before he hit the ground, and that weight would be taken off before he hit the ground. You also, of course, had equipment bundles. You had them under the plane and you hand them inside the plane and the ones under the plane were supposedly tripped by the pilot. He released those. (1:54:19) But you were really ….waddled out (laughing) to the airport. A lot of guys had to be helped into the plane. You just couldn‟t climb those steps with that much weight on depending on what their jobs was especially the guys that got the “SR-3” radio…you know. So we actually marched out eventually about a quarter to a half-mile from the tents to the airfield and these planes with their black and white stripes were dispersed all around it, and you knew what your number was and what “stick” you were. And when you got near the field, you started breaking off into these “sticks” going around the eighteen men to the plane. And at one point that road dipped just enough and the battalion ahead of us wasn‟t really splitting off into their own planes and that entire airfield was full of mustard weed in bloom. Just pure gold. And when you got it at eye level it looked like little sticks of black ants walking across an ocean sea….you know….That‟s still a vivid memory for me. You got over there and you found your plane and you sat there with your plane, now it is still broad daylight at this time, and finally you get the order to load and the planes start lining up and they are going down that fairway just perched on each other‟s tails and since I was going to jumpmaster this rifle squad I was going in with, I can stand in the doorway and look back out and it looked like a sea of black and white, river of black and white stripes coming up and I had this feeling like someone had pulled the handle on some gigantic machine and nothing was going to stop it….it was just that impressive to me. But then of course we had to rendezvous. It took about an hour just to rendezvous and get everybody in line before we actually took off for Normandy. We were headed for Normandy straight across, and we flew across and around the peninsula and the beaches a lot. We came in from the other side and flying back towards the English Channel. Our orders, at least in our battalion and our regiment were to just stand up and hook up five thousand yards (5000 yards) off shore. This “red” light comes on �and you stand up and hook-up in case there‟s any anti-aircraft weapons down there. You might have a chance to get out if the plane is hit. And then you‟re gonna to go down to the…we had eight minutes flying time to our drop zone and I knew all this from all this briefing, and I still remember that watching that black coast of France slide in from under the left wing, you know, and I am watching for muzzle flashes and watching for any strikeable match….not a thing……just perfectly black. Only trouble was, right after we crossed the coast, we hit low cloud levels, and they only had …these planes flew in groups of three, so the only navigator was in the lead one, and they all start spreading out so they won‟t crash into each other, and by the time they came out, some of them couldn‟t even see another plane, and so they are virtually on their own. Of course you got to remember, they were as green as we were. This was their first combat mission too. You‟re flying down the Douve River, and I‟m looking out the door of the plane and I could see fires burning on the ground, and I yell to the troops….now they had been standing up now for the better part of ten minutes, and I yelled, “We are in great shape!” “The air corps has bombed a lot of things!” I said there are all kinds of houses burning down ahead. I didn‟t know until later that those weren‟t houses, those were planes from the serial just ahead of us. I knew we were approaching our drop zone. I knew we didn‟t have very long to go, and I also knew we only had four minutes of flying time from the drop zone back to the channel. (1:58:36) We had this bundle right in the middle of the floor which had go out first, and we were jockeying it around to get it into the doorway and I became aware that something was happening different outside….I sensed it more than anything else, so I stood up and looked out of the doorway and my thought was that you did not need my chute. You can walk down any one of these streams of tracers coming up your “ass” (laughing…) it was like the 4th of July out there (laughing) and I instinctively ducked aside from the door, and immediately realized it was a bad troop leader move because the guys are starting to crouch and if the crouch, that is going to start pulling the static lines which are laced a crossed their backs held by rubber bands ..off. So I stood in the doorway and looked out again like I knew what I was doing, and yelled, “it‟s okay, they can‟t hit us!” ….(laughing) at that point a burst of what I assume was either 20mm, it sounded too big to be .50 caliber….sounded like someone pounded on the plane with a sledge hammer, went through. Now I am looking for the “green” light, you know? I can see our drop zone flowing by, you know…going this way…I recognized it. I was on the cross roads…I saw the barns I had studied and I still got a “red” light, and finally I started see these dark puffs in the air beside me and I realized that everybody else had jumped in the camouflage chutes and so I yelled “let‟s go!!” and we shoved the equipment bundle and it got halfway out the door and it caught the slip stream and it jammed. I don‟t know how long it took to get out. It might have taken all but three seconds. It only seemed like a quarter of an hour (laughing). (2:00:23) We got it out and the first five men when out of there practically riding each other‟s backs they were so desperate to get out of that plane….just blurttttt!! And the five were gone. Number six man, the plane yawed wildly and it was starting to do that. He had his carbine stuck to his webbing and he fell against the door and the barrel of the carbine broke through the paper tape that separated the two thicknesses, and he was hung up. I don‟t think he was hung up for more �than a split second. They piled up behind on the end, but he was gone like somebody squeezed a grape. He was out of there! The number twelve man was just approaching now, and the plane turned up on its left wing, and he didn‟t have to jump; it threw him out. By the time he got there, it was up on its left wing and he was gone, and the following four were then thrown off their feet, and at the split second looking down, I see the moon reflecting in the water and I could see what I took to be “white caps” waving….waves. The plane rolled back up again…and its going...they were supposed to slow down to ninety miles an hour. This guy couldn‟t have gotten a half a mile more out of that plane, and I tried to stop the next four guys. “Stop we‟re over the ocean.” I don‟t think they even knew I was there. I bounced off the door to the “head” four times, and all of a sudden, it was the emptiest cabin I had ever saw on a plane. Even the crew chief was gone. I don‟t know what happened to him. He had been right there helping put the equipment bundle out. I said I thought briefly of going up and tapping the pilot on the soft shoulder and saying, “Mac, do you mind making one more pass in the field, because I didn‟t have a chance to jump.” (laughing) The way that plane was flying. If he was alive, or not wounded. We had been told you could stand landing in the Channel for four hours before hyperthermia really got real testy. I had this “Mae West” and the other thing they told us that whatever happens, do not come back unwounded on the plane. And so, I think about my father in Italy and I think about my family and I am not about to go back and be court martialed. I don‟t think there really would have been a firing squad, but it sure would have been imprisonment. So I stood in the door, not like I am supposed to….not crouched …just like a plain log and fell out. I did every battle cry and supposedly, Bill Lee….that was General Bill Lee, we were supposed to yell that instead of “Geronimo.” I didn‟t yell “Bill Lee,” I yelled a full throated expletive (laughing)…at the same time I felt the opening shock, and I no more than looked up, which you always do to make sure it was open, and I hit soft ground. I thought, “My God, I am on a channel in the island!” [an island in the channel] What had actually happened was, they had taken aerial photos twenty hours before the entire mission and not a single photo interpreter realized, he was looking at was in effect an eighteen mile long lake. The “Krauts” had closed the docks on the Douve River and it allowed it or actually it opened it and allowed the tide come in and then closed them. The Douve River was way out of its banks and all across this bottom land was water and tall grasses sticking up and the waves and the winds were like wave tops and that is what I had seen. I later figured out I had landed just about a mile behind Utah Beach and hit the ground and found that it was almost impossible, it seemed like …getting out of that chute because all that weight and the speed at which we had jumped had tightened the straps so much, you couldn‟t get at them with your thumbs. We didn‟t have a quick release that we had when we jumped in Holland. You would just slap the thing like that and you were out. So I am cutting my way out, and this one kid comes running up and skids to a stop. I remember he had no helmet, no weapon, and he said, “Are you all right?” I said, “Yeah, I am all right.” He took off running again. I never knew where he went…(laughing)…or if he is still running across Europe (laughing). Another kid is about twenty feet from me, and he can‟t get out of his so I went over and started cutting him out. I identified myself as Lieutenant Sefton, and he says, “what‟s your plan?”…(laughing) “follow me!” We went about another, maybe fifty yards, and we found three guys who had gotten out of the chutes trying to cross a deep ditch…using “clicking” each other you know, and I identified myself as Lieutenant Sefton, “what‟s your plan?”….(laughing) It took me three hours to get to where we were assembling at, and in the field, they didn‟t have hedge rows, they had ditches, and they were all flooded. They had been under 8” to a foot of �water to the tops of them, and the bottoms of them could be anywhere from six to eight deep and you either jumped them or you stepped in them (laughing) and someone had to help pull you out. All the way a crossed then, I kept picking up guys that were scattered that far in that thing, and I must have had sixty, but anyway, when I run into a group of them out there, I am challenged by the voice, and I answers the challenge and says, “this is lieutenant Sefton.” Well, it was our regimental plans and operations officer, and he had a question, “Sefton, what‟s your plan?” (laughing) I said, “the last thing they told us if everything gets all screwed up, head for the fighting, and they certainly seemed to be all screwed up and the fighting‟s up on that hill there and that‟s where I am taking these people.” ”Good plan Sefton!” “You take the point, and I‟ll bring the main body.” So I started out with twelve guys. We come to the grand dad of all ditches….I mean the “great” grand dad. It was a good twenty feet across, and had a telephone pole laying a crossed it, so I led my point across there but the last thing I said to this Major, “you see that bunch of little trees out there about half way to the high ground?” he said, “yeah.” I said, “when I get there, I want to stop and we‟ll regroup and plan this thing.” “Good idea!” I get my twelve men across that log and look back and the main body makes a column left…(laughing) they march down out of the picture. I kept picking up more men. Now I‟ve got about another forty, and I got two lieutenants, and we‟re getting pretty close now. There is no more sound distance between the time you see the tracers and hear the guns go off. (2:07:22) Were any of the guys that you picked up were actually ones that were in your plane when you jumped? I am assuming some of them might have been. I didn‟t know the men. They were a rifle squad from Dog Company, and the battalion commander had split his staff up so they would[n't] all go down in the same plane. So I didn‟t really know any of them by name, but I am assuming since I went back in the direction we‟d come, that some of the rolled up could have been on that, but it couldn‟t have been all of them, there were others that had also landed in that part of the field …. (2:08:07) Okay….now we are going to head into the battle. (2:08:16) So, Bill you are now out in the middle of nowhere basically….it‟s dark. One of the things I was going to ask you was I wanted to go back a little bit, you had mentioned about your training in jumping out of an airplane as a parachutist. I don‟t mean the jumping from the static tower, but I mean actually from the airplane. Were those landings pretty much in the daytime or did you do nighttime as well? We jumped at night as well. We had night jumps. (2:08:44) But the areas you were jumping into in training, you pretty knew where you were jumping in to and……. Oh yeah. We always knew where we were and where we were supposed to go and of course the pilots weren‟t under fire…….(laughing) they usually got us there. �(2:08:59) But when you jumped out on D-Day that wasn‟t the same thing…so I guess what I was going to asked you was one of the things that we didn‟t cover was when you landed…actually landed…where did you land and what actually happened immediately. You talk about it in the book, but you didn‟t mention it this time. Well, I mentioned that in the first place I was trying to get out of my chute. And I dropped right outside a French farm house. I dropped right beside it. It was soft ground. It was not flooded there, and I figured later it was about a mile behind Utah beach. George Koskimaki who has written three books. He was General Taylor‟s radio operator. He had gone back and said “Bill I can‟t find that house” and I thought later, you know…the heavy bombers about a hour before dawn was to fly along the beaches and blast a lot of craters for the guys to use for protection. They were actually a mile behind so maybe that house wasn‟t there anymore. (laughing). That could well have been. (2:10:07) I understand though that you also had an encounter with a non-human. Oh I forgot and left that out. When I was cutting myself out of my chute. Remember I had just hit the ground now, and I could hear hobnail boots pounding the ground and out of the corner of my eye I could see moonlight shining on bayonets. I am clawing for my equipment and couldn‟t get it. In fact, I had my father‟s WWI 45s but they were held with baling wire so I wouldn‟t lose it on my jump. I finally rolled over to see who was going to kill me or capture me, and this herd of cows skidded to a halt. The nose of the first one was so far from my face, and their hoofs were the hobnail boots, and the bayonets were their horns the moon was shining on. The cow got away before I could kiss her, but she did say, “Mooooooo!” (laughing). That was not an uncommon occurrence, I remember our regimental sergeant, he landed on a few of the cows and he just walked along with them because he figured there wouldn‟t be any land mines or you wouldn‟t have any cows (laughing). (2:11:27) Okay…now you‟ve gathered together all those groups of people. They are all coming together under, not necessarily under your voluntary leadership, but they keep asking you the same question over and over again……. They were very content to follow. One thing each officer had been issued was a big round luminous button to theoretically stick in his collar so that the troops could follow him. As far as I know, I may have been the only officer in the division to actually use one of them (laughing). But I gathered again about forty men and two officers and we were getting real close now. I said we had better just have a counsel of war. So we sat down and I sent one man out in front and one man to the right and one man to the left and one behind…to challenge anybody. Then I said, here is what we‟re going to do. I am going to take the point. I am going to take twelve guys, two scouts and ten others, and I am going to move out in front, and you guys split the rest of the group between you, and you follow and if I get something like that go through, you flank it and you flank it real quick. They said…okay. I have to go to a flash forward now because this is such a good story…… �So we made the plan. So I said, “Okay, move out.” I picked up the guards out there. “Let‟s go!” and now we are back in England and there are some lightly wounded men coming back from the hospitals, and I am down there just watching them de-truck you know, and all of a sudden there is this little guy standing beside me, red faced…he says, “Lieutenant! you remember me on D-Day night?” I says, “Sorry trooper, I don‟t have the foggiest recollection of you on D-Day night.” He said, “Well, you damn well should have!” “You put me behind a bush and left me there all night!” (laughing) He had a right to be ticked off you know…(laughing) in combat when you are given an order that has to be fulfilled…everything…. Anyhow, we got really pretty close. (2:13:45) Okay, I am going to stop you once again. I know this is going to sound like a really stupid question, but you keep saying that you‟re getting closer …how did you actually know that you were “getting close”? You know it by the…you can see the flashes. You could see the tracers. You could see the grenades going off, and when we first hit the ground, you could see them and eight seconds later…you‟d hear the sound, and so you knew you were nowhere close yet (laughing). But by this time, the tracers were like going overhead and the firefight was actually maybe a matter of 100 yards ahead or so and that‟s when I told my point, the twelve guys to drop their packs, fix your bayonets, we‟re going to assault this. I just started to move out and I ran a crossed a guy on the ground. It was my S2 section sergeant. I called him “pop” because he was 29 years old. And he was giggling. And this was the reaction that was wildly shared. He was giggling, they tried to kill me….they tried to kill “old pop”…it was the sensation that, and I felt the same thing when I looked at the tracers…there were guys down there that I hadn‟t even been introduced to me. They‟re trying to end my military career…(laughing) and that was a very calming sensation. “My God somebody is trying to kill me!” I guess he had bummed up his ankles and couldn‟t walk, and I said “Pop, I am going into the assault.” “Here, you take this carbine, and give me your “Tommy” gun.” (laughing). So he said, well, Colonel Ballard is right over there by that hedgerow. That was our battalion commander. I was about to assault our battalion assembly area…(laughing) and I had more men than he did when I got there. In fact, only twenty percent of the battalion was assembled, and it was at dawn that he said, “Sefton, take a couple of scouts and go see if you can find the first battalion,” because they were supposed to share that drop zone with us. It turned out that the first battalion was in the serial “A” that was possibly being shot up, but also, you pilot [the pilots] had scattered them over a sixty square mile area. Some of them never did get back on course. Some got in new groups …a lot were captured, but there were also several cases where pilots did not give the “red” light, did not give the “green” light and dropped their troops in the channel and of course all the equipment those guys had on, it was a miracle if they could use a “Mae West”. I mean they just went right down, you know…..no way that the “Mae West” was going to help them unless they could shed all their equipment first which was nearly impossible. �At any rate, Colonel Ballard was there, and I was helping find more men, and we looked across the hedge row and here is the “Geronimos”...course our regiment was the ”Geronimo regiment”…you know on our flag and so….among ourselves we referred to each other as “Geronimos”…and here‟s this one sitting on big clod of dirt. This huge clod…beside a bomb crater…it had blown up out there. He is sitting there on this with his rifle a crossed his lap, and by that time the moon had gotten a little brighter and the Colonel said, “What unit solder?” …He said, D company!” He said, “Well, I am your battalion commander!” “Come on over here and help us!” “Sure like to Colonel, but I got a broken leg.” And he is sitting there with his rifle a crossed his lap waiting for somebody with a coalscuttle helmet to come by so he could shoot him…..(laughing) That was some of the kind of guys that we had. It was the degree that would save them trained and the degree to which they had been instilled with this fervor. (2:17:32) Bill, not going into a lot of detail, what was the actual strategy that you were supposed to follow. Me personally? (2:17:42) Well you and your group. What theoretically was supposed to happen? Well, our battalion had two primary missions. One was to seize the town of Saint-Côme-duMont, the other was to seize the locks at La Barquette that controled that flooding, and a couple of the small bridges over the Douve River. Those were our objectives. The regimental commander just by happenstance landed on the locks, because his plane dropped him there (laughing) and the locks were captured right away. The first place, they weren‟t defended….so you were pretty sure ..(laughing), but they were under fire from the heights of Carentan across the river. Our battalion, like I said, was supposed to attach Saint-Côme-duMont. Well, the first thing the battalion commander wanted to know was where the first battalion that was supposed to share this place with us, and he says, “Sefton, go see if you can find the first battalion.” Now that has been repeated in the night drop by S.L.A. Marshall that he sent me to find the regimental commander. No he hadn‟t. He was more concerned who was going to help us (laughing) So I took this patrol now…it was just breaking dawn and the battalion was against the first hedge row I had seen because I had come down from the bottoms and up and there were hedgerows up in that area. So I took four scouts with me and there is a long hedgerow coming up from down the bottom lands where I have been. I had just never gotten that far toward it. So we start down that and walking along and all of a sudden bullets are snapping past our helmets from the other direction and we hit the ground. I will never forget, suddenly realizing after laying there flat on the ground for like maybe ten seconds…I don‟t know….”Hey!…I am allowed to shoot back”…(laughing)…. Oddly as it may seem, sometimes it took that kind of time before you realize that. So I was still carrying the “Tommy” gun and where I thought the shots came from was a chateau a good 200 yards ..or 250 yards away, maybe further than that. I saw something like stirring in the bushes in front so I took the rifle from the guy behind me…an M1 rifle and emptied a clip into that it might have been chickens or it might have been anything. The chances of being a machine gun nest…at that range…were remote as hell…but at least no more were coming that way. �We went down that hedgerow ended and just beyond, another one came from the other side but did not quite intersect. There was a ditch or pond where the intersection would have been. And just on the far side of that little pond it looked like a muskrat‟s nest..it was that type of debris, and a guy laying beside, behind it yelling, “go back!….go back!….go back…!” Well, I was on a mission. I was an officer and there was a guy who had lost his nerve. I wasn‟t going to worry about that. So I told my first scout to leave the end of our hedgerow, run along the side of that pond, where it narrows down and jump behind the shelter of that hedgerow. So I sent him a crossed and meanwhile I guess I am still shooting at that other thing about that time. I looked up and he is over there. I then send the second man, and it seemed to take longer but all of a sudden now, he is over there…so I take the “Tommy” gun back, and tell the guy to cover me while I get over there. So I am really trying to maneuver crouch…that is what we called it…you are kind of hunched over and crowding….then some machine gun bullets come from my rear right where I had been shooting and it almost took off my nose…I mean it was right a crossed in front of my face, and instinctively I jumped into the pond which turned out to be about 8‟ deep. It was a shelf that had sidewalls because it was a combination of ditches. I am sitting there now on the bottom and the sun is shining down on the golden green shafts, and I am sitting there and this is the first time I have this experience where this little voice is talking in my ear. It happened many times in combat after that. “Sefton…you‟re sitting down here. It is a hell of a way to fight a war…..and one thing…you don‟t have much air in your lungs….you had better go up and get a breath of air.” Well, I had done a lot of “skinny dipping” when I was a kid in gravel pits and that. I was not afraid of being under water. So I got my feet out from under me, I lunged up and I just happened to get some air and here comes these machine guns right down there and I went right straight down and I am sitting there and this little voice is saying…“well, stupid, if you…….you still haven‟t got enough air…..you got to go up once more and get some...” So I went up once more and this time, the guy behind the hedgerow told the other ones he had just killed a lieutenant...(laughing) it had gone right across the top of my helmet without denting it……so now I am sitting there thinking, he has had three cracks at me…I mean two cracks at me and he is not going to miss again, so I crawled over to the far bank…the one nearest him, and I felt the “Tommy” gun ammunition break off of my web belt, and this is one of the points that illustrates that when I later became convinced, that in the first six days, I went right by the book. I didn‟t feel much emotion. I didn‟t feel any fear. I didn‟t feel any uncertainty. I was going by what the manual said to do, and the manual said….(laughing) supply economy…so I turn around…I groped around but now I was getting pretty muddy because of the bottom...I unhooked my belt and crawled over the bank and I got my hands on top but they are still under six or eight inches of water, because of the shell down in the field, and on top was this green scum…when we were kids, we called it “frog shit”….(laughing) and I eased my nose up through that stuff and thanking God for the first time for my generous proboscis ….it smelled so sweet..(laughing)…I must have waited, I don‟t know….three or four minutes…and finally the one kid that I knew there…his name was Joe Newman and I got lips out too…they were covered in scum and I said, “Joe…Joe Newman!” There was dead silence….and I said, “Joe…Joe Newman!” and this very hesitant voice says, “Lieutenant?” (laughing) I said, “Hell yes!….it is me!…..can you see me? He said, “Lieutenant, your own mother couldn‟t see you…” (laughing) So I had to work my way down…very slowly without making any ripple or any kind until I got across to him where the ditch had narrowed down. What I didn‟t know was that the second guy �that I had sent across had gotten in there and Joe had gotten him out. At this time the water was so cold that my legs are cramped and my arms are getting cramped and I said, “Joe I‟ve got cramps and I am not sure I will get out of here.” …He steps out from behind the hedge row like it was a Sunday afternoon in the park, and he tosses the rope across, and I am trying to catch it under water…..I didn‟t want the machine gunners to see me….(laughing) It slipped off my fingers and he came back, wound it up again and this time threw it further and I got it. I wrapped it around and around the Tommy gun handle because I knew I couldn‟t tie a knot in because my hands were too numb…so I says, “Joe when I count to three I am going to go let go, and I will go to the bottom and you start pulling that rope…so at the count of three I let go, the rope went tight and went a crossed that bottom ditch, hit the far side and I am going up like this with the Tommy gun, my head and shoulders broke through and the Tommy gun jammed in the roots of the brush. I swear to God, it felt like my back was getting a yard wider by the second, and Joe throws down the end of the rope and he wanders out…he doesn‟t weigh more than 125 pounds. He gets down, gets a hold of my uniform and yanks me out of there and not a shot was fired at that time…..(that was the closest call…I had ever had in combat….laughing) (2:26:08) So, you really don‟t know what happened to that machine gunner. He just stopped shooting? He thought he had gotten his target. He switched to some other target. He thought I was a goner. He wasn‟t paying me any more attention because the other two guys had gone behind the hedgerow. Anyhow, we go a little further up and now we‟re going up this intersecting hedgerow and it goes right in back of that chateau I was shooting at. We are going up that and I still had seen anybody from the first battalion and we pick up a guy that had had his finger shot off, and we see some guys out in the flat out there, and I said, “Joe…because the other guy and myself couldn‟t walk.”….we laid on top of each other for a while just to get warm. We were so chilled through. We were walking now but not all that well. I said, “Joe go see if those guys are from the first battalion.” Well, he gets out about fifty yards beyond the hedgerow and all of a sudden there is small arm fire coming from the chateau overhead and it had kicked up all around him and the guy with him is rolling all over the ground and Joe says, “hey, lieutenant, this poor son-of-abitch…has been hit again!” The guy head been shot again through the calf of his leg this time. Anyhow…the barn at that place had caught on fire, that chateau where they‟d been shooting from I guess. Mortar rounds or something and all of a sudden these four Germans are running out right across the front in that heavy smoke. I was the only one who could see them, and the Tommy gun wouldn‟t work. It had been under water and I whipped out my dad‟s 45….I yelled, “get…them! ….get them!...but they still don‟t see them. I whipped up that 45 and I blast off a round, and a cow about this thing overhear, ran around in a circle…….I‟ve always said a 45 was good for a paper weight, that‟s about it (laughing)….. anyhow…… �We went over to this village, it was called Basse Addeville….we pronounce it Bayzattyville and here was a major I had seen the night before and our Catholic chaplain, Father Sam was wounded in there. It was right across now…we had gone beyond that in the chateau to this little village. Everybody was kind of laying and remember now everybody had has no sleep since the day before, you know…I remember, I stretched out in the grass and must have slept 2 hours…just oblivious to everything all around. (2:28:42) What about eating during this period. You didn‟t eat anything, right? Oh we had “K” rations. I don‟t remember …I think I ate my first one there. (2:28:48) Okay…so no sleep…and no eating. One of the other things that the gentlemen you met the other day, Harold Folkema, he was infantry. He said that one of the things he remembered was that there was always noise….there was always sounds of guns going off. Do you remember silence at all during the period or was there………. Mostly silence…except early that morning and a few machine gun bursts. And the odd thing about it, once you got inside the hedgerows you could be three hedge rows away from a firefight and never hardly hear it. They were sound absorbing…you know. There was noise when you were under artillery fire, but at that time the Germans did [not] have that much artillery registered….it was sporadic…yes…but I am sure on the beach there was always noise…yeah we weren‟t on the beach, thank God. Anyhow, we get up and finally after we had rest a while, I thought, we ought to find the front line. They said it is right out there. I thought we ought to go out and see about how well it‟s held, so I took one scout with me and we went out looking, didn‟t see anybody…didn‟t see anybody…didn‟t see anybody. The house just up in front of me….all of a sudden, here are four Germans…rise up out of the ground and are running and assaulting that house…shooting at it and assaulting it. I didn‟t know my closest friend was in the house with a ruptured machine gun that he had been fighting there for the last hour. His platoon sergeant had been killed, and these guys shot the front door open and it opened and they threw in a potato masher grenade and he was savvy enough to open up his mouth so the concussion wouldn‟t blow his ear drums and the door blew closed again and opened and here were these four guys running right at him….and I am at his flank…..and I blast away with my carbine…two of them went down and the other two dragged them back….we always use to (laughing) argue over who really got them…and I know damn well I got them, it was like shooting ducks in a shooting gallery…all spaced and running...you know to the left and right, but we never did get that argument settled. (2:31:01) Okay, so you got the two Germans, somebody did, the other two run away. Did you go in, is that is when you found out that your best friend was in there? No…I didn‟t know that. I just figured that I was out there all by myself with one man and if they got four they got more…(laughing)…so I pulled back and while I was there, Major Allen says….”Sefton, take some men then and go take that chateau over there…that building.” And so I got a machine gun team and I think I had a total of four others…or six. So we go over there �without any difficulty. We did get shot at just as we were getting there, but we shot the lock off the back door. We sat the machine gun up behind the picket fence because the road out of Basse Addeville came like this and right in front of that driveway, up this hill ..the Germans were holding and the machine gunner would lay there and try to pick them off as the came across the road (laughing) So Joe Newman and I went in the house and we were going to search it…it‟s a three story thing you know and it‟s big...we would kick open the door and jump in like this..and both of us finally became so silly…we got to the top floor, I says, “Joe, you go that way and I go this way.” …jumping into empty rooms and obviously by that time if there had been any Germans there, they would have been shooting at us. All of a sudden, Joe is down to the far end and I hear this babble of voices and he says, “lieutenant, come hear a minute!” and here was the whole family in one bedroom saying… “me so bio!”… “me sa beo!” …..you know….all huddled up in that one bedroom. The only one that came downstairs with us was the grandmother and she came down and sat in the kitchen and made tea for us (laughing)…….we were only in there about hour and some of the people upstairs had come down and some that came down and said, Newman‟s been shot. Well…Joe had leaned out a window. I don‟t know whether it was one of our people who had shot him or one of the German‟s did. He came down and had been hit through the shoulder. It had taken a big chuck out of his shoulder blade…bleeding like a stuck pig, and so we got him down and I managed to get his own first aid kit on him. Now I got morphine…you know and I am squeezing it and squeezing it…and he looks at me….and says, “Lieutenant, did your break the seal?” …(laughing)…which of course I had, so I broke the seal but I had also sent a runner across to get an aid man…there was a wounded man over here. And the runner comes back across and they didn‟t use the ditch we did, they just ran across that and just as they got to the out building right next to the drive way….the officer, had chips of that building flying but they got in and then the one guy happened to have a Tommy gun and he jumps out of a ditch by the house and starts shooting at the Germans with fast fire. The surgeon goes flat in the middle of the ground in the driveway (laughing)….. But they both got out and they both got back. They put a bandage on him but left him there. They didn‟t have a place to put him over there. (2:34:20) Bill, just quickly…we had talked a little earlier about the strategy of what you were supposed to take…you‟re supposed to take the lock…you were supposed to take…was there any talk about your objectives at that time or… Yeah…because La Barquette was right above that lock and Colonel Johnson had already been down and taken it. In fact he came up there and ordered Allen to bring the men down. Allen says, “you know, if the German thinks this high ground is looking down your throat…as long as we‟re here, the locks are safer since we are down there. But Johnson still ordered him to come to the locks. In the meantime, Ballard had ordered or battalion commander to bring the battalion over. Instead of attacking Saint-Côme-du-Mont…..Ballard, his troops had seen Germans behind him you know short of Saint-Côme-du-Mont, and he didn‟t really feel…that with twenty percent of the battalion he could attack Saint-Côme-du-Mont, which was a pretty sizeable town and leave his rear open. So he was trying to wipe out Angoville-au-Plain and he was pretty heavily engaged when Johnson wants him to come down there and he said I am heavily engaged. Well, �Johnson got pretty ticked off with the battalion commander refusing his orders so Ballard did send him a tool to find him a way. They took the same route I had….and came back and (laughing) said you can‟t do that. You can‟t take a battalion through there (laughing)…but there was bad feelings between Johnson and Ballard until Johnson finally got killed in Holland. But Ballard was dead right, he was doing the only thing that he could do. But the locks at La Barquette were taken, but the two foot bridges beyond it, we couldn‟t, were too tightly held. We knew they were supposed to be taken, but we couldn‟t get down to them there. (2:36:07) You see I guess what I am trying to get across is that when you talk about it from moment to moment….you don‟t get the sense of the strategy but you were actually attempting to accomplish the original strategy of why you were there. Well, a whole lot of the quote strategy unquote from “H” hour of D-Day…you know, the day we jumped until dawn, we just tried to find each other. That was the division commander, General Taylor….It was about twenty minutes before he found a single man…when they were scattered that far apart, “hell” your strategy….there was no strategy…lets gets some friends together for this party (laughing) The battalion commander knew what the strategy was but he knew he had to attack the ones from the rear before he could attack that and Colonel Johnson was the only one that knew we had to have the locks and then the rest of the force…which was supposed to be down there. The First Battalion was supposed to be down to help him to go take those two bridges and across the Douve River so the Germans couldn‟t come a crossed and use them against us. But on the part of the troops, there is hardly ever any grand strategy (laughing)…..what the guys are going to do…that is your objective and that is the strategy to take that objective. (2:37:29) So now…this is what period of time of day was it? Is it reaching night fall… It is getting toward sundown and I am over in that château with the wounded man and a runner comes across and says that “Major Allen said we are pulling back to the locks at La Barquette. Pull out.” Well, I guess the doctor was still working on my man, and I said to the runner, go back and tell him to give me some time. I got to get this wounded man out of here. Well, it might have been a half hour later, I looked through my binoculars that were on the floor and nobody was in that village, and furthermore the Germans should be coming down the hill. So I had the machine gun and all the guys, there‟s this little stone house…the stone wall around the house and told them to get up there and “open up with everything you got”….and then we tried to put Joe on a blanket and he broke right through it and lands on the ground (laughing)…we tried a fireman‟s carry and that didn‟t work….(laughing)…I still had a lead man with me. Finally I through him over my shoulder, the “A” man went along with me holding the plasma bottle…and that is how we got out of there, went straight back, got behind that same hedgerow that we had been behind, we got into the town, and I sent a scout up and said “see what was up there.” He went up and came back and said that “Father Sam was up there with a bunch of wounded men but the Germans are coming in the other edge of town.” I said, “Joe, I don‟t know where the regiment has gone, and we got to find them.” I said, “we will take you with us if you want or you �can stay here.” We had a blanket wrapped around him. He was already in semi-shock so he said, “I‟ll stay here.” So he went up and joined Father Sam and we follow the regiment by the gas masks and other stuff they had thrown away down to the locks….(laughing). A blind man could have almost followed them by stepping (laughing) on them. (2:39:28) Almost like Hansel and Gretel kind of thing….. Oh yeah …all the way down and by the time we had got there it was pitch dark and I almost stumbled into the foxhole and…guess who??? My buddy McNulty that had been in that house…so I share his foxhole with him. (2:39:43) Is that when you found out about the incident at the château….you talked about it right there. Yeah…yeah...the incident about the house…..with the Germans…yeah because I hadn‟t seen that before that. He had come back in. He had gotten out of there. Apparently he had followed me back in to where I had come from in Basse Addeville, about the time Allen sent me over to that Château so we never made any connection at all during the daylight. (2:40:08) So night falls…what happens? Okay…we‟re down in the locks…that is where I am. The battalion is getting dug in for the night and getting ready for the assault with the 506 in front of 327 on Saint-Côme-du-Mont the next day. On D+2 actually, it was two days later, but Joe Newman did have an experience…..see Father Sam had fourteen wounded men, two of them had head wounds and were out of their heads so he put them in a separate place and the other twelve men laid across. Two young Germans came to the door with schmeissers and burp guns (MP-40), and he‟s pointing to his cross and saying, “priestie…priestie”…you know….they just shoved him aside and Joe was laying on the ground and he said, they came in and they cocked those schmeissers and all I could think was…which end are they going to start at….He said, I was right in the middle (laughing)……it didn‟t make any difference, but….and a German sergeant came up and kicked them out of there. And the next day when they did counter-attack, the only part of that building that caved was the place with the two guys with the head wounds and the rest of them all survived. I understand they got a Distinguished Service Cross for that. He was one “hell of a soldier!”…I tell you. He really was. (2:41:39) So, we are down by the locks and it is night…right? Yeah…and at dawn we had parapet throw up, you know and…….20mm shells bouncing off of it from over near the causeway where it comes to Carentan…..Max stuck his head up…pulled it back and said, “Bill, this La Belle France is not so bleeping lovely…(laughing)” �The really interesting thing about that being there…we had a couple of hundred men there, and you know that I was on this side of thing and Carentan was above the high ground over here and they see a whole bunch of people coming up through the low lands, and they couldn‟t tell from a distance whether they were friend or foe…you know. Finally they determined they were a battalion of German paratroopers who had come off the beach and were now trying to get…by the high ground…and get up to Carentan, and so Johnson heavily reinforced that side, and kept everybody down and McNulty and I were on the other side you know. He didn‟t dare take everybody from everywhere, and they blundered right into us. We ended up killing about 150 and capturing 350…you know. We told them they were surrounded, you know…. You could hear some of those guys yelling, “kamerad!” and the battalion commander realized that …(laughing) that we were outnumbered …and almost out of ammunition…(laughing). The German battalion commander was too late and some of the German artillery apparently mistook them for some of us and they shelled and killed our regimental adjudicate and a bunch of other people. Mostly they killed their own troops. (2:43:26) Where were these troops now…. These were people your age or older The Germans? The German paratroopers in particular were also elite troops. Now later on we ran into old men and boys and the Germans break divisions according to missions. The Germans that were defending Omaha Beach itself, in the fortifications were mostly older people and a lot of them were Russians or people that had opted for the German Army. Then they had the assault divisions and those were their SS Divisions so they were mostly young and very aggressive. Then of course they had their Panzer Divisions and they were always aggressive. Their tankers were almost always aggressive. The regular Army were Wehrmacht themselves. Compared to the SS, were gentlemen. I mean they pretty well obeyed the Geneva Rules of conduct, whereas the SS were “no holds barred”. So what we were up against there with the fighting the German paratroopers, they weren‟t much older than we were. The SS we fought that the men were young, but the others we captured a lot of them. They were just sick and tired of the war there. They were in their fifties or something….(laughing). (2:44:43) Alright. So the German fire is coming in and it is killing a lot of their own troops as well as some of ours? Yes this was the artillery fire from Carentan now because they have observations there on the high ground and they can see us, they can see all these people milling around and they can‟t distinguish either, but that fire did kill the Captain McReynolds that was herding these people together and some of our other men. But by the time two days later, we still hadn‟t taken the footbridges down there, but we were sent back. They didn‟t need anyone to guard the locks anymore, that was taken care of so they sent back to…I had talked to my battalion commander on the radio that first day, D+1, the second day we were there and asked him how…..because he had orders to come over there at that time….and I said, “how long to you estimate?” “Estimate two hours he says” (laughing) . But I knew he was there and he was coming so there was place else for me to go except wait it out. But then on that D+3 we rejoined the second battalion and �they were going to be marched back into reserve into that little village, and McNulty‟s platoon was leading the column and I was up there walking with him. We spent the time yacking and trading memories. We walked right by the road we were supposed to turn right, and ended up at “dead man‟s” corner. “Dead man‟s Corner was a highway that went down the main causeway across to Carentan. It was called “dead man‟s corner” because there was a light American tank there with a hole blown through it, and the commander still sticking out of the turret, and it was a very hot spot. It was very hot fighting on D+3. So meanwhile the battalion commander had reached a turning point and had sent a runner up, said you guys missed it and wanted us to turnaround and come back, but “Mac” and I were sitting in this ditch on this side of the road and the Germans are way up there and all of a sudden a bunch of skirmishing down the flat below us with the Germans. A little fire-fighting going on. We just slumped down the ditches, we all see leaned back like this you know. A round, not a spit round, a named round had buried itself right between our heads (laughing) obviously …well laid. We slumped down and the Sergeant goes across the road and lays on the other embankment and he studies things with is field glasses. He says, “I see him!”….”I see him!”…he is in that house down there. The ones that the guys were attacking. “He is in the window on the second floor!” So I picked up an „03 rifle, a Springfield, which are much more accurate than the M1, and so I went over and looked to be about 500 yards so I set the sight. I can hardly see the “damn” window you know, but I take a bead on it. I said, “let me know when he is up there again!” He says, “there he is!” so I squeeze off a round. He says, “you got him!!….you got him!!” I might‟ve hit him, I don‟t know (laughing) ….but that would‟ve been a phenomenal shot with a rifle you never zero‟d in, (laughing) but the troops were all cheering then and who was I (laughing) not to let them enjoy what they thought was a moment of victory (laughing)…….. (2:48:08) So we did go back into reserve after that, and then we did on D+6 attack Carentan and that was another one of my exciting experiences because our battalion was supposed to start the attack a crossed the flood bottom, and we even had rubber boats to do it in, and mortar shells were sticking up big plumes and stuff like this. We were getting wounded, and I was with the battalion commander and the command group about 100 yards behind and Carentan is on my left…only a couple of yards away, and I thought the least I could do is go make sure there are no enemy over there to have us enfiladed on the flank so I took my little three or four guys and found that there was a bridge that was blown, but it was across this canal and if you could jump six feet, you could jump one portion of the other …easy…not even that…maybe four feet and it sloped down toward each other. So we went a crossed and we went into the town and we went down to the railroad stations and threw some grenades into a bunch of wires (laughing) thinking that might‟ve done some good and now we are going down the main streets looking for snipers….getting further away from the battalion. We are going down like this and all of a sudden the side ground floor level window opens, and I whip around to shoot and out comes this young French mother with a snotty nosed two year old baby . (laughing..) holds him up to kiss me on the cheek (laughing)……and behind us suddenly this peg legged, WWI vintage Frenchmen, stomping along and singing in a broke voice, “It is a long way to Tipperary!” (laughing)….and drunker by the minute. We came around the corner then and there was the 506. They had come in from the other way. So I went back and wondered if the battalion was still pinned down and I flopped down by the battalion commander…..now this shows how stupid a �“green” lieutenant and all of us were green…and I flopped down and said, “hey you know colonel! …there is a bridge right over there we could cross.” He says, “why don‟t you show me where it is then.”…(.laughing) and all the battalion got up and leaped a crossed that bridge and went over to attack the high ground, and took la Billonnerie, a part of Carentan but a village called la Billonnerie and that‟s where we ended up for quite a while. We beat off a very heavy attack by German SS groups that came in like there were going to surrender and then dropped to the ground and started firing, and that is pretty much…..well…we held that for about ……we held that position until the 2nd Armor broke through and then we followed them for another three miles. Dug into one end of a valley and the Germans had the other. That was just purely static defense. We sent out patrols. They did have one house that stuck up …it was a two-story house…between us and I told the battalion commander that I wanted to take a patrol out and see if we could chase any of the Germans out of it. He says, “sure! Ask…get some volunteers!” and I did. I says, “who wants to go.” I had about twenty five geranimos just like that…(laughing) so we go over there and there aren‟t any Germans there. They evaporated when they saw us coming. But all the entrances into that house…all the doors and windows were on the German side. We were looking to one side and the backend and there was no way of getting in. And if you went around and got in, and if they decided to retake it. There would be no way of getting out. So I sent back for a demolition crew, and down comes Jesse Tidwell…the regimental crew that was assigned to the battalion carrying a footlocker. I says, “what do you want?” I said, “I want a mouse hole blown in the back of that little wall there so that we can crawl in and out.” “okay!”…he drops the footlocker up against it. I says,“What is that Jesse?” He says, “This is my charge!”…..I says, “It‟s kind of heavy isn‟t it?” He says, “Well, it is a brick house.” He pulled a wire and a little wisp of smoke started going up and Jesse and his people take off like a bunch of rabbits going over the hedgerow (laughing) and I look up and there was patrols strung all around that. And I was lying about fifty yards away watching it. All of a sudden there is this blast, this flash…and I am looking up and there is timbers…you know…going up and up and up….(laughing)…and I‟m thinking, they‟re going to come down and down and down….(laughing) fortunately, nobody got hit with anything bigger than maybe a walnut. The entire back of the house was gone. The two sides only came halfway back to where it was and the front was pretty well intact. When I drove by there in 1978 they had even torn that down (laughing) the last real combat episode The battalion commander thought I had found a booby-trapped German ammunition dump from where he was (laughing)… …and you only wanted a mouse hole….(laughing). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SeftonG0738V1 Title A name given to the resource Sefton, George William (Interview transcript and video, 1 of 2), 2003 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-09-18 Description An account of the resource George William "Bill" Sefton was born in 1922 in Anderson, Indiana. Prior to the war he was taking classes at Ball State Teacher's College. He enlisted in the Army shortly after the war started, trained as an officer and served briefly with the 131st Infantry Regiment guarding the Soo Locks in northern Michigan before being accepted for paratrooper training. He went to Camp Taccoa, Georgia and began training with the 501st Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. He went with his unit to England and jumped into Normandy on D-Day. He served with his unit in Normandy until they withdrew to prepare for Operation Marked Garden. He made his second jump as part of that operation in September, and served with his unit in the Netherlands until they were withdrawn in Novermber, and then went to Bastogne, Belgium in December 1944 to fight back against the German advance during the Battle of the Bulge. After the fighting at Bastogne, his unit moved to the Alsace-Lorraine region and on into Germany. With the war over he was transferred to the 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division where he served with them in France as the athletics officer and club officer (in charge of athletic supplies, and officers' club supplies) for his unit. At the end of the war he met his wife who was an Army nurse at the time. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sefton, George William Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6029e2987a027aa3f11e1ccb3041a954.mp4 1532bea040a4a04bde30fd66e9d713d9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/96284aeebf5579f4c2aab45351894c9f.pdf d4f56d6f1b700205b3748beaf30b0241 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project Alfred Schumacher World War II 1 hour 42 minutes 30 seconds (00:00:19) Early Life -Born in Blue Island, Illinois -Grew up there -Went to Thornton Township High School Had an older sister and a younger sister -Younger sister died of polio at the age of eight (or nine) -Had an older brother that had died before Alfred was born -Father worked multiple jobs -Drove truck -Worked on the railroad -Did any odd jobs that were available -This was all during the Great Depression -Birthday is December 14, 1924 -Graduated from high school in 1942 (00:02:40) Start of the War -Pearl Harbor was bombed in December 1941 in the winter of his senior year -Assumed that he was going to be drafted with the outbreak of war (00:03:09) Getting Drafted -Got drafted in July 1943 -Worked at a paper warehouse from summer 1942 to summer 1943 -Could have worked at a war factory and been granted a deferrment -Didn't want that because he felt it was his duty to serve when called -Wanted to fly, specifically be a pilot -When he was inducted and processed, he and a group of men were pulled aside -Asked if they wanted to go into the Army Air Force -He volunteered immediately (00:04:59) Basic Training -Sent to basic training at Miami Beach, Florida -Most likely the Miami Beach Training Center -Remembers that it was hot and rainy in Florida in the summer -Got through basic training and the entire class was washed out of pilot training (00:05:46) Gunnery and Armorer Training -He was sent to Buckley Field, Colorado for Armorer and Gunnery Training -Taught how to take apart a .50 caliber machine gun and put it back together -Was so good that he was able to do that with a blindfold on -Taught how to shoot at moving targets -Rode on the back of a pick up truck and shot at targets -Similar to shooting at targets in a moving plane -Training lasted several months �-Sent to a decompression chamber and was taught how to put on an oxygen mask -If you showed any signs of discomfort you were assigned to ground crew -80% of the men in his class were washed out and placed on ground crew -He went into the decompression chamber ten (or twelve) times -Never felt any adverse effects from being in there -At the end of training he assumed he'd be assigned to a B-24 or a similar bomber (00:09:24) B-24 Liberator -The B-24s had no insulation -Sat on iron seats, or had to stand behind the gun for the missions -Became a tight knit group with his other crewmembers -There was no heat on the plane -Wore long underwear, two pairs of socks, electrically heated suit, and silk gloves -The silk gloves would whick away moisture -The electric suit would be plugged into a twenty four volt generator -Usually didn't work -Flew at altitudes where the temperature could be -20ºF - -60°F (00:12:46) Armorer Duty on the B-24 -If a bomb didn't drop he would have to go into the bomb bay to get the bomb loose -Had to go out on an eight inch wide catwalk with no parachute -Bomb bay doors were open and they were still being shot at -Had to use a screwdriver to get the bomb loose -Didn't know when the bomb would release -Always prayed that it just hit an empty field -Men did slip and fall to their death doing this job -He slipped once, but caught himself -Only connected to the bomber with an oxygen tube (00:17:30) Advanced Training -Basic training lasted longer than usual because they were also receiving pilot training -Meant that it lasted three (or four) months -From Buckley Field he was sent to Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City, Florida -Received tow target training over the Gulf of Mexico -Tow target training: Shooting at targets towed by a plane -Straffed targets set up on the water -Went to a field out west where they learned how to fly bombing missions -Bombardier would drop dummy bombs filled with sand and flour -Sand for weight, flour to mark accuracy -His first duty was to be the armorer and take care of the bombs -His second duty was to be a gunner -Went to Westover Field near Springfield, Massachusetts -Went on a flight to train with their crew's navigator -The best navigator that he'd ever seen -There were nine men in his crew -If they were the lead bomber, or deputy lead, they would have two extra crewmen (00:23:02) Deployment -Before being deployed he was given a ten day leave �-Visited his parents in Illinois -Parents had plans to move to Michigan and by a farm -Mother hoped that he would be discharged to help the family work on the farm -Gently explained to her that the Army had invested too much to let him go -Father would talk to him about training and about being deployed -Mother didn't want to hear him talk about his service -Went to an amusement park in Chicago with his sister -Church members and family threw him a going away party -Took a train back to Springfield and received flying orders at Westover -First stop was Newfoundland, Canada (00:25:34) Flying Missions Pt. 1 -Flew from Canada to Greenland, to Iceland, to Scotland, then down to England -Destination was a 44th Bombardment Group base -Flew seven (or eight) missions out of that base -The 392nd Bomb Group was almost entirely wiped out and needed replacements -They were transferred to that unit as a result -Most likely at RAF Wendling, England -Flew missions into Germany and other parts of occupied Europe -Participated in the final bombing raid of the war in Europe -Against Skoda Works at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia and rail complexes near Berchtesgaden -Antiaircraft fire was so heavy that they couldn't see the plane next to them -Twelve bombers would launch, and then another twelve, etc. until all bombers had launched -During one mission there were 2,000 bombers in the air -B-17s would take off first because they were slower then the B-24s would follow -B-24 could carry four tons of bombs -Number of bombs then depended on the size of the bombs (00:29:26) Ground Crews -Remembers that ground crews wrote vulgar messages to Hitler on the bombs they loaded -Alfred told the ground crewmen that those bombs hit their targets every time -Not always true, but it was a morale boost that the ground crew deserved -Feels that the ground crews received no credit for their part in the war -He didn't smoke, so he gave his cigarettes rations to the ground crewmen (00:31:16) Post Mission -After landing they would remove the guns from bomber for service -Turn in their parachutes and change into regular uniforms -Went to debriefing where they would recount everything they remembered about the mission -Also turned in any pictures that they took during each mission -There were cameras on board and the crewmen were encouraged to take pictures -Somtimes brought a cameraman with them on missions �-The pictures they took were valuable for intelligence purposes (00:32:52) Crew -Odds said that 3 would be killed/wounded/psychologically broken, 3 captured, 3 survive -His entire crew made it through unscathed -If shot down told to evade capture for as long as possible and by any means possible -Before the first mission the pilot called them together -Told the crew to call him Bill instead of 'sir' -Only had to salute or call him 'sir' if one of his superiors was around -The two other officers on board requested that the enlisted men do the same (00:35:11) Living Conditions -Lived in Quonset huts -Shared the hut with a few other crews -It was crowded -Had a coal stove to keep the Quonset hut warm -Only allowed one bushel of coal per week to keep them warm -Would raid coal dumps on foggy nights for extra coal (00:36:37) Flying Missions Pt. 2 -Flew missions during the day -British thought that they were crazy to fly during the day since they always flew at night -Targets were oil refineries and rail yards -Had bombs with delayed fuses that they used against rail yards -Those bombs would get buried in the ground -Regular bombs would blow up the train tracks -As soon as the tracks were repaired, the fuse bomb would explode -Goal in attacking refineries was to chip away at German fuel production -Pretty soon they weren't able to produce any fuel -Germans got so desperate they would drain fuel from abandoned vehicles -Along with the ground troops they bled the Germans dry -Tanks would run out of fueld and become sitting ducks -Flew thirty combat missions during the war -Would also have to fly missions to break in new engines, or break in a new crew -Flew at least seventy non-combat missions (00:40:42) End of the War Pt. 1 -Germany surrenders on May 8, 1945 -There was rejoicing, then they realized that the Japanese hadn't surrendered yet -The atomic bombs were dropped and their fears of redeployment were negated -He was still in England in August when Japan surrendered (00:41:35) Landing in England -Coming back from a mission their might be heavy fog over England -Mortars would fire red flares at the end of the runway -Men would stand at the other end of the runway with flare guns (00:43:00) Crash Landing in Europe -On one mission they were closer to the Russian lines than Allied lines -Read: deep in German controlled territory �-One of their engines took a direct hit and they had to drop their bombs and turn back -Engineer started pumping gas to the other three engines -Started losing altitude near the Allied/German frontline -Got so low that Germans were shooting at them with rifles -Ran out of fuel and crash landed in a field in France near the frontline -Army had just secured the field -Entire crew was able to walk away from the crash without injuries -Retreated to a nearby wooded area -A Piper Cub artillery spotter plane landed near them -Pilot told them to get out their pistols and be ready to fight if the Germans came -Told them to wait until a truck came to collect them (00:48:28) Returning to Base -A truck was sent out later that night to get them -They were very hungry and thirsty since they hadn't eaten since breakfast -The next day at noon a truck with a trailer was sent to transport them further -He rode on the canvas covered trailer -Once they were dropped off the navigator helped them walk the rest of the way -In the trailer came to the realization that the canvas was covering dead soldiers -The mess kits they were given had been from those dead soldiers -Came to a bombed out town and started looking for shelter -Started taking fire and didn't have any helmets or body armor -Took cover in a building -Turned out that it was an American rescue party that mistook them for Germans -They were taken to another base and the radioman was able to contact RAF Wendling -They were told that the radioman was at dinner and unavailable -The radioman colorfully demanded to speak with the commander -Commander told them to go to Paris where a plane was waiting for them -Took ten days to reach Paris by walking and hitchhiking -They were all excited to see Paris and the pilot had some black market connections in Paris -Able to get them money and told them to stick together and keep their pistols shown -Got to see Paris and buy mementos for a day -Finally got back to base and got debriefed -Learned that they were scheduled to fly a mission the next morning, which they did -After that mission they were given a week of rest leave -Got to go horseback riding in the country via the Red Cross -Week went by really fast -The crash happened in January 1945 -Still had about four months before the war ended in Europe (00:59:09) Downtime and Contact with Home -Whenever they weren't flying missions they basically had downtime and could visit nearby towns -Did target practice with their .45 caliber pistol -It was practical as well as recreation �-There were always card games going on -Didn't play because he didn't really know how to play -There were USO Shows once in a while -Didn't get a lot of shows because their base was a smaller base -Got letters from home pretty regularly -Mother never asked about the flying or the missions -After the war learned that his father was able to keep an accurate calendar of his missions -Still has no idea how his father was able to do that -Had a lot of fun with his fellow crewmembers -The enlisted men were all nineteen or twenty, and the officers were a little older -A lot of men drank and smoked cigarettes -Supposed to stop drinking after a certain time so as to be sober for missions -A tailgunner drank a lot and needed someone to escort him -Alfred would help him get back to base from town (01:07:15) Life after the War Pt. 1 -When he got home he started looking for work -Parents were living near Holland, Michigan and would go to church in a one room school -Met his wife-to-be at the church -Her father didn't like that Alfred had German heritage -He also told her that once she graduated from high school she had two options -Leave, or take care of her mother and father -She graduated from high school and two weeks later they got married -Were married for nearly sixty five years (01:10:47) Battle of the Bulge -During the Battle of the Bulge they flew an important bombing mission -The Germans had massed a force that threatened to break through the Allied lines -His bomber dropped a 500 pound bomb, one incendiary bomb, and fragmentation bombs -Results were absolutely devestating -When the ground forces got to the staging area said there was more iron than wood -Intelligence for missions like this was supplied by resistance groups around Europe -Also there to rescue downed airmen (01:14:12) News of the War and General Patton -Followed the news of the war pretty closely -Knew that people respected Patton's tactics, but a lot of people didn't like him as a person -He didn't have an opinion about the man since he wasn't on the ground (01:15:33) End of the War Pt. 2 -In his barracks listening to the radio when he heard that Japan had surrendered -There was a lot of celebrating -He had more than enough points to go home �-Points: awarded based on length of service, rank, dependents, and combat seen -He was one of the first men to go home (01:16:20) End of Service -Flew back to the United States -Meant that they weren't greeted by crowds or bands -Flew back to Westover Field, Massachusetts -Given a three day leave -He was sent to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to wait to be discharged -Waited around for a few days doing nothing -There was a need for day labor in the area so he did that to pass the time -Got cooked a home cooked dinner by a farmer's family -Remembers that it was great after eating Army food -Worked for about a week until he was discharged -His pilot, Bill, was there with him -Went AWOL and got married, no one knew about it (01:20:13) Coming Home -Took a Greyhound Bus to Chicago, then got on another bus to Saugatuck, Michigan -Saugatuck was across the river from Douglas (where his parents lived) -Bus driver dropped him off in Douglas even though it was not on the bus route -He had a few miles to go to get to his parents' house -A couple driving by picked him up and took him to his parents' house -They weren't going that way, but did it for him anyway (01:22:32) Life after the War Pt. 2 -Parents' farm wasn't producing very well -Enrolled in Michigan's 52/20 Club -Soldiers were given $20 a week for fifty two weeks -Started looking for work -Got a job at a factory and didn't enjoy it -Worked odd jobs after he got married -Heard that General Motors in Grand Rapids, Michigan was hiring -Went in to apply for a job and was hired in the same day -Got promoted to supervisor and moved to Grand Rapids with his wife -Hasn't joined any veterans' organizations -Didn't want to be around a lot of drinking and smoking -Has talked at his granddaughter's school about his time in the war -Still has his escape maps from if he was ever shot down and got separated from his crew (01:29:27) Reflections on Service -For years after the war he would have nightmares about what he experienced during the war -Didn't talk about his experiences -Felt that it was something that he had to work through on his own -It made him mature quickly, especially considering that he had to make life or death decisions -Example: If an American fighter plane was shot down the Germans would rebuild it -They would then infiltrate a bomber group and shoot down American �planes -Gunners would instructed to shoot down fighter planes acting suspicious -E.g. Flying at a bomber with its guns aimed at the bomber -A fighter plane charged his bomber and he fired a warning shot -Afterwards he was called into headquarters and was asked about the incident -Pilot was chastised for flying at a bomber like that -Alfred was praised for firing a warning shot, not downing the plane (01:36:13) Service Details -Served from July 9, 1943 to October 27, 1945 -Highest rank was staff sergeant -Part of the 577th Squadron of the 392nd Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force -Received an Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters for the thirty missions that he flew -Has received several combat ribbons -Awarded the armorer/gunner pin -That is the only one that he still wears (01:37:27) Reunions -Only he and the navigator are left as of 2015 -Had reunions with his old crew after the war -Pilot became a millionaire -Took the crew to a country club in Florida -The other country club members were shocked to hear the crew calling the pilot Bill -Bill told the other members that his crew had earned the right to call him that -Wives were allowed to attend too -At their first reunion every one was there except for one crewman that had died young -Learned that every man was in a position of management -Believes that that was because of their leadership skills they learned in the Army (01:42:06) Honor Flight -Participated in the Spirit of Grand Rapids Honor Flight to Washington D.C. in May 2015 -Described it as being the trip of a lifetime � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SchumacherA1769V Title A name given to the resource Schumacher, Alfred Harold (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-18 Description An account of the resource Alfred Schumacher was born in Blue Island, Illinois on December 14, 1924. He grew up there and was drafted in July 1943. He volunteered for Army Air Force training and was sent to Miami Beach Training Center, Florida for basic training. After getting washed out of pilot training he was sent to Buckley Field, Colorado for armorer/gunnery training, and from there was sent to Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. He received more training with his crew out west before being sent to Westover Field, Massachusetts. They flew overseas to England as a B-24 bomb crew assigned to the 44th Bombardment Group, later reassigned to the 577th Squadron of the 392nd Bomb Group of the 8th AIr Force at RAF Wendling. He flew thirty combat missions (including one during the Battle of the Bulge, the last bombing run in the European Theatre, and crash landed near the frontline in France). He and his crew returned to the United States in late summer 1945 and he was sent to Sioux Falls, South Dakota where he was discharged on October 27, 1945. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Schumacher, Alfred Harold Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Moore, Deb (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Air Corps Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ab478d74cdae44e3f6dbba91983740d8.mp4 d223c4dccfdc9712df8682f93d9c8b43 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5c9988c8dab999e3f6f2bbca00592cac.pdf b398c2295b56c4cdaa4dd03263afe612 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project John Schrouder World War II 45 minutes 30 seconds (00:00:15) Early Life -Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan -Had an older sister and a younger brother -Had a simple childhood -Lived in Burton Heights -Normal neighborhood -Would play "kick the can" and have rubberband gun fights -Father was a pharmacist -When he was fifteen years old he would work at his father's store as a soda-jerk -Made soda floats for his girlfriend at the time -Remembers that a pack of cigarettes cost only 10¢ -His first car was a 1928 Roadster Coupe -Saved up money from a paper route to buy it -Bought it for only $9 -Father worked at a Loveland Drug Store -Eventually bought his own on the corner of Fulton Street and Diamond Avenue -Named it Schrouder Drugs -Went to Burton Junior High School and then Davis Tech -Would go rollerskating at Ramona Gardens -Quit high school, but kept busy by working (00:04:39) Enlisting in the Navy -War was on and he knew that he'd eventually get drafted -Didn't want to get into the Army because he didn't want to wind up an infantryman -Went to the Reed's Lake Navy Recruiting Center in East Grand Rapids -Wound up getting drafted and reporting to Detroit for a draft physical -Got drafted into the Navy anyway -Got to Detroit by bus -Went home on leave to say good bye to his family (00:06:23) Basic Training -Got sent to Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois for basic training -A lot of drilling -Enjoyed singing, so he joined the Navy Choir -Had no problem adjusting to the Navy, or the discipline -Took an aptitude test at the end of basic training and was assigned to Diesel School (00:07:11) Diesel School -Got sent to Diesel School after thirty days of leave -Returned to Great Lakes Naval Station and was sent to Navy Pier in Chicago for Diesel School �-Learned how to repair diesel engines -Lasted eight to ten weeks -Lived on the base at Navy Pier -Learning how to repair the engines that were used on ships -Felt that it was a good fit for him -Able to explore Chicago -Found a rollerskating rink -Servicemen and servicewomen were treated well in Chicago -While in Diesel School some submarine recruiters came to the base -It sounded like a good deal -He and six, or seven, other men signed up for submarine duty (00:10:00) Submarine Training -Sent to New London, Connecticut -Had to clean the barracks on the base -When submarines came back in from a patrol he could go aboard the ships and explore them -Made the decision that he didn't want to be a submariner -Deliberately flunked out of the submarine program to get out of the training (00:11:10) Assignment to LST 618 and Deployment to Pacific Theatre -Went to Pier 92 in New York City to get reassigned -Sent to Camp Bradford, Virginia and was assigned to LST 618 -First island they went to was an island near New Guinea -Slept in bunks on the ship -Had four hours of watch, and eight hours off -His station was in the auxillary engine room maintaining the three generators -Remembers one of the generators exploding when they were at sea -Took the ship from North Carolina to New Guinea -Sailed through the Panama Canal -Interesting experience getting to see a battleship go through the Canal -Sailed into the Pacific Theatre alone -There were over one hundred sailors on the ship -Note: There were 163 sailors on LST 618 -Got assigned to a larger unit -Thier duty was to carry ammunition for the fleet -During a battle they would stay away from the fighting -Destroyers and cruisers would then go to them to get more ammunition -They knew they were in danger, but it was part of the job and they got used to it (00:16:43) Important Dates -Born May 26, 1925 -Joined the Navy on September 1, 1943 -Got to the Pacific Theatre sometime in 1944 -Most likely late summer 1944 (00:17:02) Liberation of the Philippines -Got three battle stars for three major campaigns in the Philippines �-First major invasion was the island of Leyte -Lasted from October 23, 1944 to November 18, 1944 -Following the invasion of Leyte they were separated from the fleet and got sent to Samar -Japanese would still come in at night and bomb the ships -One of the men on the LST 618 was able to shoot down a Japanese fighter -Hadn't been ashore in a month or more -Went to this small, white beach with beer and Coca Cola -Ordered to return to the LST -Found a path that led to a primitive village -Noticed that there were only men in the villages and they were armed -Went back to the beach and got brought back to the ship -Skipper got in trouble for allowing them to go to that place -Learned that the village was inhabited by Moro people -Indigenous Filipino Muslims that were militant and anti-white -Took part in the invasion of Luzon at Lingayen Gulf from January 4, 1945 to January 17, 1945 -Third invasion was at Mindanao from March 1, 1945 to March 2, 1945 -Feels that all three campaigns were overwhelming Allied victories -Heard about a Japanese fleet being intercepted and destroyed by an American fleet -Either the Battle of Leyte Gulf or the Battle off Samar (00:24:34) End of War & Post-War Service -After Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 they were sent to China -Moving Nationalist Chinese troops around -Getting Nationalist Chinese troops into positions to fight Communist troops -Heard about the Japanese surrender when they were at sea -There was a big celebration with 102 proof grain alcohol -Got the alcohol after the battery reservoirs were accidentally filled with that -He didn't drink, but was happy that the war was over -No one was belligerent -Got to see Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Tsingtao (now Qingdao) -Got to see the sampans -Chinese children would ask for food, many of them homeless orphans -Mission was ferrying troops from mainland China to Formosa (now Taiwan) -Had a monkey on the ship that was a lot of fun -Had to spray DDT mist on the Chinese troops to kill the lice they had -Monkey ingested some of the DDT and died (00:32:38) Morale, Relationship with Fellow Sailors, Contact with Family, & Downtime -Morale was good on the ship -Officers kept to themselves, but were fair -Did a lot of sleeping because there wasn't much else to do -His battlestation on the ship was to operate the smoke machine to create a smokescreen -No casualties on the ship �-Wrote home quite a bit -Got mail whenever they were in harbor -Heard from parents and his girlfriend -Saw USO Shows -Saw Bob Hope and a famous actress at the time -Traded movies with the other ships to get new movies (00:35:40) Coming Home & End of Service -Got discharged on February 28, 1946 -Could hardly wait to see the shore and sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge -Sailed back to the United States on a Liberty Ship -Greeted by bands playing in San Francisco -People on the dock were shaking their hands -First thing he bought was a bag of popcorn -Sent by train back to Chicago and got discharged there -Took a train from Chicago to Grand Rapids -Family didn't know that he was coming home -Surprised his brother and his mother (00:38:35) Life after the War -Used the GI Bill for flying lessons -Bought surplus aircraft from the military -Could buy a P-38 or a P-51 fighter plane for only $800 -Got a job at Reynolds Metals as a heat treatment operator -Met his wife after the war -Got involved with the local schools -Hired on as the boiler operator for Grandville Public Schools -Worked in the Grandville Public Schools for twenty three years (00:40:51) Reflections on Service -Biggest impact was learning about diesel engines -Enjoyed the experience -Only time he was afraid was when the ship sailed through a typhoon -Had to be strapped into your bunk so you wouldn't fall out -Went on the bridge and saw a massive, two hundred foot wave -Storm went on for hours -Had to keep the ship sailing straight or it would've been rolled over -Best time was after the war and being on the sea and seeing a beautiful rainbow � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SchrouderJ1780V Title A name given to the resource Schrouder, John Althen (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-15 Description An account of the resource John Schrouder was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on May 26, 1925. He joined the Navy on September 1, 1943 and was sent to Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois for basic training. Upon completion of basic training he was sent to Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois for Diesel School and after graduating from that he was sent to New London, Connecticut to train with submarines. After deciding to get out of the submarine program he was reassigned to LST 618 and deployed to the Pacific Theatre in late summer 1944. He participated in three major campaigns: the invasion of Leyte (in the Philippines), the invasion of Luzon at Lingayen Gulf (in the Philippines), and the invasion of Mindanao (in the Philippines). After the war, LST 618 ferried Nationalist Chinese troops to various Chinese ports until sailing back to the United States. He was sent back to Chicago and was discharged on February 28, 1946. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Schrouder, John Althen Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Moore, Deb (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f93a8aaa42290caa91d2999494f34aee.mp4 1356836e9df481f7cd69f807bc5f3a2a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/71edca456b3f76f48acf4924712a0c1a.pdf fa0e69912a717badc49a26e7fc2e50a7 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project Clarence Schipper World War II 1 hour 28 minutes 4 seconds (00:00:12) Early Life -Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on January 29, 1924 -Grew up in Grand Rapids -Went to Davis Tech for high school -Father worked as an auto mechanic -Had worked out west as a cowboy before moving to Grand Rapids -Owned Schipper Brothers Garage -They had work during the Great Depression, but had to incorporate a barter system -For example, men would trade a chicken for an oil change -He was the oldest child in the family and had a brother and sister (00:01:41) Start of the War -Turned on the radio and heard the report that Pearl Harbor had been bombed -Followed Hitler's rise to power during the 1930s -Heard his speeches on the radio -Knew U-Boats were sinking American merchant ships before the U.S. entered the war -Surprised that Japan attacked first as opposed to Germany -17 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked (00:03:02) Getting Drafted -Received his draft notice after he turned 18 in January 1942 -Reported for duty shortly before his 19th birthday in 1943 -Friends enlisted, and he considered that route, but wanted to get his high school diploma -Graduated from high school in December 1942 -Reported for duty in January 1943 -Reported to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Rapids for a general physical -Sent to Kalamazoo, Michigan for a more thorough physical -Army was weeding out men unfit for service -A lot of men were getting processed -Sent home for two weeks after the first part of processing -Sent by train to Rockford, Illinois for further processing -Issued Army clothing -Three days of intense training -Took tests on every topic possible -Purpose was to sort out recruits and see where they would work best -His tests indicated that he would train as a radar operator (00:07:10) Basic Training -Sent to Atlantic City, New Jersey for basic training -Assigned to a room on the 17th floor of the Ritz-Carlton hotel overlooking the Atlantic Ocean -Had never traveled that far from home before -Experience he'll never forget -Received training on how to march and rifle training -Two hours a day of intense calisthenics -All of the men training there were destined for radar duty �-Trained with men from all over the United States -Exposure to different accents and backgrounds -Never ran into anyone that he knew from Michigan -A lot of focus on discipline and following orders -Adjusted well -Had been part of a National Guard unit in high school, so he understood it -Father was a WWI veteran and told him what to expect -One man couldn't cope with it and committed suicide by jumping out of a window -Days started at 4:30 AM -Had decent food -Not allowed to use the elevators in the hotel -Had to run up and down the stairs to get to and from the 17th floor -Basic training lasted six weeks (00�:12:45) Training in Florida -Boarded a train in Atlantic City -Passed through Washington DC -Went to Myakka River State Park, Florida -Received radar operator training in Florida -Practiced with a small radar unit -Received Jungle Training in Myakka River State Park -Cut down brush and set up a camp -Focused on how to survive in a jungle -Dealt with alligators in the swamps and thousands of mosquitoes -Had basic, unpaved roads for foot travel -Received First Aid training -How to treat snake bites and minor injuries -Went on 20 mile hikes -Trained in Florida for ten months -Went to Drew Army Air Field for radar training -Hands on operator training -Reading the scopes and understanding how to mark planes -Couldn't tell the size of the object, but could follow it -Had downtime in Florida -Got one furlough back home -Visited Orlando and Fort Myers -Saw segregation -Remembers an old black woman stepping off the street to let soldiers pass -He stopped her and told her she didn't have to do that for him -Segregated drinking fountains, bathrooms, and restaurants -Saw the abuse of black citizens and he wasn't used to that -Grew up having black friends th -Part of the 624 while in Florida -Note: Possibly a signal aircraft warning battalion (00:20:58) Deployment -Near the fall of 1943 they went to Boston -Shipped out of New York City aboard the RMS Empress of Australia -Carried 5,000 troops -Sailed with a huge convoy -Ships as far as the eyes could see �-Changed course every five minutes to avoid U-Boats -Remembers ships dropping depth charges -Took 12 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean -Weather was good at first, then it turned bad -Had to share his bunk with two other soldiers -Got to use the bunk for eight hours at a time -After a while he decided to sleep in a stairwell -Voyage wasn't bad until men got seasick -Difficult to feed all of the men on the ship -Only got two meals a day -Had liver and onions for breakfast -Evening meal was better (00:24:40) Stationed in England -Landed at Glasgow, Scotland in mid-January 1944 -Got off the ship and took a train toward London -Greeted by the elite Coldstream Guards -Couldn't keep up with them -Went to Henley-on-Thames -Part of Company B of the 573rd Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion -Received training with British radar equipment -More advanced than the American equipment he previously trained with -Transferred to the 555th Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion -Traveled all over England during the first half of 1944 receiving additional training -Received gas mask training -Allies feared Hitler would use poison gas in continental Europe -More target practice -Stayed in England during D-Day and for a while after D-Day (00:29:50) Landing in France -Went to Southampton on June 27, 1944 to go across the English Channel -Note: May have been earlier on June 12, 1944 -Boarded a large ship without amphibious capabilities -Had to climb down rope ladders into landing craft to go ashore in France -Landed at Omaha Beach -Set up the unit as quickly as possible -Had to convince American pilots to cooperate with the radar operators -British pilots cooperated without fail or pause -Able to see enemy and friendly aircraft on the radar scope and track them -After the British pilots got a few kills then the American pilots listened to the radar operators (00:34:03) Advancing through France -Followed the 2nd Armored Division as it moved through France and the rest of Europe -Moved into northern Europe over the course of 1944 -The higher they got, the better they could “see” with their radar -Always stayed two and a half miles behind the front -On July 17, 1944 the Americans launched their attack on Saint-Lo, France -Remembers bombers passing overhead to bombard the German position -Most destroyed city that he had ever seen -Drove through on a jeep -Army bulldozed a path through the rubble to create a makeshift road -Moved rapidly after they broke out of the Normandy area �-Close to the front a lot of the time, but never directly on the front -Always had a ring of antiaircraft guns around the radar unit -General Quesada of the Ninth Air Force always made sure the radar units were protected -Remembers being in a tent one night when the antiaircraft guns started firing -Grabbed his helmet and rifle without thinking about it -Unit never took any casualties -Saw some of the French civilians -Remembers French farmers in the area beyond the Normandy beachhead (“hedgerow country”) -Despite the war going on around them they still tended to their cattle -Grateful for the American soldiers -He didn't smoke, so he always gave his cigarettes to French civilians -Came close to Paris, but didn't go into Paris -Entered a small town near Paris -As they advanced the Germans retreated without firing a shot -As a result, the townspeople considered them to be the liberators of the town -There was a wealthy couple in the town that treated his unit to dinner -First time he ever had escargot -The husband was French and the wife was American -Meant she could translate for the soldiers th -The 555 Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion was an Army Air Force unit -Attached to the 2nd Armored Division (00:44:34) Radar Operations -Usually had a basic Quonset hut to work out of -Had four or five radar scopes in the hut -Had a six foot by ten foot board with a gridded map of Europe -Used it to mark the positions and altitudes of aircraft -Sometimes he worked on a radar scope, and sometimes he worked on the board -Pilots notified them if they hit their target(s) -Used codes to communicate with pilots -For example, “How many oranges?” means “How much fuel do you have left?” -After a pilot's 25th mission he came to the radar unit to direct his squadron -Had to do that before returning to the United States (00:48:46) Advancing into Northern Europe -Moved into Belgium in late summer/early fall 1944 -Prior to the Battle of the Bulge they were on the Rhine River -Keeping German aircraft from getting across the river -While stationed there, no German aircraft got through the radar screen -Moved into Aachen, Germany in October 1944 -Americans were shelling one part of the city, and the Germans were shelling another part -His unit was in the middle of the shelling -First German city they helped capture -Not allowed to talk to the German civilians they encountered -Allowed to talk to the Dutch and the Belgians -He was able to minimally communicate with them (00:53:58) Battle of the Bulge -Battle of the Bulge began on December 16, 1944 -His unit was on the northern edge of the German offensive, just outside the Bulge -Saw American artillery returning from the front -Strange, because usually the artillery went ahead and stayed until they advanced again �-Learned that the Germans were advancing west -Saw a lot of American troops and vehicles headed away from the front -His unit was not allowed to retreat until they had permission -Once they received orders to retreat, it only took them two hours to pack up and move -Heard that the 82nd Airborne Division and 101st Airborne Division were called up to stop the Germans -Those units fought in the Battle of Bastogne which helped stop the German advance -Reestablished their radar a little farther from the front -Every available German aircraft was being used in the offensive -Only saw one German jet during the Battle of the Bulge -So fast that the radar could barely track it, and American planes couldn't catch it -Couldn't believe that such an aircraft existed -Slept in pup tents until they received larger, six-man tents -Never slept in houses -Had never been so cold in his entire life -Constantly lost feeling in his feet and lower legs during that winter -Fortunately, he never developed frostbite or got sick -His unit was always busy during the Battle of the Bulge -They only had to retreat a few miles from the front when the battle began -Operating in an area near the Belgian cities of Liege and Verviers -His radar unit helped shoot down 102 German planes during the Battle of the Bulge -526 German aircraft over the course of the war, so nearly one fifth of all confirmed kills (01:01:58) Advancing into Germany Pt. 1 -In late February/early March 1945 they advanced into Germany -Moved south and crossed the Rhine River on a makeshift bridge -Made out of sunken river boats and bridge panels laid down by the Army Engineers -Somewhere north of Remagen -Things got quieter after they crossed the Rhine River -Able to advance ahead of the infantry units -Faced no German resistance -At the end of the war they advanced to an area near the Czech border -Saw parts of Germany virtually untouched by the war -Refreshing to see intact buildings and landscapes after months of devastation (01:04:14) Buzz Bombs -Germans used “buzz bombs” (V-1 Flying Bomb) during the Battle of the Bulge -During the battle the Germans fired hundreds of them -Remembers one landing about 100 yards from his position -Didn't explode, so he and a few other men decided to go look at it -Had a camera, so he took a picture of the unexploded bomb -Not technically supposed to have a camera, but his officers didn't mind (01:06:18) Unit Personnel -Had the same personnel throughout his time in Europe -There were 30 men in his immediate unit, and 65 or 70 in the rest of the unit -Had good commissioned (lieutenant and above) and non-commissioned officers (sergeants) -As civilians they worked in technical fields -One sergeant worked at a radio station (WBBM) in Chicago before the war -Another sergeant had done oil exploration work as a civilian -They were good men (01:08:08) Advancing into Germany Pt. 2 -Saw German civilians as they advanced �-Forbidden to talk to them -Saw Buchenwald concentration camp -Made an impression on him -If the Germans allowed an atrocity like that he wanted nothing to do with them (01:08:45) Post-War Duties & End of the War -Disarmed German civilians after Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945 -Went door to door collecting shotguns and hunting rifles -Guarded German prisoners of war for 30 days -Planned on being sent to Manila then probably onto Japan for the invasion -Atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in early August, then Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 -Prisoners of war looked like regular men -Shocked -Kept the prisoners in a simple camp -Chance to see that the average German soldier was no different than an American soldier -Allowed him to see the Germans as human beings as opposed to the enemy (0:11:01) Photograph in Belgium -Shortly after the Battle of the Bulge he got a picture of Belgian children sledding in the winter -They were sledding past the wreckage of German tanks -Showed him the resilience of children in war torn countries (01�:12:06) Leave in Switzerland -After Germany surrendered he received ten days of leave in Switzerland -Chance to get away from Germany and evidence of the war -Able to let his guard down while in Switzerland -Refreshing to see shops and civilians acting normal (01:13:03) Coming Home & End of Service -Originally went to Marseilles, France to board the ship bound for Manila -With the war over in the Pacific Theater those plans were canceled -After Japan's surrender the unit was broken up -Men were being sent home on the point system -Points awarded based on length of service, rank, dependents, and combat seen -He had spent 23 months overseas and 11 months in the U.S. and saw 5 or 6 major campaigns -He had 87 points at the end of the war -Needed 85 points to go home -Sent home with other soldiers with a high number of points -Got home on October 28, 1945 -Sailed back to the United States on a Liberty Ship -Seas were rough -Ship was cheaply made and rattled in the rough water -Pulled into New York City -Sent to Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania to be discharged (01:15:27) Reflections on Service Pt. 1 -Taught him to appreciate things more -Will never forget the time he spent in the Army and his experiences overseas -Learned to cherish the freedom he has in America (01:16:12) Life after the War -Returned to Grand Rapids, Michigan -Siblings were still at home -His old room was unchanged -Had a hard time readjusting to civilian life �-Didn't know what to do with himself -Walked the streets of Grand Rapids at night -Just wanted to get into a fight to relieve the tension he felt -Had a hard time concentrating -Became a die maker -Worked for Keeler Brass in Grand Rapids as a tool and die maker -Worked there for 42 years (01:18:08) Reflections on Service Pt. 2 -Came back a different person -Went in as a young man and came out as a man -Affected him, whether it was for better or worse -Believes that it was for the best (01:18:44) Spirit of Grand Rapids Honor Flight -Went on the Spirit of Grand Rapids Honor Flight on May 16, 2015 -A former colonel in his church convinced him to go on the Honor Flight -On May 15 he and the other veterans went to Thousand Oaks Country Club -Treated to dinner, entertainment, and a photo op -At 5:30 AM on May 16 they went to Gerald R. Ford International Airport -Served breakfast -Hundreds of people in the airport waiting to shake hands with the veterans -Amazing experience -Two fire trucks gave them a water salute as they departed -Arrived at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington D.C. -Greeted by servicemen and servicewomen thanking the veterans for their service -Had a police escort through Washington D.C. -Stopped at the Air Force Memorial -Saw the Iwo Jima Memorial and the First World War Memorial -Visited the World War Two Memorial -Emotionally profound moment that deeply touched him -Visited the Vietnam War Memorial -Found the name of a young man from his church killed in action during the Vietnam War -Saw the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier -Visited the Korean War Memorial and the FDR Memorial -Served dinner in a vintage WWII mess tent -On the return flight they were given letters of appreciation from home -Letters from friends, family members, church members, and local school children -Event concluded at East Kentwood High School -Greeted and saluted by police officers, paramedics, and firefighters -3,500 people of all ages waiting to welcome them home and thank them for their service -Never experienced a day like that in his entire life � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SchipperC1923V Title A name given to the resource Schipper, Clarence J (Interview outline and video), 2016 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-02-18 Description An account of the resource Clarence Schipper was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on January 29, 1924. He registered for the draft in January 1942 and reported for duty in January 1943. He received basic training in Atlantic City, New Jersey then went to Myakka River State Park, Florida and Drew Army Air Field, Florida for Jungle Training and Radar Operator Training (respectively). In late 1943 he crossed the Atlantic Ocean and was stationed in England from January 1944 to June 1944 where he trained with Company B of the 573rd Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion. He was reassigned to the 555th Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion and went over to France, after D-Day, in June 1944. His unit was technically part of the Ninth Air Force, but followed the advance of the 2nd Armored Division through Europe. He passed through France, was in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, and took part in the advance through Germany. After Germany's surrender he helped disarm the German population and watch over German prisoners of war. In October 1945 he went to Marseilles and returned to the United States. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Schipper, Clarence J. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fd89cca37672fac484a3244d4951936c.mp4 adda53e3ba64c542a9c46f56d020f162 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1d16b4081ba183845704ef32589a2fee.pdf bd4d0395fd171beada96a1ed506a1f06 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project David Schaper World War II 40 minutes 24 seconds (00:00:02) Early Life -Born in Wright City, Missouri on August 2, 1921 -Graduated from high school -Went to Central Western College for two semesters -Transferred to Sanford-Brown Business College in St. Louis, Missouri (00:00:38) Start of the War and Enlisting in the Army Air Force -He was going to technical school in St. Louis when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor -Heard about it on the radio and in the newspaper -Knew that he was old enough to be drafted -Wanted to choose the branch that he would go into -He was working on airplane technology -Took the Army Air Force test and passed it -Thought it'd be better to be an airman rather than in the infantry -Eventually received his letter to report for service -He was working at a Curtiss-Wright factory, helping to develop the AT-6 -Reported for service, but was told that he was too important to the war effort -Granted a six month deferrment -Received another letter and got deferred for another six months -Received a third letter and insisted that he would be allowed to serve -While he was home he followed the news coming out of Europe and Asia -Had friends that were flying with the 8th Air Force and had flown with the Flying Tigers (00:05:43) Basic Training -Reported to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis -One good friend was there as a sergeant and gave him a pass to go to St. Louis -Sent to Amarillo Army Air Field, Texas for basic training -Saw a lot of men doing calisthenics -Got processed and issued Air Force clothing -Days started at 4 AM -Reported for roll call and then had breakfast -After breakfast received orders for the day -Some days went on marches, or on bivouacs, or for calisthenics -Basic training lasted six weeks (00:07:48) Gunnery Training -At the end of basic training he was reviewed by a flight surgeon -Was hoping that he would get to be a cadet and go on to become a pilot -He qualified to be a pilot, but there was a need for gunners -Sent to Laredo Army Airfield, Texas for gunnery training -Enjoyed gunner training �-Went on the gun range and learned how to shoot the .50 caliber machine gu -Learned how to maintain the .50 caliber machine gun -Did skeet shooting for accuracy practice (00:09:40) Joining a Crew -Sent to Lincoln, Nebraska where new bomber crews were being formed -There were one thousand airmen there waiting to be assigned to a crew -They were forming ten man crews for the B-24 Liberator bomber -Your name was called off in alphabetical order -Once he was assigned to a crew the pilot had the information about where to go next -In the case of his crew the next destination was Davis-Monthan Army Air Field -Granted ten days of leave before reporting to Davis-Monthan -After their leave the crew regrouped at Davis-Monthan Army Air Field near Tuscon, Arizona -Once there the crew got to meet each other and get to know each other better -Began flying training missions with the crew -Learned to depend on the pilot, co-pilot, and navigator -Fired at ground targets -Learned how to fly at night -Had an excellent crew -There was mutual respect between the officers and the enlisted men (00:13:45) Deployment to the European Theatre -Sent to Topeka Army Air Field, Kansas by train to get their B-24 bomber -Given a three day leave and got to see Kansas City -Their bomber was a brand new, shining plane -Had all new guns and electronics -He was nervous, but excited to fly missions in it -Had their picture taken and they flew up to Massachusetts -He was part of Crew #54 -From Massachusetts they flew to Newfoundland, then to the Azores, then to North Africa -From North Africa flew up to Cerignola Airfield, Italy -Note: Based on unit, it was probably Torretto Airfield, not Cerignola -There were between twenty and thirty bombers at the airfield when they arrived -They were part of the 766th Bombardment Squadron 461st Bombardment Group -The officers were sent to the officers' quarters and enlisted men sent to their quarters -Slept in a barn that was used as a temporary barracks and the chapel -It was better than sleeping in tents -Met with some of the other crews -Played cards together (00:19:35) Flying Missions -Next morning learned that he was going to fly a mission -Crew was split up for that mission because various crews needed replacements -It was similar to their training missions, but now it was real -Their objective was Linz, Austria -Took off and formed up and flew to Linz -The bomb run began and they started taking flak �-Saw bombers getting hit, one P-51 Mustang got hit by flak -One bomber had to fall out of formation and they didn't know what happened to the crew -Their bombardier was on board that bomber -After returning from that mission they went through a debriefing -Learned three weeks later what had happened to their bombardier -Had survived the crash in Yugoslavia, but was killed by the Ustase -Four of the crew were rescued by Yugoslavian partisans -Flew a mission to Vienna, Austria and one of their gas tanks got hit by flak -Transferred the gas from that tank to another intact tank -Could see tracers going past the bomber -If one tracer hit the bomber it would have ignited the gasoline -Landed at an airfield on an island off the coast of Yugoslavia -Had to abandon the bomber, but the crew got picked up by a C-47 the next day -On one mission he looked back to see if the bombs were hitting their target -A bullet came through the plexiglass right where his head had been -Final mission was in the Po Valley -Dropping supplies to Allied prisoners of war in Austria -Could see displaced persons travelling on the roads (00:33:22) End of the War -At Torretto Field when Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945 -Celebrated the war being over with bourbon -Returned to South Carolina and was given thirty days of leave to go home and await orders -His original orders were to go to Tampa, Florida -Orders were changed to Pratt Army Airfield, Kansas -At Pratt he started training with the B-29 Superfortress -Preparing for the invasion of Japan -Trained with the B-29 in July 1945 -He got married on July 12, 1945 -Was able to get a job off the base to earn a little extra money -Reported for duty one morning and learned that the atomic bombs had been dropped -Shortly thereafter training was cancelled -Felt great that the war was over (00:36:11) End of Service -Received orders to go to Sioux City Army Air Base, Iowa to be discharged -Had enough "points" -Needed eighty five points to be discharged -Points awarded based on rank, length of service, dependents, and combat seen -Took a train to St. Louis with his wife, got an apartment, and got a job as a machinist (00:36:30) Reflections on Service -Taught him responsibility -Taught him how to work with other people �-Learned how to survive (00:38:02) Life after the War -Went into the grocery business after the war -Had enjoyed tool and die work, but there weren't many jobs after the war -Went back to work for Curtiss-Wright, but the work was limited � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SchaperD1798V Title A name given to the resource Schaper, David (Interview outline and video), 2005 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005-10-22 Description An account of the resource David Schaper was born in Wright City, Missouri on August 2, 1921. Prior to enlisting in the Army Air Force he worked for Curtiss-Wright on the AT-6, even after enlisting he was granted a twelve month deferrment due to his work on the AT-6. He was eventually called up for service and was sent to Texas for basic training and gunnery training. He was assigned to a B-24 Liberator bomber crew in Lincoln, Nebraska. They trained together before being deployed to the European Theatre. They were Crew #54 of the 766th Bombardment Squadron of the 461st Bombardment Group stationed at Torretto Air Field, Italy. They flew bombing missions into Austria, as well as supply missions into the Po Valley. In the summer of 1945 he was sent back to the United States and began training with the B-29 Superfortress at Pratt Army Air Field, Kansas in July. After Japan surrendered he was sent to Sioux City Army Air Bse, Iowa where he was discharged. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Schaper, David Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/32fd1409ccb7764933a8a8b8d708089c.mp4 bc1535b46a211beb5032efdc8a33fb56 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d09a58076310a52c923df9be2156f65d.pdf 16ffb5105bd4d41c12d0ec1dea8da824 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Bill Schaefer Cold War-Vietnam War Era 1 hour 30 minutes 13 seconds (00:00:38) Early Life -Born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1943 -Came to Grand Rapids, Michigan with his family after World War Two -Father’s family was from Michigan -Owned an apple orchard -Father had served in the military during WWII in California and Tennessee -Attended high school in Grand Rapids -Went to Grand Rapids Community College and Western Michigan University -Graduated from college in April 1965 (00:01:47) Enlisting in the Air Force -A lot of young men were getting drafted due to the escalation of the Vietnam War -He wanted to be an officer, but knew he didn’t want to be an infantry officer -Enlisted in the Air Force -Received his draft notice for the Army a week later (00:02:58) Basic Training -Sent to San Antonio, Texas for basic training -Most likely to Lackland Air Force Base -Trained with mostly college graduates -Mature enough to not need as much discipline training -Biggest problem was learning how to march -Took different tests -Language tests focusing on German, Morse code tests, and typing tests -Sent to fill out paperwork for top secret clearance -Had no idea why he had been selected, or what he had been selected to do (00:04:20) Code Training -Completed basic training and was sent to a school at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas -No one knew why he was supposed to be there -Three weeks later he was ordered to report to a nondescript room -There were ten other men there -They were asked if they had wives, fiancés, or girlfriends -If you had a girlfriend you were ordered to break up -Told that they would be living in a motel off the base -Also would be wearing civilian clothes -After that he reported to a basement on the base protected by an armed guard -Learning about top secret codes -Completed that training after thirteen weeks (00:07:03) Stationed at K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base -Sent to the 410th Bomb Wing stationed at K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base, Michigan �-It was a Strategic Air Command (SAC) base -Had B-52 bombers and KC-130 refueling planes -Arrived there in January 1966 -First two weeks were spent working in the crypto-vault -Handling the codes for flights -Got assigned to the airborne command post -24/7 aircraft that controlled the aircraft in the air -This was in the event that the Air Force bases were destroyed in a nuclear attack -While he was assigned to it they were controlling all of the B-52s over Vietnam -For airborne command post missions they would fly from Nebraska to Guam -Guam was the air control station with B-52 squadrons flying missions to Vietnam -Twelve hours on in the flight and twelve hours of -If not working, then eating, or sleeping -In charge of code systems on the plane -Generally busy communicating with different squadrons -After seven days they would fly back to Nebraska then he’d return to K.I. Sawyer -Would stay at K.I. Sawyer for three weeks -Chance to go down to Grand Rapids to visit his family -Stayed there until May 1966 when he received orders for Europe (00:11:02) Vietnam War -Got a secret message every day about what was happening in Vietnam -Kept up with which units were deployed and what operations were underway -Had a pretty good idea of where the B-52s were going -Knew the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Khe Sanh, and the A Shau Valley were bombed -B-52s carried 750 pound bombs -Three bombers would drop 100+ bombs at once on a single area -Had no idea how the war was going, or how it would wind up going -Only knew if a “grid square” (1 square kilometer) was “clear” (00:13:38) Training in West Germany -In May 1966 he received orders for Lindsey Air Station, West Germany -Headquarters or United States-Europe and thirty miles north of Frankfurt -Had a four star general at the air station -Commander of the air forces, forces in Europe, and a NATO commander -There was no airfield, so it looked more like a college campus than a military base -Had to learn German and French, European customs, NATO protocol, and communications -Four months of training in a windowless block house -Daily schedule was as follows: -8AM-11AM: Crypto-communications -Lunch -Afternoon: Practice with communications -5PM-9PM: Language class -Teacher taught English to Germans, and German to Americans �-Trained six days a week -First German language assignment was to go into town and buy something -Had to learn about European customs -Examples: Men go into the building first; sit in the back of the bar, not the front -Had a French-Canadian and a North Carolinian roommate -Had to take a test and pass it at the end of training so he could get an assignment (00:17:45) Central European Operations-Social Democratic Society -He was assigned to Central European Operations -Part of the Defense Intelligence Agency -First assignment was to stop Army personnel from deserting to neutral European countries -Focused on the Social Democratic Society -Became radical in universities -Anti-Vietnam and wanted more women’s rights -His first assignment was to infiltrate an SDS rally and collect intelligence on the group -They subscribed to a Maoist ideology -Wanted U.S. forces out of Germany -They recruited Army personnel that were deserting to help them -Met a girl that was trying to organize a route through Germany for deserting soldiers -He was ordered to start dating her -Discovered that Finland and Norway were complicit in helping soldiers desert -Men would be sent up there so that they could get jobs, or trade training -A lot of men that were deserting were not doing it because of the Vietnam War -Most weren’t being paid enough to live, or they had been slighted by the Army -Most just wanted better jobs and better lives -Girl that he was “dating” went into East Germany for protests -Wound up in a hospital in East Germany -He and another agent had to go into East Germany with Canadian passports -Once there they had to use Russian uniforms to get her out -By the time they got her back to West Germany she had died -Worked in conjunction with the Army to stop the desertion of personnel -Worked with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Department (00:25:39) Central European Operations-Tracking Uranium -He was called up to help the United Nations -Selected for that work along with his roommate from North Carolina -Paid by the U.S. government, but could never say they were in the Air Force -Sent to Vienna, Austria for the Atomic Energy Commission -At the time, only five countries had nuclear weapons -U.S., USSR, France, U.K., and China had nuclear weapons at the time -Trying to establish a non-proliferation treaty -This was in the spring of 1967 -Had to go to Salzburg, Austria during the negotiations with the five nuclear powers -Had no idea who was processing uranium and building parts for nuclear weapons �-Had to travel to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland -Found a uranium enrichment facility near Odessa, Ukraine -Tracked uranium shipments as they moved through Eastern Europe -Snuck onto the enrichment facility’s property and marked it bike reflector tape -Made it more visible for satellites -From there had to track a ship that had left India and was bound for Romania -Had to watch for the ship to come into port at Constanta -It was like a vacation -Played cards with the ship’s owner -Found out the name of the ship and where it was going -Didn’t know when it was leaving though -Had orders to get that ship back to the United States -Began working with the British Admiralty and the Israeli Mossad -Mossad’s plan was to capture the ship and take it to Haifa, Israel -Once the ship was captured Bill went to Haifa to rendezvous -Material was unloaded and taken to Ramat David Air Force Base -Loaded onto American planes bound for White Sands -The rest of the material was given to Israel -All of these actions together eventually led to the creation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty -Atomic Energy Commission eventually evolved into the Atomic Energy Agency -Learned that fissile nuclear material was being sent to India from Russia -After that assignment he returned to the U.S. for a short leave, then returned to Europe (00:39:55) Central European Operations-Withdrawal from Wheelus Air Force Base -In 1969 he was sent to Wheelus Air Force Base in Libya -By now Muammar Gaddafi had seized power -His job was to help get American and Israeli material out of the base -He was placed on alert to help with the removal of material -On Christmas Eve 1969 he received orders to go to Torrejon Air Force Base in Madrid, Spain -From Madrid flew to Wheelus Air Force Base -Planes were loaded up with Christmas presents -Turned out that they contained the U.S. codes -Had to be removed without the Libyan government's knowledge (00:42:56) Central European Operations-Prague Spring -Czechoslovakian citizens revolted in 1968 in an attempt to liberalize -As a result, the USSR and other Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia -Bill was ordered to report for duty and began reading reports about the invasion -Received orders to go to the U.S. embassy in Prague to collect the codes there -Able to cross into Czechoslovakia with no problems and hitchhiked to Prague -Saw Soviet aircraft flying patrols to keep foreign aircraft out -Saw Soviet and other Warsaw Pact vehicles on the road to Prague -Got to the embassy and packed the codes into paper bags then hid them under the cars -Managed to get back to West Germany without incident (00:46:57) Central European Operations-Jordanian Civil War -Jordan's King Hussein was being pressured by the PLO's presence in Jordan �-Decided that he wanted the PLO out of Jordan -Fighting ensued between the Jordanian Army and the PLO in September 1970 -Had to evacuate American personnel from the embassy -Went to Jordan using United Arab Airlines -On the tarmac and there was fighting between the Jordan Army and the PLO -He got hit in the foot -Got back to Rome -Some material had been left behind in Jordan that had to be recovered -Worked with the Swiss embassy to get back into Jordan -Once he had recovered the material he had orders to go to Israel -Started crossing no man's land and got shot in the shoulder -The next night he was able to cross into Israel and fly back to Germany -After that assignment he applied for reassignment -This was in 1983 or 1984 -Got out of doing field work after the Jordanian Civil War (00:52:23) Yom Kippur War -During the Yom Kippur War in 1973 Israel was just being monitored by the United States -U.S. decided to stay out unless the Soviet Union got involved (00:53:39) Working for the Pentagon & Tactical Air Control Party Units -Went to work for the Pentagon in the early 1980s on close air support planning -Integrating that tactic for all branches of the military -Getting the branches to coordinate for air strikes -Working closely with tactical air control party (TACP) units -Called ROMADs (Radio operator, maintenance, and driver) -Had been used in the Vietnam War -Worked with the Army to call in airstrikes -Ex. during Grenada they dropped in with the 101st Airborne Division -Using F-4 Phantoms and Spectre gunships -Ex. during the invasion of Panama called in strikes on Noriega's command posts -Call in where the Army is so that friendly fire is kept at a minimum -Using artillery, helicopter, and gunships to get firepower on a target -Had to be at least a senior airman or corporal and go through survival training -Used during the Gulf War, Kosovo, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War -Has now evolved to be the Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) -Operate in one man, or two man, teams in the field -Coordinating targets with the various branches of the military -Allowing for the Air Force to get intelligence for accuracy -Worked with Canadians, Germans, and other NATO air forces for exercises -He was present for Cold War training exercises near the Fulda Gap -During the Gulf War sent TACPs to Arab forces in the coalition -Instructing them on close air support -Started out working with the TACPs as a technical sergeant �-By the time that he was done with them he was a first sergeant in charge of operations -Coordinating information in the Pentagon from all over the world -Interesting work, but confusing work -Had to work with teams from all over the world for exercises -Dealt with a high drop out rate -Learned that the humble applicants were the best -Applicants with big egos weren't good (01:13:00) Changes in the Air Force -Witnessed the move from basic, mechanical equipment to complex, digital systems -Also saw the advances in military aircraft -Ex. The F-35J Lightning essentially flies itself -Ex. Drones being used more widely -Had some women working in Europe while he was stationed there -Only worked with messages that had been garbled -There were two civilian women that did travel arrangements and accounting -Only had four women working for the Air Force when he was in Europe -Saw a steady increase of women in the Air Force -Only in the late 1980s did he see prominent female participation -Saw more women taking on complex, non-combat roles (01:19:57) Kent County Honor Guard -Retired from the Air Force in late 2003 -Has worked with the Kent County Honor Guard since he retired -Helping with funerals for veterans from World War Two and the Korean War -Averaging about twenty funerals a month -Most of them are from WWII or the Korean War -Helps get veterans medals they rightly deserve -Getting veterans combat pay that they never received -Due to covert missions that never "happened" and reorganization of units -Getting families closure for family members that were killed in action and they never knew how -Organizing flyovers for veterans -Organized a B-52 fly over for an Air Force colonel's funeral in Grand Rapids -Organized an F-16 fly over for President Ford's funeral in Grand Rapids � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SchaeferW1662V Title A name given to the resource Schaefer, William "Bill" (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-08-07 Description An account of the resource Bill Schaefer was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1943. He grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan and graduated from Western Michigan University in 1965. He enlisted in the Air Force and was sent to San Antonio, Texas for basic training. He was selected for top secret code work and was trained at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas. With that training complete he was assigned to the 410th Bomb Wing stationed at K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base, Michigan and got picked to serve aboard the airborne command post, flying missions out of Guam and directing B-52 bombing raids over North Vietnam. In May 1966 he was sent to Lindsey Air Station, West Germany and was assigned to Central European Operations, part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. During his time with them he worked to stop the desertion of soldiers, tracked uranium shipments in the Eastern Bloc, and oversaw the retrieval of codes from the U.S. embassy in Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring), Wheelus Air Force (Gaddafi seizure of Libya), and the U.S. embassy in Jordan (Jordanian Civil War). In the early 1980s he was assigned to the Pentagon to work with Tactical Air Control Party units and retired from that in 2003. He is now an active member of the Kent County Honor Guard aiding veterans and veterans' families. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Schaefer, William Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988--Personal narratives, American Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bc116fed49528accd8faee8240adbbd9.mp4 e42a1374dee03b8e3cac6572f61713f3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f61543a88c6f838da030abeea90c4656.pdf 69ecce53bc8f3741dbc5951f46ac6404 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project Vincent Sarnicola World War II 1 hour 20 minutes 23 seconds (00:01:39) Early Life -Born on October 20, 1921 in Grand Rapids, Michigan -Middle name is technically Joseph, but he was called Jim growing up -Grew up at 326 Goodrich Street in southeast Grand Rapids -Had two sisters -Father worked for the Pere Marquette Railroad -Father's name was Giuseppe which is Italian for Joseph -Mother's name was Marian -Had elementary school at Saint Andrew's Catholic School -Went to high school at Catholic Central High School -Graduated from there in 1941 -Worked for Steelcase for six months after graduating -It was located on the corner of Franklin Street and Ionia Street in Grand Rapids -He worked there as an electrical welder (00:06:15) Getting Drafted and Start of the War -Received his draft notice in January 1942 and reported to Fort Custer, Michigan for processing -Heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio (00:07:28) Basic Training -Sent to an Army camp near Medford, Oregon -Most likely Camp White -He was assigned to a unit that had a pine tree as its insignia -Most likely the 91st Infantry Division -Did field exercises and learned how to shoot a rifle -He was told he would be made a chief scout -Requested permission to go to Portland, Oregon to take an Army Air Force exam -Had no interest in being a scout -Three months later he received orders to report to San Antonio, Texas -Most likely to Lackland Air Force Base -He had been picked to be chief scout because he was small, fast, and a good marksman -Drill sergeants were tough and emphasized discipline -The only men he knew in basic training were a couple friends from Grand Rapids -Knew that being chief scout meant being ahead of the patrol and in greater danger -Generally the first to die in combat -Wanted to be in the Army Air Force because at least then he could see his enemy (00:13:53) Army Air Force Training -Transferred to San Antonio after basic training -Granted twelve days of leave before reporting to Texas �-Gave him a chance to go home and visit his family -First tested on coordination at San Antonio -The Air Force needed one thousand new gunners -Five hundred for the European Theatre, five hundred for the Pacific Theatre -He was selected to be a gunner in the Pacific Theatre -Had to learn how to shoot the .50 caliber machine gun -Placed in the T6 Texan for gunnery training -Learning how to shoot at targets as a gunner in a plane -Primarily how not to shoot the tail of his own plane -Six weeks later he was assigned to a crew -Trained with the crew at San Antonio -Part of a ten man crew -Pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, engineer, two waist gunners, and radioman -He was the tail gunner -Received a physical exam prior to deployment -Had a pilonidal cyst and had to have that operated on before being deployed -Original crew was deployed without him -Spent four weeks in the hospital and six weeks on convalescent leave -After recovering he was assigned to a new crew and was with them for the duration of the war -Assigned to the 64th Squadron, of the 43rd Bomb Group, of the 5th Air Force -Note: Information is mentioned at the beginning of the video before Early Life -Flew in a B-24 Liberator -Trained with his new crew in San Antonio -Would fly from Texas, to Washington, to Montana, then back to Texas -Getting used to flying long missions without rest -Navigator was learning more about how to navigate by doing this -The moment they got over water he would load his gun and do a test fire -Making sure the guns were working and sighted (00:23:24) Deployment and Overview of Missions -Flew to Hawaii, then to Johnston Island (in the Johnston Atoll), then to Tarawa -Flying together as a crew in a C-47 transport -From Tarawa flew to Guam -Had to wait until air strips had been secured and repaired by the Army -Places their arrival in Guam as sometime in late summer/early fall 1944 -Flew a lot of missions out of the Philippines once they were secured -Flew missions out of Guam for six weeks -In the Philippines they were stationed near Manila -Based on unit and location, most likely Clark Field -Stationed there for over a year (00:26:55) Crewmembers -Pilot's name was Ed Ross -Had experience flying bombers before the war -Co-pilot was Ray Plank -Navigator was George Stark -Bombardier was Roy Niemeyer �-John McNalley was the chief engineer -George Tucholski was the radioman -Lyle Heineke was one of the waist gunners -Joe Thomas was the other waist gunner -Gordon Whickstrum was the nose gunner -And Vincent was the tail gunnner -Got along well together (00:29:40) Flying Missions Pt. 1 -First combat mission was a bombing run against Hiroshima, Japan -Prior, of course, to the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945 -Dropped five hundred pound bombs -Carrying six tons of bombs when the B-24 was only rated for four tons -Mission started at 5 AM with breakfast and then a mission briefing -It was fourteen hour mission -Flew out of the Philippines -Received flak from Japanese anti aircraft batteries -Would return from missions with at least a few holes in the bomber -Didn't encounter any Japanese fighter planes on that mission -Flying at 5,000 feet for optimal bomb accuracy -Also made them more susceptible to anti aircraft -One rough mission was on the coast of Japan -Flew a mission against Formosa (now Taiwan) bombing aircraft factories -Nose gunner was severely wounded in that mission and pulled from service -Returned with two hundred holes in the plane -Had to land with damaged landing gear -It was a rough landing because they also lost their rudder control -Pilot managed to land successfully under those circumstances -Mission had lasted twelve hours -Encountered Japanese fighter planes on some missions -Everyone would receive credit for a downed fighter -Too hard to figure out who actually brought down the fighter plane -On one mission it was so cloudy they had to drop their bombs in the ocean and return to base -Couldn't pick out any targets and were not allowed to land with live bombs -The bombs could explode upon landing -Nose gunner was the only casualty during the war -Would have committed suicide if he faced capture at the hands of the Japanese -Didn't want to face the torture of a Japanese prisoner of war camp (00:40:43) Medals and Rank -Received some aviation medals with oak clusters for missions flown -Most likely Air Medal with Oak Leaf clusters representing missions flown -Received some medals for sharpshooting -Highest rank was staff sergeant -Staff sergeant was the average rank for enlisted crewmen -Most crewmen were noncommissioned officers -Never encountered any that were lower than a sergeant �(00:42:49) Flying Missions Pt. 2 -Didn't fly a mission with his crew every day -Usually flew two missions each week -Volunteered for additional missions if a crew needed a tail gunner -For each combat mission flown you were awarded "points" -After accumulating one hundred points you were sent home -Note: Only needed eighty five points to be sent home (00:44:25) Living Conditions and Downtime Pt. 1 -Food was good on the base -Had ham and eggs every morning -Never had to eat C Rations -Kept rations on the plane in the event of an emergency, but never ate them -Always had enough food -There was a PX (post exchange) where they could buy snacks and other luxury items (00:45:30) Ground Crew -Ground crew would bring ammunition and bombs out to the bomber before missions -The gunners would then check to make sure the ammo was ready for use -Never had any shortage of ammunition (00:47:27) Living Conditions and Downtime Pt. 2 -Enlisted men had their own sleeping quarters separate from the officers -Movies were shown once in a while -Played cards to pass the time -Played basketball with other crews -Slept in a half wood and half tent structure -Wasn't much, but it kept the rain out and kept them off the ground -Had to wear a helmet to bed -Snipers were still a threat around the base -Felt like his crew was another family -Able to talk things out with them to relieve stress -There were regular religious services on the base -He would help the priest sometimes -Always carried a Rosary with him during missions and would pray the Rosary -Never saw any USO Shows -Never had any leave -Scheduled for leave, but the war ended before he could go on leave -Took a lot of pictures while he was overseas -At the end of the war someone stole his camera, film, and .45 pistol -Kept a journal, but threw it away many years after the war (00:55:22) Coming Home and End of Service -He was sent home on October 15, 1945 -Sent home as an individual -Sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois -Remembers passing under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California -Got discharged from Fort Sheridan in late October 1945 -Came back to Grand Rapids on a train �-Had been gone for nearly four years (three years and ten months) (00:57:54) Life after the War Pt. 1 -He was glad to be home -First two days home visited friends that had also come home -Went to a party and met his wife-to-be, Rose Monterusso -Coincidentally, he had babysat her when he was younger -Got married on April 19, 1946 -Have been married for sixty seven years (sixty eight as of April 19, 2015) -Took a month off to recuperate and then returned to work at Steelcase -Worked there until 1984 -Had three children: Marian, Joseph, and Phil -Marian had two sons, Joseph had three sons, and Phil had two children -All still live in the Grand Rapids area -Has four great grandchildren -Kept in touch with his old crew over the years -Has benefited from the Veterans' Affairs (01:04:53) Reflections on Service -Thinks about the war and his service -Reads about U.S. military involvements, but keeps his opinions to himself -Took some time to return to normal after the war -Didn't talk about his experiences for twenty years -It was a shock to go from being a high school graduate to being an airman in the war (01:06:22) Life after the War Pt. 2 -Raised his family at 1322 Ravanna Avenue SE in Grand Rapids, Michigan -Lived there for fifty four years (01:09:05) Pictures of Vincent and His Crew During the War -Picture of Vincent at Camp White, Oregon in uniform prior to transfer to San Antonio -Picture of Vincent at Camp White holding the M1 Garand rifle -Picture of Vincent at Camp White with his commanding officer -Picture of Vincen'ts B-24 crew -Flight document from Ed Ross (pilot -Lists names, service numbers, and positions of crewmembers -Drawing of B-24J Liberator -Same type of bomber Vincent flew in during the war -Done by Joe Milich of Lakewood, Colorado -Various pictures from when Vincent was in the Pacific Theatre -Living quarters, pictures taken during mission, on the ground, his crew (#854), nose art -Wedding picture of Rose and Vincent � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SarnicolaV1727V Title A name given to the resource Sarnicola, Vincent James (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-01-22 Description An account of the resource Vincent Sarnicola was born on October 21, 1921 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He grew up in Grand Rapids and graduated from Catholic Central High School in 1941. In January 1942 he received his draft notice for the Army. He was sent to Camp White, Oregon for basic training, and at the end of that training requested a transfer to the Army Air Force. His request was granted and he was sent to Lackland Air Base, Texas for gunnery training. After completing gunnery training he was assigned to a B-24 crew, and after surgery was assigned to a new crew (the crew that he would be with for the rest of the war). He was assigned to crew #854 of the 64th Bombardment Squadron of the 43rd Bomb Group of the 5th Air Force. He was a tail gunner on a B-24 Liberator bomber and flew missions out of Guam and the Philippines, attacking targets in Japan and China. After Japan's surrender he was sent home on October 15, 1945 and was discharged from Fort Sheridan, Illinois later that month. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sarnicola, Vincent James Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Erichsen, Wallace (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Air Corps Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4