200 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b16fa49353afa19ca42e3f5e5837db2c.pdf 33578f9f8605e81821be2771f7da9c51 PDF Text Text ��-- ----- ·~-· -~.....__..._.,,,..... :-,:{;,,,J ~ ,J',,"'., .... ,, ,! ~ ~ 2 ',',.rJ -,.,..,..,.......-~ ~._·-: • . ; The Life of Little Elk "; ~ -,; His grandfather was named Nadamupt - "One Who Sits First." His father was called Thomas Nadamupt and his mother Jenny Zhow No Gee Zhick. The second of four children, he has born in a two room log cabin near the shore of Vaughn Lake just south of the town of Glennie in Alcona County. His parents named him Wash Esh l<om - "Flash-of-Lightening." He had been born into the Bear Clan of the Swan Creek Band of Chippewa. After moving from their home near Quanicassee in Tuscola County, his parents had settled near Glennie as homesteaders at the end of the lumberjack era. Flash-of-Lightening and his father and uncles hunted, fished, and trapped along the AuSable River and followed many of the old traditions. As a young boy he witnessed the last publicly held Medicine Dance about 1905. When he first attended the Whiteman's school, Flashof-Lightening spoke only the Chippewa language. At first he had a difficult time understanding the teacher's lessons but he soon began to learn the foreign language. He has lived to see they day when many young Indians speak only English or understand very little of their traditional language. At the urging of the White missionaries, Flash-ofLightening took the biblical name "Eli" and added it to the assumed surname of Thomas. This occured about 1916. During his early life, Eli worked as a lumberjack, a farm hand, and a carpenter. At one time he aspired to being a preacher in a Christian church. In 1924 Eli married Besty Pontiac at the Indian Mission Church twenty miles east of Glennie. Later they moved to the Isabella Reservation near Mt. Pleasant. Late in the 1920's they met a "Whiteman" named Curtis who was traveling through the area with a group of Indians performing educational shows. Eli and Betsy joined this historical program and toured the communities and schools throughout Michigan. After a short time, the aging Mr. Curtis turned the program over to Eli Thomas and bestowed upon him his own name of "Little Elk." In many respects, this was the beginning of the return of Indian Pow Wows for much of Michigan for Little Elk and his many friends have worked long ' and hard for many years to revive and keep alive the traditions of the Anishinaabeg. " _. .., J, ~ "'" ::! �Throughout the 1930's and 40's Little Elk and the others traveled to many of the one room school houses providing educational programs and public shows to teach the Indian Way. They paid particular attention to story dances which honored the mysterious forces of nature. In the 1950's and early 60's growing prosperity in Michigan brought a boom in tourism which supported a number of Pow Wow - like programs in several areas of the State. For decades Little Elk has participated in and organized the programs at a gift shop near Houghton Lake. For many youhg Indians and Whites, participation in this tourist program has been both an educational experience and a way to have a little fun. About 1960, Little Elk and his close associates; Anthony Chingman, Foster Otto, Ike Peltcher, Lennie Stevens, Billy Elk, Lucy Peltcher, Leonard Pamp, Alice Bennett, Maggie Jackson, Louis Pontiac, Elsie Stevens, and many others began the present Pow Wow Trail throughout southwest Ontario and southern Michigan. Also at this time Teofila Lucero and John Bosin introduced styles of singing and danceing which they were familiar with from the southern plains and the southwestern United States. Soon the rising tide of social awareness and political militancy saw the growth of the American Indian Movement and the spread of Plains style Pan Indian culture. This had a major effect on the form of the Michigan Pow Wows. Today, Plains style drumming, chanting, and dancing has almost pushed aside the Anishinaabeg traditions native to the Great Lakes area. Little Elk and his friends are the last to practice the old time songs and dances. Watch for the dance of the Wild Geese, or the song of the Go-Ko-Ko. These are some of the lessons of Little Elk, Chippewa Elder and Ceremonial Chief. �~ ·' ;-, ,;: r- . rx ,~,. ··'"'. ... .'t. Long time ago I was pickin huckleberries. Ummmm-umm, c.i, \ ~, dhey was good. I was pickin dhem an pretty soon I seen a '- ~ rattlesnake, coiled up dhere. ,( I started to go da other way, and dhere was another one waitin for me. Wasn ' t no clouds in da sky 'cept one. It was dark. Dhen da Thunders came. It was rainin hard and wit hail too, I run back to da car. When it blowed over, I went out dhere. Da snakes was gone, but so was da huckleberries. Da hail knocked dem all down. Dhem Thunders protected me from dem snakes. \; Dhem Old Ways is better dhan bein mod-ren. Bein near da water, clean water, isn't dhat woner-ful? Fishin, and eatin dhem fish, dhats good too. Dhem little ones is OK. Jess boil'em up. Don't need to clean'em. Cook'em wit da heads on an all dhat. Dhats da Old Way. Like ya cook dhem smelts. Herbs, dhey're nuttin to monkey 'round wit. Dhere's a good one, an a bad one. For every one dhere's two kinds. You're foolish if ya don't know what ya doin. My relations, dhey taught me a little bit about med-cine; jess a little bit. Dhat college man in dhat mu-seum, all dhem plants in dhem books. He don't know nothin. He don't know what dhem's good for. I told him dhems tings is dangerous. You don't monkey 'round wit dhem, you might get hurt. Da Great Spirit give dhem herbs to our People. I told him dhat dhere's a Spirit dhat protects dhat place where I go to dig med-cine. If he goes in dhere, he might not come out alive. You don't want to monkey 'around wit dhem herbs. In dhat Bailin' Spring. Dhat water jess comes up out of da Mother Earth. When I'm travel'in, I gotta stop by dhere. Dhere's a Spirit in dhere. A person gotta leave some tobacco dhere, maybe a little bit of what you eat. Now you gotta do dhat, dhat's da way da old timers done it. Dhat's what we gotta do. l I' "' �Now I know some of you here today don't believe in da Mother Earth. Dhat·s not good. Da Mother Earth gives us Life. Long time ago, our People used to respect da Earth. Today, dhere's poison in our Corn. Dhey spray dat on dhere, it goes in da Corn. Its even in our corn flakes. We all got dhat poison in us. All of us. It gets in da plants, an in da ground too. Den dem animals come along an eat dat too. It makes us sick. Da air, its got poison in it too. It stinks. Dhat's what da Whiteman done. Dhat poison blows around in da air. Dhey use all dem chemicals. Dhey gotta go somewhere. Dhat Chippewa River, near da Reservation. Dhat's got poison in it. Some people eat dhem fish from dhat river. I don't. Dhey don't taste right. Dhey got dhat poison in dhem. Da farmers spray all dhat poison on dhem fields. It gets in da Corn, it goes into dat river. Dhem fish is got poison in dhem. Over dhere north of dhat Mio, dhey buried all dhem cows dhere. Dhem cows got killed by poison. Dhey dug dhat big pit, put dhem cows in dhere. Nothin grows dhere now. Dhat's gonna get into da water and into dhat AuSable River. Dhat's upstream from where alot of people go. Where dhey buried dem cows, nothin grows dhere now. Used to be alotta deers, pat-ridge; all dhem tings. Dem peoples is bein foolish. �Our people are gettin mod-ren. We're loosin da Old Timers. Dhem young ones, lotta dhem don't even know dheir own language. Some of dhem don't even know who dheir Grandfathers are. We're try'in to bring back some of da Old Ways. We're try'in to keep It alive. Dhis Pow Wow is different from what alot of da Old Timers done. Alot of dhis is from da Southwest, from da Plains. Some of dhem people is Patterning. Some of dhem know what dheir doin. We're tryin to bring back da Old Ways. Some people tink da Whiteman is afraid of what we're doin. We're teachin da young people and we're keepin It alive. Dhis is our tradition, somethin like it was a hundred and fifty years ago, but now we're gettin mod-ren. We all have a little bit of fun. I been in show business a long time. I'm known all over. People take my picture, have me sign dheir books. Somtimes I name babies too. Dhey know me over dhere in West Germany. Dhey come over here and made some movies of what we're doin. Colorado, Kansas, Wisconsin, Canada; dhey know me. Over in China dhey know me too. Dhey know what I been doin. __...... ", j \, i .t_'} ' \ U- '' . ~j\,,'li, �Some of dhem people call me a Med-cine Han. I've heard dhem say dhat before. I'm not no Med-cine Man. I know a little bit 'bout Med-cine, dhat·s all. I'm just trying to help my People. Maybe sometime someone tinks dhey·ve had a little bit of bad luck, or maybe a cold. I believe in da Old Ways and da Whiteman·s religion too. I'm a lay preacher at da church. Dhey're both good ways. Da way da Indian's followed da old religion, it was hard. Dhey had to fast for a long, long time when dhey prayed on somethin important. We believe in da Great Spirit, or God; same ting. Da Creator is who put us here. Indians believe in Dhey leave some of finished out in da rock or some other dhese tings. Mother Earth. dheir tobacco or food dhey haven't woods. Maybe at a tree, or a place. We should always share Sometimes people ask me foolish tings I don't get. One night some lady asked me, "Who's going to be shaman when you're gone?" What's dhat word mean - "shaman"? I don't know what she's talkin 'bout. I'm not no Med-cine Man. �. iii 11£.9~· "'8~Mr Ancient H1 stor_y_ The great ice was everywhere, in some places 1t wds r11ore than a mile thick. The great Ice Age winter poured over everything. ·rwelve thousand years ago a warm spring breeze began to melt the great glaciers. Crystal clear water trickled across the snow into the earliest of the Great Lakes. For a time, the newly formed lakes were higher than they are today, perhaps as much a~ seventy feet above pre&ent levels. Mu c h of northern Michigan may have remained ice covered during this period, but as the great front of snow and ice withdrew from the southern half of the lower peninsula, the exposed land was wet and cold. The sands and gravels were slowly occupied by grassl•nds and sprue~ forest. Caribou, mastodon, mammoth, moose, and smaller game followed. Here too were found the early hunters, the post glacial Native Americans - the Ancient Ones - the Paleo Indians. These people were nomadic hunters who moved their small kinship based societies frequently, following the game and wild plant foods as the seasons changed. Their ra re and ancient camp sites are mo st easily recognized by the repeated finds of fluted spear points in a small area. These chipped stone tools are easily recognized by the presen c e of one or more long flakes having been removed from the concave base towards the tip of the point. By about 9,000 years ago the climate had slowly warmed and a pine fore st began to d ominate the landscape. The wat ers of the great lakes had found an outlet, flowing eastward out of Georgia Bay and eventually into the S t. Lawerence River. The lakes drained quite low, as much as 390 feet below their present l eve l s . The original Paleo Indians may have moved northwar~, following their environment and lifestyle as the ic e continued it s ret reat. Some may have stayed on in this area, to be joined by others traveling from th~ east, south, or west; it i s difficult to say. In southeast Michigan, the stone tools of thi s time period are often made from c hert s an d flints from centra l and souther n Ohio and other areas outside of Mi chigan . It 1s unknown 1f these materials were obtained thr ough trade or sea sonal migrations, or why materials wer e not used more often l oc al for making stone tools. Their stone spear tip s were no longer fluted t1ut had 11otches or stems for last1ing to the shaft. Tt1~ spear tips and ~(n1ves frequently had ~errated or beve l ed blades and the edges of the bdses were often ground b1nooth . The barb~ or shoulders un th~se poir1ls wL1uld have t,eld fdsl 1n an ar11mals flesh and probably 1nd1cate the t· ; :: HI .. ~·· ,,.:'. ' emergence of blood trailing as a method of following wounded game, These people of the pine forests are known as the Archaic Indians the Old Ones. They survived by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plant foods. They did not yet have maize or practice agriculture, nor did they have pottery though they undoubtedly used wood, bark, and skin containers. By at least 7,000 years ago they began making woodworking tools by chipping, battering, and polishing hard igneous rocks into the basic desired form. Between 7,000 and 3,000 years ago the predominant form of woodworking tool seems to have been the grooved axe, though ungrooved celts, adzes, and gouges may be been made as well, particularly toward the end of this period. The Michigan Barbed Axe is a type of grooved axe restricted to the southern lower pe~insula and may be a style representative of an as yet unknown tribe or language group. At this same time, erosion and earth shifting eventually filled former drainage channels and the Great Lake2 began to fill again. The lakes reached their present levels but still they rose, at least another thirtyfive feet, flooding former village sites which had occupied the old lakeshores. During this period people also began making gorgets and bannerstones of beautiful banded slate. It is believed by some, on the basis of careful study, that the bannerstone was affi x ed to the atlatl or spear thrower handle. The e x act purpose of the gorget 1s unknown. Towards the end of this period, pure raw copper from the Lake Superior region was being mined and hammered into socketed and tanged spear points and knives. This material was traded throughout the n1idwest and was part of an e x panding trade network which included red ochre paint (iron oxide) and marine shells. The available evidence indi c ates that by 3 , 500 years ago the climate was warmer and drier than it 1s today. New varieties of plants and animals from the warm forests of the south slowly moved north ward into Michigan. Perhaps 1t was drier as well, for prairies spread into ~outhwe~t Michigan from the area of Illinois. In fact, the prairies may have been more e~tensive then than they were 150 years ago . As a result of thetie �• environmental became more changes abur1dant natural and foods fishing, hunting, and gathering became iri c reasingly productive. It was in this conte x t of a wa rmer climate with mi xed hardwood forest s and ri s ing lakeshores that Indian soc ieties some of the old dramatically. began ways to abandon and change copper , wo od . ~ ~ ---~--c::. - . shell, stone, mi ca , bone, ,::i .-·1 They are noted for their stone or clay platform s tyle pipes, some changes in culture represent the of movement 2,500 years ago, the Indian As the Woodland culture ceremonial ism develops, becomes burial incre~singly from lower those on the western side peninsula. evid e nce the first Though is not corn in the entirely Michigan may have been cultivated by Woodland Indians practicing the Hopwell culture. people of southwest Michigan began making thick and relatively plain pottery vessels similar to those being made by the people of the Illinois and Ohio river valleys. This new technology signals the beginning of a new era in Indian history - from this point on the people are known as the Woodland Indians. The appearance of tubular smoking pipes made from stone or clay is also an important development • Small polished stone effigies, known as birdstones, are also manufactured at this time. Cremation burials were frequently accompanied by caches of chipped stone tools and quantitites of red ochre paint. From the perspective of the preceding 9,500 years, the Indian cultures have begun to change rapidly. the available c onvincing, of ideas by word of mouth, the trading of artifacts, or the actual migration of people bringing their culture with them. What is known for certain is that by which difference to suggest that the area w~s occupied by a group of people socially distinct Without studying the people themselves, it is often difficult to determine if of bore a rtistic representations of people and anim als . The cultural material s from Sa gin a w are Hopewellian in general nature, but there is also enough ., ·, :~ ;;L . ~ ~tt11' For northern and southe•st Michigan, the evidence for a Hopewell culture occupation is lacking. It is presently unknown if the people near the Detroit River were following traditions similar to those recognized for earlier or later times or if the region was simply unoccupied. In the upper peninsula and the northern part of the lower peninsula there was another cultural tradition representing the Woodland period which was different from the Hopewell of more southernly regions. These northern people may have relied more heavily on fishing, hunting, and food collecting for the north woods were too cold for the early types of corn. Ex actly why the Hopewell culture fell out of favor is unclear, but by 1,500 years ago it had been replaced by the traditions of the Late Woodland period. For much of the state, long distance elaborate, perhaps reflecting an increased interest in the identity and continuity of tribal or lineage groups. The great burial mounds of the Grand River valley are a mute testament to the dramatically declined, but Michigan and the Saginaw in southeast Valley these widespread practices a contacts of these people 2,000 year ago. Their traditions were very similar to those practiced by the people of Illinois and central Ohio known today as the Hopewell subculture. Variations of Hopewell patterns spread throughout the eastern woodlands region, but 1n Michigan it was located from the Saginaw Valley to the Grand Valley and south to the St. Joesph River. These people made elaborate flint pottery vessels, knappers, utilitarian and and were excellant made c eremonial beautiful items of trade for exotic raw materials and the placement of fine articles with the see1ns at to have ceased continued in or dead least somewhat different form which maintained ties toward the east as far as New York state. By 1,000 years ago these practices seem to have ceased as well. By now, corn agriculture was well established throughout the southern part of the state and may have been cultivated in certain areas of the upper peninsula much as it was during the later historic peri o d. Pottery vessels were q1Jite large, perhaps indi c ating larger family or hou set,o ld By 60(, years ago, it see ms �hostilities for ~~~;,: ·-:;r:V I \.."'""'""'''''' had broken out in the region, fortified village sites begin i'l appear 1n three broad regions. Located 1n southwestern Michigar,, the northern 11 · part ', of the lower peninsula, thumb region; each of these and three the series have lived in the Toledo area according to early French sources. However, some students of history have suggested that southeast Michigan was occupied by Iroquoian people 600 years ago after driving out the original inhabitants of the region. The actual tribal identity of many early villages is unknown. Historical evidence and Indian tradition state that much of southern Michigan was virtually abandoned by 1650 as a result of attacks by what was then the Five Nations Iroquois who wished to control a wider territory for the acquisition of furs and to gain a larger share of the trade with the Europeans. No doubt other factors of inter tribal politics were involved, but the advent of the fur trade and contacts with Europeans resulted in a great wave of social disruption which washed across the Great Lakes region. The Iroquois controled the lower great lakes in their effort to divert trade to the British, who did not travel as far and wide aa the early French missionaries and traders. In the late 1660's, a treaty with the Iroquois enabled the French to explore the area of southeast Michigan which was essentially unoccupied. t:Jii' to \v/1/ of forts appears to represent different patterns of land use and ecological adaptation by the inhabitant&. Whether these sites represent tribal groups, individual bands, or intertribal •/ ·/ /I ~ confederacies is unknown. The upper peninsula was also occupied at this tim&, with a new style of pottery beginning appear at the village sites. to Modern History The French were the first to intrude into the region of Michigan's upper peninsula in the 17th century. In the early 1620's Brule' and Grenoble traveled from Montreal to the area now known as Sault St. Marie. In 1634, Jean Nicolet passed along the south shore of the upper peninsula on his journery to the area of Green Bay. In subsequent years other Frenchmen passed through the upper peninsula are• on their way to a mission site on the western shores of Lake Superior where the Iroquoian Huron tribe had fled after being attacked in their Ontario homeland by the New York Iroquois. In 1668, Fathers Marquette and Dablon established a Christian mission at Sault St. Marie for the Ottawa Chippewa, and Huron survivors later known as the Wyandot. In 1671, Marquette started another mission at the present site of St. Ignace. Though it is well known that the Chippewa and Ottawa lived in this area during the mission period, they may have been relatively new to the area. In the mid 1800's, the elders of the Chippewa tribe taught that their people, along with the Ottawa and Potawatomie had moved into this area only several generations before the arrival of the French. Just who might have occupied the area prior to their arrival is unknown, but they were preceded my many thousands of years of occupation. Perhaps it was originally their mortal enemies, the Dakota or other Siouan speakers, for they were moving westward during the historic p~riod and n1ay have coma from A more eastern homeland. What was happening in the lower peninsula during the early 1600 's is even lesa clear. Indian traditions do not and agree, hi•torical studies are faced with limited written sources. The general consensus at this time seems to be that most if not all of the lower peninsula was occupied by people speaking Algonquian languages. The Potawatomie are believed by many to have resided in the western and southwestern portion of the state, though they may have been newcomers here as well, having recently split from the Ottawa and Chippewa to the north. Just who might have occupied southwest Michigan before them, if the historical accounts of the Nishnabe' elders are correct, is unknown. It would seem that the fortified villdges may belong to an earlier people, subsequently displaced from the region. Central and southeastern Michigan were probably occupied by the Mascouten, Sauk, Fox, arid perhaps two other groups which did not survive the tr•dged1es of the early historic period. The Kickapoo people, closely linked with the preceding tribes, may In an effort to gain greater control over the expanding EuropeanIndian fur trade, the French fort of St. Joseph was established on the St. Clair River near the present site of Port Huron in 1686. This fort was abandoned two years late, but a second Fort St. Joseph was established for the same purpose on the St. Joseph River in southwest Michigan in 1691. In 1701 Cadillac moved the military installation from Ft. De Buade in St. Ignace down to Detroit in an effort to establish economic control over the passageway between Lake Huron and the lower great lakes of Erie and Ontario. It was with the enducement to trade under the protection of the French fort at Detroit, that portions of the Huron, Ottawa, Potawatomi and other tribes moved to southeast Michigan along the Detroit River. About the same time, Ottawa and Chippewa communities moved southward into other areas of the lower peninsula. The Potatawatomi and occasionally the Miami were known to occupy southwestern Michigan while the Sauk, Fox, Mascouten, and Kickapoo had moved westward into Wisconsin. At the close of the French and Indian War during the fall of 1760, the British seized control of French settlements throughout the great lakes region. The Indian peoples now had to contend with a new European power which held a less hospitable attitude toward them. In 1761, the Iroquois tried to encourage the Nishinabe' of the Michigan region to join them in an attack upon the British, but they refused, apparently waiting to see how the new Europeans intended to carry on their economic and political ties with the Indians. It was only two years later however, that Chief Pontiac organized the famous effort to destroy the British posts throughout the midwest. By 1763, the traditions of the Indians had changed rad1Ccllly; rum and brandy, guns, brass kettles, iron knives and toniahawks, glass beads, and other iten1s had had serious effects on the material and spiritual nature of lndiari society. Ponti~c, like many traditional leaders before and after him, urged a return to the old ways. He urged the Indian people to drive the Europeans from their region and to abandon their dependence upon goods of European manufacture. The fur trade and ruined the traditional economy. making of traditional tools pottery had were no longer ,nanufactured. be abandoned, effective The atone Farming was sometimes considered �of little importance, flour being obtained in trade from the Europeans. For many the inner strengths of the traditional religion had been abandoned far a taste a+ run and brandy. The introduction foreign diseases had also begun to take their toll. Chief Pontiac urged a revival of ancient Indian traditions and an eviction of the British from the Great Lakes region. Late in 1763, Pontiac and his treaty settlements which have not been upheld, such as hunting and fi s hing rights and cash payments for land, are presently being considered in Federal courts. of followers were nearly successful forts, but to no avail. 1n destroying all of the British In 1796, the British began to turn control of the Michigan peninsulas over the the United States. From this point on, the Indian people rapidly began to lose what remained of their traditional way of life as the American and British governments began to expand their territorial control in North America. The Indian territories were ceded Today, many Michigan recognized. Indian people live where in cities and their communities are no Urban, industrialized centers such towns throughout longer officially as Detroit, have also become the homes of Indian people from the south and we§t as they adapt to modern economic developments. The Michigan Commission on Indian Affairs estimates that there are presently 60,000 Indians living in the State of Michigan. Their modern history has been difficult and tragic, yet each generation has seen the emergence of those who have chosen to teach maintain the everchanging spiritual and cultural traditions of their ancestors. to the United State~ in a series of treaties which were often forced upon the Indian people or drawn up and ratified without their consent. In 1807, the Treaty of Detroit wrested much of southeast Michigan from the control of the Ottawa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot. In 1817 a small area of southern Michigan technically acquired from the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi in the Foot of the Rapids Treaty. Much of the central and northeastern portion of the lower peninsula was obtained from the Chippewa in the Treaty of Saginaw in 1819. The Treaty of Chicago laid American claim to much of southwestern Michigan in 1821. The Potawatomi lost their hold on extreme southwestern Michigan in the Carey Mission Treaty of 1828. The Ottawa and Chippewa lost the northwestern part of the lower peninsula and the eastern two thirds of the upper peninsula in the 1836 Treaty of Washington. The western U.P. was acquired by the United States in the Treaty of La Pointe 11842) and the Cedar Point Treaty of 1836. The Indian people lost most of the Michigan peninsulas in the short span of 35 years. Many reservations were promised, but few have survived to this day. Some are described in early county histories, but no mention of them can be found in later historical documents. Others were later claimed by the U.S. government and settled by Anglo-Americans, or were only intended to last for the short term of five years until the Indian people could be removed to the Kansas Territory. At least one, perhaps more, seem to have been incorporated into contemporary government forests. Families which had received individual allotments were sometimes swindled out of their remaining land, or had to sell it under duress in an effort to obtain money to survive in a cash economy when treaty payments were illegally stopped. Some of the original people moved to Canada in the hop~s of finding a better life, others moved westward, while still others remained in Michigan regardless of the hardships they had to endure. Today the United State government officially recognizes a fraction the original treaty lands. Federally recognized reservations and Indian communities are located in the upper peninsula near Watersmeet, Ontonagon, Baraga, Hannaville, Bay Mills, and Sault St. Marie. In the lower peninsula Peshawbestown, Saganing, a11d Mt. Pleasant are all that remain of the reservat1or1s whict1 were ot'""iginally set aside. There is another Indian community at Athens in the southwestern part of Michigan which is oft1cially recoyn1zed of by the State. The Indian people claim that there are other lands which are rightfully theirs based on early treaty agr ·eements, but little official infor,nation is available. Others apsects of early . SOME OF THE 19th CENTlIJU" RESERVATIONS • • 1817 ... • AMERICAN LAND ACCESSIONS BY INDIAN TREATY �MED IC I NE RO~ :: ~ of spritual power and good fortune and are honored by those who •till follow the Old Ways. We know the history of a few of these stones which have had power for those who believe, lli.IJ:i E.!lliQi The ancient religions of the American Indians varied in specific aspects from region to region, but they all honored the forces of nature and culture. Everything was considered to have a spiritual force or power. Herbs, trees, fish, animals, bowls, knives, rocks and even the Mother Earth were seen as possessing animated spirits, This world view is not restricted to the Indian peoples, for variations of Animism occur as tha earliest religions throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe.- perhaps stemming from a common historical origin, In the Great Lakes area unusual stone formations were considered to have special spiritual significance, 1 '0ver near da Oscoda Indian settlement dhere was one, once. On Rattlesnake Creek. Da old people, dhey used to go dhere. Put tobacco on da ground, maybe some of dheir food too, Dhere was a spirit dhere, dhat's what dhey was feedin. When da old people were gone, da young ones quit gain. Dhey quit feedin Nanabush. One day a man goes out dhere to see da rock, Its gone, Disappeared. You gotta take care of dhem tings," Many years after this incident and miles away from Rattlesnake Creek, the old man bent over the east side of a boulder, scratching away the half rotten leaves and twigs covering the soil of the forest floor, ''Ahow! 11 he greeted the spiritual force focused at this point. He spoke his native Chippewa language as his fingers dug into the bag of tobacco, He thanked the spiritual power of this place for his good fortune and offered to share his gift of tobacco with it, 11 Meegwetch! 11 he concluded. As he slowly walked away he said "You gotta do dhat, you gotta believe, You gotta feed dhat Nanabozho, You gotta do dhat. Dhat's da Old Way." He walked down the hill and around the curve in the path without speaking. Finally, with a slight smirk on his lips he said 11 Maybe we was feedin a Wildman." Barely able to contain his grin, he shuffled along the wooded path. At one time, before the Whiteman swarmed across the land, there were many stones which were considered to be points where spiritual power was concentrated or mare accessible. Many of these are now gone - some have disappeared, some have been destroyed, son1e are slowly crumbling away, but a few are still recognized as a source In the spring of 1670, two Sulpician priests named Galinee and Dallier were among the first Whites to enter the Detroit River area. About six leagues from the mouth of the river they encountered a stone "which the Indians regarded as influencing navigation on Lake Erie, and to which they made sacrifices of skins and food, whenever they were about to embark upon the lake," The two priests broke the stone to pieces with their hatchets and threw it into the river, One priest had the bad luck of breaking his valuable iron axe in the process. Further north, on a knoll at the mouth of the Kawkawlin River, not fdr from the present Bay City State Park, another sacred site was recorded in 1837. "Two large stones, several feet in height, with a flat top and broad base•• were surrounded by several small stones which had been covered with offerings of tobacco, pieces of tin, flints, and other items dedicated to the ''Manitou," )J In 1820, Whitemen found several unusually shaped spirit stones off shore from Alpena on Thunder Bay Island. One had a flat ~S2 l1!J circular base and~ lonij arm-like extension protruding from the top. The other seems to have ~1 I~~- i ·, resembled a person wearing• L ,,,,_ .:i. necklace. The first stone had been purposefully set up beneath a tree, the origin of the second is unknown. ~-~'· ),.:_"-.. :-:..'Ko- ~~_.,\.,.'·' '··-.:~~~,- :· . ~..a._ z-...... South of Alpena at the mouth of the Devil River there were two more sacred stones. One weighed about three hundred pounds and was a gneiss type of rock with bands of quartz. Overall, it showed evidence of having been "worn by winds and water," The other stone resembled the shape of a human body but without head, arms, or legs. The Indian people reportedly called the place Shinqgawbawawsinekegobawat, Wawsineke which t1as been translated by some as 11 image stones.•• It is said that Shingawba had been a highly respected chief in the area and that he had promised to return to the stones after his death to receive any gifts the people might leave there in his honor, In 1839 when a White surveyor named Mr, Oliver visited the site there were large numbers of pipes, beads, tobacco, and trinkets in is said that long ago a war and the two sacred stones across Thunder Bay. On overboard Iroquois to the to their OJ1ver, and the water earrings, silver brooches, buttons, the immediate vicinity of the stones. It party of Iroquois captured two Chippewa and attempted to transport their captives this began journey the stones were thrown to boil, capsizing the canoe. The drowned, but the Chippewa regained the canoe and rsturned shore. There they found the sacred 5tones, already returned rightful place. At some later date, after the visit by Mr. these stones were broken up and used for net weights by f1sher· men. �Kt~. . ::c:.t 'QC -~ ~ . . u - : - .~. ~ - Along the Lake Huron shore, s1x miles north of the present town of Rogers City there is yet another sacred rock . This huge re c tangul ar boulder has been reported as twenty feet long, six feet high, and eight feet wide. When the lake is low it sits at the waters edge, but usually it is a hund r ed or more yards from the beach. Long ago, the Indian people who traveled in the area of this ro ck left sacrificed dogs and other gifts upon this sacred spot. During the 1920' s some people in the are• still followed the o ld way s by leaving offerings of tobacco on the stone. In 1909 Frederick Larke recorded the Indian tradition of this sacred rock (Hinsdale 19301 . Ages ago, where the rock now stands, wa3 the boundary line between the hunting grounds of two Indian tribes; the chief of the one was exceedingly aggressive and frequently trespassed upon the preserves of the neighboring tribe, and in so doing had caused much trouble and bloodshed to follow these excursions. At last the chiefs of the two tribes met, when the one as usual was trespassing over the border, and an altercation ensued which would probably have again resulted in a bloody war between the conflicting tribes, but Kitchie M~nitou, the Great Spirit, who was up Lake Superior at the time, became disgusted with both of them, seized hold of the Sacred Rock and hurled it down, crushing both the chiefs beneath its immense weight, which was so great that the banks above the beach have been sliding and trembling ever since. The famous White Rock is also said to have been a large boulder. Today, this rock lies several hundred yards off shore and protrudes above the surface of the lake only a small amount. Located just north of the small town in Michigan's thumb which bears its name, this rock was also considered sacred and was a focal point for dog sacrifice and tobacco offerings. Much like the stone destroyed by the priests on the Detroit River, the great White Rock was believed to have the power to offer 5afe passage while traveling on the lake in e xc hange for gifts and prayers. The Whiteman 's local tradition states that during prohibition in the 1920 ' s it had been large enough to accommodate• blind pig and dance floor. It is also said that during World War II the sacred rock was u sed as a practice bombing target by the air forces of Canada and the United States. This reportedly accounts for its s mall size today, though another person who v isited the rock before World War II claims it was not much larger then than it is n o w. Ab out four miles north of St. Ignace is Rabbit's Rock, named after its appe aran c e when viewed from a dist ance . ' 1 I t 1s an immense, high rock, and on account of its shape was supposed, by the Indians, to be inhabited by a manitou. When they paddled by, they would stop and mah e offerings of tobacco, suppo sin g it to be a great spirit that once presided over their ancestors, and always treated it with 11 reverential respect. In earlier days, there was a sacred stone on the high hill overlooking Hubbard Lake. This wa s referred to as the "Indian Worship" stone and was said to have marked the grave of Sedonikato, a gr eat Chippewa Chief. "Indian hunters and trappers, and even some Whitemen of earlier days, often brought offerings of beads and toba cco , and left them at the monument as an act of worship. Old residents remember this stone image as having a hollow head, or an opening in the natural stone formation of the head, and that the votive offerings were placed in this cavity. 11 Many years ago, it is reported, the grave was dug up and the stone was taken away to Pittsburg in 1880. Today, the area is being subdivided and developed as a vacation resort. On the trail between Grand Blanc and Flint, there was a beautiful rise of ground whi c h produced numerous wild plums of very fine quality. Among st the trees on this wonderful grassy knoll "stood a peculiarly shaped stone, perhaps four feet high ..•••• They called it Bab-o-quah." The Indian people always stopped at this clearing as it was a pla c e of worship. This spirit stone was taken by a Capt. Jacob Ste v ens in 1823-4, but the Indian people forced him to return it. It ' s subsequent history is unknown. Southeast of Mt. Pleasant another powerful spirit stone once stood along the banks of the Pine River where the Indian people "stopped and worshipped by a speech or a smoke. They also left other articles in addition to pieces of tobacco, and among them were pieces of copper which . . . . . were cut from the copper bowlder on the 11 Ontonagon Ri v er, Lake Superior. Many ot her powerful sacred stones have been honored through ou t the Great Lakes region. Some, such as the Turtle Rock, and Gu ll Rocks were named after creatures they obviously resembled. Others were re cogn ized for their immense size or unusual chara c teristi cs . Dhems rocks i• natural like dhat. No one carved dhem. Dhat one up on da Ca•s River, we call dh•t da Nanabush Rock. Da Old Timers said dhat·s da Indi•n Creation. Dh•t·s natural ••• no one carved it. But dhat rock used to be bigger, it ' s gain down. It ' s sinkin. Dhey used to have ceremonies dhere once a year. No one goes now, dhat ' s why its sinkin. We should have• ceremony dhere. No one carved dhat stone ••••• no one •••••• ·cept maybe . . . . Nanabush •••.•••••• ��� 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 Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> 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-14_little-elk-info-packet_1985-08 Title A name given to the resource Little Elk Chippewa Elder Informational Packet, August 1985 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-08 Description An account of the resource Little Elk Informational Packet, August 1985, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Da-Nan-Dum Press Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3df6e18bd27a950835d854f1aeb9efb2.pdf f5f04aa3f09349a3811aa6bf31bb2f0a PDF Text Text • • / ' • / ALiiMAARSCH.E EDITIE, DllGB,llD VOOR • Deze courant verschijnt dagelijb. Abonnementsprijs per 3 maanden bij voo1 uitbetaling voor Alkmaar .f 2.10; fran co door het gebeele Rijk / 2.63. Losse llt1.1JUDers 5 cents.' · Tel. Administratie (abonn., adver t.) 3320, Redactie 3330. Prijs der gewone advertentlën ; / 0-10 per m.M" minimum 14 m.M. 1.40, elke 31/• m.M. meer J 0.35. î al'ieve11 op aanvrage. Brieven aan de Uitg. N.V. Boek- en Handelsdrukkerij v/h. Her ms, Coster & Zoon, Voordam . 9, Alkmaa,r, postgir o 37060. NOORD-HOLLAND -:-::-:--:----:::--:--:-:---------.;.__--__,;,----------------,------------- 1ftfte Jaargang No. 168 % pagina's Geme~nschappelijkheid in front en doel. ACHTERVOLGING DER SOVJETS,- IN VÓLLEN GANG. r/ . :Bolsjewistische colonnes bij Rostof I vernietig~, \ • ' " Redevoeringen van Haupt• dienstleiter Schmidt en van Geel.k erken. Strijd tegen den sluikhandel. ( Pant,entrijdkrachten ln Egypte bult~n \.gevJcht gesteld. Spoorwegdoelen bij Moskou aang eva Il en. ( Duitsch legel'bericht. HOOFDKWARTIER VAN DEN ~'UHRER, 20 -uuli (,D.N.B.) Het opperb~vel der weermacht maakt bekend: In het Zuiden van het Oostelijk ~front zijn de achtervolgingsge, vechten in z. en o. richting weer in vollen gang, na er een eind is gekomell' aan den regenval. Formaties gevechts- en slagvliegtuigen hebben vijandelijke colonnes ten 0. van Rostof vernietigd, belangrijke etappe-verbindingen van den vijand bij den mond van denDon vernield en de achtervolgingsgevechten in de bocht van den Don doeltreffend gesteund .. De vijand heeft ook gisteren met sterke strijdkrachten het bruggehoofd Woronesj · aangevallen. Alle pogingen tot herovering van de stad werden in zware gevechten afgeslagen, ten deele in tegenaanvallen met succesvollen steun van de luEh~acht. Hierbij werden van 60 aanvallende tan1's 36 vernietigd. . · In de omgeving van Moskou zijn ove1·dag en 's nachts spoorwegdoelen met vernietigende uitwerking aangevallen. Ten Z. van het 11.menmeer mislukten plaatselijke aanvallen van den vijand. Bij deze gevechten ~e_rd eei\ bolsjewistische groep vermetlgd en 19 vijandelijke tanks werden kapotgeschoten. Het ~avengebied van Mq,ermansk werd gisteren met bijzonder succes gebombardeerd. In haveninstallaties: autoparken en benzineopslagplaatseri ontstonden groote branden. Jachtvlie~t1.tigen schoten hierbij boven de ba_ai van Kola 17 ,vijandelijke v licgttagen neer. Dinsdag 21 Juli 1942 Hoofdredacteur!\, R. JONKER, Alkmaar In Noord-Afrika wederzijdsche gevechtsbedrijvigheid- van plaatselijke beteekenls. Ten N.O. van Londen heeft een gevechtsvliegtuigen overdag voltreffers geplaatst op een belangrijke wapenfabriek. In h et Duitsch-Nederlandsche grensgebied heeft een Britsch vliegtuig gisteren enkele bommen laten vallen op woonwijken. Het vliegtui~ werd omlaaggesèhoten. De Britsche luchtmacht heeft 's nachts met vrij zwakke , strijdkrachten 'n aanval gedaan op enkele plaatsen aan de Duitsche bocht, vooral de steden Bremen en Oldenburg. De burgerbevolking leed verliezen. Drie vijandelijke vliegtuigen werden neergeschoten. _ Bij de succesvolle afweergevechten op het bruggehoofd Woronesj heeft een Silezische divisie. infanterie zich bijzonder onderscheiden. Het jachteskader Udet heeft zijn 2500ste overwinning in de lucht behaald. Italiaansch legerbericht. ROME, 20 Juli (Stefani.) Het Italiaansche wcennachtbericht luidt als volgt: VijandelijJ,e aanvalspogingen zijn afgeslagen j,1 den N. en Centralen sector van onze stellingen aan het Egyptische front. Ecnige gepantseràe strijdmiddelen · van den v~jand werden vernield. Duitsche jagers hebben een krachtige formatie Hmricanes aangtwallen en er 7 van neergeschotc1,. Slechts atmosferische omstandigheden beperkten de operaties tegen het eiland Malta,' waar desondanks ('Cnjgc belangrijke doelen werden getroffen. t Timosjenko's nederlaag. . Prov. Kantoor van den Landstand 1n N oord~l1olland. neu worden. Alles, wat de La.ndOfficieele opening door den sta11d tot nog toe deed, was slechts boerenleider Roskam. een voorbereiding, om de geheele Een goed geontillee1·d gebouw, waa,r in allen, ongeacht hun gezindheid, die de boereneer willen verdedigen, en voor het boerenrecht willen opkomen, de v1·iendcnhand 1v-0nlt gereikt. leiding, van de voedselvoorziening te kunnen overnemen. In kamcraadschappeJjjken g·eest. RO'I'TERDAM, 20 Juli. Wanneer 1 Vóór de officieele· opening hield de politieke leiders der N. S. D. A.P. de stafleider, de heer A. A. Roze11en N. S. B. iederen Zondag, nu eens daal een rede, waarin hij betoogde, 1 in deze, dan in gene plaats in Nedat diegenen, die de toegestok~ derland, elkander in g"roote schohand nog steeds afwijzen, wel onder lingsdemonstraties ontmoeten, dan Gister(Maandag)middag werd. het zware narcose moeten staan, want komt daarin de gemeenschappelijke doelstelling van hun strijd, vooral gebouw van den Ned. Landstand in het ls onbegrijpelijk, dat zij nog met hel oog op de groote taken, tai Noordholla.nd, dat gevestigd is in steeds niet tot de ontdekking zijn uitdrukking, dte uit ~ groot-Ger- het voormalige Alkm;Jarsche burge• gekomen, dat de Landstand er niet maansche gemeenschap reeds thans, meestershuis aan den K ennemer- is om hen dwars te zitten, maar en vooréd in de toekomst, voort- straatweg 23, officieel geopend, in gaarne bereid is, ondan!i:s alle µiis-vloeien. De grootheid van die laak tegenwoordig'heid van den Presse- kennihg, die zij totnç,gtoe ondervormt de hechte en onverwoestbare referent voor Noordh1Jlland, Eggert, vond, op kameraadschappelijke wijbasis van vastberaden nationaal- den Landwirtschaftrat Ufer, den ze ook met hen den nieuwen opbot1,w socialistischen wil. Op den voo}·- boerenleider Roskam, den prov. boe- ter hand te nemen. BlijKbaar wachgrond staat daarbij de beveiliging renleider J. Saal, de lundbouw-, vee- ten zij op het oogenblik, dat hun van de Europeesche ruimte tegen de teelt- .en tuinbouwconsulenten, de overwinning komt en Wij, ·aldus :.pr., (Polygoon-ZeylemakerJvernielende krachten van het bolsje- leden van den próv. raad en dé lei- onze matjes kunn~n oprollen. Ik kan ders ,van de bedrijfsgroepen. Ter DE VERJAARDAG VAN DEN wisme en de beveiligin_g . van. hei eere van deze feestelijkheid w.1pper- hen echter de / verzekering geven, Westen tege11 democratie en rmpe- tiè een aantal Landstandvlaggen mat dat zij dit oogenblik niet zullen be- \ leven en dat het niet zoo heel lang RI.T"KSCOi\T..\llSSARIS . rialisme. Onbegrijpelijk is het derdaarboven de Oranje-Blanje-Bleu- meer zal duren, vóór zij tot d e Zijn levensloop. halve, dat er _nog steeds vel~ . mei:i- vlag van den gevel. scl1Tikbarende ontdekking komen, Op 22 Juli _ den verjaardag va•l schen, zijn, die ~e noodzakel!J~~eid De officieele ope_ning ges_chiedde dat wij in den tijd, waarin· zij slieden Rijkscommissaris _ worden in v~. dezen gei:neenschap_J?.ehJken door den boerenleider, hoofd van pen, onzen plicht hebben gedaan en breéden kring beschouwingen aan str1Jd vo9rgeve1'. m et t~ - begriJpen of den Nederlandschen Landstand, den een werk tot stand zullen hebben diens persoonlij kheid en iobpbain ook werkeliJk met beguJpen. ,heer Roskam, die betoogde, dat d_e <>ewijd l • Nadat des ochtends de plaatsver- internationale wereldmacht vanuit gebracht, waarvan zij versteld zullen staan. Spr. gaf den boerenleider 0 Dr. Seyss-Inquarl woonde in zijr vangende s~h~l~gsleider Kullmann Londen .e n New-York, die ons boe- en den provincialen leider de verzejongensjaren in het oude marktdmu en de vormmgsleider der N. S. B., rendom liet zuchten onder de macht kering. dat de staf van het bt1Ieau Stannern in het Duitsche bevd-- van Gen~chten, gesproken. hadden van grootkapitaal en wereldtnist, Alkmaar bereid is, zich voor de volle kingseiland Iglau over de idee van het natio~aal-so- voor goed voorbij is. 100 pct. voor dit werk in te z~tten _'.-['oen de wereldoorlog uitbrak Wil$ cialisme, nam in de vergadering de_~ Op het oog,enblik hcerscht maar en dat zij onder alle omstandighe-< hJJ student in de rechten. Hij onder- middags h~t eerst de -plaatsve1 één wet voor het economische leven den, op dezen staf iullen kunnen re~~·ak_zifn studie en stond als keizer- vangend~ leider der N. S. B.. van en wel deze: de oorlog; moet gewor~- kenen. Spr. verzekerde, ervoor te hJk Jager aan het Isonzo-fronl en ~-~ Geelkerken, het woord. zullen waken, dat de geest op het è!en 001:log v~ltooide hij zijn studie Als een roode draad liep de nabureau er eene van kameraadschap ~n vestigde zich vervolgens als adnadruk op de gemenschappelijke de Duitsche legers ouk door dit ge- zal blijven. ,-ocaat te Weenen. , t •·d 1· ht· d • d' bied tegen het imperialisme fan het Rede boere~leider. Hij interesseerde!" zich dadelijk s l'IJ verp ic mg oor iens Westen strijdend moesten aantreden. Het leven van den boer, aldus cle sterk voor het politieke leven en rede heen . Hau}ltdienstleiter Schmidt boerenleider Roskam, wordt genam de~~ aan de. oprichting van den Waarover echter debatieeri men adeld door arbeid en stl'ijd. In strijd OostennJksch-Duit schen volksbond. in Nederland: s prak vervolgens ove1· de beveivindt de rechtgeaarde boer de ver.,.1 welke een Z?O nauw mogelijkcll 1. Wat gebeurt er met Nederland liging van d~ levensmiddelen vulling van zijn leven. De Landband rnet , Du1tschland beoogde. na den oorlog'/ voorziening in Nedel'land en . stand is gekomen, om de boeren er~P. 16 Febr. 1938 begon zijn gro·ote '2. Behouden wij onze diplon1aten kondig·de den a!Jerscherpsten van te 'doordringen dat allee11 de da• politieke laak toen hij benoem<l en wat e1ebeurt er met de geëmigeli,jksc11e strijd ons recht op cei1 werd tot bondsminister_ ':'an _Binnen- greerde ~egeering? sh'ijd tegen den sluikhandel t·echtvaardig aandeel kan verschaffe~ l~ndsche Zaken en Veiligheid. Kort Op de eerste vraag kan gezegd aan. op de goederen der aarde; want W~J aaarop. trachtte Sehusclmigg een worden : W~i nationaal-socialisten Zich keerende· tot de Duilsche telen niet voor ons zelf, maar voo1· staatsgreep te ondernem?n! waarna vragen niet, maar handelen. 12.0~0 partijgenooten zeide hij: Gij zijt, ons ~olk. En ~oot_ zijn de machten Dr. Seyss-Inquart de leidmg nam onzer kameraden staan met de. Duit- zooais gij uit den mond van den in dat volk, ~_1e zich keeren tege11 van het lot der_ Ostmark door ah sche soldaten aan het Oosteli.jk front Rijkscommissaris vernomen hebt, •de den boer_ en z~1n re~ht._ Z?O was ~et 1 h~ofd __van de nieuwe Oos~~mijksc:h, · en strijden tegen he\ b~lsje":'isme. ~è~·lenging van zijn arm. K~i,kt ,d:-~: f ~~'" dien ,,l:b~,:a~l-~(a_pi~~.~::~;c~;~) -~d; ~~g~~u~t.• t;0 ;~e~,:?: ~,V. :":fZ_'Vt~\'.-_'ê\~'l!er deze striid ten emde is. zal ?.~ I � 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 Adriana B. and Peter N. Termaat collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Termaat, Adriana B. (Schuurman) Termaat, Peter N. Description An account of the resource Collection contains genealogical, personal, and family papers and photographs documenting the lives and interests of Adriana and Peter Termaat. The bulk of the materials are related to family history and genealogical research carried out by the Termaats, including research notes and materials about places in the Netherlands that were significant to the Termaat and Schuurman families, such as the city of Alkmaar. Other materials in the collection are related to the Termaats' experiences on the eve of and during the Second World War, especially the German occupation of the Netherlands and the Termaats' participation in organized resistance to the Nazis. Also included are materials that document the family's post-war life in the United States, including their public efforts to recognize, commemorate, and honor people and events significant to World War II. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1869 - 2012 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/719">Adriana B. and Peter N. Termaat collection, RHC-144</a> Subject The topic of the resource Netherlands Netherlands--History--German occupation, 1940-1945 World War, 1939-1945 World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Netherlands Dutch Dutch Americans Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-144 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text Image Type The nature or genre of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng nl Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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-144_Termaat_NWS_1942-07-21-NH-Dagblad Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daglad voor Noord-Holland Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942-07-21 Title A name given to the resource Daglad voor Noord-Holland Description An account of the resource Front page, above the fold of the daily newspaper of Noord-Holland, Netherlands of Tuesday, 21 July 1942. In Dutch Subject The topic of the resource Dutch World War, 1939-1945 -- Netherlands World War, 1939-1945--Occupied territories Netherlands--History--German occupation, 1940-1945 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/719">Adriana B. and Peter N. Termaat collection (RHC-144)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource nl Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d7d29ad8e63c33c5ed6d627d4c9635bc.mp4 653ba9d01e1507a49f7f411c2ea85551 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/38485e77f3fe824c8c23fb14ce9c8ce3.pdf 8d8aca7ba9e4e402df61cc0c644b19fe PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW RICHARD DAHLEN Born: July 16, 1948 in Minneapolis, Minnesota Resides: New Era, Michigan Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, September 20, 2012 Interviewer: Mr. Dahlen, let’s start with a little bit of your background, where you were born and where you grew up. I was born on July 16th, 1948 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was the oldest of three in the family, and my father was a WWII veteran. He was in the heating and air-conditioning business all of his life, and my mom was stay at home. My grandpa had been a WWI veteran and there was some history there in the family. My childhood was probably quite normal, middle class, out in Mineapolis, lots of friends, lots of outdoor activities and different things, so there was nothing particularly special about that. I had a normal childhood growing up, graduated from high school and headed off to college. After two years I just kind of decided the direction I was heading wasn’t where I wanted to go. 1:03 Interviewer: Where were you going to college at the time? I did a year at the University of Minnesota and was there on a kind of financial aid for track, actually. I didn’t like the size mostly, it was so huge and impersonal, and so I went to a small private college in Grand Rapids for a year. While I was there I just kind of felt this wasn’t the direction I wanted. I just kind of wanted to a little time off and reevaluate. During that time I got married, November 1st of 1968 and, of course, at that point in time if you weren’t in school your draft board got interested in you, which they did. I’d had an 1 �interest in the career of air traffic control, actually I wrote a paper on it in junior high school as a career option. And thought I’d like to give it a try and doing so and the Army was a good way because I only had three years of it and if I didn’t like it, I was done with it, so I decided to enlist for a specific MOS. 2:03 I tested out for that and that’s what I ended up doing in the military. Interviewer: So, did you basically go and enlist then before you got any kind of draft notice? I knew my number was up and I was probably going to be getting a notice within the next month or two, so to circumvent that, I went and enlisted. Interviewer: At that point, how was the army kind of promoting enlistment and recruitment? Can you describe what they were offering you? They were offering me three years with a guaranteed MOS. My training was— Interviewer: What is a MOS? MOS is your Military Occupational Specialty, that’s the job you had in the army. The guarantee, at that point, you did not get any kind of an enlistment bonus or anything like that. Instead of being drafted for two years, you enlisted for three; you were tested out ahead of time and guaranteed training. You were not guaranteed that’s the job you would do once you were out of training. 3:02 So, I was guaranteed that I would be trained as an air traffic controller unless I washed out, and the rates were fairly high, and then it was up to the Army where they wanted to put me, so that was the only guarantee I was given. Interviewer: Describe the process of going into the Army and going through examination and training etc. 2 �Okay, I went through a normal enlistment process, went in and sat down and discussed, with the recruiter, what some of the options were. Then, at that point, they actually tested us out. Air traffic control was one that you had to have very high test scores. It was one of the highest rated in the military. It was at kind of a funny point because Army air traffic controllers had always been trained by the Air Force, but just as I was going in, the army was starting their own school and I, actually, ended up being one of the first classes to go through the army training for air traffic control. 4:02 Interviewer: Did the Army, at this point, have its own airplanes or helicopters? They had their own at that point. Army aviation was growing and this was a point in history where the concept of air mobile troops was conceptualized, but hadn’t been really put into practice. I think the Army, at this point, was looking at expansion of that and trying to see how it would work, so they were transferring a lot of stuff from the Air Force over to their own because it was a little more specialized. There were some different operations than the air force was necessarily doing, so they were just starting that school. I went through the testing and qualified that way for air traffic control, and then I had to, actually, go over to the air force base in Detroit and take my physicals. You had to have flight physicals, special eye exams, and a whole bunch of stuff. 5:01 I had to pass all those prior to my enlistment to make sure I could get into that school. Interviewer: Now, a flight physical, does that mean healthy enough to be in a plane? A controller wouldn’t be a pilot? You don’t have to be a pilot, but even in the civilian sector you have to pass what is called a class two flight physical. There are actually three classes of them. As a private pilot I only have to have a third class, as a commercial pilot you have to have a first. In 3 �between there’s another one that fits with some pilots that aren’t commercial and are flying, for instance, for companies that own their own planes etc., that are doing a lot of IFR, or smaller commuters, and for air traffic control you have to have a class two. So, you have to have a fairly high level physical with a lot of eye, hearing etc. I had to have that the whole time I was in the army and through my civilian career in air traffic. Interviewer: So, they test you out in Detroit, and what do you do next? 6:01 I just waited for the results and then, of course, and in August of 1969 I was inducted, so I was taken back down in the Detroit area, given the final physicals, which you always hear about the twenty guys in a room, that was kind of the last straw, loaded on a bus and taken down to Fort Knox. We got there late in the evening, of course we’re greeted by the DI’s, the drill instructors, and at that time they still used a lot of harassment and intimidation. They came on the bus and started screaming at you, calling you names, and giving you fifteen seconds to get all hundred guys off of the bus and lined up out front. Then I noticed, kind of walking around in little groups meeting, and it seemed to me they were evaluating people, you know, in your first little get together—“This one’s good, this one isn’t, keep an eye him”, seemed to be what was going on. We were taken into a barracks, kind of, for your first night. Went to bed and the next morning, of course, we got up, turned in our civilian clothes, got uniforms, got our heads shaved, and were actually assigned to our companies for our basic training. 7:11 Interviewer: At this point, are the people you’re in there with heading to a bunch of different specializations, so they don’t have your group together? Yes, they got—they do have people from all over the place. It wasn’t just my group from Michigan. We were divided up, so I had guys from Michigan in my basic training outfit, 4 �but also, guys from Kentucky, Tennessee, all over the place, and they were going every direction. Some of them knew what they were going to be doing at that point, but a lot of them didn’t. I was fortunate in a way, I was placed in kind of an experimental basic training company. Everybody in there had two, or more, years of college, so we were a little bit older, most of us at least into our twenties, rather than be seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year olds. We did a lot more classroom stuff and a lot less physical stuff. We still had to pass all the physical things etc., but it was a little bit different going through basic, than a lot of people experienced because of that. 8:10 I got leave a couple of weekends and I was home in the Detroit area one weekend, I happened to call my Dad and he about went crazy because assumed I’d gone over the wire. It took me a long time to convince him that they had actually given me leave and it was okay for me to be home that week-end. When he went through basic, you never got anything like that. Interviewer: Did you have any indication if the guys doing regular training were getting the same opportunities? Was the Army kind of now, being a little bit nicer? They weren’t nice, no, I think the experimentation was to see if we have these people that have done some college, perhaps are slightly more motivated. I think we might have had more that enlisted, than were drafted, if you could handle them a little bit differently, but I didn’t see where we were treated any different than the other people. 9:01 We still had the hundred push-ups, scrubbing the bathroom floors with a toothbrush, dry shaving in the morning and if they found a whisker out of place, and all of the inspections, we still had all of that. What we didn’t have was as much of the physical training, we still did a lot of marching, close order drill, and we did have more classroom. One of them I remember was when they came and got a bunch of us from the company and took us into 5 �a special meeting, and a Captain, as I recall, got up there and talked to us for about an hour, “We need guys of your caliber”, and all of this and that and the other thing. Well, it was signing up for explosive ordnance demolition, and he tried to get us to volunteer for that. I think one hundred percent of us were smart enough to say no that particular day, and we walked out. It was just interesting that we got hit pretty frequently with those types of things. Interviewer: How long does basic training go on? Basic training, at that point, was eight weeks, and at the end of it, of course, we had to pass our physical training test, we had written tests that had to be taken, and we got our orders for training. 10:10 From there I was actually sent down to Mississippi, to the Air Force base, because the Army was just phasing out, and some of the people that went earlier than I did, had not had their physicals and so, they wanted qualified people down there to fill up the last couple of classes if any of these people washed out on their physicals. So, I was down there for about two weeks, in Biloxi, Mississippi, shortly after a hurricane, by the way, which made it extra interesting, and from there I was shipped up to Fort Rucker, Alabama, which is where the home of Army aviation was and that’s where our school was started. We arrived there and we were taken to the company area and hauled over to our barracks. We had to take the condemned signs off of the doors in order to open up our barracks to move in. They were old WWII barracks, way on the backside of the post down there. 11:03 They had coal furnaces, which meant some od us didn’t get Christmas off. Made them unique for living because upstairs, they were two story, the upstairs was so hot you could hardly breath and on the lower floor the butt cans would freeze at night it was so cold, so they were very inefficient, old places, but we did 6 �have a brand new program, some excellent labs, and civilian instructors on the aircraft control field, and I felt an excellent school, done really great job, and when we came out of there we knew our stuff and, of course, with all the training down there of the pilots as well, we had a lot satellite bases we went out to for our hands on training after the classroom, and that gave us some very, very good experience before being shipped out. Interviewer: So, you were actually getting to go out and doing the work that you do as a controller, so you can track the planes on the radar and stuff like that? 12:00 Exactly, yes Interviewer: So, what sort of hands on stuff, that you might actually use, were you getting? Well actually I was trained—there were actually three separate parts of army air traffic control. There was the air traffic control tower, which is what most people are familiar with at airports all over the country. There was also, what’s called an en route portion, which was, basically, between airports controlling airplanes, and then there’s ground controlled approach, which is what I was trained in. The GCA portion is actually a type of radar that when it’s in the search mode looks like normal radar, but when you put it into the mode for taking an aircraft on an approach the antenna that normally sweeps, simply goes back and forth and there’s a second antenna next to it that just goes up and down and they just wiggle like that. What it does is on the radar scope it puts two lines, cursers, one of them is the extended runway center line, and the other is a glide path. 13:07 It’s going at a preset angle out from the airport up, basically, to infinity. So, the purpose of GCA is by using heading and varying the rate of decent and getting an aircraft centered on the course line and the glide path, and you can bring them right down to the 7 �end of the runway and into a safe landing. It is mostly used, of course, when the weather is bad and they’re not able to see the airport. So, In GCA we had first of all , if I recall, about eight weeks of classroom training, and we had to pass the FAA written exams for government air traffic controllers. We had about two weeks of lab, where we were in a simulated radar environment. There was somebody behind the wall putting inputs into what then were very huge computers, and that all came up, so they followed our instructions and made it happen on our radar scopes. 14:05 Once we had passed that, then we were sent out to the airfields all around the Fort Rucker area, where the pilots in training would go out and do their exercises. So, we would be in a small radar building there and actually doing the GCA approaches for student pilots, so both of us were learning the process. We went through that, as I recall, for about two weeks. Interviewer: Were there accidents, or near misses, while you were doing that? No there weren’t, and the students were, basically, only training on VFR days, which means good weather. You can be out there and be seen and there were just a few at a time. They would come throughout the day, but only a few at a time at each little airfield, so it wasn’t any kind of congested activity. Interviewer: So, what’s your next stage of training once you complete that work? Once we finished the lab work we graduated. 15:01 We were sent off on our assignments and most of us were assigned to Vietnam, so at that point I got thirty days leave and then reported to Oakland, California and flew over to Vietnam. I landed at Bien Hoa Air Force Base just outside of Saigon. I waited about two days to get me orders to Cu Chi. 8 �Interviewer: Now, when they’re flying you at this point, are they flying you in military aircraft as opposed to civilian ones? We flew commercially, it was civilian aircraft and we kind of did a hop from California to Hawaii. On ours going over, we got in a holding pattern about two o’clock in the morning going into Honolulu, and we’re scratching our heads and the pilots trying to convince us that it was traffic issues, and no, we don’t think so. We found out later one of the gear lights wasn’t working and they weren’t sure that the landing gear was down, so when we got in we had a bit of a layover while they repaired that problem. We flew on to Manila and from Manila over to Saigon. 16:02 Interviewer: What was your impression, or experience, getting off the plane in Saigon? Oh man, it was very early in the morning, as I recall, one or two o’clock. What I remember most is that as you step through the door of the airplane to the outside, the odor and the heat. They both just kind of hit you like a hammer. It was just such a contrast from the air conditioning comfort of the airplane to the hot humid miserable weather of Vietnam, kind of in that one step just struck you as “wow”. Interviewer: What sort of odor was there? Well, the river that flows through Saigon, if you ever saw it from the air, was this dark brown, there were piles of garbage that went down from the banks of the city to the river, and a lot of the city’s waste was dumped right in there as well. 17:02 Plus the fact, on our bases where we were, most of the human waste was burned. The outhouses had split fifty-five gallon drums in them and everyday a popasan would come and take those out, fill them with diesel fuel and light them, and replace them with the barrels from the day 9 �before. So, on a base camp like Cu Chi, which was the home of the 25th Infantry Division, so it was a fairly large camp, there was a lot of that going on and throughout the entire country, so there was always a certain odor in the air that accompanied that. Interviewer: Ok, you get off the plane with that particular greeting, and what did you do next? Well, we went inside this huge building; I believe it was an old hangar, and we simply sat down and waited, which of course the military is famous for. All of our baggage was taken off the plane, kind of thrown in a corner and after a while some officer came in and welcomed us to Vietnam and told us to go find our stuff. 18:07 Because it was so early in the morning, we were again escorted to a barracks area just for that night, and actually weren’t processed into the country until the next morning, about eight or eight thirty in the morning. We still waited another day before we got orders, and at that point I was assigned to the 1st Aviation Brigade and then the 341st Aviation Detachment Divisional, which was out of Cu Chi. Interviewer: Where is Cu Chi relative to Saigon? Cu Chi was about fifty miles northwest of Saigon, right up the highway, about midway between Saigon and Tay Ninh, which was very close to the Cambodian border. Interviewer: Do you remember anything about the trip up there and how did you get there first of all? Just got there on a UH1, nothing spectacular, just kind of wondering what you were getting into. 19:02 It was really a fairly short flight, as I recall, about twenty minutes by helicopter. Just king of seeing the countryside for the first time and what was out there. The area that I was in had been part of the “iron triangle”, the Bola Woods, which during 10 �Tet, was a very hot area. It had been pretty much defoliated by the time I got there, so the countryside was changed a lot, but you were seeing the rice paddies and the people out working those, and scattered little hamlets, totally different than what you see here when you fly from point A to point B. it wasn’t my first helicopter ride, but it was my first one where I had a gunner on each side behind me, and where you’re actually concerned about what’s happening on the ground, so it was kind from interesting from that standpoint. Interviewer: What had you been told about conditions in Vietnam or this kind of assignment before you got there? Did anyone tell you anything? Not really a whole lot, we did have some NCO’s in the company, down at Fort Rucker, that had been in Vietnam. 20:08 They didn’t really talk a lot. There was such a difference between say I Corps and III Corps where I was, going from mountainous terrain up there near the DMZ. Which was, of course, a lot harder than the area I was in down at the III Corps area where it was mostly flat, hotter, and much wetter, so it depended on where you were going, and so really you didn’t have a whole lot of information as far as what you were getting into. Interviewer: What did you see when you got to Cu Chi? When I got out to Cu Chi I saw a fairly good sized base camp, and it looked fairly civilized. Of course you flew in, over the wire, with the guard towers all around. The airport was fair size and it had just one runway, but we had a myriad of heliports just all around the base, being the 25th Infantry headquarters. 21:01 It was a very, very busy airfield and I don’t know how many people we on, but I know the commanding General of the 25th was there with his staff. A lot of the 25th Infantry, the entire 25th aviation was 11 �on the base camp, so it was a large camp. Our particular company area was right on the burb, we were—it was us, a small road and then the wire going out into the wild country. We were a unique company in that we had not only the air traffic controllers, but also, the refuelers and the rearmament people, which was a little bit unusual, so we had a wide variety of people. Most of the POL and rearm guys were kind of trouble makers that other companies wanted to get rid of and shuttled them over there, so we got along well, and worked well together, but there was quite a contrast on the two sides of the company area, as far as the personnel were concerned. 22:00 The people I worked with, you know, great people, I enjoyed the time with them, very professional in how they did their jobs, and just did a conscientious job and excellent jobs. It was a good place to be, I think, from the standpoint of security, although we did get mortar attacks and, of course, now we know about the Cu Chi tunnels, and some of them, actually, came right under the base. We use to wonder how some of them got on the camp, and they would roam around at night and cause trouble, but now we know some of that. Interviewer: Continue here by describing, sort of, some of the typical thing you had to do in the job. Okay, Cu Chi was a very busy tactical airfield; it was one of the two busiest in country, and theirs some argument about which was the busiest. 23:06 We were twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, so basically we got one day off every two weeks. Both the tower and the dushea were staffed twenty four hours a day. Starting out, of course, it was a matter of learning about the area, what surrounded the base camp, what kind of terrain you were dealing with, what kind of weather we had to deal with, and getting use to running the approaches into our airport with the different types of aircraft we had 12 �around there. So, that was just about a month long training cycle before you were sent off to work on your own. I chose, after I was certified in GCA to cross train over to the tower, just to get that experience, and to enjoy a little bit of diversity. So, actually, after that I worked both. I worked GCA far more and worked tower just enough to stay certified and got current working that. 24:03 But, at Cu Chi, we averaged about fifty eight thousand operations a month, and an operation is either a takeoff or a landing. As I said, we had the one runway, then we had the POL and rearm area, and there were helipads all over the base camp, so you actually be running simultaneous operations going or coming from different directions into different locations on the base camp. The GCA, all you could run them to is the runway, because that’s where we were set up to get them, but from the tower, I remember a lot of walking around and you just—you’re there, you’re going there, you’re there, you’re going there, you’re going out that way, you’re doing this—and as long as you didn’t point two places in a row you were okay. Most everybody kind of worked that way, because, especially during daylight hours, it was relatively hectic. We did get up, during the Cambodian time, when we had several additional helicopter companies on the base camp, to around eighty thousand operations a month. 25:08 One of the things I brought up before was the professionalism, you think these were twenty one, twenty two year old guys controlling twenty one, twenty two, twenty three year old pilots, and in the time the 341st was there, there was never an incident attributable to any of the guys that were air traffic controllers, and I think that’s a pretty good record for a bunch of young hot shots doing a job like that. Interviewer: How much of your business, at least in the tower, had to do with controlling the helicopters? There were a lot more of them than of the other planes. 13 �The vast majority of it on an army base was helicopters. We had companies with what they called the Loaches, the OH-6 and OH-58, which were smaller observational helicopters. They weren’t really gunships or attack helicopters. Of course, a lot of the UH1 Huey was probably the helicopter most associated with Vietnam, and we had loads of those, as well as CH-47 Chinooks, which you still see around today, they’re the ones with the two big rotors, one in the front and one in back. 26:09 We’d get a few Skycranes in there, the CH-54. We didn’t have a station there, but they would come in now and then, but the vast majority, I would say probably seventy to seventy five percent of our operations were helicopters. We did have a company of O-1 Bird Dogs, which was a small tandem two seat aircraft assigned there, as well as a company of Air Force OV-10, which was a twin engine observation aircraft. They generally went out and ran spotting for like F4 drops and things like that. We got a lot of army and air force C-7, C123’s and C-130’s, which were larger cargo aircraft. On occasion, just for grins, we’d get some fighters that would come in and do a little approaches and stuff, and I did a few GCA’s with them. 27:00 That generally upset the General though, because they liked to hit their afterburners and make a loud noise when they went over, and most of the senior staff didn’t like that too much though. We tried to do a minimum of that, but it was a wide variety of aircraft that we worked with, but the majority was helicopters. Interviewer: Were there any problems concerning the approaches to the base with anti-aircraft fire or that sort of thing? A lot of the advisories that we had to give and vectoring that we gave dealt a lot with artillery. We had an artillery company right behind our barracks that shot out, almost straight out the approach to the runway and we had them all around the base camp. 14 �When they were firing, or artillery from other areas going over us, it was up to us to keep the aircraft out of those firing lanes so they weren’t in danger of being hit. Another one too, would be approaches if we knew anyone was out there, quite often the approaches would change to a very high approach and almost dive at the airfield as they came in to land. 28:05 Interviewer: Anyone out there, would that be the Viet Cong or somebody like that might have a—did they have things like shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles or that kind of equipment? They didn’t have that at that time; there was nothing in the shoulder fire. Once they got low enough—and I had a couple of friends that were actually severely injured, and, of course, we had a number killed by small arms fire, because a lot of what the helicopters did was low level. I used to do flying on my days off just because there wasn’t much else to do, so I would go over to one of the companies, since we knew a lot of the pilots, and just give their gunner or their crew chief the day off and fly. You got use to tree top level and if you got into an open area and they could see you coming, you were a pretty open target and some of the missions I went on were the low level sniffer missions, which they actually had a thing in the aircraft that sensed residual heat, a collector that almost looked kind of like a vacuum cleaner hanging out the side of the aircraft, and that had to be low level, so you were down and you were very susceptible to small arms. 29:15 Interviewer: Did you have much occasion to get off the base or did you basically stay there through your tour? I tried to get off as much as I could. Like I say, after you’ve been there for a while you’ve kind of seen it all and done it all, so I would go flying on my days off. I did a 15 �couple of road trips, one to Tay Ninh, which was a very beautiful and interesting area I went one time with a chaplain up there and we went down this road and suddenly he stopped and said, “Get out and keep your weapons with you”, and he pointed up to a line of trees maybe a hundred yards away from us and said, “That’s Cambodia”, and the first words out of my mouth were ,”What are we doing here?” I mean, we were alone, way out there. 30:06 I did get down to the Saigon area on occasion and Saigon city itself was off limits a lot, during the time I was there, simply because so many soldiers were getting into a lot of trouble. I was able to over fly it on numerous occasions and get a lot of pictures and things of the area, so I got to know it a little bit. Interviewer: What did they do to keep the soldiers and people occupied and entertained, at that point, if they’re not sending them into the city? Not much, we did have movies, and we had kind of a club in our company area, and, you know, unfortunately one of the favorite pastimes was to drink when you were off, because there wasn’t much else to do. We did get movies in there, and on occasion we got shows. A lot of them were Korean rock groups that came through. Some of them were pretty good, and some of them not. 31:01 In December of 1970 they had actually—this was during a time when we were taking a lot of the troops out of Vietnam. The 25th Infantry Division had left and Cu Chi was closed. I was transferred, for just a few weeks, down to Bien Hoa, the Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base. I joked about it a little bit because being there was kind of like being in civilization again, but they wanted to reopen the airfield at Cu Chi, so myself and another fellow, who had been a controller, were sent out there to train new troops and reopen the airfield. On Christmas day of 1970 we sent all the new guys down to Saigon to see the Bob Hope show, while we set 16 �up the tower and got everything working. We were both short, we each only had about two months left and figured, “They deserve it, they got a year left”, and we stayed behind and did that while they got to go down and spend Christmas Day down there. Once in a while, Thanksgiving, they did a turkey dinner, and tried to make the meal as special as they could, although it was unique because I think Vietnam’s the only been where the cooks could take bread hot out of the oven and it was already stale. 32:13 So, to call the meal special, that was kind of a relative thing. Christmas, they generally tried to do something special, so there were things they tried to do to make it a little better. It didn’t much matter, you still had to work and do the job, because for the most part, it was just another day. Interviewer: You had mentioned the Vietnamese had infiltrated into the base etc. What were you aware of, or what kind of stuff was going on like that? Well, on several occasions we caught some of the mamasans, who were our hooch maids, pacing off distances between buildings, or between the buildings and the wire. There were several occasions where the papasans that were barbers during the day were back at night with razors and they actually went into some company areas and tried to slit throats and do damage like that. 33:06 So, there were things that went on. We never had any frontal attacks like they used to, and we never had any mass attacks, but of course mortars, but that’s an impersonal—I mean that’s just lobbing something in there and hoping for the best. But most of it was just those little irritating things that caused minor damage, but still, always made you wonder. Interviewer: What sort of Vietnamese presence was there, actually, on the base during the day? 17 �There was quite a bit, actually, a lot of the workers, the papasans that were handling the barber issues, and the human waste issues, and things. We did have a lot of hooch maids that were actually in charge of keeping our hooches clean, doing the laundry, things of that nature. They worked in our kitchen, and the various maintenance issues around the camp, so there was, actually, quite a strong Vietnamese presence on the base camp. 34:03 Interviewer: Did you have any contact with the South Vietnamese Army or Air Force people at all? Yes, we did, we had some South Vietnamese Army troops based at the camp and, of course, as controllers, we did work with the VNAF. That was always a thrill because; although they kind of spoke English and you could almost understand them, I think most of the time they didn’t understand, so when they were coming into the airfield, they kind of did whatever was expedient no matter what you told them to do, so I had several occasions where I had an aircraft, military, coming in from this side, and a VNAF all of a sudden decides he’s going to come in from the other way and their landing head on, or taking off into one coming in, so it made for some real interesting times working with them. When we went back and opened Cu Chi, in December of 1970, we had a company of O1 U.S. pilots there, but everybody else that worked was VNAF. 35:07 Interviewer: What sense did you have, at that point, of the morale, or the attitude of the Vietnamese troops that you were dealing with? At that point it seemed to be good. You get into a funny area here because I guess I always felt that I knew, and I just recently saw a really neat T-shirt that I’ve got to get one of. It shows the Vietnam Service Medal and it says, “When I left we were winning”, 18 �and I think that’s true all the way up to 1972 when the last troops pulled out. At that point in time, by late 1970, even when the Americans were pulling out, things were going well. Because of our support, the South Vietnamese Army was doing pretty well, they were coming on strong, and I think the Easter Offensive, even in 1973, I believe it was, when we gave air support to the South Vietnamese Army, they did okay. Interviewer: It was 1972 36:00 1972, yes, okay—at that point, I think they felt good about themselves, and we felt fairly good about them. And I think they were capable of doing the job, they did not have enough stuff to do the job, and of course, I think that was our promise to them, “We’ll provide the stuff, and you take over the business at hand”. I felt they were capable in a lot of ways. I’d maybe liked to have some Vietnamese controllers with us to kind of deal with some of the issues, but we didn’t have that luxury, so we just dealt with them ourselves the best we could, but I think overall in working, they seemed committed to what they were doing, they seemed to be fairly well trained and I felt we’re doing a good job. Interviewer: Did you wonder what motivated the people that were sneaking around on the base and made trouble for you? No, I don’t think I wondered about it. The thing most of the troops seemed to wonder about—I don’t know that the questions were answered sufficiently for me until within the last few years being able to look back in hindsight and read the writings of some of the people involved. 37:08 Our questions were, “Why exactly are we here? And what difference is it going to make to these people?” I mean, as you traveled around Vietnam and you see these little farming villages and rice paddies and very little civilization as we 19 �would consider it. The question was, “What difference is anything ever going to make?” I think after it fell we realized it made a big difference and still is today. The reasons we were there, at that point, as I say, I don’t think were sufficiently explained for us to ever answer that question while we were there. To do a job, we did our job, I think we did it honorably, that was my feeling the whole time, at least the people I worked with and the vets I know, but we never really understood why. I think today I understand that basically we drew a line in the sand and said, “You’re not expanding any farther”. 38:05 But I don’t think that was ever sufficiently explained to the soldiers or the country at large, at that point in time to understand why. Interviewer: How long was your tour? My tour ended up being eleven and a half months. It was supposed to be a year, but with the drawdown, at that point they were giving people a two week early come home, which was a nice gift at the end of the tour., your short timer calendar all of a sudden got a little shorter and that was nice. Interviewer: You were in for a three year hitch at the point, so how much time did you have left on that? I had a year and a half left after that, so when I returned to the states I had a thirty day leave and then I was assigned to Fritzsche Army Airfield out at Fort Ord in California. Interviewer: What were you doing there? The same, I was a GCA controller and then I cross trained up in the tower there, when I got done. A whole different deal there—kind of the nice thing is we were only a short distance from the Navy base at Salinas and they did not have a GCA facility. 39:05 We got a lot of the Navy aircraft coming over to train with us otherwise it was really, really 20 �slow compared to Vietnam. At that point, actually, I began taking my own flying lessons at a little club there at the airport, so I would go out a lot of times, when we were having a hard time making the numbers we needed to stay current, and I would fly GCA approaches for the other controllers to help them stay current, which was enjoyable for me. It gave me a few hours and it gives you a different perspective being on the other side of the process. Interviewer: What was Fort Ord like at that time? Fort Ord was still a training facility, and that was unique in that I got tapped once to go to PT tests for recruits. Before we could do that we had to take a four hour test in how you relate to the troops. We were doing the PT tests and by that time they had transitioned to the volunteer army, so there were a lot of things that had been done to us in basic training that were no longer allowed. 40:18 Calling them names of certain types, yelling and screaming and a lot of the things, but we were actually trained in what we could and could not do while we were grading the PT tests. I went out and did that. Fort Ord also had a couple of infantry companies and a rather large MP presence there. At that point it was a very big base, but now it’s been closed down completely, but when I was there it was quite different. Interviewer: What options did you have for entertainment there? Well, of course, we made some trips up to San Francisco, that was a fairly short drive and you had a lot of the great scenic places, Carmel, Big Sur, seventeen mile drive and things right in the local area. 41:00 On the camp, not a whole lot, and the airfield was actually kind of separate from the base camp, so we didn’t even have a lot of contact with the base camp. Those that lived on base lived there, but being married, I lived off post, so I was 21 �very rarely on the base camp, but they did have the usual theater, some museums, PX, of course, and commissary. We went on camp for those kinds of things, but otherwise I didn’t have, really, a whole lot to do with it. Interviewer: Did you have kids at that point? No I didn’t Interviewer: What was your wife doing while you were off in Vietnam? She was back home, and she stayed with her parents in the Detroit area and was working at one of the local banks there as a teller, and when we were out at Fort Ord, she also got a job there at a local bank. Interviewer: What did you do, finally, when your three years were up? At the end of my three years the army actually had a program called Project Transition, which was to take soldiers and train them for leaving the military and having a civilian occupation. 42:06 So, I actually went for about six weeks and worked at the Monterey tower, at the civilian airport there in Monterey. At the time, the tower chief tried to get me to get the FAA to hire me and keep me there, which I actually didn’t want. I’d been a year in Vietnam and a year in California and honestly, I missed the seasons. I wanted to get back here and fortunately, at the time, the FAA wasn’t hiring, so that didn’t come through, but then we made—kind of secured this route home. I visited one of my CO’s from Vietnam, who at that time was the commander of the National Guard in Montana, and I stopped and visited my brother in law, and his wife, up at the air force base up in Minot, North Dakota on the way home. Headed back and visited my parents and, actually, in a matter of days found a job, so we moved to Minneapolis and lived there for 22 �several years before moving to Alaska for a little bit, and then down here to West Michigan. 43:05 Interviewer: What then are you doing in West Michigan? Well, right now I work as a mortgage consultant in this area. When we first moved down here I was on staff at a little camp in the upper Silver Lake, Hart area, actually, and I have been in that area ever since. So, for about fifteen years we have been down here, kind of done a variety of things, and right now working in the mortgage industry. Interviewer: So, did you do any air traffic controlling work after you left the military? I did, when I first left the military the FAA was not hiring, so I worked for several years in the finance area and ended up working as a loan officer in a bank. After about three and a half years the FAA began hiring, so I went and tested and was hired in at Minneapolis Center and worked there as an air traffic controller for eight years. Interviewer: How did you wind up in Alaska? Well, after the big air traffic control strike, which I was a part of, was out working and actually heard about a radio station up there, it was a missionary endeavor, and they were looking for announcers and I ended up there as the station manager and kind of the morning guy for five years. 44:14 Interviewer: Ok, so that’s sort of an interesting hop there and so forth. Did you find the period you were going through the service, and so forth, that your faith helped to keep you on a reasonably straight line or deal with some of the stuff that came up? 23 �Absolutely, yeah, it definitely helped and I think it gives you a calmness of mind sometimes that the others might not have. You can relate to some of the things that happen a little bit differently. Being married, I think, kept me out of trouble in some areas as well, because there were a lot of things going around over there that you didn’t want to catch and it kept you from doing some of those things that cause those. Interviewer: How do you think your time in the military, generally, has affected you? How you view things, or what you do in your life? 45:03 I probably think the biggest, and foremost, is appreciation of this country. When you get over to some of those places and realize how blessed we are in this country. We can complain a lot, but my goodness, we’ve got stuff that those people don’t even dream of , so it’s given you just a huge appreciation of all the wonderful things we have here. And appreciation for the people of this country, I think over there, not that you didn’t appreciate them, but life was so different and their struggling for every little thing, it makes you look at life with a whole different eye. I think probably politics made me more conservative, because as I look at things I see signs around that say, “War is not the Answer”, and I think, “It’s not the answer to what?” Sometimes it’s necessary, there’s no two ways about it, it needs to be done. 46:07 I think one of the neat quotes I’ve read recently was Colin Powell was asked one time when we first went to Iraq if this was American expansionism again, and he said, “You know, America sent thousands of men and women around the world for the cause of freedom, and the only ground we’ve ever asked for was to bury those that didn’t come home”. I think that’s true, it’s not for expansionism, it’s been for a principled reason that we’ve done this, and I think at least when I was in Vietnam we felt that and not known exactly what it was, but at least we 24 �felt, “There’s a principle here and a reason for this although I don’t know what it is, I’m here to fulfill whatever that is. My country’s asked me to do this, I’m doing it for that reason” and, like I say, it was honorable service. At lot of times I look back now and I read things and I still hear things about Vietnam that—it’s hard to deal with, and for a long time I didn’t really let people know I’d been in Vietnam, and it was just one of those things that you didn’t talk about. 47:08 It’s really only been in the last three years that I’ve said, “You know something, I can be proud of this and what I did”, but it keeps me on a more conservative plain. I think the whole experience of having been there, it changes your life and I don’t know if it’s easy to say how, but you come back different, you know that. When my daughters unit came back I had sent some communications there and said, “You are not the same person you were when you left”. You change and a lot of people had a hard time living with that, a lot of families had a hard time dealing with it. Fortunately, my wife was good enough to go through that process with me , and probably kept me from having to deal with some of the stronger things. I have some friends who were infantry or Marine people and they had some struggles, and I don’t blame them. 48:02 Some of the things they saw and experienced were difficult. I didn’t go through a lot of those things, but you still come back and your life is affected, and the whole rest of your life is. Sometimes I don’t know that I can exactly say, “This and this”, but I know it made me a different person. Interviewer: You said you did your best to not let people even know that you had been in Vietnam. On occasion some people did find out you had been there and so forth, what kind of response, or reaction, did you get? 25 �Well, it was interesting—a few years ago when I really sat down and started reviewing Vietnam, finding some of the guys that I had served with over there, I got to thinking about when I got home. When I left the base in California after turning in my jungle gear and getting my stateside, I flew to Detroit, in uniform, carrying a duffle bag, and from the airport I took a limousine out to where my wife was living, to a little restaurant, went inside and called her to have her come and pick me up and then waited outside of that restaurant. 49:08 I can only remember two people talking to me. That’s the person that sold me the airline ticket and the person that sold me the ticket on the limousine. Nobody on the limousine, nobody on the airplane, nobody, as I waited outside the restaurant, said a word. I didn’t realize that at the time, I don’t think, but as I thought backwards, I thought, “That’s kind of strange”. Friends that had not been in the service weren’t antagonistic, but it was kind of like they almost didn’t know how to treat you and what to do, so there was a distance. There was a bit of a wall that was there. I don’t know if they were dealing with, “Is this stuff we’re hearing about these guys true”, or if it was just, “You’ve been through something that caused that to be there”. Like I say, I know I wasn’t the same when I came home, but there was something there for a long time, it was just different. 50:08 Most people that you talk to kind of treat you with indifference, even until today I make it a point when I see a guy with a veterans hat, I’ll walk up and say, “Thanks”. If it’s a Vietnam veteran I always say, “Welcome home”, and it’s like old home week. I don’t care where they served, what they did or anything else, it’s like two buddies just got together. The general public, I think they’re still just—there’s something about Vietnam that they don’t know how to deal with. I think there’s a history that—boy, a lot of what’s out there is not true. It’s hard to understand because it’s the first was that 26 �was not a frontal kind of war, the enemy wasn’t there and us here, it was all around you, so how you dealt with that, how the war was fought, some of the results of things were different. 51:03 Unfortunately a lot of the news that came into people’s homes, that was the first one where you were really hearing kind of instantaneous news, and a lot of it was just plain inaccurate. A lot of the commentators, you know, when they tried to make sense of it, were just plain wrong. I’m sorry, but all you can say. A lot of the information that’s been out there for thirty plus years is incorrect and the people—the Vietnam vets haven’t done a good job of changing it, I don’t think. We haven’t communicated well, and so a lot of people just don’t know the difference. I think they still don’t know how to react. I think the country realizes they treated us wrong and their trying to make that up to the current soldier, but they still don’t know what to do about us. Interviewer: Maybe part of what you got going on is that there was always a political dimension to Vietnam and reasons why we were there. There was a lot of stuff going on at a political level that was, in some cases, willfully deceitful and in many ways embarrassing in retrospect. 52:10 There were also a lot of issues that sort of doubted the validity of the South Vietnamese government and how it treated its own people. A lot of the political negativity, a lot of the negativity, really, that is kind of still there in the post era culture, kind of looks at that. If you go to the military side and find, on the whole, military performance rather better than they’ve had credit for, and they were accomplishing with what they had, but there were political issues beyond that, that were not things under their control. Where the politics get into it, into the outsider in these other area, which may have 27 �something to do with it, but what people lose track of is in order to form a democracy in a country, you have to go and do that and how to figure—I think they are trying, and maybe remembering better now, that some of the baggage that you’re carrying is somebody else’s. 53:10 Exactly, and I think another one of the problems that hasn’t been completely corrected, although I think they’re better, is that the government, along with the shenanigans and things that were going on, also had their nose too much in the military side of the war. They were not letting the military fight the war; they were dictating how it was to be fought, which also created some issues that hurt the military and it hurt our relationship with the public. Perhaps the perception was there, “Well you’re just taking this and carrying it out”, well I sat in briefings with soldiers when I flew sometimes where they were told, “You can’t shoot until you’ve been shot at”, which was a directive that came down from congress. Nonsense, you know—well, of course, what was reported back here, “Troops refuse to go out and fight” , well of course you did, who’s going to do that under that, you know, but most of the troops didn’t refuse to go out and fight. 54:06 When you’re told you’re going to be court marshaled if you pull the trigger first, and I saw a soldier ask a question, “You mean to tell me if I see a guy right over there aiming at my chest, I’ve got to wait until he shoots?” And he was told, “Yes’, well bologna. Number one, that’s no way to fight a war, I mean you’re in it or you’re not, and these were some of the thing—well by then we were pulling out. I mean, things were so confusing and so chaotic sometimes that it was hard to know. Then I read an article last week that they were-- some in the main stream media were hoping that Haditha would be the final atrocity of Iraq like My Lai was of Vietnam. I sat there and looked at that and 28 �thought, “Why is an entire war defined by an atrocity?” That’s incorrect, that’s looking for the wrong thing, but I think Vietnam was looked at that way, in a lot of ways , and still is, so there’s just a discomfort and I think what’s happening is the vets are saying, “We’ll just take care of ourselves then”. 55:12 I hope that it doesn’t get to the point where we say, “To heck with the public, we don’t care what you think”. I’d like to see history corrected and the honor given to the two million plus that were over there that they deserve. Interviewer: One other thing I’d like to touch on before we close—something we talked about before we started the interview and that’s this whole pattern of how they rotated the soldiers in and out of the service. How did that work and what sort of effect do you think that had on the people going through it? Boy, when I see what they’re doing today, and I’ve got some firsthand experience because my daughter’s in the National Guard and has been to Iraq. I went over alone; I didn’t know any of the guys on the airplane with me when I flew over. I didn’t know any of them when I came home. When I got there I was a new guy thrust in with a bunch of people I didn’t know. 56:04 I went through my training and once I was certified, I went through my year, and at the end of that year I came home. You knew that was coming up, in fact, the entire time you were there you were checking off days. If you compare it to WWII it really breaks up continuity. You don’t really get proficient in the job I did, probably, in six months or so--where you’re really good, and by then you’re starting to say, “I’m on the downhill side here, I’m heading out, and I’m going to be a little more careful”. When you go up in the tower and look at the bullet holes in the walls, because it was the highest thing around, you start getting this attitude, “Maybe I don’t like being 29 �here so much”. There was a disconnect between the troops, I think, and the new people a lot of times felt like new people. They were outsiders for a period of time, almost like you kind of had to prove yourself a little bit to get into the in crowd. 57:07 Then I kind of had my group of friends and new people that came in had a hard time. They were almost forming another group, and so there was a constant disconnect, a constant outflow of experience and inflow of inexperience that was taking place at all levels, and it was the same with the commanding officers. I had three commanding officers in the year that I was in Vietnam. One of them was there for only two months because his assignment coming into Vietnam was supposed to be something else, and we knew he was temporary when he came in. But, you’ve got that going on at all levels, from the officers to the staff people, to the controllers, to the POL, and even the pilots you’re working with. They got to know you and trust you and work well with you and then they leave, and so there was just a constant state of flux. 58:03 How it affects the outcome, I don’t know if it would have changed anything, but it certainly created tension thought the time you were there. Interviewer: Because you do kind of hear from people coming back from Iraq, and so forth, what keeps them going and how they do it? One thing that develops is the buddies or the people you are with and you have that. The later stages of WWII you had some replacements going to combat units and you got kind of the same thing, but for the most part, until the very end of the war, you were also in for the duration, so if you survived you got along. I think we kind of pulled this together pretty well and at the end we’re running out of tape at the same time. Thank you very much for talking to us. Thank you for having me. 58:45 30 � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Dahlen, Richard (Interview transcript and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dahlen, Richard Description An account of the resource Richard Dahlen served in Army between 1969 and 1972, and spent about a year as an air traffic controller for the Army at Cu Chi in Vietnam. He discusses his specialized training for his assignment, his work at Cu Chi, and his impressions of both the American operations that he was involved in and the Vietnamese people he worked with and observed on the base. He also discusses his views of the war itself and comments on common misperceptions of the war and the men who fought it. 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 Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-10-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DahlenR 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ebbb36ad0adfcc4fc4ef2ee0b4762800.mp4 f376c9a2a90faff5e89a5856e17a04da https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3607f4b10456e21f6f72472296815f9c.pdf 1a79337874e4a7d7fcf5fd74cfa55400 PDF Text Text GVSU Veteran’s History Project Vietnam War Gregory Dahlke Interview Total Time: 50:16  (00:05) Born March 12th, 1948  (00:08) Served in the army during the Vietnam conflict Highest rank achieved was an E5 (00:53) Enlisted in the US Army in 1967 o Training at Ft. Knox o AIT at Ft. Leonard Wood, learned to be an equipment operator (1:13) March 1968, assigned to 20th Engineer Brigade and 588th Engineer Battalion attached to the 25th Infantry Division (1:35) Enlisted because lots of guys that were drafted ended up in the infantry, Mr. Dahlke wanted to choose his job and pursue it as a civilian (2:09) His first tour in Vietnam was in the Tay Ninh Province o War Zone C, 50 miles NW of Saigon (2:40) Because of the influx later, had an option of being transferred to another outfit or extending their tours in Vietnam by 1 month o Extended his tour o Ended up going up north o Spent 9 months in the division that went north (3:40) After his tour was done, he was reassigned to Germany o Didn’t have a job assignment, and got permission to go back to Vietnam (4:25) As an engineer, he worked as a heavy equipment operator o Bulldozers o Lane-clearing, bunker construction, road repair, mines weeps, etc. (5:22) Saw firefights often o Engineers worked strictly in the field (6:30) Met several good friends in the army (8:00) Recalls when a truck ran over a mine (9:16) Wrote letters to family and friends while overseas (10:30) Spent most of the time working in the field; even worked overnight o Guard duty included (11:30) They ate C-rations and similar meals o They couldn’t have alcohol in the field but sometimes they did anyway (12:45) Says that certain wars can be won, and others can’t o               �Believes Vietnam was one of the wars that couldn’t be won; had been going on too long o He says he and the others he served with were aware of this; just “going through the motions” (15:02) Says some of the war movies made about Vietnam were realistic, while others weren’t o Platoon was realistic to him, as well as some parts of Apocalypse Now (16:25) LZ Sunday Punch, a large firebase o Lots of artillery, 100 infantry o He was here for 30-40 days o Recalls a time with the colonel was displeased with how long everyone’s hair had gotten  Sent several barbers over o Mortar rounds hit shortly after the helicopters arrived, the barbers went away (18:10) Senior Heavy Equipment Operator o In charge of 3 bulldozers as an E5 o Didn’t go to E6 because he would be an NCO and couldn’t use bulldozers o Never saw officers; they didn’t come in the field o Often would hear snipers firing while operating heavy equipment (20:50) Recalls a time when he was clearing jungles and saw one of the lights on his bulldozer go out because of sniper rifles o Jumped off the wrong side and almost got shot (21:54) At times it felt like an oven inside of the bulldozer (22:45) It was hard to shower because they didn’t have a lot of access to good water o Sometimes did when the monsoon rains came (23:55) Could get in trouble for missing duty due to sunburn; had to protect themselves (24:15) Mr. Dahlke and the other engineers did their own logistics and called in supplies when needed o Food was limited; hot meals were rare o They couldn’t hunt because the animals were more likely to hunt them o Knew engineers who had snakes fall on their laps o He accidentally knocked over a beehive (27:00) The first time he came back from his first tour was in Ft. Lewis, WA o Didn’t notice any angry protesters o This was in 1971 (29:26) When he came back to the states later, ended up at Ft. Carson, Colorado (31:50) Ended up getting an early release o Went to GRCC for a bit when he returned o            �Got married and worked in a factory (33:30) Says everytime he smells diesel fuel he has a small flashback (34:10) Took a helicopter in Vietnam to go places as often as someone would take a car somewhere (34:20) Talks about other people who reacted to their experience in Vietnam differently (35:56) Learned that they had to do what they had to do, whether or not it was popular with the people (37:00) Shows his father’s uniform o Also showed his own Class A uniform o Logs and journals were shown as well -> situation reports (41:10) Was wounded in the neck; stayed in hospital for several days and went back to the camp o Later their camp was hit by an RPG (43:00) Talked about working with minesweeping teams (44:10) Intended to stay in touch with guys he served with, but it never happened o Says this happened often (46:55) Says he was proud to have served o          � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Dahlke, Gregory (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dahlke, Gregory Description An account of the resource Mr. Dahlke served in the US Army as an engineer during the Vietnam War. He received his basic training at Fort Knox, and AIT at Fort Leonard Wood. This is where he learned to be an equipment operator. Much of his job included operating heavy equipment, like bulldozers. He cleared lanes, built bunkers, repaired roads, and did mine sweeps. In Vietnam, he served with the 588th Engineer Battalion, attached to the 25th Division. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Donker, Jordan (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-05-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DahlkeG0200V 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f7a35d6891ecece63c2fe05afe3c20aa.mp4 9f1b515908622b2c6ac0ffd0eea5cf44 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/437e8320fe20eec634472279e1ae85ce.pdf f1bac0b33417f469f2e6c316af342e75 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Edward Dailey (00:43:04) (00:17) Introduction: • Born in Hazel Park, Michigan in 1932. • He attended grade school in Rochester, Michigan. • Left school in the eighth grade to work for a cement contractor. • He had five brothers. • He had to walk four and a half miles to school every day. • He would hunt with his brothers frequently. • Grew up on five acres of land. (08:55) Enlistment and Basic Training: • Went to Pontiac, Michigan when he was seventeen years old and joined the service in 1949. • Was shipped from Detroit, Michigan to Fort Riley, Kansas for basic training. • Basic training consisted of 14 weeks of training. (00:10:40) Korea: • He was shipped straight from Korea after basic training. • He was stationed in Korea on his 18th birthday. • Served as a member of an infantry unit. • Shortly after he arrived, a hospital outside of Seoul was bombed. • Dailey and other men had to take out the snipers that were targeting the hospital, making it impossible to rescue those trapped, before any rescue missions could be accomplished. • He shot the nose off of a sniper. • After Seoul, he was shipped to the 38th parallel. • The temperatures would reach –39 degrees at night. • Every morning, while serving on the 38th parallel, there would be frozen bodies everywhere. • The army was under constant fire. • He became a sergeant while serving in Korea. • Most of the time, he carried four guns on him. • He shot seven North Korean soldiers at one point. • He remained on the 38th parallel for most of the time. • He and his friend became lost in enemy territory for ten straight days. They ran out of their supplies, to sustain themselves, he would bark and any other vegetation. When he returned to camp, he remembers only wanting a Budweiser and a bowl of chili. • While in enemy territory, he remembers encountering the enemy quite a few times. �• • He received a twenty-six day furlough after serving on the front line for a year. The last two years of his service was spent at Fort Riley. (19:30) Fort Riley, After Korea: • While still serving in Fort Riley, his job was to go after soldiers who went AWOL. • Remembers spending a week in a “whore house” in Seoul. • He obtained the rank of Buck Sergeant while serving. • Drove to Omaha, Nebraska to pick up a man who went AWOL and ended up in a mental institution. • Locked his company commander in the stockade when he returned to the base drunk. (25:45) Korea Continued: • Remembers the firefights as “scary as hell.” • While on the front line, the men would sleep in tents, and take turns guarding their tents. (27:15) After Fort Riley: • After serving in Fort Riley for two years, he left the service in 1952. • He married after he left the service, in 1953. • He had four children with his wife. • He worked as a truck driver for Marathon Petroleum for 35 years. � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Dailey, Edward (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dailey, Edward Description An account of the resource Edward Dailey served in the US Army between 1949 and 1954. He served in Korea as an infantryman. He describes engaging enemy snipers while guarding a hospital in Seoul, as well as combat on the front lines near the 38th parallel. He spent his last two years in the army working at Fort Riley, Kansas. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-01-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DaileyE 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/79f288d209b3653a13dfe31b5e75188a.pdf ec66432fa5327a8e652280e025164112 PDF Text Text � 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 Incunabula Description An account of the resource The term incunabula refers to books printed between 1450 and 1500, approximately the first fifty years following the invention, by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, of printing from moveable type. Our collection includes over 200 volumes and numerous unbound leaves from books printed during this period. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1450/1500 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Incunabula Collection (DC-03) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United </a> Subject The topic of the resource Incunabula Printing 1450-1500 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource text Language A language of the resource eng it la nl de Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 Casus summarii Decretalium Sexti et Clementinarum [folium 79] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-03_079Dalen1479 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dalen, Michael de Description An account of the resource One leaf from Casus summarii Decretalium Sexti et Clementinarum by Michael de Dalen. Printed in Basel by Michael Wenssler on August 25, 1479. Illustrated with red rubricated initials. [GW M23131; ISTC im00532000] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Basel: Michael Wenssler Subject The topic of the resource Incunabula Printing 1450-1500 Language A language of the resource la Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1479 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Type The nature or genre of the resource Text https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4f82791703b571ed8bfa2dbf4e6241e5.mp4 e83c7ebba43b3f3d1c9d3e6e709e31b2 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9f2d97f2f8a0f359b1fcb99bf1f7be28.pdf 60ca03000984c63f8f21446457e11f75 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Harry Daleure (1:05:07) (00:20) Background Information • • • • • • Harry was born in Salem, Indiana on July 16, 1926 The area had bad weather and lots of snow He lived in a small town of about 5,000 and it was a nice area for him to grow up in Harry’s parents were immigrants from Greece The family actually moved back to Greece for 1.5 years during the Depression Harry grew up on a farm and enjoyed playing basketball (8:55) The Marine Corps • • • • • Harry graduated high school in 1943 and then joined the Marine Corps He took a train to San Diego to meet a very rough Marine Sergeant for basic training During training they got up every day at 4:30am and went through obstacle courses They did their marching and courses two times a day in very hot weather After training they had wanted to send him to take classes, but he told them that he had joined in order to fight and was not interested in classes (13:15) Harry is Shipped Overseas • • Harry arrived on Choiseul Island, about 80 miles from Guadalcanal They had traveled on a large ship across that Pacific for three days (15:40) Okinawa • • • • • • Harry and his men were lead by a “90 day wonder” Their leader lined them up in a large line one day for roll call and 49 men were shot and killed by enemy that had been hiding Speaking of the leader, Harry said that he “got his head blown off too and it wasn’t by the Japanese” When they had first arrived in Okinawa, they did not encounter enemy for days Many American soldiers were buried on the island and their families never got to see them They had to bury the dead right away because the smell was awful in the hot weather (27:50) Harry Becomes a Prisoner of War �• • • • • Harry was caught by the Japanese on the island They forced him to live in a tiny cave with about 15 other men for six weeks They were fed rice once every few days and Harry thought he was going to die in that tunnel After a while the Japanese allowed them to come out at night to stretch and this is when the men finally made their move Many men were shot at and did not make it, but eventually Harry found his way back to his outfit (35:10) Harry is Sent to China • In China, the objective was to disarm the Japanese and to inspect areas in order to clear them out • There were many factories that they had to inspect in Peking • He was in China for a year • Harry had been in charge of the gasoline dump and had an assistant that would sell gas to the Russians • The assistant was sent to prison when he was caught (38:50) The End of His Time in the Pacific • Harry traveled on a LST back to the United States • They stopped in Hawaii for ship repairs when Harry learned that he really did not like Hawaii • They then boarded another ship to San Diego (43:10) Harry is Discharged 1946 • Harry took time off and did not work hard for about two years, but was able to save a lot of money • He got a job in South Bend, Michigan • He had been married for 57 years when his wife was killed in a car accident � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Daleure, Harry (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daleure, Harry Description An account of the resource Harry Daleure joined the Marine Corps shortly after graduating from high school in 1943. Harry went to boot camp in California. After training Harry, was shipped first to a base in the Solomons, and then saw action on Okinawa. While in Okinawa Harry was taken prisoner by the Japanese for six weeks. He barely ate anything during his time as a POW and thought he would die in the small tunnel they forced him to live in. Harry eventually escaped and made his way back to his outfit. He later served in China, disarming the Japanese and protecting American assets in Beijing. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Marine Corps World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-06-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DaleureH 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d77abf8105cd5fdd16bc19f06d04972d.mp4 b9e873e119493469430d64945b4ae832 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fca7b4c5eebe6d008dca418c090e7378.pdf 6e91a833642e3c848a402124efa6bdfd PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Nina Daly (29:46) Background Information (1:25) • • • • • • • • • She served in the 2nd WAAC training center. (2:30) Nina was born in Rockingham County, North Carolina, on November 22nd 1918. (6:45) Her mother worked as a school teacher. She had also bore 10 children. (7:00) Served in the Woman’s Auxiliary Army Corps. (WAAC)(7:40) She was registered for the WAACs in Florida but was sent to North Carolina. (9:32) She was serving in the summer of 1943 when the WAAC program was allowed to send women outside of the 48 states. (10:00) She had a sister in the Air Force. (10:20) Nina worked as a truck driver in Florida and an ambulance driver in North Carolina. (10:51) It was not uncommon to have to pick up men at the bar that had been in fights while in North Carolina. (12:00) Overview of Service (12:53) • • • • • • • • • • • • Nina then served at Camp Fearless. (12:54) She was also given the challenge to work in intelligence. (13:58) She and her future husband had decided not to get married until after the war. However after they were separated they decided to get married. (14:27) Nina’s brother worked refueling planes on an air field during the war. On one occasion the air field was set on fire after a plane returned with significant damage to its motors. Nina’s brother climbed under the flames and shut off the gas to stop the fire. He was honored for this action. (16:00) She served from March of 1943-February of 1945. (17:29) WAAC Detachment 1 was all white girls. WAAC Detachment 2 was all African American girls. (18:37) She worked in Florida filling out paperwork for returning injured service men. (20:21) Whiskey was difficult for civilians to get but not for service men if they had their pass. (21:48) She had another brother who served as a combat engineer in the Pacific. (24:43) She had another brother who tried to enlist in every branch of service when he was 17 but would not be taken because of a preexisting condition. When he turned 18 he was drafted. (28:17) One of her brothers stayed in the Navy for 8 years. (26:17) Pictures from Daytona Beach. (28:24) � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Daly, Nina (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daly, Nina Description An account of the resource Nina Daly served in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) from 1943 to February of 1945 during World War II. Though the WAACs were permitted to leave the U.S. after 1943 Nina spent her service in Daytona Beach Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Nina spent her service working as a truck driver and in intelligence gathering. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Davis, Joanie (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army. Women’s Army Corps Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DalyNNoId 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/993068b141fcb864d2bf77c06ea396e4.mp4 d681d0a64b609d74c43eff6bd28bc74b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/52b6f30e231ae15983d64c58421beb54.pdf 8b9a8f8a1b4c7e74c8b052c23d5a2f75 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project John Damon (1:07:50) Background information (00:45)            Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1919. (00:49) His father was an Army major and his mother was an Army nurse during World War I. (1:07) His father worked as a stockbroker in the late 20s. He went to prison for embezzlement. After this he never saw his father again while growing up. (1:24) He later was reunited with his father. (2:35) He graduated from Creston High School in approx. 1937. (3:00) He worked in construction for about 1 year before attending junior college. (3:03) While in junior college, John played football and basketball and received an athletic scholarship for The Citadel. (3:25) He attended The Citadel in 1939 and graduated in June 1943. (4:07) After Pearl Harbor, when returning to Citadel after a weekend off, John saw all of the Cadets chanting "Beat Japan!". (4:18) John enlisted in the Navy in early 1942. He did this after he went with one of his football friends to see the Naval Air Force. (5:20) He was offered an opportunity to go back to school and finish before he would be sent into the Navy. (6:42) Life at the Citadel (7:46)            The men went to bed each night at 10 and woke up each morning at 6. (7:55) The men marched to all of their meals together. (8:06) There were room inspections as well as drills ran. (8:51) The first year John spent at the Citadel he was harassed by instructors due to his being from the North. (9:25) Men were made to double time up and down the stairs. There was a high emphasis on discipline, much like a boot camp. (10:23) John was a 4 classman. At this rank he was not allowed to eat unless told to do so at meals. (11:15) Everything folded in the room had to be folded in a particular way and their firearm needed to be constantly leaned though it was never used. (12:03) John became a Lieutenant in his 3 year at the Citadel. He then had a platoon. (13:05) Once a cadet threw a light bulb out his window after taps. Because no man was willing to admit who did this the entire battalion (400 men) was made to march in the dark for 1 hour. (14:00) John was made a battalion commander in his 3 year. (15:20) For 2 months after his graduation John worked as a truck driver. He was then sent to Columbia University in New York City. (16:44) th Life at Columbia (17:20) rd rd �   At Columbia John was given the “awkward Squad” to drill. This was the squad that had the hardest time caring out simple actions such as marching. (17:23) Due to his success with his platoon, John was made a midshipmen battalion commander. (17:50) Most of his training at Columbia was basic Naval information. The training lasted 90 days. (18:20) The USS Alaska (19:14)           John was assigned to the USS Alaska due to honors he had received in training. This ship was not even in commission yet. (19:30) The USS Alaska was a CB1 (essentially a battle cruiser) and was designed to counter the German pocket battleship. It was faster than a battleship, more lightly armored, and had 12inch guns as opposed to 16-inch. (20:24) The Alaska had 9 12-inchguns. (22:04) There were also lighter anti-aircraft guns. (23:50) John’s battle station was in fire direction for 5-inch guns. This area had enough room for 6 men inside. (24:20) The station was 50 feet above the deck. (25:05) The ship was moved to the Philadelphia Naval Yard for finishing touches. During this time the men assigned to the ship lived ashore in barracks. (25:22) He had a shakedown cruise in July of 1944 with the USS Missouri. This cruise was used to test every aspect of the ship. (27:22) The shakedown cruise was carried out at Guantanamo. The ship was returned to Philadelphia after the cruise to correct any problems observed. (29:20) In December of 1944 the ship passed through the Panama Canal on its way to San Francisco. (29:35) Service in the Pacific (30:22)          The ship first stopped in Hawaii where the ship refueled and took supplies. (30:26) The USS Alaska provided cover for carriers and anti aircraft protection. (31:35) The ship's first assignments were escorting aircraft carriers that were attacking Tokyo. Considerate damage was done by the air raids. (32:17) The ship was struck by Kamikaze pilots in spite the Japanese Navy being largely decimated at this time (early-mid 1945). The ship relied on the combat air patrol from the carriers to intercept the Kamikazes. (33:37) When Kamikazes were not intercepted, ships shot anti-aircraft rounds at the pilot. It was hard to tell who actually shot down the plane due to the amount of fire. (34:32) The ship served at Iwo Jima, still escorting carriers. The ship did not fire upon the actual island. (35:35) The ship did go on a sweep of the Chinese coastline. The cruisers found nothing but several Chinese fishing boats. (36:48) The USS Alaska did not encounter any submarines. (37:08) The ship did shore bombardment. However, John does not remember where it was. (37:28) �    The Navy was very impersonal because it was ships firing at ships not men firing at men. The only time men were exposed to damage was if the ship its self was hit. (38:40) As an officer John did little aboard ship besides oversea lower ranking men. These individuals were often assigned to scrap and paint or clean the ship. (39:40) John was given training while on the ship in loading the guns. (40:27) The 12 inch guns that John worked on were surface guns. (41:06) Life aboard the Alaska (42:00)          As a captain John had a room with 2 roommates and a maid who made up the officer’s bed. (42:11) The men also had a private room where they were waited on and ate. Once a week the desert the officers received was baked Alaska. (43:05) There was only one black serviceman aside from the waiter and maids and he worked as a firefighter in the engine room. This was not seen as odd to John because he grew up exposed to primarily white populations. (43:44) When John played football and basketball he played in a Southern Conference and never played against a black man. (44:46) The men aboard the ship knew very little about what was going on in the war. He recalled receiving word that atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The men were happy to hear this. (45:22) When hearing of the atomic bomb, the men were confident that the show of force would surely do something. (47:22) The USS Alaska was assigned to escort the USS Franklin after it had been damaged by kamikazes. While escorting her, a kamikaze attacked the ship but missed. (47:58) After it got far enough into the Pacific, the Franklin was taken by tugboats back to the U.S. (49:10) Typically when kamikazes attacked it was one at a time. (50:11) Japanese Surrender (August 1945) (50:40)        The USS Alaska was getting closer to invading Japan when they heard of the Japanese surrender. (50:41) After the Japanese surrender in August of 1945 the USS Alaska traveled with the occupation forces to Japan. The ship stopped in Tsingtao, China where he stayed for several months. (52:03) John traveled ashore with his friend. While there he met a Chinese family who gave the men food and let them play their piano. (52:26) The man he met in Tsingtao told him that during the Japanese occupation it took a year's salary to buy 100 pounds of flour. (54:52) He and his division held a Chinese banquet and ate with some of the Chinese people. (55:03) At night John could hear the communists up in the hills firing. (56:02) The USS Alaska was in Tsingtao simply to oversea the occupation and ensure that the Japanese soldiers were evacuated. (56:46) �     When the USS Alaska journeyed back to the U.S. it carried with it approx. 1000 men. The ship traveled to the U.S. in late 1945. (57:05) John was assigned to be on watch during the travel to the U.S. He felt unqualified to watch such a large ship. (58:40) The ship landed in Bayonne, New Jersey. Here the ship was taken out of action. (1:01:14) For his last months in the service in early 1946 John had little to do but wait for discharge. (1:01:48) John was approached about reenlisting. But while in the Pacific he had applied for law school at the University of Michigan and was accepted. He did not reenlist. (1:02:26) Life after Service (1:03:07)       He attended law school in the summer of 1946 after his discharge. (1:03:07) After graduating he returned to western Michigan where he worked in the City Attorney’s Office. in Grand Rapids (1:03:24) John then went into private practice after working for the city. (1:03:58) He didn’t learn very much in the Navy. He simply did what he was trained to do. (1:04:14) John enjoyed his service in the Navy and he was thankful for his Citadel background. (1:05:00) He doesn’t feel very heroic for his services because his service was fairly safe and easy. (1:06:03) � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Damon, John (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Damon, John Description An account of the resource John Damon was, born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1919. When Pearl Harbor happened, he was a cadet at The Citadel, and immediately enlisted in the Navy. However, he was given the opportunity to complete his degree first, so he went on active duty only in 1943. He went through his officer's basic course at Columbia University, and while there drilled recruits who were having trouble with their training. He was assigned to the USS Alaska, a battle cruiser still under construction, in 1944. He sailed with the Alaska on a shakedown cruise to Guantanamo, and then into the Pacific in early 1945. The ship escorted carriers off of Iwo Jima and Japan, and also did shore bombardments and a sweep of the Chinese coast. After the surrender, they sailed to Japan, and then spent three months in Tsingtao, China, while the Japanese troops there were evacuated. 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 Video recordings United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-10-19 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DamonJ1285V 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/afaeedd957f9fcb481be8d8d913dcd61.pdf fd5fa122a243c65569ddf8dca4fb5edd PDF Text Text RATIONAL REINDUSTRIALIZATION - - an economic development agenda for detroit dan luria jack russell $3.00 �--------------------• RATIONAL REINDUSTRIALIZATION Copyright © 1981 Rational Reindustrialization is an agenda for the creation of 100,000 secure, well-paid industrial jobs in Detroit. It consists of the phased implementation of a program that includes converting idle, mainly automotive, productive capacity to the manufacture of energy hardware for the oil, gas, and coal gasification industries. Because private capital cannot be counted on to assume the risks associated with such a conversion program, Rational Reindustrialization will be at least partially based on public/worker enterprises. Dan Luria is principal energy and automotive regulatory analyst in the Research Department of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). He has been politically active in Detroit since moving there in 1976. Jack Russell has lived and worked politically in Detroit for the past decade. Since 1978, he has served as economic development policy analyst on the staff of Detroit City Councilman Kenneth V. Cockrel. Orders Widgetripper Press c/o Russell, 19660 Stratford, Detroit, MI 48221 Make checks payable to authors Bulk Rates Available First Printing Text preparation: Cover photo: Beverly Bydlos Russ Marshall �0 T E: LIB Preface As we enter the 1980s, is there any compelling reason to believe that the cities of America's midwestern industrial crescent will survive as productive human settlements? Detroit and Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown, Buffalo, Gary and the rest have suffered massive economic dislocations; the specter of regional disaster looms. Accelerating ind us trial dis investment may destroy the American Foundry, wasting productive lives and capital, as the once-thriving workshop cities become austere reservations containing a surplus, unemployable population. In benighted homage to "market forces," some observers baldly court such a future, holding that frostbel t cities are beyond help, and that pouring resources into their redevelopment is a bad investment. we reject this prospect as morally indefensible, politically destructive, and economically wasteful and irrational. we believe that reasonable human beings with different stations in the economy and with distinct needs and interests can nevertheless find a rational common ground from which to advocate and plan the regeneration of our region, even as our political contests continue. In this essay, we seek such a common ground by offering an agenda for the revitalization of Detroit, one which in generic form applies to other northern cities as well. We argue that frostbelt reindustrialization requires moving beyond past exercises in wishful thinking, right and left alike, about how to plan an economy. Some readers may find our �2 Rational Reindustrialization contribution too pragmatic and apolitical, while others may judge it hopelessly left-utopian. We yield to both er i tic isms, asking only that they be made as forcefully as possible. Rational Reindustrialization was written to help advance the level of debate in Detroit and the United States over questions of industrial policy and urban revitalization. we openly seek the attention of investment bankers and UAW local education committees, of frostbelt politicians and corporate leaders, of urban planners and the urban unemployed, of Detroit's Economic Growth Corporation and Detroit's community organizations, of Felix Rohatyn and the thinking left, of Doug Fraser, Roger B. Smith and the hundreds of thousands of workers who depend on the organizations they lead. We do not pretend equal solidarity with all of these groups and representatives. We are unabashedly opposed to most aspects of laissez-faire and state capitalism alike. We are not impressed with what orthodox economic development policy has to offer the working majority of America's Detroi ts. We see scant evidence that either the free market ideologues of the Reagan right or the stunned liberals groping for poli tical survival have a program to reindustrialize Detroit and other frostbelt centers. We speak with conviction from the left, but reject as irrelevant the vagaries of those sectarian "leftists" who seem incapable of understanding the strategic politics of reform. Amid the chatter, however, we hear increas~ng interest from a number of quarters in the planned restructuring of the urban economy and the innovations that might enable such an undertaking. . ~ational Reindustrialization is the product of two Detroiters without formal training in the field of economic development. We have been schooled in such matters by the J?ressures of. t1:ade union and local government politics in Ameri~a's most d1sinvested city. This essay is our modest contribution toward the program around which a coalition to rebuild Ame~ica's cities and industrial base must someday unite if a rational economy is to be constructed. Detroit August 1981 �Table of Contents 5 INTRODUCTION THINKING RATIONALLY ABOUT REINDUSTRIALIZATION 12 OUR PRODUCTION LINE: ENERGY HARDWARE 15 Deep Gas and Heavy Oil Equipment 16 Cogenerators and Industrial Process Engines 17 Minemouth Gasifiers 18 ON THE PUBLIC ACCOUNT 28 TOWARD THE RATIONAL REINDUSTRIALIZATION OF DETROIT 35 Pilot Project Phase 38 "Mixed Enterprise Zone• Phase 44 Mature Plan Phase 51 NATIONA~ POLICY AND RATIONAL REINDUSTRIALIZATION 52 Policy for the Auto Transition 52 Policy for the Energy Transition 55 Policy for Capital Targeting 56 OUR AGENDA CAN WORK 60 �Introduction Detroit is wounded. For thirty years, we have bled jobs and capital to the suburbs, to the South, and overseas. During the past five years, Detroit's condition has become critical. New wounds have been opened. We have hemorrhaged economic life as never before. In the 1980s, a city once the vital hub of America's Great Lakes industrial heartland is becoming a grim monument to the waste of an unplanned economy. While the Mayor exhorts the taxpayers to save our City, a Presidential Commission has concluded that America's Detroits are disposable containers of economic activity which, now nearly empty, may be cast aside. Detroit's economy is being killed by industrial disinvestment. Detroit's major manufacturers have not returned to the city the weal th we have created. On the contrary, the profits produced by Detroit labor have built new factories elsewhere, or been distributed to stockholders, or funded often ill-advised corporate adventures. In 1947, the city held over 280,000 manufacturing jobs in some 3,300 firms. Today, Detroit hosts less than 100,000 such jobs in fewer than 1,700 firms. This industrial disinvestment has eroded our tax base and distorted our expenditure priori ties. It is the fundamental cause of the municipal fiscal crisis we now confront and with which we will continue to struggle for years. Proclamation of Detroit's Renaissance will not end the trauma of industrial disinvestment. Downtown recommercialization can replace neither the number nor the quality of the jobs lost as our industry dies. The family of the unemployed auto worker is not saved by employing one daughter as a file clerk at the Renaissance Center or one son as a security guard at Riverfront West. Indeed, the past four years have shown the fragility of the downtown Renaissance and how clearly its full development is endangered by the continuing destruction of Detroit's industrial base. We believe that the 1980s will determine Detroit's fate: either industrial Detroit will be rebuilt and recover an important position in the national economy, or disinvestment will destroy the life chances of our youth, our capacity for local self-government, and much of the useful wealth created by three generations of Detroi ters. By the 1990s, Detroit will either be a diversified manufacturing center of~ new kind, or it will be a discarded city of vacant factories and �6 Rational Reindustrialization abandoned homes from which the remaining affluent shield themselves in residential enclaves and a well-fortified downtown. If Detroit is to survive as a city in which working people can prosper, we must ~edefine and reord~r our develo?ment priorities. we believe that a rational economic development strategy for Detroit must be a least-cost program to retain and create tens of thousands of high-wage, cyclically insensitive industrial jobs. This essay is a first sketch of such a program. Before we present our arguments, however, we should enter three caveats. First, we are not opposed to the relocation of investment capital within cities of a metropolis, regions of a nation, or even the nations of the world. We oppose only its unplanned, socially wasteful, and privately con trolled movement. Once the relatively high wages enjoyed by Detroit auto workers had filled up the city's available space with single family homes, it was inevitable and desirable that those forms of auto production requiring extensive space would subsequently be built in suburban and rural greenfields. But it was neither inevitable nor desirable that metropolitan Detroit be politically balkanized into hostile municipalities differentiated by class and race; that metropolitan tax base sharing would thus become impossible; that a powerful auto/oil/construction/consumer durables lobby would decree the federal highway and mortgage policies that replicated the suburban phenomenom section by section to 26 Mile Road and beyond; that Detroit would be gutted by freeway trenches rather than served by mass transit; nor that the city's commerce would be mauled by the placement of major shopping centers just beyond its borders. The spatial catastrophe of metropolitan Detroit is a sufficient argument for greater social control of investment. Similarly, the siting of some new auto plants in the We~t and the South has been a logical and desirable response ~o regional growth and the development of new markets. But it is hardly in the interests of society as a whole that some firms leave Michigan because unionized workers can claim a greater share of the wealth they produce and because our citizens have organized politically for better protections from unsafe work and the vagaries of the capitalist business cycle. . We w~ll not a~vocate the socially irrational imP71s~nment of private capital within Detroit or southeastern Michig~n. _we will argue for radically increased government au~hority 1n. the economy; for new structures that allow barga~ned planning beween private capital labor and government; an for an overall economic developme~t pla; that will eventua!ly allow the City and its agencies to appropriate and reinves locally some of the weal th the planned semi-public economy creates. ' �Introduction 7 Second, we are not opposed to Detroit's Renaissance. We do believe it should be demystified. The much-celebrated rebirth is in essence an attempt to protect the value of existing investments and future profit opportunities in the downtown hub. The banks, retailers, utilities, and other businesses downtown have been threatened by the disinvestment of Detroit, especially since 1967. The Renaissance was their self-interested redevelopment strategy long before it became the keystone policy of the Administration of Mayor Coleman Young. By logic and law, many of the down town businesses are less mobile than industry. They must stay and protect their futures. We hope they build and succeed. We do challenge, however, the terms they offer for development, the logic of their strategy, and the absurd conceit that somehow their success will be the salvation of a city ravaged by industrial disinvestment. This is not the place for an exhaustive review of the terms that business has demanded and won for the investments that have moved downtown Detroit forward, fitfully, since the mid-1970s. When and if just the beachhead projects (Trolley Plaza, Riverfront West, the Millender Center, and the Cadillac Mall) are completed, hundreds of millions of federal and local public revenues will have facilitated these private developments. Even with this huge taxpayers' subsidy, the downtown commercial renaissance is risky business. Unlike, say, Chicago, Detroit is a post-automobile city. Detroit grew up between 1910 and 1930 as a low-density, spread-out city with development determined primarily by industrial locations. The financial/commercial/cultural/administrative functions associated with the downtown hub were less substantial than in other cities, and never generated a significant nearby residential community. Depression and War caused a 20-year hiatus in any further hub development, and by the 1950s the freeway network converging on the central business district insured that the vast majority of the region's affluent households would locate in the suburbs even if the primary breadwinner worked down town. The grand designs for the future development of downtown Detroit are based upon the questionable belief that many thousands of salaried professionals and managers can be induced to settle there with their families. Some will surely be attracted to the amenities of the river and the hub, but with Detroit's extraordinary upper-middle-class home bargains and the comfortable, secure suburbs just minutes away by freeway, we believe the downtown Renaissance may well abort. Given the high risk, the developers' current terms, the narrow strata of the population served, and the limited impact on the local economy, we do not believe that the downtown strategy should �8 Rational Reindustrialization have priority claims on the City's precious economic development resources. Even if our skepticism is unfounded, and downtown Detroit is recommercialized on the foundation of a substantial newmarket-rate residential community, it is not at all obvious what that offers most Detroiters. To what extent, we ask would the huge economic damage wrought by ind us trial disinvestment be repaired by a flourishing service economy in the hub? Unfortunately, even a booming commercial Renaissance on the riverfront and downtown would not meet the needs of working class Detroit. It would not deliver the jobs. When built, the Riverfront west luxury apartments will employ fewer than 15 people; the Trolley Plaza building will provide no more; nor will the other contemplated residential developments. The proposed Detroit Hilton might contribute 1,000. The Cadillac Center, if ever built, would add at most 2,000 new jobs to the Detroit economy. Each job is welcome, but it is fantasy to hope that hotels, a shopping center, some office buildings, and the service needs of wealthy condominium owners will be able to employ the workers, and the children of workers, who have been discharged from our closed factories. Moreover, the jobs that the commercial Renaissance may provide will contribute far less to the families of the employed and to the economy of the city than have the high-wage, national market, industrial jobs they "replace." During the past 30 years, Detroit has lost 27% of its population but nearly 70% of its jobs in manufacturing. In 1981, over 400,000 Detroiters -- one in every three -- receives some form of public assistance. No rebirth of downtown, ,, even if it succeeds against heavy odds, will provide the resources to heal our community. A different conception of economic development must address the needs of the majority. . Third, we acknowledge the important efforts at community develop~ent in Detroit, but argue that these efforts at best only partially balm the wounds of disinvestment; they do not c~nst1tute a cure for the disease. Detroit needs all the housing dollars a~d programs we can get, but we should understand ~hat the neighborhoods created by a high-wage, high employment industrial economy between 1910 and the 1950s will not be renewed, especially at today• s cos ts in an economy based on trans!er payments from the federal g~vernment and on low-w~ge service employment. The best housing program for Detroit would be one that reopens our plants and employs our homeowners. . . Similarly, most neighborhood commerce cannot survive drained by the suburban malls and dependent on the Detroit Ir �Introduction 9 poor. If Detroit can reindustrialize and employ our people, then neighborhood merchants will have a chance. If industrial disinvestment continues unchecked, we will have boutiques for the downtowners and party stores for the people. The small manufacturers and job shops, portant element in most Detroit neighborhoods, are gered by disinvestment. As the big plants close, up; family owners are forced to consider relocation long an imalso endanorders dry or closing. Efforts to regenerate our housing stock, stabilize some neighborhood commerce, and assist our small manufacturers are essential. During the Reagan years, we will have fewer resources for this work. But even if we had twice the funds, this work would only slow our decline rather than rebuild our economy. What will rebuild it? This essay argues the outlines of an answer. Let us begin with a paradox: the very severity of Detroit's industrial disinvestment may create an opportunity. While we have been losing industrial jobs for many years, the exodus has become particularly acute since the mid-1970s. Two rounds of OPEC price increases; the failure of the federal government to adopt a rational gasoline pricing policy; the loss of market to fuel-ef f ic ien t, inexpensive, quality imports from Japan; two deep national recessions; the shift to smaller engines, front-wheel-drive, lighter materials, and smaller cars; and the downsizing of the Chrysler Corporation have all contributed to a sudden, severe, and traumatic decline in automobile industry activity in the city of Detroit. Tens of thousands of workers have been permanently dismissed. Sever al rnaj or plan ts have closed; more will follow. Smaller plants that built components for obsolete technologies or products have been abandoned. Orders from smaller parts suppliers have ceased. Tool and die shops are without work. In less than 30 months, multiple shocks have broken many of the crucial links that had held together Detroit's ailing but still viable automotive industry. Are these links permanently broken, or can they be reforged? In some quarters, optimism about Michigan's future in the automotive economy runs high. Transport economies and attempts to emulate Japanese-style inventory management may recentralize in our State some of the previously lost major elements of the industry. Southeastern Michigan still has important comparative advantages in labor skills, transport infrastructure, abundant water, and the substantial remaining share of auto production. But Detroit cannot hope to win back much of what we have lost; our built environment is a huge barrier to major new industrial construction. The staggering public costs borne to prepare the new Cadillac Plant site indicate the price extracted for merely retaining 6,000 of the �10 Rational Reindustrialization 14 000 Cadillac jobs we had less than a decade ago. Detroit wiil do well to retain just the auto jobs we still have in 1981. Much of our auto industry, then, is gone or going. But in the wake of its passing there remain crucial resources which we argue, constitute the opportunity to rationally reindustrialize the city. Capital leaves, but labor skills remain. Plants are closed, but not razed. Railways and freeways still tie the factories together and connect them to the nation. The links between the hundreds of small- and medium-sized vendors and the major facilities are damaged, but not broken beyond repair. The engine of production that was built over the span of a half-century has not yet been scrapped, nor should it be. Detroit can still bend metal. We believe that Detroit can and must take a bold step forward during the 1980s. To survive as a city where working people can prosper, Detroit must forge a new role for local government in planning the redevelopment of industry in a frostbelt city. There are industrial products that the American economy and the world must have. If we are bold, we can build them, and as we do so rebuild our city. To have any hope of success in such an undertaking, it is first necessary to shed the constricting assumptions of orthodox economic development thinking. Specifically, we must leave behind four axioms: 1. Only the private sector can produce goods and services aimed at more than the local market and hence the overriding goal of public policy is to create~ context conducive to private sector growth; 2. The realms of work and residence are inexorably split, with the former ceded to private interests but the latter subject to intense parochial struggle; . 3. Pu?lic policy operates at the margins of a basically sound priv~te economy, seeking to solve only those problems that the private sector can't or won't; and . 4 •. Local government is the mediator of conflicting con st ituency interests and, as such cannot plan the local economy bu~ merely facilitate the prdcess of compromise among th e competing groups' claims and interests. f th We begin from a perspective that rejects all four . tese assumptions. First, we believe that currently there ex1s s · -d no workable prog ram f or 1nduc1ng • . • d econo privately-finance proce:~cb evel?pment. Th~r~ is, moreover, no self-correcting Y which urban d1s1nvestment creates the conditions necessary for expanded reinvestment of the kind and on the 0 11111----------- ~ ~ v �Introduction 11 scale required. From this outlook flows the need to project our own concept of "rational economic development," one which transcends wishful thinking about an orderly transition from an industrial economy to a service economy and seeks to build upon the actual history of Detroit as a producer of durable goods for the national and international economies. Others before us have, to be sure, seen the need to preserve and revitalize Detroit's aging industrial base through planned conversion to the production of socially useful goods needed by America and the world. Walter Reuther, for example, popularized demands for reorienting facilities supplying the 1941-45 war effort to making building supplies for low-cost housing. Our effort seeks to apply this legacy of intent to the now very much more difficult circumstances of Detroit in the 1980s. Second, we reject the inevitability of a public sector role limited to creating a context in which private business, if it wants to, may invest. Put another way, we dispute the value of using government as a tool to "improve the business climate" in pursuit of chancy rewards, and project the possibility that we, the citizenry, through government, can actually choose the rewards we want and use increasingly public resources to achieve them. Third, we refuse to cede to the private sector complete control over the realm of work, where workers produce their standards of living. We reject the option of simply making ourselves cheaper to house, clothe, and transport without any guarantee in return that we will have increasing control over what we produce and how we produce it. The cost of reproducing our labor-power, our ability to work, will be reduced only to the extent that what may be lost in earnings is more than made up by gains in income security, service quality, and the other non-wage aspects of our living standard. Fourth, we in Detroit are uniquely situated to see the absurdity of a public policy that assumes a healthy private economy. The problems left unsolved by private development history are not merely "rough edges" in an otherwise successful game plan. This is not a case of a boom town that must figure out how to house the small number of families whose property is needed for a mine, a railroad spur, a freeway, or a convention center. Rather, Detroit's plight is that of a city whose basic industry is being abandoned because the assumptions on which it was bu i 1 t - - an ever-growing mar k et for 1 a r g e cars and trucks, cheap energy, and unconstrained private decisionmaking -- have been rendered historically obsolete. Despite a few downtown residential projects and one new auto plant, the game plan of the private sector is to leave. �12 Rational Reindustrialization Fifth and last, we find it bizarre that, with the ship quickly sinking, intelligent people continue to see the government ' s role as limited to the resolution of disputes over who gets a porthole seat for the drowning. At this point, most community efforts amount to little more than annoying nuisances to the basic, uncontested job of the City's governance: funneling public money into questionably effective induc ements for slower disinvestment. There is, that is to say, no re a l public development plan, only a random bag of ad hoc inducements to a few private developers. What is called the "Overall Economic Development Plan" of the City is a dreamwork fiction constantly subverted by unilaterally private decisions . Therefore, a different and more rational plan is imperative . What follows is a sketch of the parameters of a qualitatively new role for workers and local government in the realm of production . Thinking Rationally About Reindustrialization A rati_onal economic development agenda must be c~ntered on replacing the declining private activities of the c~ ty -- auto assembly, parts, and machining -- with new acti vit:es th at take maximum advantage of the existing industrial linkages. The~e are many activities that produce desirable i~odsfa~d services for a national as well as a local market at ail to exploit these linkages. For example a bakery ~~Y ~ro~uce dbre~d for the Midwest market, but it does~' t salvage up~ ~fmif~rl die shops whose _au_to_ industry orders are drying . t· . Y, th ere are activities that require inputs from e xis ing intermediat d . . and subwa ca b e goo s_suppliers, such as buses and rail pates no p~edi~~, btt for which existing public policy anticinational demand~ e unmet local, regional, national, or inter- 1 �Thinking Rationally 13 What process, then, can be followed to identify workable production activities? A rational response to this question begins with the identification of a set of key criteria across which potential economic development ventures may be compared. These include: 1. Scale of Job Creation. would the ventures provide substantial employment to residents of Detroit? 2. Conservation of Capital. Would the firms producing the proposed outputs be able to reuse a significant portion of Detroit's existing stock of industrial facilities and idle or underused machinery and equipment? Could they take advantage of the city's in-place ind us trial infrastructure (see also #5 and #9, below)? 3. Local Economic Impact. Would the new activities, at full scale, play a role in the local economy similar to that of auto in the past? Would they constitute a set of major "exports" from Detroit to the national and even international market, bringing resources in from faster-growing regions and from abroad? 4. Characteristics of Markets. Are the demands for the proposed product lines suf f ic ien tly strong and enduring to justify large capital investments? Are the markets located properly? 5. Use of Detroit's Comparative Advantage. Would the contemplated ventures take full advantage of the city's existing skilled metal-working labor, industrial infrastructure, and of the key linkages among cognate metals industry activities spawned by the region's legacy of auto dependence? 6. Market Countercyclicality. Is demand for the ventures' outputs stable or highly cyclical? If it is cyclical, does its cycle counteract or reinforce the shocks to the local economy that come from dependence on auto? 7. Labor Cost Barriers. Do the private sector firms producing similar or identical products pay wages as high as those to which Detroit workers are accustomed as a result of auto's past high profitability? And are they as high as those they could expect in light of the decline of U.S. auto companies' market power? 8. Transport Cost Barriers. Is the cost of moving the p ro posed products from Detroit to market destinations prohibitively high? Or are there classes of products whose size, price, and existing production sites allow Detroit manufacture more readily than others? �Ill 14 Rational Reindustrialization 9. Advantages of Publicness. Do some products make more sense than others as candidates for public or public/private production? Are there produ~ts who~e.cost of production could be especially reduced by City policies? 10. Profitability for En try. Are the private firms now producing similar outputs characterized by aboveaverage, and less cyclical than average, profitabili~y?_ Does selection of the product lines we propose move Detroit into a national sector growing fast enough to allow new entrants? Translating these er i ter ia into an answerable question about new production in Detroit, we can ask: What projects can re-employ a large number of skilled and semi-skilled workers, at or near their accustomed wage, taking maximum advantage of the area's concentration of metalworking capital stock and labor force training and of the city's northern deep waterway location, producing products for a growing, under supplied, long-lived national and international market for which the business cycle is either absent or opposite to the auto/auto parts demand cycle? Others have asked the "diversify into what?" question. In a study for the Detroit Metropolitan Industrial Development Corporation by John Mattila and Wilbur Thompson, the answers were meat packing, industrial inorganic chemicals, farm machinery, and electronic instruments. Unfortunately, Mattila and Thompson used our criteria 5, 6, and especially 7 only, being innocent of 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10. Moreover, having. i de_n ti f ied the new product 1 ines, they ended their · analysis without offering any ideas on how to move into their production. . . Chamber of Commerce commentator George Moffett tried to fill the gap, saying that "if it can be proved that there are large-scale [presumably local or regional] demands [th~t] _cannot be filled by local producers, we would have :·· an ~ndisputable selling point for involving ••• prospects rn_mee~ing those demands." To the contrary, we will show that cri~eria ~, 2, 3, and 4 require proof that unmet demands be nat~onal rn . scope• Even if in some cases they are, many rationa~ P: 1vate firms would still hesitate to initiate produ~tion in Detroit on anything close to the required scale. ~he_C~t~ 0 ~ Detroit and its people however have an interest what many ra t·1onal private ' • •' · din 1nit1ating . investors will no t o on th eir own. We believe that in the 1980s and beyond only l ocal government 1't · · k ' s agencies, and its close associates in :~~ er-co~trolled organizations can create the new productive tor which can arrest the destruction of Detroit's industrial base. To be sure the · . • 1 d Prof i· t a bl e role for p' · tre 1s · an .important ' essent1a an1 t 0 th e extent that 1· t riva e capital 1n such a sector ' but on Y . conforms to the rational mandates of the pu bl 1c development plan. �Energy Hardware 15 Let us return to our ten criteria and the question we generated from them. It is our view that the industries into which Detroit can move must be high-wage, metals-based, and national market-oriented ones. The new activities should take advantage of Detroit's superb rail and Great Lakes transport advantages, and should be characterized by a pattern of demand that counters the roller-coaster ups and downs of the automotive sector. These criteria favor production of physically large, heavy products not all of which are purctased by individual consumers whose incomes are subject to the cyclical swings that are quickly mirrored in auto and other consumer durables sales figures. Finally, because the start-up costs for the production of capital goods are substantial, the period between investment decisions and payoffs may be relatively long. Thus our precious venture capital must be targeted only on those producer goods for which a rapidly growing and long-lasting market can be conclusively demonstrated. Our Production Line: Energy Hardware Has this set of criteria, and the exclusions it dictates, exhausted the stock of viable projects? Hardly. There are at least four that meet all of the criteria: (1) deep natural gas and heavy oil production and upgrading equipment; (2) residential and industrial steam/electric cogeneration units; (3) large coal- and diesel fuel-fired industrial process engines; and (4) mine-mouth coal gasifiers. A rational economic development plan for Detroit would invest in the conversion of abandoned or underutilized industrial capacity to production of deep gas and heavy oil equipment -- steam injectors, compressors, pumps, and the like -- and make a serious effort to capture significant shares in �16 Rational Reindustrialization the developing regional, national, and even internatfonal m~rkets for mine-mouth gasifiers, congenerators, and 1ndustr1al engines.I Deep Gas and Heavy Oil Equipment As easy-to-tap reservoirs of natural gas and crude oil are exhausted more and more energy industry resources are being invested in 'prospecting for deep deposits of natural gas and "completing" known fields Of heavier crude oils. The stock of structures and machinery that require gas and oil products will not be junked despite waning supplies of cheap, easy-toextract hydrocarbon fuels. Thus a massive market in the hardware associated with drilling deeper, faster, and in more If one assumes a different set of national energy, transportation, and tax policies, a number of other product lines meet the ten criteria. For example, if a set of tax and regulatory changes transferred all or most nuclear power and/or synthetic fuel subsidies to manufacturers and consumers of solar equipment, Detroit could capture a significant share of what would be a burgeoning midwest market for flat-plate solar collectors for space and water heating and cooling in new structures. Similarly, a shift in policy toward more rational urban commuter and national freight transportation systems would swell demand for product lines -- buses, light and heavy rail cars, and rail electrification equipment -- for which major componen try could be manufactured in oetroi t for the national market. 1. It would not be sound local-level economic development planning, however, to base a reindustrialization agenda on outputs for which existing national policy, however mistakenly, promises no predictable mass market. on the other hand, while this paper is confined to product lines realistic under current national policy~ a more speculative and generic application of our perspective would study which cities could expect to capture significant shares of the bus rail car and rail elect~ification markets, should they :volve in t'he future. Detroit woul? appear t.o ?ave the means to stake a major claim in a. fu~ure ~ail electr1f1cation hardware industry; Cleveland, C1ncin~ati, Dayton, and Philadelphia appear to enjoy advantages that might earn them a large part of the rail car market; and Youngstown, _Pit~sburgh, Seattle, and Memphis seem suited to st rong entries in the bus manufacturing business. Finally, th e:e.are markets that, while currently speculative, can be anticipated . . For_ example, it is a good bet that there will ~o~n be" a maJo~ international market for $200-300 receiver dishe~ th at will process transmissions from direct broadcaS t sate~lites (DBS)· Any city with a substantial stamping/metal~orking sector should prepare for entries into that market as it develops. �Energy Hardware 17 locations is assured. In addition to the traditional equipment required -- pipe, rigs, bits, derricks, masts, wellheads, etc. -- the depth, viscosity {thickness), impurity, and pressure conditions of oil and gas below about 8,000 feet promise a growing market in pumps, steam injection engines, steam compressors, and oxygenators. Simply put, to ta~e full advantage of reserves of "sour" oil and gas, horsepower must be available to force the fuels out and upgrade them to pipeline {gas) and refinery {oil) quality. Orthodox industrial location thinking would not immediately link the need for oil and gas field equipment with the underused capacity of Detroit; but in the new energy world of the 1980s and 1990s we may well have a major comparative advantage for the production of the pumps, engines, compressors, tubular goods and other componentry now demanded in the field. Cogenerators and Industrial Process Engines A legacy of cheap, accessible, domestic hydrocarbon fuels has not only produced an economy that runs on oil and gas; it has also stimulated a pattern of use that, at today's pr ices, is unaffordably wasteful of them. The best case in point is the structural divorce between the use of heat and the use of electricity. When oil or gas products are burned, the energy embodied in them is released in the form of heat. In both structures {homes, office buildings, and factories) and processes {steelmaking, smelting, etc.), however, individuals and corporations purchase fuels for heat and electricity for light, for appliances, and to power non-oil/gas machinery. The heat lost in burning oil and gas -- from 30% in most residential burners to over 55% in some industrial processes -- is simply wasted: it does no work. Meanwhile, electric utilities purchase oil, gas, coal, and uranium, burn {or, in the nuclear case, bombard) them to make the steam that drives electrical turbines. On average, they lose over 60% of the available heat content in the fossil fuels they burn. An increasingly attractive alternative, and one assured a growing market, is to cogenerate heat and electricity from the same fuel input. Engines or burners that do this are called cogenerators. Markets exist, and are expanding rapidly, for cogenerators that heat houses and halve electricity bills all the way to massive cogenerators that provide virtually all of the heat and power needs of multi-plant industrial complexes. The smallest units look, weigh, and are built much like relatively low-compression small car engines; those that wo uld suit a small factory, like truck engines; and the largest types, like industrial process engines. Two Detroitsuited product lines thus emerge; small, medium, and large cogenerators; and, as a spinoff as well as a lease on the life �18 Rational Reindustrialization of existing investments, industrial process machine-driving engines. Minemouth Gasifiers Finally, the U.S. is unquestionably on_the verge of a major new industry geared to reconcile the existence.of a 400-year supply of coal with a capital stock that was bui~t to run on what appears now to be a 40- to 70-year supply of <;Hl and gas. For all the talk of making Colorado's shale deposits into a 500-year supply of diesel fuel or of producing m~ssi~e volumes of heating oil from West Virginia and Kentucky bituminous coal, the only proven technologies that resolve the mismatch between the form in which u. S. hydrocarbons exist in nature and the forms in which they are consumed involve the conversion of coal into gaseous fuels embodying between oneseventh and two-fifths of the heat content of natural gas. A full discussion of the "energy path" that diverts natural gas to replace heating oil, replaces it with coal-derived gaseous fuels, and upgrades oil refineries to make less heating oil and boiler fuel appears later in this paper. For now, the important fact is that, in the face of uncertain policy, the investment community is voting in the marketplace for the machinery that turns coal into "synthesis gas" at the coal-mining site. There are at least three attractions for Detroit in the production of such gasifiers. First, unlike the equipment used to liquefy shale or coal, gasifiers need not be huge to be commercial scale. There are today at least three companies straining to meet the demand for gasifiers that cost just $830,000 and that convert as little as 25 tons of coal per day into "syngas"; 92 percent of u.s. coal mines it should be noted, have daily output exceeding 50 tons. 'second, unlike coal liquefaction equipment, which must be custom-built and optimized to process a particular type of coal, syngasifiers can /r~n~form coals of widely differing heat, water, and sulfur con en 1n~o ?lean gaseous fuels. This greatly increases the range and siting of their application. Third where commercial scale liquefaction equipment must be built n~ar, and partially assembled on, the process site, minemouth gasifiers are small enough to be transportable fully-built, allowing their producers t~ capture most of the value-added they embody. In fact, Detroit may ~ell be the one place in the u.s. that could hoS t all_ of the Jobs required to produce gasifiers from steelmaking from scrap all the way to final product ~ssembly. There is an important overlap between the equipmen~, ,labor and technical skills, and structures used for Detroi~ s current Product lines (cars, trucks, buses, and th e machinery needed to transform the metals from which their components are made) and the factors of production necessary to �Energy Hardware 19 make the equipment used in deep natural gas, heavy oil, and coal gas production, and to fabricate cogenerators and engines. Table 1 lists components used in exploratory and . developmental oil and natural gas drilling. Among the product lines that are both compatible with Detroit's current "metal-bending" infrastructure and in short national supply are pumps, engines, blowout preventers, wellheads, and storage tanks. Many items on Table 2 's list of production hardware, among which are tanks, platform parts, pumps, compressors, and cogeneration power packs, also meet our complementarity/shortage test. TA 8 LE EXPLOAATIO:l AND DEVELOPMENT DRILLING I EQUIPMENT TRI\NSPORTATIOO TRUCKS BOATS HELICOPTE H/\TERIAL/SUPPLIES I DRILLING FLUIDS DRIL1.ING DRILLING RIG DRILL PIPE'. ORI LL COLLARS O?.ILL BITS PUMPS ENGINES T/\NKS Sfl/\KERS DIESEL Proi'ANE GASOLINE NAT. GAS I WELL EQUIP. . WEIGHTING MAT'L. WELL CASING, CHEMICALS CARBON ANO CLAYS IDST RETUIIN MAT'L ALLOY STEEL WELLHEADS FORM/\TJON EVALU/\TION CORING ELEC. LOGGING NUCLEAR LOGGING SONIC LOGGING DRILL !lTEH TEST <mlCR OVEHSllOT MI LI. W/\SIIOVER Pil'E , OTHER FISIIING DIR£CTIIJNl'.L SURVEYS DIRECTIONAL DRILLING CEMENTING TOOLS , SERVICE BLOWOUT PREVENTERS T A B L E DERRICKS r. 2 HASTS LIVING QTRS. I PIPE FLOWLWES SALT WATER LINES GAS LIFT LINES INSTRUMENT PIPHIG FIELD GATHER SYSTEMS WELL MANIFOLD TANK BATTERY PIPING I STRUCTURES OIL TANKS WATER TANKS FOUNDATIONS OFFSHOFE PLATFORMS I OIL PRODUCTION FACILITIES HARDWARE & ACCESSORIES VESSELS GAS-OIL SEPARATORS OIL-WATER FLOW TREATERS FREE WATER SEPARATORS PRODUCED WATER CLARI FIERS SURGE VESSELS CONTROLLERS ACTUATORS FLOAT CONTROLS SENSORS OIL METERS GAS METERS WATER METERS CORROSION PUMPS POWER SUPPLY FLANGES FITTINGS NIPPLES HEADERS PLUS VALVES BLOCK VALVES GATE VALVES CONTROL VALVES ASSOCIATED GAS FACILITIES FIELD GAS GATHERING SYSTEM SCRUBBERS FIELD COMPRESSORS METERS INSTRUMENTATION VALVES & FITTINGS - �20 Rational Reindustrialization Some may object that, despite Detroit's apparently hospitable climate for such production, the locations in which such products are used are largely extra-regional. Why would anyone choose to make oilfield equipment in Detroit when much of the demand for it is in Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana? wouldn't transportation costs be prohibitive? Our work indicates that these seemingly reasonable objections are not factually based. First, while rising oil and gas prices will not lead to increased aggregate domestic supply, they will -- and already do -- mean greatly increased effort. A well not worth drilling when oil sold for $5 a barrel and gas for $1 per mmBTU2, as they did as recently as 1973, is often a potential gold mine when oil goes for $40 a barrel and gas for $7 per mmBTU. Already, Michigan drilling -- mostly for natural gas -- is exploding, with both Devonian and Silurian zones producing commercial finds. In addition, there is no strict relationship between the location of drilling and refining and where energy hardware is manufactured. U.S. Steel, for example, chose its Lorain, Ohio mill as the one to which it is adding tubular capacity, and Algoma Steel is in the process of building a 200,000-ton seamless tube addition in Ontario. With the number of wells drilled rising from 28,000 per year in 1972 to 62,000 in 1981, and slated to rise to 135,000 in 1990, oil industry sources see continuing shortages of all sorts of energy hardware, especially such devices as pump jacks and related equipment needed to bring exploratory operations up to full production. The increase in the number of wells drilled, in fact, understates the expected rise in ~rill in~ effort. With wells going ever deeper, footage drilled is predicted to rise from 288 million feet in 1980 to 700 million i~ 1990. Moreover, there's an equally grave, and even more predictably long-lived, shortage of storage and refining equipment. With its geology, Michigan is already a major natural gas storage area; that means that the pumps, compressors, valves, tanks, and upgrading equipment used in gas ~torage, "sweetening" (of impure, or "sour," gas) and retrieval are a natural market for Michigan producers. But do our four proposed product lines meet all ten of th~ criteria with which we began? First, our work to date convinces us that they satisfy criterion #2 by conserving the. value of the existing capital stock. All are manufactured of iron, steel, and.aluminum; many are made using machine tools of th e ~ype used 1n the auto industry (certainly, the tool conversion problem is far smaller than that posed by the autoto-warplane transition of the 1940s). some -- notably the 2(m.cfT)herfe are one million BTUs (mmBTU) in each 1000 cubic feet . o natural gas • one b arrel (42 gallons) of crude 01·1 contains 5.8 mmBTU. �Energy Hardware 21 smaller cogenerators and pumps -- can be made using idle capacity in engine plants, whether now open or closed down. Others -- valves, gasifier chambers, and the castings used in their production -- are typically not assembly-line outputs; hence, many existing multi-story plants are suitable for their manufacture. In fact, the use of multi-story plants may not be as inefficient relative to single-story, land-intensive ones as most planners assume. Important new innovations in high ·-rise storage and counterweight inter-floor stock movement, co~pled with rising land and site prepa·ration costs, are making refurbishing of existing multi-story structures an increasingly attractive alternative to single-story, greenfield construction. The transition from auto to energy hardware manufacture requires planning. Some of Detroit's advantages will be lost if the area's remaining large car and light truck assembly, engine, and casting plants are allowed to put their equipment up for auction in the international machinery market. A serious effort at rational diversification would include the immediate inventorying of the capital stock of the city and the region. We contend that past efforts by government to attract new enterprises would have fared better had Detroit and Michigan assumed an activist role in the capital goods market; after all, a cheaper lathe can make the same contribution to the "business climate" as a cheaper worker compensation program. Second, the product line descriptions above should suggest why we are satisfied that all four product areas meet criteria #3-6. They can replace auto's "export" role; they supply strong, growing, and long-lived ind us trial markets; they take advantage of Detroit's human and physical capital base; and they are relatively immune to major demand variation. The energy hardware market is fully national, universally agreed to be a major growth center, and -- to the extent it exhibits any cyclicality -- reacts favorably to precisely the energy price and supply shocks that devastate auto production levels. But what about criterion #1, the contribution they could make to large-scale Detroit employment? And what about our four product lines' relevance to criterion #7, the labor costs of firms producing them? To study employment impacts of different product line investments, we have used Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment requirements tables published in May 1980 and based on input-output relationships that existed in 1977. These tables show the number of full-time jobs, direct and indirect, created or maintained by each $1 billion (in 1972 dollars) of sales. We have examined the jobs per billion dollars in sales �22 Rational Reindustrialization in a number of industries that produce outputs similar or identical to the four we are proposing for Detroit's new sector. To illuminate the method, imagine an industrial park, a set of buildings and rail spurs surrounding a onceabandoned truck assembly plant. Imagine further that this industrial park, this complex, produces minemouth coal gasifiers; in fact, the finished gasifiers exit from the old truck plant. Many of the inputs that go into the gasifiers are made within the complex; others are trucked in from other Detroit shops; and still others have to be brought in from outside the city. Using the BLS input-output tables for the industry group that produces "construction, mining and oilfield equipment," Table 3 below presents the number of jobs that each billion dollars in gasifier sales could be expected to generate. It also shows, under the "Jobs Detroit Could Capture" heading, the maximum number of jobs producing inputs to gasifiers that could be created or retained in Detroit if the City were to aggressively exploit potential linkages, both on and off the complex site. To the extent that the planners of a new sector failed to assemble land and pursue procurement targeting as effectively as they might, the gasifier plant would be less well linkaged to the local metalworking economy; the number of non-gasifier jobs would thus be lower. �23 Energy Hardware Table 3 Employment Impact Per$ Billion of Sales in Construction, Mining and Oilfield Equipment Industry in which Jobs Created or Maintained Construction, Mining and Oilfield Equipment (e.g., Gasifier} Itself Number of Such Jobs Number of Such Jobs Detroit Could Capture 21,429 21,429 634 924 2,145 619 331 215 4,424 216 488 325 183 220 376 248 634 924 2,145 619 331 215 4,424 5-108 30-488 20-163 3- 45 220 0 0 Assorted other industries, from zinc mining to rivet making to intercity trucking 18,355 1,240-9,200 Engines, turbines and generators Metalworking machines Industrial machinery Machine shop products Motor vehicles and equip. Ferrous stampings Steel furnaces & foundries Scientific instruments Material handling equipment Screw machine products Railroad equipment Tire and rubber Metal and coal mining Aluminum production Total 51,522 a b a C d C 31,839-40,545 a First figure based on Detroit share as of latest Census of Manufactures; second figure based on a potential share ceiling of 50 percent. b Same as "a" except that, given sufficient lead-time, all material handling equipment procurement could be done locally. c Sarne as "a" except that the potential share ceiling is only 25 percent. d In theory, but sadly not in fact, at least a part of the Uniroyal plant could be reopened to serve not just the gasifier complex but other tire users (e.g., the police) as well. It won't happen: the land on which the plant sits is slated for a riverfront commercial venture. �111111 Rational Reindustrialization 24 Table 3 should be read to mean that the development of a gasifier-producing capacity that generates one billion dollars in annual sales could provide local employment for between 32 and 40 thousand workers, depending on the extent to which Detroit's metalworking industry could be mobilized as part of the effort. Repeating the process embodied in Table 3 for cogenerators, pumps, and industrial process engines ("Engines, turbines and generators") and for steam injectors, compressors, and oxygen a tors (various "Standard Industrial Classifications," or "SICs"), we conclude that a new energy hardware sector generating about $6 billion in annual sales (in 1980 dollars) could employ 100,000 Detroiters. 3 The capital base that produces that level of sales obviously presupposes a large-scale infusion of capital. Sources of such capital are discussed in the "National Policy" chapter. But will Detroit's infamous high wage barrier disqualify it from taking advantage of this major opportunity for reindustrialization? Can the product lines we propose replace the disappearing auto sector jobs at similar wage and benefit levels? The answers appear to be "no" and "yes," respectively. Using another BLS source for data on hourly wage rates, and using Bureau of National Affairs conference surveys on fringe Table 4 Hourly Labor Costsi January 1981 SIC No. 371 351 354 356 355 336 344 Industry Title Base Hourly Ratet incl. COLA Motor veh. & equip. $10.69 GM, Ford Masters 10.87 Chrysler Master (U.S.) 9.48 Engines & turbines 10.50 Metalworking machinery 8.68 Gen. indus. machinery 8.42 Spec. indus. machinery 7.91 Non-ferrous foundries 7.79 Fabricated metal prod. 7.61 U.S. manufacturing avg. 7.73 Hourly Cost of Fringes $7.04 7.59 6.35 6.23 5.92 5.66 5.32 4.66 4.44 4.08 Total Hourly Compensation $17.73 18.46 15.83 16.73 14.60 14.08 13.23 12.ss 12.os 11.81 3 · For purposes of comparison the Big Three auto compani:s ~!~:~at$ ~bi~t B_oo,ooo u.s. jobs on annual sales of approx1Thr Y 9 . ill ion· About $40 billion is spent by the Big ~~ on inputs from suppliers; that $40 billion generates ~~o _er 7 oo,ooo jobs. All told, car and truck sales of $90 y~~!~~n T~~~ as~<;>ciated with about 1. 5 million domestic jobthe same as ra ;o 0 ~ about $60,000 per job is, interesting~y, per 100 000 ~eb o~n$ for our product lines (i.e., $6 billion ' JO s - 60,000 per job). �Energy Hardware 25 benefits as a share of total hourly compensation, we can determine hourly labor costs for the SI Cs now important to Detroit's economy as well as for the SICs covering the product lines we have proposed for the future. It appears that Detroit's blue collar, primary labor market workforce is accustomed to highly-paid, if insecure and seldom year-round, employment. Certainly, most of our proposed product lines fall in SICs -- 344, 351, and 354-56 -- that do not offer average remuneration at the GM and Ford Master Agreement level. It is not obvious, however, that the core Big Two hourly compensation figure is the relevant standard of comparison. First, Chrysler is the largest auto employer in Detroit; its hourly compensation averages only $0.42 per hour more than the average of SICs 351, 354, and 356. Moreover, without cost-of-living protection, by mid-1982 Chrysler workers will make less than the 351/354/356 average. Second, there is severe downward pressure facing auto industry wages in this period. The U.S. policy of protecting low-wage, low-productivity industries while not protecting high-wage, high-productivity ones such as auto has undermined the oligopoly power of the Big Three; when oligopoly power wanes, super-profits dry up, and when that happens labor rates tend to fall relative to those prevailing in other industries. It seems obvious to us that, in the long run, Detroit's working class is better off taking part in a transition into industries producing for g r owth markets than crossing its f~ngers that both wages and employment levels in auto hold up. In the short-term, however, no new public or public/private production sector can guarantee to provide employment at Big Two labor rates. What can be fought for, and eventually won, is secure employment at adequate wages. A city government not tied to a redevelopment strategy wholly dependent on luring private capital, along with organized workers who can realistically assess the future of an unprotected, unplanned, and dis invested auto sector, could choose to bargain a wage/security trade-off, provided that policy and planning were able to keep fringe benefits and the "social wage" relatively high. workers value job security highly; thus, when one conceives of security as a "fringe benefit," it becomes possible to think of workers in a new publicly-managed energy hardware sector receiving a social wage superior to that of today's autoworkers, but at a direct hourly wage rate as low as $8 an hour. We will return later to the role of other public sector 4. We oppose wage-cutting. Later in this paper, we argue that go vernment policy should protect both living standards and employment levels in auto by legislating requirements that vehicles sold in the U.S. contain significant North American value-added. Opposing reduced real earnings is one thing; predicting that auto workers' living standards will not fall is quite another. As planners, we find it wiser to argue on the basis of what we fear rather than what we hope will happen. �26 Rational Reindustrialization activities in reducing the wage cost of a given ~iving standa~d; for now, we stress that job and income sec~r1ty, along w~th the potential benefits of the new and less alienated produ<?tion relations that might be possible in such a sector, constitute major parts of our living standard. 5 Moving on to determine whether Detroit's distance ' demands represents a market-constrain. from non-local equipment ing force {criterion #8), one must find out how much of our proposed product lines' delivered cost would be accounted for by transportation. Examination of rail and truck freight rate charts makes clear that transport costs are dependent on a constellation of nine factors: weight of products being shipped number shipped per order dimensions of products shipped extent to which one-way movements are matched by return trips degree of product containerization speed with which delivery must be made whether destination is on or off main rail lines or highways whether products require special handling level of carrier insurance coverage required To see how these nine factors impinge on the product line choice calculus, we compare Matilla and Thompson's top choice, packaged meats, with a 35-ton engine representative of many of the outputs suggested in our agenda. Converting our findings into shares of delivered cost, we conclude that 5. The social wage is composed of three additive elements. First, and dominant, is the direct base wage. Second, and much more important than most people are aware, is direct nonwage compensation, i.e., fringe benefits. In organized, highwage industries such as auto and steel form of . amounts to close to 40 percent' ofthis compensation total hourly labor costs. Thus an auto worker who receives a wage of $11 per hour actually costs the company in excess of $18. Third, there ~s what m~ght be called the "political wage," composed of Soci~l Security (actual or prospective), the value of laws pro~ect1ng ?urrent or future pension income, the value of social services that contribute to the quality of life, the value of certain principles such as statutorily limited overtime,. programs such as unemployment insurance, worker compe~sation '. TRA,. etc. What business mainly means, in fact, whe~ _1 t deer 1es Michigan's "business climate" is that this political wage -- which it partly pays for __ is too high: too mu~h U~, too m~ch _Comp, too many services to pay for. our point 1s that. 1t is cheaper, in the long run, to reduce the need for services than to reduce the quality of services. �Energy Hardware 27 production of low-volume, high unit price goods is the best way to obviate any comparative locational disadvantage that Detroit may suffer. Product Dimensions Weight(lb) Industrial cogenerating engine 40'xl4'xl0' Packaged meats 70,000 Full truck: 48'x9'xl3' 30,000 Mode/Destination 1-Rail/Los Angeles 2-Rail-barge/Gulf Coast 3-Barge/Chicago 1-Truck/Los Angeles 2-Truck/Gulf Coast 3-Truck/Chicago ~3,400 2,800 1,100 4,700 1,900 800 The critical variable, of course, is not the absolute dollar cost of shipping the two sample outputs being compared, but rather shipping cost as a share of value-added. Assuming conservatively (see Table 3) that Detroit could capture 60% of the value-added in the cogenerator, and assuming very liberally that city producers could capture 50% of the value-added in packaged meats, we can compare the ratio of shipping cost to local value-added for the two product lines. Price at Delivery X Local "Local value-added = Pr ice• Shipping Cost As Pct. of Local Price Industrial cogenerating engine $1,800,000 0.60 $1,080,000 123- Packaged Meats 0.50 32,000 123- 64,000 0.32% 0.26 0.16 14.69 5.94 2.50 Packaged meats, we infer from the above, could at most compose part of a Detroit industry that sought to capture slightly more of the value-added in the meat products sold in Southeastern Michigan. As a national "export" product line, it is d istinctly inferior to large capital goods. The best way to minimize the disadvantages of Detroit's distance from major markets is to strive to supply those markets with high unit cost products. our proposed product lines qualify. �On the Public Account Having dealt with the extent to which our age~da's six proposed product areas satisfy our first eight criteria, we recognize an additional responsibility to reade~s who may be justifiably skeptical about our agenda because it seems to fly in the face of past events. Why, one might well ask, hasn't Detroit's economy already begun the transition from auto dependence to industrial diversification? If the linkages indeed exist, if the existing captial stock is to some significant extent reuseable, and if labor costs are not an insuperable barrier, why hasn't private investment in energy hardware already occurred? ✓ The answer, to which we have already alluded several times, is that the full potential of the linkages is unrealized because real planning exists now only at the firm level. The private sector employs a restrictively narrow accounting method that foregoes the full value of the efficiencies provided by a sound industrial infrastructure, while overvaluing the quick achievement of returns that allow high dividend payouts. In the next several pages, we contrast this narrow, socially irrational method of allocating resources with the method David Smith has labeled "public balance sheet accounting" or "social cost-benefit analysis." To assess whether and in which activities a public sector or joint public/private sector set of enterprise might succeed where purely private ones would not even venture �29 Public Account (criterion #9), we present a matrix constructed from work done by Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison in their Capital and Communities. It shows that there are at least two "cases" in which a public or public/private mode might produce where in a private mode production would not occur. The reader will quickly see that the energy hardware products described above fit into case #4; this genre of analysis also suggests that more product lines are feasible, those that fall into cases #2 and #3. Case 1 2 3 4 5 Profitable? No No No Yes Yes Socially Cheaper Open than Closed? No Yes Either Yes No Productively Linkaqed? No Either Yes Either No In Case 1, the firm in question is unprofitable, so much so that it would be cheaper to close it and pay unemployment insurance and even welfare to its workforce than to keep operating it, particularly since it's not importantly hooked up to the rest of the local economy. Both "full cost enumerators" and "private accounters" would, and should, shut such a plant. In case 2, the firm is losing money, but not so much that a rational social cost-conscious accountant would shut it, whether or not it was significant to the economy. Full cost enumerators would keep the plant open; private accounters would shut it. In case 3, the firm isn't profitable, and the losses may be so great that it would appear cheaper to shut it down and pay workers off; but it's central enough to the local economy that the economy-wide social costs of closing it might exceed the total costs of operating it. Full cost enumerators, if the planning mechanism valued its linkages, would keep such a plant open, while private accounters would unambiguously close it. In case 4, the firm is profitable and may be welllinkaged. Full cost enumerators would let it close only if there existed full employment and better uses for the resources invested in it. Private accounters, however, might well choose to clos e it, if its profitability were below some target rate of return believed to be available elsewhere. Finally, in case 5, the firm is profitable, but for the community in which it operates its costs exceed its �Rational Reindustrialization 30 benefits. For example, it may be a heavy polluter. Full cost enumerators would want such a plant closed. Its private owners, however, would keep it open unless they could make more profit investing elsewhere. A survey of the new business school literature on corporate strategies backs up our analysis that private capitalists make decisions on a fundamentally conservative basis, one that renders potentially and even some actually profitable ventures victims of a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. Reproduced below is a 4-quadrant graph taken from the curriculum of the Harvard Business School, a graph that tells private managers what to invest in and disinvest from. Annual Market (Sales) Growth 20% - QUESTION STAR 15% 10% - --------------------,----------------------8% I I I 5% DOG : cow 1 - - - - , - - - - - - - - -_ 0.5 l _:__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 1.0 2.0 ~ Ratio of market share to that of nearest competitor . Note that in any case in which the annual growth ~n dema nd for the product line exceeds 8-10 percent -- as it _oes_for all of the projects we have proposed -- the venture 1s e 1 th? r a " star " or a "quest ion • 11 s inc e Detro i t ' s pub 1 i c prfoduct7on sector begins from a O percent market share all o our ideas are "qu es t ions. · " The essential . ' · 1 venture capita for . 0 urb st artup enterprises will be more available -- and more ava1 1 a 1. e from privat e as we 1 1 as public · sources -- 1f · these en t erpr 1ses can capt · the' f' ld ure enough of the strong market growth 1n b ~r ie s to approach the B-School's "star" category. we e 1 ieve our proposals can meet this standard of performance. �Public Account 31 If they can, even skeptical private capital will be made available. But what if they fall a little short? Are there social benefits of job-creating investment that are overlooked in private sector accounting but explicitly enumerated in our approach? Might a city deem an enterprise requiring an ongoing subsidy "socially profitable" and hence worthy of support? Yes. There are three such benefits which, if large enough, justify investment where the private sector might instead withdraw: 1. direct and indirect local employment; 2. retention of a reinvestible surplus; and 3. the effect on the "business climate" of supplying low cost goods and services consumed by Detroit workers. We will treat each of the three in turn. First, by creating or retaining jobs, a social cost-benefit approach results in capturing the gains of not having to provide as much unemployment insurance, general relief, and crime control; to settle as many insurance claims; to incur such exorbitant health costs; and to levy such high tax rates. Many jobs are sacrificed today because the costs enumerated above are borne by the public sector, rather than by the private investors whose decisions are responsible for them. Imagine a Detroit enterprise that employs 250 workers earning $15,000 each per year, of whom two-thirds own homes and half live in Detroit. The enterprise, let us say, is losing $500,000 per year. Assuming that closing the facility makes private accounting sense to its owners, let us ask whether closing the facility is also rational for the total society. On the negative side, operating the plant costs society $500,000, the private loss. On the positive side, keeping the enterprise open garners the society about $172,000 in property taxes, $57,000 in worker-paid city income taxes, $138,000 in state income taxes, and $~87,000 in federal income taxes. It also saves $920,000 in unemployment insurance (a one-time cost), welfare, and food stamp transfer payments. Adding these social benefits, one gets about $1,770,000 in year one and $850,000 each year thereafter. Netting out the annual $500,000 loss, over a decade society is better off to the tune of $4.4 million by keeping the plant open. Second, this sort of calculation understates society's saving: by keeping the plant open, the city may be preserving other jobs in enterprises supplying the plant. While the degree of "linkagedness" of a firm to the rest of the local economy is difficult to quantify, it is important to understand that it can be increased by rational planning. In fact, planning an ever-more-interconnected sector is the l ' I .l I �32 Rational Reindustrialization essence of the reindustrialization task in Detroit. In return for a subsidy, for example, the City can require _that a f~rm increase its ties with other local firms. By making the firm do so, the City (a) earns a return on its subsidy, (b) captures tax revenues and their future stability, and (c) foregoes the costs associated with continued disinvestment. The savings can then be used to seed new enterprises in the sector, to invest in cost-cutting infrastructure projects, or even to reduce local tax rates. Third, to the extent that keeping the plant open constitutes part of a broader plan to integrate salvaged labor and capital resources into a new, planned public or public/private sector, the city's new sector planning authority can reduce its subsidy liability by offering workers in the enterprises the income-job security trade-off described earlier. Success in doing so can be a powerful tool in convincing private captial that, if it is willing to play by the rules -- secure employment, accountability to a citywide enterprise linkage plan, etc. -- it too can enjoy the benefits of what a private accountant would consider lower labor costs. These aspects of publicness are difficult to cost out. When and if Detroit goes shopping for investors in its emerging new sector, its pitch will have to include quantitative estimates of what publicness promises the venturesome lender or partner. It would not do merely to argue that inter-firm sectoral planning is more efficient; investors will want to know how much more efficient. Again, a precise estimate of the cost advantage accruing to public/worker production is not feasible; but a lower limit -- a minimum -- figure can be derived. Basically and over-simply, it is composed of~at part of our private sector counterparts' after-tax profits that leak out of the investment stream as dividends. Based on a financial analysis of the firms appearing in the table on the next page, we calculate that approximately 39% of those companies' net income is lost to these uses. Thus, 39% of a 7.4% after-tax return on sales, ~r 2.9%, constitutes the quantifiable minimum advantage of public/worker enterprise for our product lines. . We maintain, of course, that the true "public edge" 1s far greater than that. In addition to non-quantifiable factors such as planning to maximize linkagedness there may be ways _to exploit two other programs to swell the' advantages of public/worker production. First, to the extent that the sma~ler sc~le of our start-up enterprises allows them access to ~ndustr1al revenue bond financing, they might realize a capital cos~ edge of as much as 5-6% over other, larger producers, depending on Prevailing interest rates. Preferential use of tax abatement policy -- an altogether appropriate use of �Public Account 33 this oft-misused tool -- might assist in lowering the interest rate the bonds would have to pay to attract buyers. I Second, as we will discuss in describing the second of three phases of Rational Reindustrialization, another piece of flawed free market tax bribe policy, the "enterprise zones" of Kemp-Garcia, could be stood on its head to target tax advantages toward firms in the new, publicly-managed sector. Based on a minimum, quantifiable public edge of 2.9%, and convinced that intelligent use of bonding, abatement, and zoning tools can add at least another 4-5% to that, we will proceed on the still-conservative assumption of a net total advantage to publicness of 7.5%. l I Finally, we turn to criterion #10. Is our nascent sector's private counterpart profitable and countercyclical? This, of course, has important bearing on its appeal to the City, to private financiers, and to potential bond purchasers. If the new sector's activities can pass this set of tests, their 7.5% estimated cost edge will make possible the steady generation of a significant reinvestible surplus with which to finance further sectoral expansion. Despite the fact that most of the corporations now producing our proposed outputs also produce other, more cyclically-sensitive products, Table 5 makes clear what a strong, stable sector we are seeking to enter. 'I �Rational Reindustrialization 34 Table 5 Profitability and its Cyclicality for Selected Candidate Product Lines Profitability 1975-80 Average Resistance to Recession Pct. Gap between recession qtrs. (1975-I and 1980-I) and 1975-80 Average Rate of Return on: Sales Net worth Product Line Manufacturers Studied Rate of Return a/ on: Sales Net worth Oil and gas p::oduction and upgrading equipment and/or industrial process engines Hughes Tool Ideco (Dresser) Halliburton Struthers Wells McMaster-Carr NL Industries Cameron Iron Crawford Ent. Reading & Bates Schlumberger 9.85% 24.06% Coal gasif ication hardwa.:-e Westinghousec,d Wilputtec McDermott Dresser NL Industries 6.02 14.87 16.6 12.9 Cogenerating engines (gas- and dieselfueled) Gen. Electricd Westinghoused McGraw Edisond S & C Electric 5.96 14. 39 18.0 15.1 Average, manufacturers listed abovee 7.40 20.83 12.9 10.2 Average, all U.S. manufacturing 5.14 14.98 32.3 24.4 5.8% 5.2% SOURCE: Quarterly and annual corporate reports; FTC-SEC. Notes: a - Defined as after-tax profits as a percenc of sales or net worth. b - Net Worth defined as beginning-of-year stockholder equity. c - Currently produce minemouth gasifiers. tord - 1975-80 earnings adversely affected by collapse in light water reac t st rel~t~d electric power plant supplies. In addition, earnings under a e gasifier and cogenerator profitability: all but Wilpucte are large, diversified companies. e - Sales used as weights for determination of average. a �Toward The Rational Reindustrialization of Detroit We have called for the redeployment of Detroit's idled industrial resources in the production of an initial group of products particularly suited to our city's existing capacities. Believing that the challenges of industrial disinvestment must be met with a bold political departure, we have looked to local government to take the lead in initiating a continually bargained economic development plan in which workers and government join private enterprise as co-planners in the realm of production. Such bargained planning is not business as usual in America. We therefore face a tangle of problems which would encumber such a departure. Before we can claim that our economic development agenda is a pragmatic possibility, we must address several current legal, financial, structural, spatial, and political obstacles. Legal: At present, Michigan law narrowly constrains the public role in economic development. The Michigan Constitution clearly limits the types of money-generating enterprises in which a city may be engaged. Cities may own and operate hospitals, cemeteries, and all works involving the public health and safety; public service facilities providing water, light, heat, power, sewage disposal, and transportation; and, with the approval of the State legislature, airports. But the Constitution prevents the State or any of its subdivisions from owning stock in a privately-operated enterprise, or from establishing a State- or municipally-owned bank. In �36 Rational Reindustrialization Section 26, the Constitution also limits the role of public credit: "Except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, no city or village shall have the power to loan its credit for any private purpose or, except as provided_ by law, fo~ ~ny public purpose." While the pressure of regional competition for investment has led to increased flexibility in the definition of "public purpose," the difficult-to-amend Mich~gan Constitution still intensely regulates all forms of public enterprise. State law also regulates permissible investment of public employee retirement funds. Only 1% or less of a given fund's assets may be in the common or preferred stock of a given corporation, and that stock must have paid a dividend in five of the past seven years. No fund may own more than 5% of a given corporation's stock. In Michigan, start-up enterprises seeking capital through equity offerings to public employee pension funds clearly face severe limitations. The strict limits imposed by the Michigan Cons ti tut ion are reiterated in state development finance legislation. Section 15 of the Michigan Industrial Development Revenue Bond Act of 1963 begins, "Nothing herein contained shall be interpreted to grant to any municipality the authority to operate an industrial building or any industrial machinery or equivalent for its own use." Similarly, the Economic Development Corporation Act of 1974 provides in Section 8 (7), "The corporation shall not operate a project or an enterprise in a project, other than as lessor." This proscription does not appear, as such, in Michigan's Tax Increment Finance Authority Act of 1980, but nothing in the sections defining the powers of authorities suggests that they may operate an enterprise. The portals of Factory Michigan are fiercely guarded by the legal lions of free enterprise. Financial: To fully implement the rational reindustrialization of Detroit will require, over time, billions of dollars of both private and public investment. But the Reagan supply-siders are currently eviscerating the existing federal progr~ms that could provide some of the public capital. The Small Business Administration and the crucial Economic Development Administration are slated to be destroyed. Budget cuts and the new federalism will damage the economic development capacity of the Housing and Urban Development Department. The huge d_evelopment potential represented in the Carter-era Energy Securit~ ~rust Fund may be compromised by the emerging energy non-policies of the Reagan Administration • . E_ve_n if these federal programs were to remain in pla~e, mobi~izing capital for the start-up enterprises of rational reindustr iali zation would be challenging. Private C �Toward Rationality 37 providers of debt or equity capital will look carefully at new f ~rms with unusual owner.ship and management structures, especially when they have neither a track record nor the investment tax advantages of established, profitable corporations. Existing Michigan economic development programs such as industrial revenue bonds, tax abatement, or modest and targeted loan guaranees could cheapen the price of capital or reduce the cost of enterprise, but by themselves could only facilitate, rather than assure, .access to development capital. While public and private employee pension funds represent the single largest potential source of development capital -- and their resources are growing at the rate of $100 million each day -- major legal and political battles must be won before this pool could be tapped to reindustrialize Detroit. Structural: Rational reindustrialization as we conceive it would involve new firm structures in which workers (and eventually perhaps the City) with equity would join private owners in the governance of the shop floor, the plant manager's office, and the corporate board room. Further, we envision the emergence of a general planning mechanism in which the needs and interests of participating firms, major financiers, unions, and the City would be bargained and temporarily composed in a binding, time-limited contract. At both the level of the worker-owned or joint venture firm and that of the general planning mechanism, implementation of our agenda will require that these abstractions be made concrete. Spatial: Most of the Detroit plants that have been or will be idled by disinvestment are multi-story buildings constructed between 1910 and the 1940s. Although many of the product groups discussed earlier as the core of rational reindustrialization can be produced efficiently in such facilities, this is not so in all cases at all scales. Some potential private investors in a reindustrializing Detroit may require new facilities; this poses the costly and politically painful task of land assemblage in an intensely built environmen~. The continuing agony of providing the 465 cleared acres said to be necessary for the new G.M.A.D. plant in the Central Industrial Park is well known: a $200 million public expenditure (excluding the cost of financing debt), the complete destruction of a community, and abject capitulation by governm~nt to the dictates of a potential private investor. The City of Detroit controls but one 60-acre site with industrial potential, and has identified only a handful of privately-held sit~s in even t he 15-40 acre range. Industrial land assemblage in Detroit wi 11 require a new relation ship with pr.i vate in ves to:s, s~per ior replacement housing for relocated reside?t~, a con tinuing public presence in the developments facilitated, and �38 Rational Reindustrialization access to public development capital at the federal level on a scale unlikely under Reagan. Political: Negotiating the legal, financial, structural and spatial obstacles discussed above will require great political dexterity from adroit leadership. Moreover, there is an additional, more truly political task. Advocates of rational reindustrialization can expect some degree of purely ideological hostility from business leadership, especially as public and worker authority increases and the proponents of the downtown Renaissance strategy feel the pinch of their now-subordinate status in the City's redevelopment effort. This hostility must be contained. Building broad support for the bargained social wage we have discussed, developing understanding of the tradeoffs involved, and protecting the social wage from erosion will be major challenges. We look to the government of the City of Detroit as the key source of the initiative and coordination necessary to rational reindustrialization. However, since many of the valuable industrial linkages we seek to protect from dis in vestment exist in a metropolitan web of agglomerated interdependence, a higher level of working class cooperation on a metropolitan scale eventually will be necessary. The workers of Warren and Detroit will have to join forces to protect their futures if their respective local governments are to help coordinate what should ultimately be a regional development plan. It is not possible to take up all the problems and tasks we can anticipate. We possess neither the space, the necessary special knowledge, nor the bravado. we will, however, engage some of the major obstacles defined above by imagining the specific forms they might assume in three distinct phases in the long march of rationally reindustrializing Detroit. For the sake of orderly exposition we will discuss an early P 1· 1 ot ProJect . ' Phase; an intermediate "Mixed Enterprise Zone " Phase; and a more distant Mature Plan Phase. Pilot Project Phase The event that creates the P?ssibility of implementing this initial phase has becom~ a bitter commonplace in contemporary Detroit: a major industrial facility is closing and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workers f<;1ce permanent unemployment. We assume a year or more of le~dti~e between announcement and closing; the presence of a maJor ~nion i a _plant W<?rkforce with strong leadership; and s?me intere~t 1n averting disaster on the part of the surrounding community, the vendo 7s to the facility, and local and state gov7r~men t • The obJ ecti ve in this phase is to reopen the facility as an enterprise in which the workers and community �Toward Rationality 39 hold equity and thus can participate in bargained planning of the new company's development. The product line of the new venture would be based on the criteria, and probably selected from among the examples, we have described. Hence 1 as the firm eventually prospers, the legitimacy of the Rational Reindustrialization agenda will be reinforced: local government, other endangered workers and manufacturers, and potential investors will be emboldened to attempt similar ventures. Feasibility: The first step must be a campaign to mandate and properly conduct a feasibility study for reopening the closing plant. The initiative of the threatened workers and the affected union will be crucial. They will have to gather the support and generate the momentum to enlist local and state government, vendors, community organizations, and perhaps even the existing corporation.6 The key participants in the study would be the workers and the union; local and state governments and their economic development agencies; representatives of community organizations whose memberships include many plant workers; and, at some point, one or more Detroit-based financial institutions interested in investing in the proposed venture. The participants would retain necessary consultants for special studies on the proposed product line's current and future market; on current prouction technology, costs, and anticipated improvements; on financing options; on the forms of corporate governance and management structure suited to the purposes of the participants; and on how best to accomodate existing or pending state law and regulations. The feasibility study should be conducted so as to maximize the educational impact of the inquiry and public support for the proposed undertaking. The feasibility study process would be consummated in a final report that could also function as the initial business plan of the new enterprise. In the pilot project phase, legal a1:d spatial I?roblems would be minimal; the political and especially the financial obstacles would not. Supporting even a single-factory new venture would require political boldness of local government and the union. Fashioning a corporate structure that facilitates worker and community equity would require 6. The costs of a full feasibility study could be distributed among the City (Community Development En ti tlemen t Grant funds) , the Detroit Economic Development Corporatio~ (hereaf~er, _the EDC), the State Department of Commerce_ (in-kind_ contributions of personnel from the Office of Economic Expansion), the State Department of Labor (personnel from the Job Development Division) , the federal government {planning grants from HUD or EDA, should funding survive), and the union. Ill J �40 Rational Reindustrialization ingenuity. For the initial projects of Rational Reindustrialization, however, the major challenge will be to secure adequate financing. Governance: The new enterprise should be structured to max1m1ze access to potential capital while insuring a strong worker and community voice. We propose a model with five components. 7 An operating company with a management including elected union representatives would organize production, marketing, planning and the other traditional aspects of enterprise as a for-profit business. An Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) with a committee, under union control, would provide the vehicle for worker equity, facilitate access to certain sources of capital, and confer significant tax advantages. A non-profit, tax-exempt community corporation would provide a locally-accountable entity that could accept contributions from local and national charitable organizations to provide capital for and assume equity in the new enterprise. The community corporation might also prove useful as a passthrough mechanism for donated buildings and equipment. Individual investors would be offered stock, though care must be taken not to unnecessarily dilute worker and community equity and influence in corporate governance. Finally, the Detroit EDC would function as a conduit for government grants, as a lessor of equipment and/or plant if industrial revenue bonds are used, as a continuing source of technical assistance, and as an indirect voice of local government in corporate affairs. How would such a complex structure be governed, and how would bargained planning occur at the level of the firm? The common stockholders would be sovereign, electing a board of directors that would make policy for management. To max1m1ze the policy impact of worker equity and to strengthen the hand of the union, both the allocated and unallocated shares in the ESOP would be voted by the workers (or by their elected representatives in the ESOP Cammi ttee which might overlap with the union lea~ership or be a special ~nion off ice)• ~he_s~ock held by the ESOP, the community corporation, and by ind1v1dual local residents would be voting common stock. If 7. During the late 1970s, a team of consultants coordinated by the National Center for Economic Alternatives did extensive work on behalf of the Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley in their campaign to reopen the Campbell Works of the Young s to~ Sheet & Tube Company as a community-con trolled corporation. The N.C.E.A. team did imnortant work on the st ruc~ure of worker and community ownership. We have benefitted especial~y from the insights of Brad Dewan and Karl Frieden. See their Recommendations of Worker/Community OwnershiE S t ruct~re for Reopened Campbell Works, National Center for Economic Alternatives, Washington, 1978. �1111 Toward Rationality 41 it would not compromise the general appeal of firm offerings, the by-laws of the operating company might require that both the ESOP- and community corporation-held shares elect a certain minimum number of di rectors. Addition al capital would be sought through non-voting preferred stock available to all. The procurement of high quality -- but controlled -:-- management personnel would be essential. To attract private investors and government support, to navigate the dangers of the launch, and to build the operating company's standing in the marketplace will require experienced and aggressive managers. But these managers must also understand the unusual character of the company. They must be prepared to accept policy direction from a board in which the voice of the workers and the community is strong, even dominant. They must conduct relations with a union strengthened by the equity position of its members. And they must willingly participate in both the formal and informal processes of bargained planning, often yielding to the voice of the shop floor on the organization of production, heeding the union or the ESOP Committee's recommendations on local procurement targeted to union shops and accepting the dictates of the City on hiring. Such unusual individuals may well find work in such new enterprises highly attractive: a workforce inspired to exceptional productivity by its equity position and policy role; a plant equipped with state-of-the-art technology; the special support of local government; and high visibility in a nationally-known innovation are all benefits to be expected. To recruit the best available talent, however, substantial material incentives may also be necessary. Direct salaries above the norm in the industry, cash bonuses for top-flight performance, and advantageous options on non-voting preferred stock should be considered. The union would function both as the traditional collective representative of the workers in daily and contractual relations with the operating company and, through the ESOP, as a voice in corporate governance. The precise relations between the ESOP and the union would be defined in practice, and would be influenced by such considerations as the interaction between the union local and the international or bargaining tactics at contract time. This sort of enterprise structure clearly contains elements of political contest as well as common interest: It would, in the embryonic form of an individual pilot proJect, embody the dynamic class tensions that w?uld pla? thems~lv~s out in a fully-implemented, mature Rational Re1ndustr1al1zation plan. Financing: The financing of ~he enterprise should be designed to realize substantial capital for startup, to maximize equity in relation to debt, to reap the maximum tax / �-42 Rational Reindustrialization advantages available to its unusual structure, and -- for pol~tical as well as business and tax reasons -- to allow a rapid rise to profitability. Money will be necessary at the_l~u~ch for the acquisition of building and equipment, for initial operating capital, and to fund the ESOP trust. In the best possible case, the plant that will house the new enterprise would be donated by the former corporate owner to the tax-exempt community corporation, which would then bestow it upon the operating company. The former owner would realize tax advantages, and might be particularly amenable to this course of action if also engaged in bargaining with the City Council over permission to receive tax abatement and/or industrial revenue bonds for new investments elsewhere in Michigan. Element3 of the acquisition and alteration of the facility might also be accomplished with the proceeds of an Urban Development Action Grant to Detroit passed through to the Detroit EDC. This would involve a lease-purchase arrangement between the EDC and the operating company. The dedication of a UDAG to the project would increase private lender confidence, and also raise the limits on the size of an industrial bond issue for the project, should that device be selected. The plant might also be purchased with the proceeds of an industrial revenue bond, also involving a lease-purchase agreement with the EDC. The operating company would be required to conform to the limits on industrial revenue bond size and total company investment in the locale imposed by the Internal Revenue Service, and would, of course, need a purchaser for the bonds. A local commercial bank might be convinced to purchase them in return for the company promising its future banking business, including the ESOP trust. Finally, the plant could also simply be purchased with the proceeds of stock sales• Essentially the same options exist for the purchase of equipment for the new enterprise. Securing financing for the Employee Stock ownership Plan (ESOP) is essential. The typical elements of an ESOP are the company, the ESOP trust and trustee, the initial lender, and the employees and their ESOP committee. The operating company would establish the plan and the trust and designate the trustee. A lender would make a loan to the trust, which would use the proceeds to purchase common stock in the operating company. The company would at the same time agree ~o pay the trust the equivalent of the trust's principal anrl interest payments to the initial lender. The shares would be held by the ~ender as security for its loan to the trust; as the plan_begins to operate and payments are made on the loan, progressively more stock would be released to the ESOP trustee < �Toward Rationality 43 and then distributed to the accounts of the employees on the terms of the plan. The benefits to the operating company are substantial. _If an_init~al le~der can be found, the new enterprise can enJoy an immediate, interested market for its common stock. Although the company is required to make payments to the trust in the manner of a loan, the entire payment (both that dedicated to interest and the principal on the trust's obligation to the lender) is tax-deductible. The most desirable lender for our pilot project's ESOP would be an agency of government such as the U.S. Departrnen t of Commerce's Economic Development Administration, which has in the past made several loans to establish highly successful ESOPs. Unfortunately, the EDA will probably not survive the attack of Stockman' s longknives; in the real world of the early 1980s, the most likely lender will be a local commercial bank interested in the full banking business o~the operating company and that of its workers and supporters. Beyond the sale of voting common stock to the ESOP, the company would seek initial capital by offering the same securities to the community corporation and to local private investors. Given political support for the venture and the possible ideological appeal of its main product (e.g., fuelsaving hardware) and its self-help elan, certain foundations might give grants to the community corporation for the purpose of purchasing equity in the operating company. To seek other equity capital, particularly from church and other institutional investment trusts, the operating company could also issue non-voting preferred stock without diluting worker and community power in company governance. Since at first the enterprise would presumably seek market entry with aggressive pricing of its product, initial purchasers of stock should have modest expectations about near-term dividends. · It will be important, however, to show profitability as soon as possible. we think that can occ_ur: given the substantal investment in new equipment, the special tax status <:>f the ESOP financing, and the predictable net operatin_g losses in the early years of the enterprise, the compa?y will have huge tax benefits to carry forward to future, profitable years. If potential investors can be convinced of the company's 8. In realizing the benefits of the ESOP, it will be important to Prevent its substitution for an adequate and indepe nd ent pension plan for the employees of the operating c~mpany. The union must guard against an "economy" such as th is. �44 Rational Reindustrialization prospect of stable profitability in the future, then the anticipated cash flow from the deductio~s carried fo~ward can be sold in advance at startup, for precious early capital. Investors might wel{go for such a "tax loss sale": after ~11,_the new company is not a worker takeover ~fa tr~ubled firm in a declining industry, but a publicly-assisted mixed venture entering a booming industry. In light of these possible solutions to the startup obstacles, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that one or more of Detroit's major factories could be saved from closing. A former auto engine plant, for example, might be reopened to produce a small cogenerator similar to Fiat's TOTEM, which is based on a four-cylinder auto engine and can deliver substantial savings in heat and electricity costs for individual residences, small apartment buildings, and stores. Such a product would have both a local and a national market. Beyond the expected tax abatements, the City could assist by requiring procurement of the cogenerators for publicly-assisted new construction, assuring that some orders would already be in hand at launch. Further, the City and its EDC could discuss with potential local vendors to the new enterprise the possible relationship between their cooperation with the company and their prosects for future incentives from the City. Even at the pilot project stage, the advantages of publir,ly-directed linkages would begin to emerge. Mixed Enterprise Zone Phase we foresee a time when the aggregation of pilot projects, together with certain legislative and political developments, will make possible a larger, more coordinated application of our agenda. As auto disinvestment continues and the limits of the downtown Renaissance become clearer to the electorate, local government may be compelled to use its available economic development tools in unprecedented ways in a bold quest for jobs, tax base, and restored legitimacy. At that point, Rational Reindustrialization ?an be attempted in a single large industrial tract of Detroit. Local government would nurture the potential linkages a~ong a s~bstan~ial :iumber of both traditional private and pilot proJect firms rn the tract. This assistance will be most effective if government has the will and skill to preside o~er a qualitatively new, zone-wide stage of bargained planning. As auto-dependent suppliers look for replacement orders! as some plant cl<?sings lead to successful pilot project reopenings, as t~e earlier new ventures become profitable and expand, and as private corporations become interested in major investments in the zone, local government can shape both the terms and the character of growth in the zone by its aggressive use of economic development tools. A discussion of these key �Toward Rationality 45 tools is necessary before we can suggest how their creative us~ might enable new relations of production in a mixed enterpr 1se zone. Tax Increment Financing: In this process mandated by Michigan Public Act 450 of 1980, a Tax Incremen't Finance Authority (T.I.F.A. -- which may be the City's E.D.C.) is establi_shed •. The Authority designates one or more development areas 1n which tax revenue f .rom net increases in property valuation go not to the City's general fund but to an account controlled by the Authority, which can use the funds to finance revenue bonds based on the cash flow of the tax increment. These resources are applied to the economic development of the increment district. The Authority can also acquire, hold, improve, and lease real and personal property and conduct all the normal activities of a development agency. If it con trolled a large and active area from which an ample increment could be harvested, a Detroit Tax Increment Finance Authority could wield real public power in a mixed enterprise zone that was essentially coextensive with its development district(s). A TIFA could make crucial contributions to the startup of enterprises based on worker equity, or condition its assistance to a major private investor on the degree of its cooperation with the general zone planning effort. Broadly constructed, Public Act 450 may even allow a TIFA to assume an equity position in zone enterprises. Enterprise Zones: The so-called Kemp-Garcia "free enterprise zone" concept -- currently embodied in H.R. 3824 -- has become the most visible and hotly-debated element in Reagan's emerging urban policy. Our purpose here is not a full consideration of the merits of the concept as practiced in Great Britain or as discussed in the u.s. Some progressives have, with reason, been critical of a proposal that might pave the way for an eventual sweatshop Koreanization of the disinvested urban wasteland. Other progressives have, with equal reason, been drawn to a potential tool that uses federal tax concessions to target new investment on the most devastated regions of frostbelt cites. In considering Detroit's future, we assume passage of a law similar to H.R. 3824. In the current leg is lat i ve proposal, enterprise zones may be designated by local governmen~ wit~ the approval of the Secretary of H.U.D. in consul~ation with Comme 7ce, Labor, and Treasury. The criteria are quite loose: a1;1y ~ontinuous urban zone characterized by vacant land and buildings, ~n unemployment rate 1.5 times the national average, most.residents' incomes below the city median, and 4,000-plus resid~nts despite pervasive depopulation would qualify severa_l times over. All the significant industrial tracts of Detroit would thus be candidates for designation. �46 Rational Reindustrialization The requirements on local government are similarly undemanding. The City is required to reduce the_ burden~ borne by employers or employees in the zone by means _which may include tax reductions, the provision of better services, and reduced governmental red tape. Private enti~ies in th~ zone_ are as~ed to provide jobs, training, and technical and financial assistance to workers and residents in the zone. Nothing in the current legislation suggests abolition of the minimum wage, elimination of OSHA, or a compensating reduction in other federal aid; indeed, the Secretary of H.U.D. is required to promote the expeditious coordination of the zones with other federal programs. The federal tax advantages to firms in the zone are substantial. Zone firms that get at least 40% of their new hires from CETA-eligible workers enjoy a 5% business income tax credit; capital gains taxes are eliminated; half of zonegenerated business income is excluded from taxation; interest income on loans to zone businesses is tax-exempt; and net operating losses can be carried forward a full 20 years. workers in such firms enjoy a 5% federal income tax credit up to $1,500. Because of contemplated limits on the number of zones to be designated nationally during the early years of the program, intense competition among cities is likely. Beyond political trade-offs, cities that can demonstrate greatest need, broadest local support, and most potential for job creation will be the winners. If Detroit wants to win, it should ask: how can a local government supportive of Rational Reindustrialization combine a tax increment development area with an enterprise zone to create stable industrial employment on a large scale? If such a Detroit zone were drawn to include several vacant and available industrial facilities the federal tax incentives could be used to attract new, private investors. If, for example, Schlumberger, Nucorp, or another major energy hardware producer eager to ride the 1980-2000 drilling surge grows understandably frustrated with its unfilled orders from uncoordinated and overextended vendors and if it were cautious . new construction, ' the in-place ind us trial o~ the costs of maJor linkages of southeastern Michigan might prove very attractive, especially in a Detroit mixed enterprise zone in which innovative public policy had begun to efficiently rationalize the relations among many separate producers. under such circumstances, the federal incentives offer red in the zone might induce both the major private investment and the entering corporation's participation in the general~anning process of the zone. �Toward Rationality 47 The various tax advantages would also assist worker/community-owned startup enterprises. The tax-free status of all lending to zone businesses would obviate the limits and some of the overhead costs of industrial revenue bonds The other concessions would not only lighten the eventual ta; load of such enterprises, but would also increase the size and appeal of the "tax loss sales" that could add to their initial capital resources. Finally, workers in the zone would benefit from the targeted hiring requirements imposed upon zone employers and from the 5% federal income tax credit. This credit would be one element in a stabilized social wage enabling the direct wage/job security trade-off discussed earlier. Pension Fund Capital: To implement Rational Reindustr iali zation in a major industrial zone of Detroit will require more development capital than will be available from worker/community equity, government grants, and conventional lenders. For the mixed enterprise zone to flourish, access to pension fund capital will eventually be necessary. Pension funds in the United States control huge resources. They hold over $550 billion in assets, equivalent to 27% of GNP. Their $100 billion investment in corporate bonds repesents nearly 15% of all long-term private corporate debt in the country. A building political contest of great import is developing around two simple questions: Whose dollars are in the funds? How should they be invested? In an August 1980 statement, the AFL-CIO Executive Council strongly encouraged affiliates to bargain for joint administration of benefit funds. The highest priority for redirected investment identified by the council was "a new independent institution, partially supported by pension funds and aimed at promotion of employment as part of a broad program for the reindustrialization of America" -- in essence, a public development bank in which workers would have a policy voice. Major obstacles confront the aggressive pursuit of such a goal. Most private pension funds are comp?ny-controlled, and de facto authority over investment policy has been delegated to banker-trustees. Public funds are usually regulated by state constitutions, statutes, and court decisions that limit permissible fund investments. Most. startup a nd smaller enterprises are excluded from investment simply because t~ey are unproven or too small to merit the_n~cessary_research. Finally, all pension fund investment policies ~re 1nfl~enced by the "prudent man" doctrine which, as conven~1onally interpreted, requires trustees to invest conser~~t~ve~y, based.on the narrowest measures of return to plan benericiaries. Ironically, such caution has often produced poor performance: one �48 Rational Reindustrialization study of funds holding nearly 20% of all U.S. fund assets found an average rate of return of 4.1%. For workers to gain some influence over their deferred earnings held in pension trusts, a sustained campaign will be required. Unions must bargain for joint administration. Public funds must be freed from socially irrational regulations. A doctrine of "social prudence" must be asserted, one that charges trustees with an affirmative resfonsibility to consider social criteria in investment policy. Vigorous use of the public balance sheet approach must be used to demonstrate the full economic value of targeting investments especially from the public employee funds to the communities of plan participants. Many regional and national risk pooling and capital targeting instruments must be developed, so that workers have the tools to safely direct the power of their pensions. As this campaign wins victories, the resources freed up for economic development in Michigan, in Detroit, and in our proposed mixed enterprise zone may be substantial. Michigan-headquartered private pension funds include five of the largest 100 and 38 of the largest 1000. They control nearly $20 billion in assets and include General Motors {$12.9 billion), Ford {$4.9 billion), Chrysler {$1.6 billion), and Bendix {$1.1 billion). Public employee pension funds in Michigan hold over $5 billion in assets, make 65% of their investment completely outside the state, and place only 12% in Michigan-based firms. Unions must win creation of and joint control over a state or area investment bank that guarantees a minimum rate of return to pension fund investments and targets a portion of its resources to zone enterprises. For example, as the pilot project building small cogenerators matures to profitability, new equity capital from the regional fund could help finance its expansion into much larger industrial cogenerator production. Eminent Domain: Only public authority will be able to accomplish the major spatial rationalizations that may be required within the zone. A mixed enterprise zone embracing and over laying a federally-mandated enterprise zone and a citydesignated tax increment finance district should include as much existing open space as possible to reduce the need for industrial land assemblage in the future. While Detroit has very little such space well served by the necessary transport and utility infrastructure, we have noted the potential cost 9. See especially the groundbreaking essay by Michael Leibig, Social Investments and the Law {Washington, 1980). �Toward Rationality 49 advantages of major reinvestment in existing facilities as compared with entirely new "greenfield" developments. While greenfield expansion often appears to minimize production costs, its huge -- and often publicly-assumed -- capital costs as compared with the "brownfield" or retrofit alternative calls that appearance into question. 10 We are convinced that when all costs are fully and properly enumerated, the bottom line will be urban reinvestment. Detroit's multi-story factories need not be industrial dinosaurs marked for extinction. We have noted that many of the product lines we recommend for Detroit are large, relatively low-volume-per-week goods suited for fabrication in rehabilitated multi-story factories. We would also point out that many of the smaller, startup enterprises that will bloom in our agenda can share multi-story facilities converted, through government initiative, into "industrial condominiums." Nevertheless, the need for land assemblage will inevitably arise as reindustrialization proceeds. The trauma of "urban greenfielding" in the interests of unaccountable private economic development has been harshly demonstrated to the nation by Detroit's Poletown experience. Without notice and with only token community consultation, a working class neighborhood was expropriated and dispersed in one short year to make way for a General Motors assembly plant, shaking the lives of and the linkages among thousands of citizens and hundreds of businesses. Rational Reindustrialization projects a new concept ion of the land assemblage process, in which public/worker/community authority dominates. The municipal exercise of eminent domain will not commit such blight-byannouncement but be the outcome of open, protracted discussion within the planning mechanism. If housing must be taken, relocated residents will move into an already constructed replacement community reflecting their preferences, a community financed by federal and state governments and the bonding power of the Tax Increment Finance Authority or the Economic Development Corporation. Some homes might even be physically relocated; in any case, neither residents nor businesses will lose the relationships that are their sustenance. Humane and democratic reconfiguration of land usage is possible only if public authority is d?rninant on the question in the governance of the mixed enterprise zone. The IO. See U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, Technology and and 1 ~8 0) Steel Industry Cornpeti ti veness (Washington, or Staughton Lynd, "Reindustrialization: Brownfield Greenfield?," Democracy (July 1981). �50 Rational Reindustrialization exercise of eminent domain would still occur, and private corporations might still be among the beneficiaries; but unli~e the Pole town experience, it will not be the questionably constitutional exercise of eminent domain for the obviously exclusive benefit of General Motors that led 2 of 7 Michigan Supreme Court justices to vote against Detroit's taking of Poletown. As Associate Justice Ryan, one of the dissenters, wrote: "Justifying condemnation for private corporations [requires] the retention of some measure of government control over the operation of the enterprise after it has passed into private hands." Precisely so. Only a reindustrialization that embodies ongoing public authority in the operation of enterprise preserves the rationality and cons ti tutionali ty of eminent domain for economic development. Bargained Zone Planning: Who should govern the mixed enterprise zone? Through what structure should decisions to wield the development tools we have described be made? We envision an incorporated, democratically-constituted Planning Authority that brings together (1) representatives of workers (both unions and boards of worker-owned firms); (2) private enterprise (big and small manufacturers, banks and other lenders, utilities); (3) communities (e.g., a zone-wide council of neighborhood organizations); and (4) government (E.D.C./T.I.F.A., the City). Each of these four blocs would have a set number of members elected or appointed to the Authority board by the entities it represents. Having recognized common interests in the process of establishing the zone and the Authority, the representatives would still necessarily bring contending interests to the governance of the zone. Open debate at the board table and in public would test the strength of the blocs represented; ultimately, each entity has the power to withhold its participation in the economy of the zone. These social contests! sometimes mild and sometimes sharp, would be resolved by adoption of a zone contract or bargained planning agreement binding on all participants. As the political experiment of the mixed enterprise zon~ matures,. the bargained planning agreement would embrace a w:der and w:der range of economic activity: wage and hiring policy; coordinated production of intra-zone orders· development and maintenance of infrastructure· distributi~n of governme~t resources; coordinated targeting of capital; efficient ma~erials movement~ and even formal merger of some zone enterprises. The Planning Authority would in effect levy a tax . , Or . "u ser f_ee " on zone enterprises, at ,first simply to finance its overs~ght role but later to enable it to make on-going targeted investments within the zone. �Toward Rationality 51 The commitment to a mixed enterprise zone would obviously constitute a major shift in the priorities of local government. Down town commercial interests would be told to rely mo 7e on market forces and be asked to forego their claim on public development resources. The citizenry would be asked to consider surrendering part of its tax resources to targeted use in the zone. The federal government would have to be won over to the logic a city using public balance sheet accounting and be persuaded to cooperate. Such a federally-tolerated well-developed mixed enterprise zone would be the highest stag~ of Rational Reindustrialization attainable in Detroit without a major restructuring of American politics. To go further, large resources are essential. Mature Plan Phase How large? we can assign rough round numbers to suggest the resources necessary to fully reindustrialize Detroit as a model of frostbelt recovery: to create 100,000 new industrial jobs, close to $4 billion in new investment would be required over time. In the third section of the next chapter, we will discuss how the public component of this investment might be raised. For now, suffice it to say that, for Rational Reindustrialization to progress to full form, Reagan and the free market troglodytes who shape his economic policies must go, to be replaced by a federal administration whose solution to the crisis of the 1980s is incipiently state-capitalist. While it does matter whether this evolution is dominated by anti-democratic pragmatists such as Felix Rohatyn or by genuine liberals seeking a statecapitalist regeneration of a more redistributively just society, in either case corporatist ins ti tut ions would be created. A crucial test of strength for progressives would be our ability to marshal the forces necessary to condition these institutions. If a Rohatynesque national development bank were founded, would city movements, trade unions, and other mass organizations of the working class and poor have sufficient strength in the streets and in Congress -- and sufficient clarity on what is desirable -- to s~ape part of the bank's mandate? Could we insure that some of its resources would be targeted to the Rational Reindustrialization of the frostbelt? The fullest implementation of our agenda may v~ry well depend on the convergence of the left and ~regressive forces in America into a national social-democratic movement with clear objectives and political power. T~is national bloc could influence federal energy, development finance, transportation, housing, and urban policy in ways tha~ would favor a full capital-conserving, job-creating industrial program for Detroit. �52 Rational Reindustrialization At the local political level, mature Rational Reindustr ializaton requires the advent of a City administration that shares our agenda's fullest objectives. Its leaders would represent a mobilized people in negotiat~ons wi~h private <;aJ?ital, with Washington, and with other 1ndustr1a~ commun1t~es of southeastern Michigan. As the scope of bargained planning came to encompass a widening range of city life, a popular movement would emerge, one that could elect and protect a creative leadership and which would provide the training ground for thousands of resourceful citizens guiding the planning contest in the factories and neighborhoods of Detroit. National Policy and Rational Reindustrialization The agenda described in this paper would be all the more feasible if certain national policies begin to be implemented in the 1980s. First, a national response to the current automotive sector crisis could slow the loss of key inter-firm linkages in the Detroit economy. Second, a national energy policy centered on fuel substitution and coal conversion, rather than on the production of diesel fuel from western shale, would place Detroit in a better position to capture a significant share of the U.S. energy hardware sector. Third, because start-up costs for our "Mature Plan" phase are large, an approach to national, regional, and urban revitalization based on an integrated federal capital targeting mechanism, such as a Reconstruction Finance Corporation with access to Energy Security Trust Fund monies, would make financing Detroit's future far easier. turn. We will examine each of these national areas in Policy for the Auto Transition An agenda to rationally reindustrialize Detroit's economy would be well �National Policy 53 served by a national policy aimed at slowing the decline of ~he U.S. a~tomotive_sector. The downsizing of the city's main industry 1s occurr 1ng at a dangerous pace; if the linkages that bind together the industrial economy are ruptured by too many sudden jolts -- bankruptcies, lost orders skilled workforce migration -- the cost of rebuilding the area~ s economy will be far greater. A managed approach to the auto crisis is important in buying time in which to marshal resources for rational conversion of Detroit's industrial base. There are two distinct dimensions to the crisis of auto-dependent Detroit. The first is the decade-long stagnation in Americans' real incomes, which has led to an aging of the vehicle fleet as consumers postpone new purchases. Stagnant real incomes tend to induce a shift away from more expensive, predominantly domestic, larger vehicles toward cheaper, smaller ones. This shift tends to dramatically increase imported -- and especially Japanese-made -- cars' share of the U.S. market, as they tend to be smaller, lighter, and (largely as a result of lower wages despite comparable productivity in Japan) less expensive relative to their quality. This income effect has been joined (and was preceded) by a second factor. In 1974-75, and again in 1979-80, fuel prices doubled. In both cases, the domestic auto makers were caught flat-footed, their factories geared to produce an output mix heavily weighted toward larger, high-unit-profit cars and light trucks. In 1974-75, the government responded by passing new car fuel economy regulations designed to force the Big Three to begin an expensive, but orderly, transition to an output mix favoring smaller vehicles. That transition has included several rounds of "downsizing," such that the average domestic 1982 model car is 75 percent more fuel-efficient than its 1974 counterpart. The 1979-80 fuel er isis proved that even these fuel economy gains were "too little, too late": larger cars and trucks piled up in inventory, the imports' market sh~re zoomed to 27 percent, and the Big Three laid off fully a third of its U.S. work force through an unprecedented wave of p~ant closings and capital spending cutbacks. Chrysler Corporation, the largest employer in Detroit, twice had to be granted a reprieve from imminent bankruptcy by federal loan guarantees tied to major wage and benefit concessions by its workers. Not surprisingly, the crisis in auto has attrac~ed many proposed "solutions." Some have called for more excl~sive reliance on the free market: removal of government regulationS, decontrol of gasoline prices, and a sink-or-swim approach to Chrysler's plight. Others have urged workers to accept ?ay and conditions cuts to reduce their employer's coS t s. st111 others have adopted the tack of demanding sta nd ing quotas �54 Rational Reindustrialization against foreign cars and trucks. A few have even proposed military action in the Persian Gulf to secure fuel supplies. u.s. Much as these proposals differ from one another, they all assume that saving the auto-centered?·~· industrial base means restoring existing corporate en t1 ties to superprofitability with no strings attachE:d· All assume t~at purely private companies are the only possible source of Jobs. We dispute the idea that only private investment can create employment. We see no reason to assume that the needs of workers for jobs, of the public for mobility, and of the corporations for profits will somehow all magically coincide. Public policy interventions played a role in the auto crisis, and must play a role in its resolution. The gove rnrnen t' s role in the eris is becomes obvious when one admits the naivete of the view that the domestic auto companies should have seen 1979-80's frantic switch to small cars corning. Late in 1975, the Big Three found that small car demand had collapsed. The public wanted larger cars. Import sales plunged. The va share of engine output rose, but couldn't keep pace with market demand. All of this, of course, had to do with the falling real price of gasoline from rnid-1974 through early 1979: consumers got the message that things were returning to normal. This is not to exonerate th auto companies, of course. Rather, it is to argue that in our economy private corporations respond to profit signals alone; because "small cars mean small profits," increased sales of small r, more fuel-efficient cars could only have been promoted by public policy. Hence, a viable national strategy to slow the d cline of the traditional auto sector must include the means to insulate auto and the public policies regulating it from energy shocks and the associated wide swings in international auto sector cornpeti tiveness. Specifically, in order to slow the decline of the U.S. industry, steps must be taken to retain North American employment and to narrow the gap between the pr i~e of the labor-power embodied in u. s. and Japanese nameplate sol~, here. The key step is enactment of "local conte~t I1 vehi~les requirements that would mandate that all vehicles sold in high_ volumes in the U.S. contain at least 75 percent North America~ value-added ~Y some future date. Such requirements would simultaneously induce Japanese investment in the U.S. and Canada; reduce the downward pressure on u.s. manufacturing wages (and hence on frostbelt tax bases); speed the integration of Japanese auto unions into the worldwide auto productivity/labor rate norm; and slow the out-sourcing of work by the Big Three to off-shore shops. For those who argue that local content mandates would raise car and truck prices, we �National Policy 55 respond that the U.S. government can and should dema d auto price restraint as a quid pro quo for reducing the threat to the Big Three's market share from low-wage foreign producers. Policy for the Energy Transition Rational Reindustr iali zation in Detroit is not strictly dependent on which policies are adopted to deal with U.S. over-dependence on scarce petroleum-based fuels. The least cost energy future for the nation, which we describe below, is also the one most conducive to Detroit's role as an energy hardware producer. Only one policy emphasis in the energy field -- massive subsidization of the synthesis of diesel fuel feedstocks from western oil shale -- could sabotage the planning process we have described. Any other policy direction, including a nonpolicy of letting "the market" determine fuel mix, will favor the substitution of gas for oil and the emergence of coal as the prime synthetic gas feedstock. Detroit's future will continue to depend on the health of the auto industry for at least the next 30-50 years. That fact dictates our strong interest in the u.s. having adequate supplies of high-heat content liquid fuels for the transportations ctor. That interest, in turn, leads us to advocate a 1980-2020 energy policy that frees up high-quality liquid fu ls from sectors that can easily be switched to gas. Basically, the so-called energy crisis is rooted in the absence of such fuel-switching: scare petroleum-based fuels for which there are no affordable substitutes available to the transportation sector are being wasted on stationary uses that can be cheaply nd quickly switch d. What should be done? First, large industrial and el ctric utlity boilers should be, and are being, s~itc~ed over to coal. Second, the possibility of interfuel subst1tut1on should be m ximiz d by policies encouraging large-scale production of low- and medium-BTU gas from coal. Such coal-based syngas once enjoyed a significant industrial market, and is being produced today -- at half the cost of ne~ ~atura~ gas -- without subsidy and d spite the lack of an expl1c1 t national Policy favoring it; conscious policy, however, could accelerate the return of this proven industrial gas supply technology. As more and more coal-based gas becomes available to industries that have not been able to switch from ~il or natural gas to coal, thy will switch to coal gas, freein~ up Oil for transportation fuels and natural gas for home heating. To make this thoroughly rational redistribution of fuels among sectors feasible, a third step is already underway: t~e upg1;ading of U.S. refineries to crack almost all crude oil into light fuels suitable for transportation. a �56 Rational Reindustrialization These three steps would mean that by the end of this century, about 70, rather than to~ay's 50, percent.of u.s. oil use would be in the transportation sector. Assuming an on-road vehicle fleet of 160 million units averaging 28 miles per gallon, and adding about 800,000 barrels a day (B/D) for aircraft, by 2000 the U.S. transportation sector can get by on about 7.5 million barrels a day (MBD) of petroleum products. Based on the consensus forecast that U.S. crude oil production in 2000 through 2020 will be about 7.0 MBD, at 70 percent transport fuels per barrel, the sector's domestic shortfall is only 2.6 MBD of product, less than half what the U.S. now imports. Unless too many of the resources needed to finance fuel switching and refinery upgrade flow instead into unnecessarily expensive, long lead-time shale and direct coal liquefaction projects, the coal gas-based energy transition can and will occur. Liquid fuels will be directed where their use is most efficient, and gasoline will be supplemented more and more by synthetic liquid fuel made from coal gas.II This is the rational 1980-2020 energy and transportation fuels strategy, and the stable, secure industrial jobs lie in the production of the hardware for energy production, storage, upgrading, and (coal) gasification. Moreover, because of the affordability of the low- and medium-BTU gas from coal that underpins this energy path, policies that contribute to its development should have great appeal to non-energy capitalists who, like consumers, must treat energy as a cost. We argue that this common interest creates the basis for an alliance of the public sector, the citizenry, and elements of the non-energy business community to preserve, and win a share of, the Energy Security Trust Fund financed by the tax on the windfall profits of oil companies due to price decontrol. Policy for Capital Targeting At some point in the 1980s, the nation will confront the failure of Reagan's laissez-faire, supply-side stewardship of economic policy. Despite continued stagnation and Reagan's abuse of the working 11. That synthetic liquid should be methanol because: (1) Methanol is an acceptable multi-purpose engin~ fuel for use in everything from the peaking turbines that now waste 400,000 B/D of_ oil to high compression car engines; (2) Methanol is producible as part of the coal-to-syngas-to-methanol cycle that _we've described~ and which is already yielding coal gas at a price below what industry pays for either oil or natural gas; ( 3). Me1thanol is already inexpensive, yielding a gallon of gasolines energy for $1.48, compared to gasoline from coal at $2.93, diesel fuel from shale at $2.60, and ethanol from corn or sugar cane at $2.99; and (4) Methanol is cleaner to make and cleaner to burn than any other synthetic liquid. �National Policy 57 class and poor, welfare-warfare liberalism will not recover· its demise was the predictable result of its ideological bank: ruptcy and programatic disarray. With the legitimacy of government a~ a source of security and an engine of growth in question, a period of danger and opportunity will arrive in American politics. With laissez-faire discredited no less than redistr ibuti ve liberalism, the debate will center on the objectives, forms, and costs of qualitatively new state interventions in the economy. Contending champions of the restructuring of the accumulation process will advance industrial policies that speak to debates over regional competition, energy sources and costs, urban recovery, and the renewal of basic infrastructure. Despite their differences on these matters, all serious participants in the contest will assume the necessity of major state spending. Vulgar critiques of "big government" will wilt before the hard fact of social decay. One example: a recent estimate of the cost of merely maintaining and renewing the existing U.S. highway, mass transit, railroad, water and sewer, and harbor systems during the next twa decades presents a staggering $1,225 billion bill. Some of these costs will be assumed locally, but the figure suggests the scale of federal intervention that will be required just to maintain the possibility of an industrial economy, let alone to achieve steady growth. In this context, what is the approximate magnitude of the capital needed to establish the Mature Plan version of Rational Reindustr ialization in Detroit? What does the capital stock required to equip 100,000 well-paid workers cost? This is not an easy question. we~ determine an uppe: bo~nd on the funds required by examining capital-output ratios in the firms producing goods similar to those we propose fo~ a new sector in Detroit. This method tells us that approximately $60,000 in annual sales are associated with each job, and that a capital investment of about $0.75 is re~uired to yiel~ e~ch $1.00 in annual sales. 12 By this reasoning, the $6 billion in annual sales required to employ 100,000 workers would entail capital requirements of some $4.5 billion. that B.ut this is only an upper limit, because it assumes the new Detroit energy hardware sector would be put 12 • As with jobs per dollar of sales, the finding of an energ?hardware capital-output ratio of 0.75 has a clo~e analogy in the auto sector. There, $600 million invested 1n a. 30?,00?unit per year assembly plant allows about $2. 7 billi_on in vehicle sales to be generated. Since assembly ~ontributes about 30% of total value-added per vehicle, the capi ta_l-outp~t ratio is l.8-to-2.7, or o.67. This accords c~osely with a Big Three 1978-80 assets-to-automotive sales ratio of 0 - 686 · a �58 Rational Reindustrialization together the way its capital-~asting prjvate secto~ counterparts were: in new plants, with rel~tive~y untrained la~or pools, and forced to procure interme?1ate 1~puts from pro~1tmaximizing market suppliers. There is, admittedly, no scientific way to quantify the savings that might accrue to Detroit's attempts to maximize the use of existing and potential linkages and wo r k forces , but rough estimates are poss i b 1 e • First , based on U.S. Department of Transportation analyses of the cost advantage that Japanese automakers reap due to industrial complexes -- as opposed to isolated plants -- it would not be unreasonable to reduce our capital needs figure by 10%, to $4. 05 billion. Second, assuming conservatively that one-third of new sector operations could be housed in existing, older facilities, the Office of Technology Assessment's spring 1980 study that found a 30% savings to "rounding out" existing steel plants versus building new ones suggests an additional reduction, to $3.65 billion {i.e., $4.05 billion reduced by one-third of 30%). This large sum seems modest when compared with the hundreds of billions of public and private dollars that will be required to restructure the national economy. However, we are still left with the basic question: where will the money come from to rationally reindustrialize Detroit? Part of the necessary $3.65-billion investment will be made by traditional private enterprise seeking the long-term benefits of the Detroit approach. Part will be raised by worker-owned enterprise from local and reg ion al investors and lenders, especially those with access to pension fund resources. Part will be provided from the revenues of local and state government. Part must come from a federal capital targeting mechanism. The federal government has, of course, always targeted capital in one way or another, and the history of more formalized national development banking reache back at least to Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation. 1 3 As corporatism advances, the confusion and parochial infighting that surrounded Carter's National Development Bank proposal will abate; it will be time to seriously debate capital targeting. The severity of the situation presented by Reagan's denouement, and the broad political base required to legitimate the bold swing to major new state intervention, will compel a resolution of differences. But the national development bank that emerges from the push and pull of reg ion al and class interests refracted i~ the federal ~ove~nment will almost certainly be an institution shaped pr1mar1ly by corporatist forces. However, those 13. For an excellent historical account, see a soon-to-bepublished essay by David Wilmoth, "National Development Banking and the New Corporatism" {mimeo, U.C.-Berkeley, 1981). �National Policy 59 forces wi~l need allies ag~inst the ideological right, and to get them will have to make important -- if reluctant -- concessions to a progressive bloc in Congress. For what should that bloc fight? Corporatists such as Felix Rohatyn will conceive of the bank as an investor in infrastructure renewal, a stabilizer of municipal finances, and a source of equity capital for essential but troubled ind us tries in need of a corporate safety net. For them, the bank would be an institution "beyond politics" and thus more able to extract intensely political concessions from cities and unions while disciplining less corporatist lenders and companies. The progressive bloc would concur with the general proposition of investment in infrastructure and agree that the bank should have a municipal window. When cities come to borrow at that window, however, the terms of the loan will be a matter of intense debate. On the crucial issue of the bank's industrial investment policy, the progressive bloc and the forces it represents must advocate a "buy-in" complement to the corporatist "bail-out" strategy: there should be a requirement that failing firms falling into the corporate safety net bounce out with the added vigor of worker equity, financed perhaps by the development bank's guarantee of a loan to an E.S.O.P. trust. On the basis of such equity, a recovering auto parts supplier in Detroit might diversify and be brought into cooperation with the Mature Plan for reindustrialization of Detroit. The decisive issue for our Detroit agenda would be the bank's capacity and willingness to take a minority equity position in the fully or partially worker-owned enterprises that were born in the mixed enterprise zone phase of Rational Reindustrialization and that would now be seeking new capital for expansion. Progressives should fight to require that a certain percentage of the bank's loans, loan guara~tees, and especially equity purchases are targeted_ to the ~ind of enterprises that underlie our agenda in Detroit. In li~ht of the industrial dimensions of the energy path previously described, its obvious contribution to a secure and affordable energy future and its broad appeal to all energy consumers in all social ~lasses, we can even envision the new de~elopm~n t bank drawing from the Energy Security Trust Fund and rnveS t rng in the expanding worker/public firms in Detroit. Finally, such an RFC-like bank t~at targets a portion of its capital to the kind of urban economic development Program we advocate for Detroit should be made to gradually separate these investment demands from block grant-fu nd ed t 1 �60 Rational Reindustrialization cornmun i ty development. The necessary work of comrnun i ty renewal would then not be slowed by the funding needs of large-scale development, while the capital requirement_s of Rational Reindustrialization would not be constantly subJected to debate among parochial neighborhood interests. Our Agenda Can Work The foregoing is not merely wishful thinking unrelated to an assessment of what is possible. The large-scale energy hardware sector we have sketched uniquely satisfies three central requirements: 1. Properly managed, such a sector can unfetter the city's industrial engine and provide a socially-controlled source of investible surplus, while maintaining secure, well-paid employment. 2 • Only such a sector , g rounded in the existing pl ants and -- where possible -- equipment of the city and region, can maintain living standards during the transition process. That is, only such a plan preserves capital from the incomplete accounting of private capitalists. 3. Only public management can effect the conversion from auto industry dependence to planned energy hardware development. This is because only an integrated program of land assemblage, affordable replacement housing, intra-sectoral input procurement, and rational tax policy can overcome the parochial conflicts among developers, communities, creditors, and service deliverers that large-scale redevelopment inevitably entails. Some may object that a revitalization plan that gives such heavy emphasis to public investment is utopian in the United States of the early 1980s. we would agree, of course, that for the foreseeable future most productive activity in Detroit will be organized by private capital. It �It Can work is not inevitable, however, that will be in purely private hands. reas~ns why it pro?ably will not provides the dynamic push to the push occurs at all. 61 the leading growth sectors In fact, there are several be the private sector that regional economy, if such a For the very reasons that explain our tentative choice of public projects, the activities around which any recovery will be centered will require massive scale. It is extremely unlikely that private capital would take the risk of betting large chunks on what will obviously look to less venturesome minds on Wall Street like the longest of long shots. Unlikely, yes; absurb, no: the more farsighted may understand the power of a well-linkaged set of new enterprises; the capitalist class is not a monolith. There are Walter Wristons, but there are also Armand Hammers; there are Citibank traditionalists, but there are also the foreign loan departments of the central banks of social-democratic nations involved in North American energy joint ventures. Nor need government always remain a passive junior partner in a narrow, business-dominated agenda. In fact, as the fiscal crisis inevitably deepens, the public sector will realize that a strong role in production is its only insurance against unending private disinvestment. The market alone will never save the economies of cities such as Detroit. Even though disinvestment has eroded the cost of land, it cannot drive down the cost of either labor-power or capital fast enough or far enough to recreate the conditions for expanded reinvestment. Most important, even if private investors were inclined to take the gamble, they would lack the tradition, skill, experience, and resources to do the one thing that could radically ~ewer.their overa~l costs: the coordination of core and supplier firms and their workforces in the new ind us tries. If Westinghouse, for example, were to establish a coal gasifier operation in Detroit, ~t would tend to order components from it~ ~urrent, no~-Detroit suppliers. Given the excess demand position of the 1ndust:y, it might have to wait months for delivery. A public ent~rprise sector, however, could decide that, simultaneou~ly with ~he ~onversion of idle auto capacity, excess product~on capacity in ~he auto parts/tool and die sector should ?e given over to making gasifier components that would otherwise be scarce. . The experiences of the city of Bologna, Ital¥ ~re instructive in this regard. There, as here, government activity · production is surrounded by hostile · · t e ca pi tal in priva . ' ever . ~atchful for ways to discredit public activity. • ~he City g~vef its public production sector advantages over private capita in the following ways: I �62 Rational Reindustrialization a. public producers are clustered geographically to minimize transport costs, and sales of intermediate goods within the public sector are not subject to the equivalent of state sales taxes; b. public production is organized in enterprises similar to the public/worker firms we have described and tax policy is carefully, if somewhat clandestinely, used to reward private and public entities that purchase preferentially from these coops; and c. such enterprises themselves are taxed at more favorable property tax rates than private firms, the argument being that, as property, they are worth less than comparable buildings and machines in the hands of capitalists. Quite clearly, there are some fairly simple steps that an enlightened -- or desperate -- local government could take to allow a new productive sector to take hold. Still other skeptics will argue that we have delusions of grandeur. Even if there are ways to foster the development of a small public or mixed public/private production sector, some may call it folly to think of a new sector that could employ 100,000 workers. We disagree, though obviously we do not imagine immediate implementation of the Mature Plan version of Rational Reindustrialization. It is our view, however, that the hurdles to be overcome in bringing this agenda into being are, in some important ways, independent of the scale of the proposed activity. Many of the legal, financial, regulatory, political, and ideological obstacles that attach to a fairly grandiose conception of a new sector apply with equal force to a small version. Moreover, unless our agenda speaks to the core need of the disinvested local economy for a large number of stable, well-paid, metal-working jobs, it will at best operate at the margins of reform. Detroit is too far gone to be salvaged by even the best decentralized, neighborhood-based projects often advocated by adherents of the small-scale entrepreneurial model of revitalization. Many of those projects have a role to play in Detroit, as we noted earlier in distinguishing national capital targeting from community development funding. But they cannot form the core of a rational plan for rebuilding an industrial economy. The best available writing on what we call the "localist/communitarian" alternative, Martin Carnoy and Derek Shearer's Economic Democracy, argues that a needs-oriented sector ~ased on small businesses can be built on a big enough scale, 1.e., small, but repetitively, to "make ••• fights against [service and employment] cutbacks unnecessary by substantially reducing ••• economic distress." we have tried to �It Can Work 63 test that hypothesis for Detroit by seeing how much a lowprofit, needs-oriented sector could reduce living costs in the city. In the • most charitable case imaginable I some 3 5 % of local consumption could be locally produced in such a small business sector. Even if that sector could sell output at 15% below its current prices -- which we doubt -- living costs would be reduced only 5%. Such a reduction in what we earlier term~d "the cost of reproduction of labor-power" could, of course, help maintain the "social wage" associated with a given direct wage. But producing basic necessities for local consumption cannot rebuild the economy, and so cannot justify any substantial claim on the resources that could become available for basic reindustrialization. Moreover, while an agenda such as ours, that aims directly at the creation of a new emphasis for the manufacturing base, can sustain the small business sector so critical to the decentralized vision, the small business sector cannot restore industrial vitality. We share with Carney, Shearer, and other progressive redevelopment activists a commitment to the notion that only a new political culture can sustain the movement necessary to build a new urban economy. In the Detroit case, we believe that Rational Reindustrialization is a workable agenda which, if implemented, could initiate the process of a steadily-growing planned, semi-public sector, the management of which would create the possibility of a mass political culture of involvement, competence, and productivity. Such a culture could lift the transition toward real public/worker governance out of the realm of theory and into the real world of industrial and community planning. we foresee a future Detroit in which the hours of work per job could be progressively reduced. in favor .of increased employment throngh worker and commun 1 ty power 1n econ<?mic planning. we foresee a Detroit in_ which worke 7s, collectively, can become managers, and in which the tension between increased current benefits and increased investment for growth can be openly debated and resolved. In the pla_ce. of a Detroit whose factories are vacant monuments to the l1m1ts of purely Private economic power, we want a Detroit whose f~ctories are open and alive with constructive debate over conflicts between the full development of new work relations and the needs of a democratically-determined general development plan. This future Detroit is possible. ______....____ � 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 Wyckoff Planning and Zoning Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Planning & Zoning Center (Lansing, Mich.) (Organization) Wyckoff, Mark A. Description An account of the resource Municipal master plans and zoning ordinances from across the state of Michigan, spanning from the 1960s to the early 2020s. The bulk of the collection was compiled by urban planner Mark Wyckoff over the course of his career as the founder and principal planner of the Planning and Zoning Center in Lansing, Michigan. Some additions have been made to the collection by municipalities since it was transferred to Grand Valley State University. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Michigan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960/2023 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/870">Planning and Zoning Center Collection (RHC-240)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/">No Copyright - United States</a> Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Comprehensive plan publications Master plan reports Zoning--Michigan Zoning--Maps Maps Land use--planning Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-240 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource eng Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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 Detroit_Rational-Reindustrialization_1981 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dan Luria Jack Russell Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 Title A name given to the resource Rational Reindustrialization: An Economic Development Agenda for Detroit Description An account of the resource The Rational Reindustrialization: An Economic Development Agenda for Detroit report was prepared by Dan Luria and Jack Russell in 1981. Subject The topic of the resource Economic research Detroit, Michigan Wayne County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/870">Planning and Zoning Center Collection (RHC-240)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c5b6c020c55bc76f9c0961283bbd2dcf.mp4 82a3387a6491c93b57b3692ed2d69462 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eb05af25d56f4d5b7cad1aab799a3731.pdf 41f571904a625f2aa8ad601621ddcffb PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW BUD DANIELS REGARDING AUDREY HAINE DANIELS Women in Baseball Born: Resides: Interviewed by: Frank Boring, GVSU Veterans History Project, August 5, 2010, Detroit, MI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion. Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, May 12, 2011 Interviewer: “Lets begin with your full name and where and when were you born?” My first name is Austin, but I’m Bud, Bud Daniels and I was born in Winnipeg like Audrey—grew up there. I spent the whole early part of my life in Winnipeg, even up through the time and all the years that Audrey was playing baseball. You asked interesting questions about how she got—she’s extremely modest, extremely so because—we lived on the same street and in the same block. She lived at 729 College and I lived at 628, but as kids, we just grew up together and sports were a common interest. I played hockey and she played baseball, so we had a lot of—sports was our common ground. 30:26 She first started out playing with the St. Anthony Brown Birds and it was her first organized baseball and I saw her from starting there and, of course, she went to the St. Fidel Tigerettes. She was in the senior women’s league in Winnipeg at sixteen and she was playing with these women that were probably in their mid twenties. They were the prime seniors fast pitch softball players in Winnipeg, but she was just sixteen when she tried out with the St. Fidel Tigerettes in 1943. 31:03 She wound up pitching for the Tigerettes and they won the seniors women’s championship that year. Now, they played seven inning games, double headers twice a week, I think, these seven inning double headers. She said she had her picture in the paper a lot and she did and there are many games where she had nineteen, twenty or twenty-one strike outs 1 �in a seven inning game, which was just incredible, and that’s how she got picked up by the league. In the year they won the championship, 1943, was the best of seven championships and she pitched all seven games and won four and lost three and they were all extremely close games. But, it was from that year she had with The St. Fidel Tigerettes, which was the senior women’s fast pitch league that the scouts saw her. It wasn’t just that she knew Dolly Hunter, the scouts had actually seen her pitch and that’s really how she got rolling into the pros. 32:16 Interviewer: “This is probably a tough question, but when did it turn from neighbor, friend to “I think I want to marry that woman”?” Gosh, it was a slow process because it started out that I would never miss one of her games in 1942 when she played with the Brown Birds, then 1943 before she went away, but we still we were a pair through 1944, I mean I didn’t date any other girls, I wasn’t interested, but we were just generally interested in each other and grew that way, grew that way. 33:02 I never got to see then play until 1948, I never saw her play. I man, I couldn’t afford—I was in the engineering business in Winnipeg, I was serving in an apprenticeship, so I couldn’t get away, but that last year, we were getting married in November of 1948, and July of 1948 I went down to see them play and I was aghast at the baseball. I remember her—all the great games she had as a softball pitcher, this wasn’t softball, this was hardball let me tell you, and they really played—I couldn’t believe the level. I use to go to see the northern league hardball, as we called it, northern league baseball up there, professional ball, and those women played every bit as good as those northern league players. I was amazed at how good they were. It was really an awakening to me because I followed the papers and I would send the clips of different 2 �games, but it’s not like being there and seeing it. 34:09 When you see it you really have to believe it. I just saw some outstanding plays and what not. We also had a very good friend, a lifetime friend that we had—she played in the league and Audrey referred to her not by that, but it was Dottie Key, Dottie Ferguson, and they stood up for us when we got married, we stood up for them and you were talking about—did you have any batter that was, you know, but she didn’t say anything about Dottie, but Dottie, she was her very best friend, our best friend. When Audrey pitched for Peoria against Rockford, Dottie was one—she would make Audrey pitch to her and she would lean way over the plate purposely to get hit because she was one of the top base stealers in the league. 35:02 So, that’s how—she would purposely tell us that she was going to get on base. Audrey was her best friend, but she would lean way over the plate to get hit, because she couldn’t get a hit on her, but she would get hit and she’d get on base and once she got on there was a pretty good chance she was going to steal it. 1948 was the first year I saw them play and it was just an incredible experience. I guess I’m one of the few that’s still around that actually saw these women play, but they were outstanding. Interviewer: “When did you start carrying the picture in the wallet? When did that start?” Actually I got that and I started carrying that the year we got married. 1948, the summer of 1948, when I was down there, and this was a team picture, just of herself, they took individual pictures of the players and I have this picture of her and this picture has been in my wallet for sixty-two years, and that’s the condition of it. 36:30 Every day for sixty-two years, that’s the picture. That’s gone through about eight or ten wallets, but I think just the quality of that picture from 1948 is outstanding. 3 �Interviewer: “Beautiful, at the last reunion you were off by yourself and we just got talking and that’s when you pulled that out and I said I had to get you on camera with that picture and now we’ve got it, which is great, which is great. Let me ask you the same question I asked Audrey. What do you make of all this “whoop la la” about all of this?” 37:18 Well you know, when you went back earlier they didn’t talk about it. Our kids never knew anything about it, never talked about it and it was just like it never even existed. But, in 1982 when they had their first reunion in Chicago that opened the whole thing wide open. From there on, each reunion, there became more interest in this talk about the book or the movie or something else and it’s absolutely taken off. Now, today, I’ll bet you when we get home there are going to be at least four or five pieces of mail requesting autographs. There is not a week that goes by that she doesn’t get mail-requesting autographs, information about somebody who’s doing an essay for school, it’s endless. 38:17 I said it’s hard to believe, I know a couple of months ago I mailed twenty-one pieces of mail and I said, “How can this be after all these years?” But, that’s what happens—the media—through the movie, there’s not—I haven’t run across anybody who hasn’t seen this movie. Like I said, we go to a restaurant or something—we know different ones that know her and they come and see her and talk about it and then they bring other waitresses over to meet this woman, it just goes on and on and it’s wonderful. 39:06 I said to Audrey many times, I said, “when you have the opportunity to talk to somebody you should tell them about this, don’t keep it a secret. You’re not bragging or anything, you’re sharing a wonderful moment”. I said, “that’s what you have to do, you have to allow other people access to all this”, so she does now and it’s wonderful. I said, 4 �“share it, share it, don’t take it with you, share it and let as many people as possible enjoy it”. Interviewer: “That’s wonderful and thank you so much.” 5 � 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 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was started by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, during World War II to fill the void left by the departure of most of the best male baseball players for military service. Players were recruited from across the country, and the league was successful enough to be able to continue on after the war. The league had teams based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and operated between 1943 and 1954. The 1954 season ended with only the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Rockford teams remaining. The League gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball. Many of the players went on to successful careers, and the league itself provided an important precedent for later efforts to promote women's sports. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a> 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 Sports for women World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives Oral history Baseball players--Minnesota Baseball players--Indiana Baseball players--Wisconsin Baseball players--Michigan Baseball players--Illinois Baseball for women--United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-58 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-10-02 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) 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-58_BDaniels Title A name given to the resource Daniels, Bud (Interview transcript and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daniels, Bud Description An account of the resource Bud Daniels grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, just down the street from his future wife, Audrey Haine. Both were active in sports, and when Audrey played organized softball while they were teenagers, he would attend every game. They stayed in touch after she was recruited into the AAGPBL, and married in 1948. During this time Audrey would play for the Minneapolis Millerettes, Fort Wayne Daisies, Grand Rapids Chicks, Peoria Redwings, and Rockford Peaches. In addition to telling his side of their story, he discusses both the quality of play he saw, and the popularity of the league and their players over the past twenty years. 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.) Video recordings All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives Baseball for women--United States Baseball Sports for women World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-08-05 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cf93d3ea31d017714663de671f188ce3.pdf 1f9671dc4ecd8af4c7a1faf8ccb4255e PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Vietnam War Wesley Daniels (15:02) Background Information (00:20)    Served in the Marine Corps (00:20) Wesley joined the Marines after being influenced by many of his school friends who also enlisted. (00:40) Wesley believed he would be drafted if he didn’t first enlist. (1:18) Service (1:30)         He served in Helicopter Squadron 647, which was based just south of Da Nang. (1:42) Wesley served as a squadron clerk. He handled much of the administrative business of his squadron. (1:47) After several months working as a clerk he asked to be transferred to a ground unit so he had a chance to fight. Instead he was told to go on a helicopter flight and then visit the hospital. He changed his mind as a result. (2:55) Wesley felt pretty safe in his area of work. (4:50) He wrote many letters and was once allowed to call home in order to talk with his family. (5:40) The men would often go to China Beach for recreation where the men were able to drink beer and relax. (6:52) Wesley went to Australia for some R&R. For his second R&R he went to Bangkok, Thailand. (7:30) He was able to see fire fights happening at night from the base that he was stationed at. (8:50) End of Service (10:35)      Wesley was excited to leave Vietnam. After being home for a week, he began attending Junior college. He did not experience much protesting when he returned from service. (11:34) He does not believe his military experience affected his life as a civilian too greatly. (12:40) He is a member of veterans' organizations. (13:30) Over all, Wesley was glad to have a chance to serve his country. (14:24) � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Daniels, Wesley (Interview outline), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daniels, Wesley Description An account of the resource Wesley Daniels enlisted in the Marine Corps and served during the Vietnam War. He Served in Helicopter Squadron 647 and worked as a clerk. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Plattner, Spencer (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Marine Corps Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-02-07 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DanielsW1357V 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7bb51c3af6193478c8cfad3830d504d3.pdf e0380d075183e1e3054cf0ec40c3c941 PDF Text Text ����������������������������� 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 Incunabula Description An account of the resource The term incunabula refers to books printed between 1450 and 1500, approximately the first fifty years following the invention, by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, of printing from moveable type. Our collection includes over 200 volumes and numerous unbound leaves from books printed during this period. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1450/1500 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Incunabula Collection (DC-03) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United </a> Subject The topic of the resource Incunabula Printing 1450-1500 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource text Language A language of the resource eng it la nl de Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 De excidio Troiae historia Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-03_A012Dares1488 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dares, Phrygius Description An account of the resource De excidio Troiae historia by Dares Phrygius. Printed in Rome by Stephan Plannck circa 1488. Quarto. [ISTC id00042000] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rome: Stephan Plannck Subject The topic of the resource Incunabula Printing 1450-1500 Trojan War Dares, Phrygius Language A language of the resource la Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1488 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection: PA 6379.D2, A12 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6c3291e9a6ad8822dac613f7062dab25.mp4 c0cda1ecbaaf3d9a1b637cb4ef6925be https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/20428d33e3cdadfb1ab937acd574a4a8.pdf 962d3b47547aaedfecb18d9988c640d4 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Civilian Service Interviewee: Ed Darling Length of Interview: 1hr 6mins Pre-Enlistment (00:12) • Childhood (00:14) o Darling was born in his parents’ farm home in Alpine Township, Michigan, on June 20, 1924. (00:25) o Growing up, Darling lived and worked on his father’s farm until he was old enough to work elsewhere. (00:37) o Once he became of age, the draft board put pressure on him to enlist but he deferred several times to avoid having to serve and yet eventually his time ran out and he had to enlist. (00:57) o Describes what it took to get a deferment. The reason for his deferment was doing farm-type work at the time. (01:20) • Education (01:58) o Stayed in school until 9th Grade but then dropped out because he had gotten sick of it. (02:05) His Jobs (02:18) o Describes what jobs he held and what the responsibilities were of each one. He mentions that on one of his jobs several German POWs worked with him in Sparta picking apples. (02:37) o About the time, Pearl Harbor was attacked Darling was 17. He continued to follow the news of the war. (04:20) Enlistment/Training (05:38) • Where he went (05:41) o Darling joined the armed service on September 15, 1944. From May to September Darling was still in basic training. (05:45) o Got engaged to his wife on May 2, 1945 and was married in 1947. (06:44) o Backs up again, and mentions that after he was drafted he reported to an office building for paperwork in Grand Rapids and then onto to Detroit for a medical physical. (07:30) o 4 weeks afterwards he was sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois for induction. (08:21) • Camp Robinson training (08:42) o From here, he was sent to Camp Robinson near Little Rock, Arkansas. Describes the trip there in some detail. (08:50) o He then describes his experience at Camp Robinson in some detail. Briefly describes what the men he trained with were like. He and his fellow draftees were training here for the invasion of Japan. (09:15) �o His training consisted of bayonet and rifle training. This training also consisted of marching. (11:01) o Briefly describes how the drill sergeants treated draftees. (12:40) o On one specific encounter, Darling describes how a rifle grenade exploded blowing up his ear drum. (14:06) o Reviews the fact that his training lasted from May, to September upon which time he was shuffled around the country to different bases such as Fort Riley, Kansas, Fort Ord, California, Camp Anderson, California, and then overseas. (15:40) • Traveling overseas (17:01) o Left the U.S. aboard a troop transport bound on the northward circular route to Yokohama Bay, Japan. Describes what this experience was like. (17:14) Active Duty (19:01) • Japan (19:03) o Landed in Yokohama, in the dark and from there boarded a train. Describes his o o o o o o train experience aboard an original steam engine. (20:12) Stayed at a supply depot for up to 10 days in a 20-man tent. (20:40) A little later, he was assigned to the 4025th Signal Service Group where he served as a driver shuttling officers to various functions. (21:41) ƒ On one occasion, he drove a captain to a camera ship where the officer bought him a camera. (22:26) As a driver, serving in Tokyo he describes what the city was like and what damage American strategic bombing did to the city buildings. (24:13) Among the buildings not bombed was the Imperial Palace and important buildings up on the hill which were not in located in the industrial area. (26:03) On Christmas Eve, he and a few other piled into a truck to St. Xavier Church where they celebrated Christmas. Describes what the reaction of the civilians was to the soldiers. The service he attended was done all in Japanese. The Japanese he worked with spoke no English so he couldn’t understand what was being said. (27:20) While he was assigned to the 4025th (Mobile) Signal Service Group he and his unit’s job was to respond to any emergencies that broke out around Japan if any occurred with their trucks. (30:42) On a few encounters, his unit witnessed a number of beheadings around the area of Shimbashi, Japan. (31:46) ƒ According to the account of a Japanese soldier, from the northern regions of Hokkaidō he informed Darling of what his service was like while stationed in Manchuria. This Japanese soldier discussed how the Japanese felt towards the Chinese while they occupied the Manchuria region during the war. (32:15) After this time, Darling was reassigned to the 71st Signaling Service Group or the 71st Signal Battalion, a new group which had just been formed to better manage the paperwork. (33:24) ƒ His battalion was stationed 5 miles outside of Tokyo in an abandoned warehouse near Tokyo Bay. His unit was responsible for the distribution �and inventory of supplies to any unit that needed them. Describes this in some detail. (34:23) ƒ Briefly describes what each of his team member’s roles was and where their routes took them. When not doing this, Darling filed and sorted paperwork. (36:29) ƒ Describes what his supply officer was like. (38:03) Sightseeing (40:10) ƒ Briefly describes what a 5-day work week looked like. (40:12) • Among the things he mentions is some of the people he bumped into such as MacArthur’s driver and other officers. (42:21) ƒ On weekends, he and a few friends went sightseeing. On one occasion they climbed Mt. Fuji, aka in Japanese (Fujiyama) (43:45) ƒ Briefly discusses some of the experiences he had with the Japanese people in some detail. Once they realized the U.S. army was there to do a job and not to conquer they felt more at ease with the American soldiers.(44:38) ƒ Briefly describes a visit he had with a few Australians who were in the area during his stay there. (47:20) ƒ On one encounter, he and his unit found a hidden ammunition dump stocked with artillery pieces behind a railroad which they confiscated. This supply of weapons and ammo would have been used against the Americans had they invaded Japan. (48:48) Leaving for Home (52:46) o Darling mentions that he received individual orders on when he could go home; while other soldiers were usually sent home after they had accumulated 120 points. (53:02) o The Japanese Noritake tea set he received from a local Japanese laborer was probably the best thing he said he got out of Japan among the other things he received. (54:54) o Went home aboard a LST called the Marine Swivel, operated by some 1st Marines of the Merchant Marines. Briefly describes what they were like. (56:47) Back in the States (59:14) o Landed at Oakland, CA where he took a day to rest. Afterwards he boarded a Southern Pacific train bound for Fort Sheridan, Illinois where he was soon to be discharged. Was not discharged until Dec. 15th 1946. (1:01:16) After the Service (1:01:47) • Adjusting to Home (1:01:57) o Once home, Darling took a job working in the Medical Arch Pharmacy stocking medicines. Spent 30 years in drug distribution, handling orders for hospitals, and retail. (1:02:36) • Reflection (1:03:45) o Darling describes how the service made him grow up and become an adult. (1:04:01) o While with the Army, he enjoyed the service very much. (1:05:13) �• Interview Ends (1:06:41) � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Darling, Ed (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Darling, Ed Description An account of the resource Ed Darling is a World War II veteran who served in the U.S. Army from September 1944 to December 1946. In this account, Darling discusses his pre-enlistment, enlistment and training in the U.S., and his active duty in Japan during the military occupation of their country. Darling takes a depth look of what occupational life in Japan was like for an Army soldier and mentions a number of social encounters with former Japanese soldiers. He briefly describes what his duties consisted of and what the attitude of the Japanese people was like towards the U.S. occupational forces. 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 Video recordings United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-05-21 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DarlingE 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e9994c7e30fbe19fc9c476d87a8f744b.mp4 62d0be77b534e542e1d4be62c24065b4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/546c04ed563d1780c1439ca09fd84ae3.pdf dace005f7355c38cc09982008ca71bc5 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Karol Darling Interviewer: James Smither Transcribed by Emilee G. Johnson, Western Michigan University Length: 26:55 James Smither: Today we’re talking with Karol Darling of Byron Center, Michigan, the interviewer is James Smither of Grand Valley State University. Mrs. Darling, can you start by telling us just a little about your own background, for instance, where were you born and where did you grow up? Karol Darling: Oh, I was born up in the little thumb of Michigan in a tiny little town called Yale. And I can’t remember just how long I lived there and then we moved. My dad was a pharmacist and so he would get transferred every now and then and the family would move. I was the oldest of 4 children. And I can remember we moved to Detroit and lived in about 3 different houses in Detroit while I was growing up. And I know when I was in the 9th grade, we lived in Muskegon, Michigan, but just for one year. And then we moved— Well, one time we lived in Pontiac, Michigan when I was young. And then when I got older 1:00 we lived in Pontiac again. And that’s where I went to high school. That’s where I lived when I got into the WAVES. James Smither: All right, let’s see, tell us a little bit about those experiences, now, when you were in Muskegon, what do you remember about being there? Because that’s a West Michigan place. Karol Darling: Well I remember fishing on the Muskegon River. My dad would come home from work and my mother’d have a picnic packed and we’d dash out to the river there and the thing I remember about that mostly was, I had this fishing pole, this bamboo pole, and I’d put that in the water and I got a fish right away and I yelled, “I got a fish! I got a fish!” And I scared all the fish away for the rest of the fishermen. And it was a catfish that I had caught. And I remember the sand dunes. Sunday when my dad had off, 2:00 we would go for a ride, and we would frequently end up at the sand dunes and then you could out and you could climb up those big sand dunes and run down. I doubt if you can do that anymore. James Smither: No, most of them are protected now. Karol Darling: That’s what I thought, but we had the fun of doing that when I was growing up. James Smither: And you were also going on the radio? �Karol Darling: Well— James Smither: Singing on the radio? Karol Darling: Yes. From the time we were fairly young, like the time I was in the 9th grade, my dad, who was quite a musician, taught us harmony. And I had a brother and two sisters. And at that time, my brother’s voice hadn’t changed, so it was me and my next youngest sister and my brother, who is just a year younger than I am. And we had this trio. And I don’t remember why, but for some reason, we sang at the radio station in Muskegon, and I think it was a supper club something or other, and we sang there, and they liked it so much, 3:00 that they wanted us to do this every week and my dad said, “No way, you’re not doing that.” So my dad didn’t want us in show business in any way. James Smither: But you’re only there for a year, so they can’t get ahold of you too badly anyway. Karol Darling: No. James Smither: And then you go back to Pontiac, now, in what year did you graduate from high school? Karol Darling: 1939. James Smither: All right. And then, what did you do once you graduated? Karol Darling: I worked at Waite’s Department Store, which is a wonderful store there, owned by Mr. Waite, and I worked in several different departments there, for— I worked there for several years. I worked in cosmetics, and then I worked in jewelry and accessories, and then they promoted me, and I went downstairs and worked with the buyer. I was like an assistant buyer, although I didn’t buy anything. But I had that title. James Smither: Now, 4:00 before Pearl Harbor, do you remember paying much attention to what was going on in the world, were you aware that there was a war going on in Europe and that sort of thing? Karol Darling: Probably vaguely, but not a lot. James Smither: Ok. Karol Darling: My life— The important things in my life probably took precedence over that. James Smither: All right, now, in some point in there, your brother joined the Marine Corps, didn’t he? �Karol Darling: Yeah, he did, when he got out of high school. The only job he could find was driving a truck and he didn’t want to do that, and there wasn’t money for him to go to college, so he joined the Marine Corps. James Smither: Was that in 1940, maybe, if he was a year younger than you, or? Karol Darling: It probably was 1940, yeah. James Smither: Ok. Now with him in the Marine Corps, did you think at all about how you might get into a war and he might get into it, or did that not really occur to you until after Pearl Harbor? Karol Darling: It didn’t occur to me until after. I don’t believe I thought much about it, I just thought it was nice that Keith had this nice uniform and that he could do something that he really wanted to do, but it wasn’t that important 5:00 in my life. James Smither: Right. Now, when Pearl Harbor happens, do you remember how you heard about that, or what you thought at the time? Karol Darling: It was a horrible feeling when that happened. We heard Roosevelt when he announced it, and we knew then that we were in a war, that they had attacked us. And I can remember very strongly hearing about that. And probably, I was at home, and I think it was a Sunday night. James Smither: It was. Karol Darling: Because I was home and I heard it on the radio and of course my brother was in the Marine Corps. We were pretty upset with that. Very upset with that. And life changed from then on too, it really changed. James Smither: What was it, you know, in what ways did life, sort of, in Michigan, in Pontiac, whatever, how did that change for you? What did you notice changing? Karol Darling: Well, all the old boyfriends were 6:00 drafted and went off to war. And I remember when I was working at Wait’s???, there weren’t any boys, and I was of dating age, but there were no boys to date. And I can remember that. So a bunch of us girls who worked at the store, on Saturday nights, we’d find a place to go. And we’d go out, you know, and have this whole table of girls out at different places, wherever you could go at night. I don’t remember much about where we went, other than we went once to have our fortune told. Over near Selfridge Field, which is an air field. James Smither: Right. �Karol Darling: Over there. And I can definitely remember that. Having my fortune told. James Smither: Now were there sort of events organized by the USO or anybody that you might get to go and meet some of the guys at the bases or things like that. Karol Darling: Oh yeah. The USO, I have a letter in my scrapbook thanking me for coming to this, and it was a dance, and we had the strict rules where 7:00 we could go to this dance, and dance with these soldiers, whoever was there. But there were strict rules, you couldn’t go outside with them, you couldn’t leave with them, you had to just go there, dance, and then that was it, and I got this thank you letter for them. And one other thing I remember is, when we, my sisters, at that time, my brother, of course, was gone, when his voice changed was when he was out of the trio and my younger sister was in. And we sang at a USO benefit in Pontiac at the high school. I have an old picture of us standing up there, singing. Our trio. So I remember the USO. James Smither: All right, now, how is it that you wound up joining the WAVES? Karol Darling: Well, I can remember, I had a friend who used to come over to the house and spend the night and we talked a lot about things, and one of the things we talked about was, they’d started the WAVES. 8:00 Thought maybe we should, maybe we should do this. And it ended up that I did do it and she didn’t. James Smither: But when did you sign up? Karol Darling: 1943. 1943. So it wasn’t too long after the war started that I signed up. James Smither: Right. Because it was pretty early in the year, I think, when you started training. Karol Darling: Mmhmm. It was. James Smither: Ok, now once you’d signed up, where did you go and what did they have you do? Karol Darling: The first place I went was Cedar Falls, Iowa. James Smither: That’s the logical place to have the Navy, I guess. Karol Darling: [laughs] Cedar Falls, Iowa! I can remember, I lived in Pontiac, and I can remember my mother and dad driving me to the train station. I had to take a train from there to Chicago, where I would meet up with whoever it was who was going to take us to Cedar Falls, were going to be, like, chaperones, or whatever. James Smither: Right. �Karol Darling: Anyway, that was my first time ever going away from home, my first time on a train. I’d never been on a train before. And I liked the train ride. And it stopped in Jackson, Michigan and picked up some other girls that stopped on the way, and I remember sitting next to this girl and I wrote down her address, her home address. Never used it, but anyway, she was joining the WAVES too. So we got to Chicago, and then there was quite a group of us that ended up in Chicago and they put us on another train, and we took that train to Cedar Falls, Iowa. We were escorted there by the officers in the Navy. And we were escorted there and there we lived, that was a teachers’ college, and we lived in a building called Bartlett Hall. 10:00 And they had us 4 to a room in bunk beds. And that’s where we learned all about the Navy and the history of the Navy and how to make a bed with square corners, and how to keep your room neat, and all the Navy language. And there we were given aptitude tests and intelligence tests and we marched everywhere we went, we learned that. And we were fitted for uniforms, cause when we first were there, we didn’t have them. And the uniforms were designed by Mainbocher???, who probably nobody will remember, but this person was famous in New York as a designer. And this person designed the uniforms. And they had to measured us, we had to go to a certain store, where they measured us, took all the measurements and then after about 2 weeks we had our uniforms. 11:00 And we marched everywhere we went. We had to do the calisthenics, we had to take all these tests, and our life was pretty regimented. James Smither: Who did they have teaching you or training you? Karol Darling: It was always women, that I remember, but women who were officers in the Navy. That’s what I remember about it. James Smither: Ok, where would they have come from? Had the Navy had a limited number of women in it already, do you think, or were they recruited just to do this? Karol Darling: I really don’t know. I just don’t know. They probably were already— Well, only nurses would have been in the Navy. I don’t know. James Smither: So but were these older women, then, or? Karol Darling: Yes, most of them were older. You had to be a college graduate in order to be an officer. So, they evidently got them from somewhere, and trained them. Cause, I don’t remember, I don’t remember any men 12:00 handling us, but my memory might not be quite that good. James Smither: Now how prepared were they—because you were in the first group of WAVES going in, right? �Karol Darling: Yes. Wherever I went we were just the first WAVES there. So it seemed to me, they were probably pretty well prepared, because, at Bartlett Hall, that had, that whole dormitory there, the students weren’t there, they had to put them somewhere else, and we took over that whole dormitory. And so that seemed like it was well-prepared. The uniforms, we had to wait 2 weeks, and I suppose if you joined the Navy later, you got a uniform right away. James Smither: Unless they were actually still measuring people for uniforms. I don’t think they usually did for the men. Karol Darling: I doubt if they were doing that. James Smither: Now, what was life like there, was it very regimented and they were just, all of your time was under their control, or? Karol Darling: It was pretty much regimented, but we did have some time, because I can remember 13:00 going out in the snow. And there were one of the students, some boy there, and I can remember, I think I have a picture of him in my scrap book, I can’t remember anything about him or his name or anything, but I think we walked together. And we did have off-duty time, some of it, where we were not that regimented. We could go for walks, we really didn’t—but I don’t remember going anywhere off that campus then, we pretty much had to stay there, but we did have some time off. I don’t remember exactly what we did on our time off. James Smither: Ok. But how many of you were in this group of WAVES, do you think? Karol Darling: Oh, I think it was over a thousand. James Smither: All at once in that college, or total around the country? Karol Darling: I’m thinking at that college. I think I have somewhere in my scrapbook, I think I have that and the figure 14:00 1,500 comes to my mind, I’m not sure if I’m right, but then…Would there have been that many in that Bartlett Hall building? It was a big building and 4 to a room. James Smither: It’s possible if there were 2 or 3 places where they were doing it, but a lot of you were certainly together there at one time. Karol Darling: Yeah, there were a lot of us were there. James Smither: Now how long do you think you were there? Karol Darling: 6 weeks. �James Smither: Ok. Karol Darling: I think I was there 6 weeks. James Smither: And after those 6 weeks, where did they send you? Karol Darling: Oh, well, during that 6 weeks, we had to take all kinds of tests and they would tell us all the different things that we could learn, so, for what we would do next. And so, I wanted to go into the airplane part of this, and they had link trainers, they had a lot of control tower, and different things that you could go involving planes. And one of them was the link trainer, and they described it, and course, I thought that would be really 15:00 nice, I’d love to do that. So you had to take special tests for that. And one of the tests I remember was going to this big auditorium and there was full of WAVES, and when it came your turn, you had to go up in front and you had a microphone and you had to answer everything, all these questions through a microphone and I think they were checking your voice to see how well it would carry, whether you could handle this. And I did get that. And so when I knew I got that, I was really, really happy. Then I went home. I believe I was home for Christmas, on leave, before I went to Atlanta, and then I left Pontiac and went to Atlanta, Georgia, which is where I trained to be a link trainer. James Smither: Ok, and how long did they have you in Atlanta? Karol Darling: I’m not sure. James Smither: Ok. A couple of months, or? Karol Darling: I think it was about a couple of months. James Smither: Now tell us a little about and what you did. 16:00 what the link trainer was and how it worked Karol Darling: The link trainer is like a small, it looks like a really small airplane. And it’s on a bellows, and it has the nose and the tail and you get in, you climb up and get into this and you have a, there’s a hood you pull the hood over. And then it’s all dark and the only thing you can see in there are the instruments in front of you, that’s all you can see. And someone sits at a desk, the trainer sits at a desk, it’s a pretty big desk and it has this piece of paper and it has what they called a crab, which was I think about that high, and you put it on the paper, and when you turn it on, you instructed the pilot what he was supposed to do, his next maneuver, and the crab then would do exactly, on this piece of paper, would do what 17:00 he did in the plane. Follow the right path or not the right path. And you had to keep �instructing them and you talked with them, on the microphone, into this link trainer. James Smither: Ok. So essentially this was a flight simulator, I guess that’s what we might call it. Karol Darling: That’s exactly what it was, yes. James Smither: And then, you were managing them. Now, did you have, what sort of did you have control over, were you just telling them what to do and the simulator sort of did the rest, or you kept track of it, or? Karol Darling: The crab kept track of exactly what they did in there, and you had to correct them if they were doing something wrong, and they had, I don’t remember what their procedures were, but there were certain procedures that they had to pass and you would probably do a pilot more than one time. I think each flight was probably about an hour, it was quite a while. And then that same pilot might come on another day, and do another hour. 18:00 And there were different procedures they had to do because, the ones I was training, were going to fly the torpedo bomber fires, the TBFs, and they were going to take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier and land, so these were the things that we had to teach them. Special procedures of how they would take off and how they would land. James Smither: Now the people that you were training, were these guys who had not yet had any real flight training, was this the stage before they’d flown airplanes or had they flown planes already? Karol Darling: Oh, they had flown a lot. This was their last train before they went out on an aircraft carrier and went out into the war. They had already done all their training, this was the last thing. James Smither: So they knew how to fly and that sort of thing, but you were kind of preparing them for the special conditions involved in flying off of a carrier and flying this particular type of aircraft. Karol Darling: That’s right. James Smither: Do you think there were also things that simulated torpedo bombing runs and so forth that they did as far as you can tell, or? 19:00 Karol Darling: I think so, and I can remember, I can distinctly remember at one point, during the middle, they came up with this brand new thing we had to teach them, it was very, very important. Now I don’t remember what this was, but it was a certain procedure, something very new that was going to be very helpful. I can remember �everybody was excited about this. But, it’s so long ago, I don’t remember just what it was. James Smither: Now, what kind of accommodations did you have when you were in Atlanta? Where did they put you? Karol Darling: Oh, we lived in the Biltmore Hotel, which sounds luxurious, and it sort of was. They didn’t have barracks for us or anything, because they were already filled with the Navy people. So, but they moved more beds into a room, we would be 3 to a room. And it would be a long hallway, and I can remember at the end of the hallway, there was a desk. And no one could, we had to take turns being on duty. When you were on duty, you sat at that desk, and I think you took a 4-hour duty, 20:00 it was on like, all night. And you had to only let people who were qualified to pass through there, you had to stop anyone else from going down that hallway because it was full of women sleeping. James Smither: The last thing you want is a bunch of Navy guys coming down there. Karol Darling: Yeah. And Army. I met an Army guy while I was there. He came up to me in the hall, I don’t know what he was doing there, but I remember meeting him, and I remember he took me to breakfast in the Biltmore Hotel, I think it was every Sunday morning we had off, he took me to breakfast there. It must’ve been my time off, because while we were there, you had to eat with your group. James Smither: Right. Now, did you get out much and see anything of the city at all, while you were in Atlanta, or? Karol Darling: Yes, you had your day off. I think you had one day a week off. So you could go downtown, you could go to the beach. 21:00 You were pretty much free on your time off to do what you wanted to do. James Smither: Now what was it like living in the South? Were there things different than like in Michigan or Iowa or whatever? Karol Darling: Oh, yes. Atlanta was different. I had never been away from Michigan in all my life. Atlanta was different. It was in Jacksonville that we went to the beach on our day off, not Atlanta. Atlanta, I would go downtown and shop in the stores. I didn’t buy anything because we didn’t have much money. But I would go downtown. Sometimes I’d have a roommate to go, and sometimes I’d just be alone. Just roam through the stores. That was about all I did on my time off. �James Smither: And did it register with you that you were in a segregated society and that there were places where white people went where black people didn’t, or anything like that? Karol Darling: Now that you mention it, I think that did come up. It seems to me that there was a conversation about a great place to each fried chicken. 22:00 Southern fried chicken, which of course, I’d never had. And I can remember someone saying, “Well, don’t go there!” That’s all I remember is being told, “Don’t go there!” So there was, that did come up. It did come up. James Smither: Now, you complete your training in Atlanta, and then they move you on from there to Jacksonville. Now, what sort of place was that? Karol Darling: We lived in a barracks there. On the Navy base. That’s where we lived, 4 to a room. Back in Atlanta, though, I remember, we ate, we didn’t eat at the Biltmore at first, some of us, we ate in different places. Some of us ate, and we always marched to wherever we were going to eat. We ate at a hotel, at first, and the waiter served us, just like 23:00 you were a hotel guest, and I can remember sitting there and looking down, and here was this fish on my plate. There was a whole fish with eyes and the head. I was horrified, all of us, we were pretty horrified with that. But that was where we ate. And then we ate at the Naval base some. And I can remember that was back when smoking was ok. And I can remember eating there and this little tiny guy in a uniform came around hollering, “Philip Morris,” whatever that was, there was something you could see on, you heard on the radio or in the movies or something, where, “Call for Philip Morris.” And he, you know, passed out little packages of cigarettes to everybody. We all got cigarettes. I can’t imagine that now. Then we did eat at the…we ate at Georgia Tech for a while too, with the students. Karol Darling: So those are the 3 places 24:00 I remember then, then when we were moved to Jacksonville, Florida, we lived in the barracks on the Naval base there. They were really ready for us there. James Smither: Ok. And what were you doing in Jacksonville, then? Is that the actual training of pilots now? Karol Darling: Yes, that was where we started. And there were 4 of us to a room. We had bunk beds, and 2 of my roommates taught PBY fliers, the ones that landed on the water. James Smither: Seaplanes, yes. �Karol Darling: And Leah Davis and I taught the TBF pilots, so we, she and I were in the same building, after that training. James Smither: Now, how many pilots do you think you trained? Karol Darling: I don’t remember how many. If I had my log book, I suppose I could look it up and see, but I don’t know. James Smither: Because I noticed in the log book, you seem to have the same names listed in several different sessions. Karol Darling: Yeah, I did have, because they had to have different 25:00—some of them didn’t pass the training. They had to come back and do it again. And there was one, I think that these were all officers that I was teaching, there was one ensign there, he came from a very wealthy family, and I can remember, his mother came—I only heard this, I wasn’t involved in it—his mother came, it was one of them I was teaching, and he wasn’t very good. His mother came, and gave a humungous party for him right there in Jacksonville. I can just definitely remember that. I don’t remember his name, but I remember he didn’t do too well in the link trainer. Some of them did real well, and some of them, it was very difficult for them. They had a hard time passing it. James Smither: What sort of people were they, or what kind of…? Do you remember much at all about them except that they were just young men? Karol Darling: Yeah, they were just nice, 26:00 normal young men. Young men who were in the service. They were in the Navy, so, they had to have enlisted if they were in the Navy cause I don’t believe, I don’t believe they drafted you. James Smither: Draftees go into the Navy, but usually, if you were going to be an officer, commonly you would have enlisted and these men would have been college graduates who had cases too at that point. But most of them would have been enlisted. Karol Darling: Yeah. Funny how some of these memories start coming back! James Smither: Yes, they do. Now, about how long do you think you were based in Jacksonville? Karol Darling: It wasn’t a year. Because then, I’m not exactly sure what happened, but something with my health came up while I was there, and this ensign 27:00 Schwaub, Ensign Schwaub, had put me in the hospital, and I was in the hospital, I was there for I think several weeks, I’m not exactly sure how long. That part has �gone pretty vague, but the thing I remember most was they pulled all my wisdom teeth. I think they were trying to find out what they could do to fix me, they figured something was wrong health-wise, and eventually, there was another WAVE in there. I forget, I don’t know, she had some illness too, and I remember she would always get all these Hershey bars, and she would say, “It’s ok, you can eat all these you want as long as you” she did something, she drank something after she ate those that made it all right, so this was kind of strange. But eventually, then there, they did send me home with a good discharge. So, that ended my Navy career. 28:00 James Smither: Ok. Well let’s go back into it for a little bit. What other particular incidents and things do you remember about the time you spent in Jacksonville? Now, you’re a flight trainer, but you’re based on the ground. Did you ever actually get to go up in an airplane? Karol Darling: Well the only time I got up to go in an airplane, was flying home, of course, when I had to leave, cause I would always fly. And then, the ensign who ran the building that I taught in, he, I believe he wanted to be a flier, but he didn’t make it. So, but he could fly. So, Leah, my roommate and I, both wanted to get in an airplane in the worst way, so he took us one day he had off, he took us out to the airfield, not the Navy airfield, but the real one, and he evidently rented a small plane there, which he flew now and then, and he took each of us, he could only take us one at a time, and he took us each up and he did 29:00 all these fancy maneuvers, flying upside down and what they called a loop-the-loop, flying around and around. We just thought that was great. Didn’t get sick or anything, just loved it. Thought it was wonderful. And I can remember once I flew home one time on leave, I flew home once from there, and it was very foggy and nasty weather outside and I can remember sitting there and I talked with a stewardess, I think that’s what we called them then, and I said, “We flying on instruments?” And she said, “Yes.” I was thrilled. We were flying on instruments. That’s great. James Smither: Just hope the pilot had the right training first. Karol Darling: Yeah! James Smither: Ok, now, what else could you do in Jacksonville? You said you could go to the beach there and that kind of thing, what else was there to do there? Karol Darling: Well, you could go to the beach when you had time off, and we always could get in a bus right there at the base, you had to walk quite a ways, but you got on a bus. And you could go into town or you could go to the 30:00 beach. And, which I did every now and then, and there was some boy there that, someone in �the Army, I think it was, who took me to the beach on my day off now and then. Then you did always have the duty, then you did always have a day off, leave. And then, one time, my roommates, I had Emily Jump, Dorothy McClanahan, Leah Davis, and me, and we all had, I think we had a couple of days off, because Emily, who was from Boston, and she had lived a pretty high life there, with her family, she said we should go to Ponta Viedra Beach???? SPELL and stay in a motel, hotel, or whatever it was. And we did, the four of us, and we didn’t have to wear our uniforms, we had time off. We went there and we stayed overnight. 31:00 And I can remember how wonderful that seemed to me. We stayed in this wonderful place at Ponta Viedra Beach, Florida. James Smither: Now, how many WAVES do you think were on the base in Jacksonville, were there a lot of you or just a handful? Karol Darling: There were quite a lot of us there. Cause, there were, like the building that I taught in, the TBF, there were a lot of us teaching there, and the PBY building had a lot of them there, and I remember the barracks was pretty big. Then there was a mess hall, you know, where we had to go to eat. And you had just certain hours where you ate. We had a wonderful big swimming pool, though. That was one of the best things about it, that we had this swimming pool with diving boards. And the only place I had ever been swimming was in Lake Huron, I grew up in Port Huron and my family had a camp that we set up every summer 32:00 and we all stayed there for weeks in the summer and went swimming in the lake, but I’d never been swimming in a pool before. This was a big pool with a low diving board and a high diving board and I can remember I got so brave that my roommates told me, “Oh, try the high board,” and I even tried the high board. Did a jackknife and did it off the high board. That was a pretty good education in swimming. James Smither: What range of jobs did women have there? There were WAVES doing the flight simulators, but what else were they doing? Karol Darling: I don’t really know. I don’t really know. I know some of them trained in, like, control tower, and then some of them would have been mechanics, airplane mechanics, so there were a lot of different fields you could get into and were there, a lot of them there in Jacksonville. I don’t remember how many buildings we had. That’s kind of a long time ago. James Smither: Now, who’s supervising you 33:00 as you were doing your jobs or in the barracks, things like that, who was in charge of you? �Karol Darling: Well the one, only Ensign Schwaub is the only one I remember being in charge of us in the building. He was the only one. And I can remember we did have to get back in the link trainer and go through and do some more training while we were there, every now and then, we did do that ourselves so that we were more familiar with it, so we knew how to handle that. James Smither: Now back in the barracks, what kind of system did they have for security, and keeping the wrong people out or that sort of thing? Karol Darling: We all had to take turns having the duty. 24 hours a day, everybody there had to take their turn having the duty. James Smither: So, you’re pretty much policing yourselves, in effect? Karol Darling: Mmhmm, yeah, we pretty much did. I think there probably was at least an ensign or some kind of officer in each of the buildings to kind of watch over us. Make sure we did right. James Smither: But it was a little bit different than what is was back out there in Cedar Falls, with women in charge of things 34:00 and in charge of you. And they may have been teachers themselves, professionals in civilian life who could have [garbled] things that are similar. Karol Darling: Yeah, that might’ve been. James Smither: At a college and so forth, a teachers’ college, they may have had some people to draw on for that. Karol Darling: We didn’t question anything, we were there just to do. And we did it. James Smither: How much discipline did they actually have in the WAVES? I mean, they train the men, and so forth, and there’s a lot of “obey orders” and “follow orders” and the whole drill sergeant. Karol Darling: We had the same thing. We drilled all the time, marching, I can remember marching, a huge platoon of us marching through the streets in Atlanta, Georgia. And it was some special event or something, and we were part of the parade, or whatever it was and there were a lot of us there. We had to learn a lot of different marches. And we were very disciplined in that. You had to do everything just right. James Smither: And what happened if you didn’t? �Karol Darling: Well, I don’t remember, cause I think I did it right. 35:00 That’s all I remember. I don’t remember having any discipline, I just did what I was told to do. James Smither: Now, were there people that you were training with, either, in Iowa or Atlanta, that were having a hard time making it, or doing what you were supposed to do or were they pretty consistently successful? Karol Darling: Pretty much successful but there were some exceptions to that. I remember one of the girls didn’t like it and her mother, she got her mother to come and tell them what it was all about and I think she didn’t get an honorable discharge. So, that’s that. James Smither: What do you think morale was like for the WAVES? Were you pretty upbeat and enjoying what you were doing? Karol Darling: It seemed like pretty much that way, and my roommate, I can remember, one of my roommates did not stay in. And two of them did, 36:00 Emily Jump and Leah Davis stayed in. But oh, I remember now, Leah Davis, she met someone, Leah’s family were Jewish, her father was in the cigar-making business in Boston, and I can remember, she met someone, and she just fell head-over-heels. This happened a lot in the Navy. I think people were lonely, and this guy was, I don’t know the Army or the Navy, but she met him there, so it might have been Navy. And I can remember, she ran away, and got time off, and they got married. But it was not a successful marriage, I can remember that. And the other roommate, Dottie, she had a boyfriend, and I think, she just missed him so bad, that she wanted to go home. She wanted him. So, I remember those things, so there were some hurdles 37:00 that a lot of people had to get over. James Smither: Now did they allow married women in the WAVES, or if you got married did you have to leave? Karol Darling: I guess they must’ve allowed it, if Leah married— James Smither: Leah stayed in? Karol Darling: Yeah, she stayed in. Yeah, so it must be that they did allow that. James Smither: What if a woman got pregnant, or did that not come up, so you don’t know about that? Karol Darling: The only thing I know about that is, one of the women who was in my room in Atlanta, there were three of us there. When we went home on leave, she came �back and I know she had an abortion, so I think that’s how she solved her problem. Cause I can remember her being deathly ill, and not wanting anyone to know this, 38:00 but somehow or other they found out, the officers didn’t find out and nobody told on her, but some of them knew she was really ill, cause I’m sure she had that done in Atlanta, illegally. But, I remember she was one of my roommates there. So that was a pretty sad situation there, really, pretty sad. So those things did happen. Being in the service wasn’t all that easy. James Smither: What were the challenges for you, or what made the service difficult for you in certain ways? Or things that you didn’t like about it? Karol Darling: Oh, I think I liked most everything about it, I don’t remember anything I didn’t like. But I’d never been away from home before, and although I was 21 years old, I was probably, I was very unsophisticated, I had lived a very sheltered life at home with big family, and 39:00 I was very lonesome for my family. And my father was a pharmacist, owned a drug store then, and he had a hard time getting help there and I remember wishing that I could go home and help my dad in the drug store. So it was kind of a lonely time in a lot of ways, and I’m sure other people had their problems with this too. Some of the girls were a lot more sophisticated, they had travelled, this was my first time away from home, my first time on a train, you know, just first of a lot of things for me. James Smither: But you did a pretty good job of staying out of trouble there. Karol Darling: I didn’t ever get in trouble. That was one thing. I obeyed, I obeyed. Because I didn’t question it. I can remember my roommate, Emily, saying, “Ours but to do or die,” when we were in Cedar Falls training, our very first training, she was telling us how we had to obey, we had to obey. 40:00 “Ours but to do or die, we have to do this.” So we all shaped up and Emily helped us. James Smither: Are there other things and experiences in service you might have had that stick out or come back to you that you haven’t mentioned to us yet? Karol Darling: Oh, I remember my brother, Keith, who was in the Marine Corps, he was born on my first birthday, so we were just a year apart in age. And he and I had leave at the same time, we went home to our family and had leave together. And there was a big write-up in the paper about us and a picture in the paper and all about how wonderful it was. And we had a lot of pictures there, and of course, and we had two uniforms, we had the Navy uniform and we had a dress uniform, which was all white, so I wore the white uniform for the picture with my brother. 41:00 It was nice. �James Smither: Other things that stand out or kind of come back to you if you think about that time? Karol Darling: I pretty much told you just about everything. Seems like. James Smither: Now you, basically, they decide that you were sick or whatever, and they decide that, they give you the discharge, they send you home, do you remember about when that was? Was it ’44, or? Karol Darling: I think it was late 19-, late 19-, the end of 1943. James Smither: Ok. Karol Darling: Cause I was in for over a year. About that length of time. James Smither: All right. And then what did you do once you got home? Karol Darling: Well, I think I went to work in my father’s drug store. He was happy to have me. I think that was what I did. I went home. James Smither: And then, how long after that did you get married? Karol Darling: I got married in 1944. 42:00 1944. In May of 1944. James Smither: And when did you meet your husband? Karol Darling: Well, I had met him before I went in the Navy, cause he was in school at Michigan State, and he was in the ROTC, so he was allowed to finish his senior year there, graduate, but then went right into the Army after that, cause the war had started. He went into service right after that, in the Army. He was an officer. A lieutenant in the Army. So, I had met him when I was working at Wait’s??? Department Store, and he was in college and then we got married in 1944 when he was home on leave. He called me up on the phone and proposed over the telephone. Then he came home and we got married in May. James Smither: And then 43:00 after the war when you got home, did you continue working or did you just stay home at that point? Karol Darling: I didn’t work after I was married. I didn’t work. He had worked at General Motors as a summer student while he was in college, so when he got out of the service, he went back to General Motors and had a very menial, low-paying job to start with there, but worked his way up very well. But we lived in a, it was very hard to find a place to live back then after the war, you know, the food was rationed, the war years were pretty hard on you. And after the war, the food was still rationed. And they hadn’t built any houses, they hadn’t manufactured any �cars, there were so many things like that that happened. And my brother had a friend whose father 44:00 was in the banking business, maybe it was the mortgage department or something, cause he found us an apartment in Detroit, where my husband was working. Found us this old apartment, we were just thrilled, just to have a place to live, it was just wonderful. So I remember that. James Smither: So how long did it take for things to sort of go back to normal? Because you’re talking about, rationing is going on, after the war. Karol Darling: Yeah, it was. James Smither: Do you have a sense of how long that went on? Karol Darling: I don’t really remember how long it went on. Cause I remember entertaining my in-laws for the first time in my little apartment, and you had to have coupons in order to buy meat, there were a lot of things that you had to have your ration coupons for, and I can remember that. And I don’t think I served them any meat, I think I served them pancakes or something for dinner, 45:00 which was pretty much a disaster, according to my in-laws. But, I didn’t know any better, I guess! It was hard. James Smither: Ok. Then how’d you wind up in West Michigan? Karol Darling: Well, we lived on the other side of the state in a subdivision called Fox Trot, we lived there and raised our boys there. We lived there 27 years. And my husband took an early retirement for health reasons from General Motors, and he just did not want to stay there, so he wanted to move to North Carolina. And we had friends who had done that, moved from where we lived to North Carolina, and he was by then retired from General Motors and wanted to move so we did move to North Carolina and we lived there for 46:00 17 years and our three sons would come and visit us now and then, we decided the house we lived in was too hard to take care of and we should move to a smaller place, we were getting older, so we should move to a smaller place, we were looking for different places in Henderson, North Carolina, where we lived, that were like retirement places. So our boys came down one at a time and they decided, they weren’t building things very well there, they didn’t like the way things were there, and it was too far away and we should come back to Michigan. Because it was too hard for them to come and see us in our old age. So they convinced us we needed to come back to Michigan, and they really worked on us, and that’s why we ended up here. James Smither: Well thank you for taking time to talk with us today. �Karol Darling: Thank you. 46:56 � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Darling, Karol (Interview transcript and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Darling, Karol Description An account of the resource Karol Darling was born Michigan in 1921 and joined the Navy in 1931 and trained in the Wave Program. She worked in Georgia and Florida training pilots in the Navy to take off from air craft carriers. Karol was discharged after working in Jacksonville for one year due to an illness. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Naval Reserve. Women's Reserve World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-03-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DarlingK 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3f6890bf682b05dfb703bfc05040ea31.jpg 8342e96d9a13c1128f2c9ea307a48950 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 Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Michigan Novels Collection. PS3537 .O615 B53 1907 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 DC-01_Bindings0043 Title A name given to the resource Blackbird: A Story of Mackinac Island Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Darr, Clyde E. (Designer) Description An account of the resource Binding of Blackbird: A Story of Mackinac Island, by Scota Sorin (pseudonym), illustrated and decorated by Clyde E. Darr, published by Citator Pub. Co., 1907. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1907 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/435c68c2e7eac2af103fb8dbf9598afb.jpg 20ffe23f55ad0ef2a319b28de5a4dd24 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1970s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> 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 GV012-01_UAPhotos_000343 Title A name given to the resource President Lubbers with the Lectric Leopard Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daugherty, Nancy Description An account of the resource President Lubbers at Pfeiffer Ford with the Renault Lectric Leopard. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Vehicles College administrators Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/32f1b94dd3969ddea1d56e0abc2180a3.mp4 7170f9b0aad4a327108e5eb52ec56b3f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5e06805aa1679b4286e54465c0dedac3.pdf 018af134da437e26376356604e23d27e PDF Text Text Davelaar, Harvey Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: World War II Interviewee’s Name: Harvey Davelaar Length of Interview: (40:43) Interviewed by: James Smither Transcribed by: Maluhia Buhlman Interviewer: “We’re talking today with Harvey Davelaar of Grand Rapids, Michigan and the interviewer is James Smither of the Grand Valley State Veterans History Project. Ok now Harvey start us off with some background on yourself and to begin with, where and when were you born?” I was born in Wyoming Township, Michigan which was adjacent to Grand Rapids, Michigan December 23 1923, and I’ve lived in the Grand Rapids area all my life andInterviewer: “What did your family do for a living when you were a kid?” (00:38) My dad was a paper hanger and a painter, he was self employed Interviewer: “And so what was life like for your family during the depression then?” Well I actually had it quite good, my sister and I, my dad worked for the government for the…what do you call it, slips my mind, anyway work progress. Interviewer: “Yeah the W.P.A yeah.” W.P.A and he was fortunate in the fact that in the Godfrey school system where we lived had gotten a grant to repaint their schools but the school board had furnished the superintendent for the job, and he was the only contractor in the district and so they came to him and asked him if �Davelaar, Harvey he would run it, which he did and he did it through several years. So actually he was employed just about all the way through the depression. So we were, you might say quite well off actually. Interviewer: “Yeah, because I guess when we think of W.P.A work it’s usually the ordinary guys working in that would be doing, and they wouldn’t make very much money.” No. Interviewer: “No but he was management essentially?” He was management and he did not work for W.P.A he worked for the school board. So I don’t know what amount of money or anything but relatively to everybody else we were living pretty good. Interviewer: “Yeah alright, now did you finish high school?” I finished high school at Godfrey High School. Interviewer: “In what year did you graduate?” (2:30) I graduated in 1941, in a class of 83 which was the largest class ever graduated to that school at that time. Interviewer: “Now after you graduated from high school what did you do?” I, at the time of course their preparation for war so one of the local automobile plants had been converted into making dive bomber wings for the British and Dutch navies, and of course they were hiring everybody they could get, so we were training a few of us about one month as riveters and metal sheet workers and so I went to work there and I worked there until I was called up to the navy.” Interviewer: “Alright, and so when- Now do you remember how you heard about Pearl �Davelaar, Harvey Harbor?” Oh yes it was my family’s tradition on Sunday we would go to church in the morning and Sunday school afterwards and then come home and we would have the big dinner of the week and after that my parents always took a nap and- But we had a radio which was not too common and they got me to listen to the radio Sunday afternoon, but you do, in our strict Dutch neighbor family that was kind of unusual. So I was sitting there listening to the radio and they broke in and announced that Pearl Harbor had been bombed, and of course like everybody else I didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was or where it was, but as afternoon goes on and more and more bulletins came through we started to figure it out. Interviewer: “Now before that happened, had you paid much attention to the news of the world with the war in Europe that kind of thing?” No, I was a typical high school kid. Interviewer: “Now did the work that you had, was there a deferment available for that?” (4:41) No, they tried to get us deferred but not allowed. I must say that they kept us as long as they could, they stalled off, but I did not want to get into the Army. Some of the fellas that I knew had been drafted, and had gone to basic training and came home for a short time afterwards and they said “Oh you don’t want to be in the Army” and I said “No I don’t want that” and besides I’m partial to the Navy anyway I always have been, and so I talked to my folks and I said “I’d like to enlist in the Navy.” of course I had to have their permission. I was only 17 years old and Interviewer: “Now you would’ve been, if you’re born in 20-” 1923 and this was in the summer of 1941, about 42. Interviewer: “42 you’re gonna be, you’re 18 then.” �Davelaar, Harvey Yep. Interviewer: “But anyway, but you still wanted their support regardless. Did they actually have to sign papers for you?” Oh yeah they had too, so anyway I went to- Another fellow classmate and I went to the Navy recruiters and enlisted and with permission of our parents. Interviewer: “Right, okay so then where do you go for your boot camp?” Well it was strange because so many of us didn’t want to deal with the Army, we overwhelmed the Navy recruitment programs. So we would go to Detroit and get a physical and when we passed our physical we would sign the date in the future when we would actually be called up and that happened. We enrolled in either July or August of that summer and it was not until the weekend after Thanksgiving that I was actually called up, and went to Detroit for a physical and from there we went to Great Lakes for basic training. Interviewer: “So where is Great Lakes?” (7:04) Great Lakes is north of Chicago, between Chicago and Milwaukee. Interviewer: “Alright, yeah very far northern end of Illinois there along the lake.” Yeah. Interviewer: “Okay, what did the training there consist of ?” Oh I guess the basic stuff, you learned what the Navy’s all about, the rudiment knots and so on, how to take orders and obey them, and I remember it was a bitter cold winter and we would march from class to class. Of course we took physical fitness and all that sort of thing but I guess �Davelaar, Harvey that’s mostly it. We slept in hammocks, we were still in the old barracks, and had to get used to that, not roll out during the night, but it went quite well. I rather enjoyed it, the discipline and so on kind of fit me. Interviewer: “Okay, well if you had a fairly strict family in your background anyway, following orders was normal.” Yeah, it was. Interviewer: “Alright, were there some other people who were training with you who were having some trouble?” Oh no, there was a whole company. I forget, a little over a hundred men in each class, we were called and we did all the paperwork, we were interviewed and so on. I was- I forget how many weeks, either 12 or 15 weeks of training, and during the interview process they of course knew that I had worked with aviation metal work. So when they assigned us where we were going to go, I was assigned to a Navy aviation metalsmith which took place in Navy Pier in Chicago. Navy Pier in Chicago at that time was completely made over into a school, with barracks and the whole thing were on a pier, and that’s where everybody from out Great Lakes area went for aviation training. Radios with engine hydraulics, whatever you were qualified for you were trained there and then that lasted until about June of ‘43. Interviewer: “Alright now while you’re there, particularly while you’re at Navy Pier, would you be able to get liberty? I mean, could you go into Chicago?” (9:46) Oh yes, every weekend we were, from Saturday noon until midnight Sunday we were given freedom, and Chicago was a wonderful place to go to because a service person could not pay for anything. Everything was free, all sports, movies, entertainment. All you had to do was go to the U.S.O and ask for a ticket and you would get one and that was it, and of course the museum and the other things there. So it was a wonderful place to be, to go to school. �Davelaar, Harvey Interviewer: “Alright, now what specifically did your training consist of? What were you physically learning to do?” Well I remember one was to read blueprints, and number two was we made different things that were learned, taught us how to bend metal, how to mark it, and then how to rivet it together, and then we also learned how to weld steel parts, and that was pretty much it. Interviewer: “Did you work mostly with steel or did you have aluminum?” All aluminum, the only steel I remember was in the class when we had to learn them, but yeah welding which we never used again, but anyway it was part of the basic training of course. Interviewer: “Alright, so now once you complete that training program what do they do with you?” (11:28) Well then we- the section on the pier was called outgoing unit O.G and we stayed there until we were assigned to a place. Which for me was Naval air station Quonset Point, Rhode Island, and arrived there- Six of us from our class were assigned there, the Navy transferred you that way individually. In our case it was six of us together and we were responsible to get ourselves there by X date and time. So we did that successfully. Interviewer: “Okay, did you go by train or?” Went by train, went by train from Chicago to Boston, Boston to Providence, where the Navy had a bus waiting for us and they took us down to the Naval air station in Quonset Point was down there against the bay, close to the ocean. Interviewer: “Alright, and then what was your job once you got there?” I was assigned to what was called the assembly and repair hanger, where I did just what the title said, they assembled aircraft that were shipped there and repaired those that were damaged, and �Davelaar, Harvey so that was mostly what we did, but then I wound up with a group that was brand new. Was installing rocket launchers underneath the wings of fighter planes and torpedo bombers, and that became my number one task while I was there. Interviewer: “Alright, now was there a larger command that you were part of, naval air transport, something like that?” No IInterviewer: “Or was that later?” That comes later. Interviewer: “So here you were just at the naval air station, so now was Quonset Point, was that a place that was used as a base for anti-submarine patrol?” (13:33) That was a permanent naval air station, all partnered structures as opposed to temporary. Yeah what we did that was the purpose of the rockets underneath the planes that was anti-submarine patrol, and they had large seaplanes and all the other stuff that goes with it, but our planes were beyond what we called many aircraft carriers, Small ships that were converted into aircraft carriers which did convoy duty to the- Through a [unintelligible] of course, but the object of the rockets was a group of planes who would go out, and one of them was equipped with a search light, a huge thing for our day, that took the places of bomb bays and tried to catch a German submarine that had surface to recharge their batteries, and once they saw water, found one, then the other planes equipped with a rocket would attack it, and hopefully do some damage and force to go home or sink it maybe. Well I think that was an outside chance but they would damage it anyway. Interviewer: “Okay, so how long were you at Quonset Point?” Was there about a year. �Davelaar, Harvey Interviewer: “Okay, and during that time I mean did you mostly just know other mechanics or did you get to talk to the pilot or aircrew?” No, nothing to do with the aircrew or any of the actual flying. It was just like working in a big factory. Interviewer: “And did you ever hear anything about what happened out there on the ocean, either with convoys or submarines?” No more than civilians did. Interviewer: “Okay, so you’re just in your own world. Alright, now did you spend most of your time just on the base or would you go into the smaller towns or Providence?” I did there because as a permanent base that had everything. Had, what’s it called, ship service was just like a store, and they had a restaurant that you could go to if you didn’t like the Navy furnished meals. In a sense we were isolated but on the weekend there would be buses going into Providence, but I was content just to stay on the base. Interviewer: “Alright, now were you communicating with people back home very often?” (16:06) By letter, that’s the only way. When we tried to call home on the long distance telephone we’d have to sign up, and so usually what we did, both the Atlantic and Pacific coast you would got to the AT&T place and you would sign up for a certain time, and they more or less guaranteed that your call would go through at that time, and that’s the only direct communication I had with my parents. Interviewer: “Alright, now were you disappointed or relieved that you weren’t being sent overseas?” �Davelaar, Harvey No, I was very happy because as a boy I was kind of an airplane nut. I used to make models and fly them and so on so I was in an area where I- Kind of a dreamland or something, what I really like to do work on actual airplanes, we’re actually contributing to the war. Interviewer: “Right, so that works- Did you ever get a chance to go up in any of the aircraft?” No. Interviewer: “We’re not giving out seaplane rides or anything.” No they weren’t giving out any, the one thing, which really was on the west coast, if you had a furlough home for any length of time there was the ability to go to a certain office on the edge of air station, and ask if there were transport flights going in your direction, and this is all by chance as I understood it, “Yes there is one going to Chicago or there is one going to Kansas City or St. Louis, we can fly you that far.” and then you’ll add the weight and say “Something close to Grand Rapids?” Chicago, Detroit or something, that I might get home from there, but that whole process could take a day or two sometimes to get to where you wanted to go so I never tried it. Interviewer: “Alright, now while you were out there in Rhode Island were you following the course of the news very carefully, or were you just doing your job?” (18:36) No, just doing my job. Interviewer: “Okay, so how is it then that you wound up in California?” Well as the submarine warfare was coming to an end, pretty well had the Atlantic to ourselves they started shipping everybody. Not to the west coast of course, and eventually it’s going to be the preparation to fight in the Pacific and end the war over there. So we once again went through the O.G unit, the outgoing unit, and barracks, and then we waited to be transferred wherever. We �Davelaar, Harvey didn’t know where, we had sealed orders but there was a chief petty officer that was in charge of us and he had the orders with- And he was not to tell us of course. So we were in the outgoing unit and I can remember very vividly, one morning we woke up after a couple weeks there, and there was a string of passenger cars in the sighting and he said “Yep, you’re shipping out, you’re on this train.” So we took that train all the way to Oakland California Interviewer: “Okay, how long did that take?” About four day. Interviewer: “Alright, did you have to stop much and let other trains go by?” Well supposedly we had priority, but once in a while from Chicago onto Oakland the only time we would pull off is when the streamliner, one of the fast passenger trains, was coming the other way. We would put on siding until it went past and then we would go again. Interviewer: “Right, and how did they feed you while you were on the train?” (20:37) Oh very good, we were in the dining car, each one of our passenger cars was assigned a time and you would go in and they would feed you. So we had it pretty good, not luxuriously but we had hot meals let’s put it that way. Interviewer: “Alright, and now once you get to Oakland then what happens?” Got to Oakland and there again you’re in the outgoing unit, and sat there for about two weeks wondering where we’re gonna go, and I was hoping to get on an aircraft carrier, that was my dream, but I didn’t and my name was called and I was given a time to meet. So I was put on a bus, and had no idea where I was going of course and we wound up on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay and said “Here’s where you’re gonna be stationed.” Well Treasure Island in those days was a great big outgoing unit, where people getting off ships were kept for a while, and people going on to the ship would get their assignments, but on that island was a huge aircraft �Davelaar, Harvey repairs facilities for Pan American Airways, we heard their seaplanes which were flying the Pacific at that time as passenger planes, the Navy took it over and made an overhaul base out of it and so we were assigned there, and once again we had very nice duty. We were kind of an independent unit from everything else going out on Treasure Island, though we ate at their dining halls and went to their movies and everything. We had all the privileges of the island, but otherwise we were pretty well restricted to our little area. Interviewer: “Alright and now what kinds of aircraft did you work on there?” Well yeah, a PBY2 which was a four engine seaplane which was designed and put into service in 1937 and it was already obsolete but it was a huge aircraft, I got pictures of it and so they decided that maybe it was still trying to get supplies off the Pacific every which way they could. So they took these aircrafts and took all the armaments off it, sealed up the bomb bays and put flat decks inside of them, and used them for cargo carriers. That’s how we got the naval air transport service, that’s the [unintelligible] and so our, or my responsibility as a metalsmith was to keep the metal parts of the aircraft repaired and functional and sometimes to put different brackets and so on when they modernized the radio equipment or navigating equipment. So anything to do with metal we were responsible for. Interviewer: “Okay, now were you just- Would these planes get wear and tear from extensive use or?” (24:14) Well yeah, the big problem with them was they were not- They were strictly a seaplane they had no wheels, like some others that had both wheels and floatation these were strictly seaplanes and so they landed and took off from water. Well our biggest amount of work is they would hit debris in the water and damage the hull and spring leaks and so forth, and that’s why we were called over all these. When they were damaged too much they would be brought over to us, and brought up on land and then we would recondition them and did this exactly like the word overhaul means. Put new engines on them and new radio equipment or bring them right up to date you might say. �Davelaar, Harvey Interviewer: “Alright, now did you have much communication at all with the other naval personnel or you just, you sat at your own table?” No, like I said we were an isolated group in the old Pan American facilities. Interviewer: “Okay, now did you go into the city of San Francisco?” Oh yes, Oakland and San Francisco were the places to go over the weekend, and our set up was you could do that two times a month, one time a month you would get what’s called a short leave to go into town, or you could go in Saturday and stay overnight Sunday, and as long as you were back and ready to work on Monday morning at seven o’clock, you had that privilege and what we called once a month was the long one you would go up and have both Friday and Saturday night to go in San Francisco, and like Chicago is the most wonderful place because everything was free, but in San Francisco I remember they had a multi story building of the U.S.O, that is United Service Organization, and the upper floors were- Had cots you could sleep overnight so that was the reason that like an overnight stay just to get off the base for a while. Interviewer: “And did they have, did the U.S.O provide entertainment, either on the base or in the town or did you just get tickets to go to things?” (27:00) No, now I don’t remember going to anything specific at the U.S.O, only at the same thing as in Chicago. I remember seeing my first hockey game, I saw a football game at the University of California in Berkeley, and the Seals hockey team. I didn’t know they had a baseball team at that time, and maybe they didn’t. Interviewer: “Not major league there yet, Giants were still in New York.” No that was way off, [unintelligible] yet. Interviewer: “Okay, now were there- During the time you were in whether Rhode Island or in California, were there particular news events or developments in the war that did get �Davelaar, Harvey your attention? Do you remember when Roosevelt died for instance?” Yeah, I remember when Roosevelt died. I remember we kind of, by that time, we were older and more curious about the war in Europe, and we knew that the war was ending down by just the activities on that base and transfer of people we knew that the Pacific was being built up, and we kind of figured that out ourselves, but we weren’t told it was happening. Interviewer: “Okay, and do you remember hearing about the atomic bomb?” Yeah, I remember hearing about that. That’s when I was waiting to be discharged out there, that’s when that occurred. Interviewer: “Okay so in August of ‘45?” I’m sorry? Interviewer: “August of ‘45 is when-” (28:46) Yeah. Interviewer: “Okay because I thought you weren’t discharged until ‘46.” I was, that’s true, the discharge system was based on points, maybe you’ve heard of that, and it was based on how many days you were in combat and all that sort of thing. Well having been stationed in the United States all my career I was real low on points, so I was one of the last ones to be discharged. Interviewer: “But when they dropped the bomb you were already starting to count your points?” Yeah. �Davelaar, Harvey Interviewer: “You were waiting for your chance, okay. Now when they announced the bomb did you have any idea what that meant really?” No, we just knew that it was something very powerful and the cause of the war’s end. Interviewer: “Because the Japanese surrender comes not very long after that.” Yeah, August 14th or 15th. Interviewer: “Alright, now once that happens does life on the base change at all once the war’s over?” (29:48) Well yeah because then the next thing was the highest point people were being sent home, so in every unit you are losing people. Like in our case we had, people had served on carriers and so or transferred one base to us and so they went first. The rest as your numbers came up you would be sent home so, but also on the atomic bomb you mentioned that they were recruiting people who would be willing to sign on for, I forget, a period of six or eight months extend their- Even though they were eligible for discharge but if they wanted to extend it and work on my set up for the test that were coming up. You could sign up for that for a certain period, six, eight months, or a year. I tried to sign up for that but they were giving aviation medals and I didn’t have anything to do with that kind of training so I didn’t get it. Interviewer: “Okay, did they make any effort to encourage you to reenlist or were they mostly just getting rid of people?” Mostly getting rid of people, in my case anyway. I remember the officer that was in charge of our group that went to a series of classes and so one of his first remarks was “I feel like I’m talking in vain because I’m sure none of you want to reenlist but if you do this is your option and what will happen.” Such as you’ll be automatically promoted one rank and of course you’d get more pay and so on and more leave time to go home and that sort of thing, but no one did �Davelaar, Harvey Interviewer: “Okay, now during the time while you were in, did you ever get a leave to go home?” I did because I accumulated leaves, I was never able to get a leave because of the activity and necessity of it, we didn’t get leaves but in August then they started opening it up, and that too was based on how long since you’ve been home, and of course I hadn’t been home since I left. So I applied and I was given one month leave, so at the time you had to go down to the station, railroad station, and you signed up for a train to take you home and on a given date and time and so on. So I went home for 30 days, I took my whole 30 days and went home in August. That’s some of what I don’t know about what really happened on the base and it happened the fifth on the calendar in August. Interviewer: “Okay and then- But then you have to go back to the base?” Oh yeah. Interviewer: “Alright and then when did they finally discharge you?” (33:19) That was a little different process too because these planes that we were serving were so obsolete and probably so beat up, that they immediately disbanded our squadron, and so I was transferred to Moffett Field, which is south of San Francisco and San Jose. Which is a big, primarily it’s a testing air station for new aircraft techniques and different things, and they naval air transport squadron but they’re all land based planes, four engine what would have been passenger planes, or seats taken out and flight decks put in and they used to transport; however they were kept as transport planes with seats but we maintained those, and then I was picked to be sent to gas tank school, because those planes didn’t suffer very much damage as far as the metal was concerned. So I was trained how to repair the gas tanks which were all inside the wings and that’s how I finished out my career in the Navy. Interviewer: “Okay, and so when do you get out?” �Davelaar, Harvey I got out March 2nd of ‘46. Interviewer: “Alright, and after you got out what did you do?” Well first thing I did is decided to just loaf around- Well a little different, I had an aunt and uncle that live in San Diego and it was March of course and I thought I didn’t want to go back to Michigan and bad weather and also I wrote my aunt and uncle, knowing the time I was going to be discharge, if I could stay with them for two weeks, and they said “Sure come on down.” I had two cousins there that weren’t home and so I did that and then I came home and had to make a decision. My training in the Navy qualified me to become a metal apprentice and- Or not and so seeing my dad starting back in his one man business, I took the easy way really to be honest and said “Okay let’s work together.” So I did and from there on of course construction and everything started building after World War II. So I met my sweetheart to be in April that year and eventually we married in ‘48. From 1950 my dad and I decided to form a partnership and create our own business, which we did, and we did that until my dad retired, and then after that I had it by myself. Interviewer: “Alright and was this all kinds of construction or still the painting and papering?” (36:54) This was all painting and papering, my dad worked strictly residential when he was alone, and we expanded into commercial construction. We did schools, we did churches, and we did new home construction, which like I said was just booming. If you had the manpower and time and could do it we were hired. I don’t ever remember bidding on a job and everything, it was a call and said “You have time, can you do such and such in the future?” or “Will you save time?” So it was really a great time to be in business. Interviewer: “Alright, now when you think back to the time that you spent in the Navy, what do you think you learned from that or took out of it?” �Davelaar, Harvey Well number one was discipline of course, how to discipline yourself, how to take care of yourself physically because otherwise you depended on your parents but how to budget time and do a good job, knowing that one way or another you’re judged by what quality of the work that you do. So I think those are the biggest things I took out, a lot of quote unquote good habits which stayed with me the rest of my life. Interviewer: “Okay and then just to think back to your time in the Navy are there other things that stand out in your memory about that, that you haven’t brought into the story yet?” (38:55) You mean unusual things? Interviewer: “Yeah.” Well back to Quonset Point, the unusual thing was putting these rocket brackets on knowing that that was something brand new, and so that kind of gave me a thrill I’d say, that I was on the forefront of something happening. Interviewer: “Do you know what kind of aircraft you were putting them on? I was putting them on, it was called a F4F fighter plane and a TBM, which is a torpedo bomber, and the f4f actually was a fighter that was- The Navy entered the war with but was soon obsolete, it was small and could land on small carriers and what we call, I should say a jeep carrier and so they were, of course they could build the carriers quickly and they were equipped with- And the TBM could land on a small area so they were the ones that were sent out on a convoy. You know we didn’t see these big aircraft carriers like the enterprise and some others that were actually fighting aircraft. Interviewer: “Alright so these were escort carriers and they could provide air protection for a convoy in the middle of the Atlantic, so they had a job to do.” �Davelaar, Harvey Number one of course, go after the submarines, German submarines. Interviewer: “Alright, well you’ve got kind of an unusual career so I’d just like to thank you for taking the time to share the story today.” You’re welcome. � 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 DavelaarH2107V Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davelaar, Harvey Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03 Title A name given to the resource Davelaar, Harvey (Interview transcript and video), 2017 Description An account of the resource Harvey Davelaar was born in Wyoming Township, Michigan, on December 23, 1923. After graduating high school in June 1941, he worked in a war factory until he enlisted in the Navy in summer 1942. He reported for basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois, in November 1942. He went to Naval Aviation Metalsmith School at Navy Pier in downtown Chicago and trained there until June 1943. From there, he went to Naval Air Station Quonset Point, Rhode Island, where he outfitted fighter planes and torpedo bombers with rocket racks to attack U-Boats as part of convoy escort. When the Battle of the Atlantic effectively came to an end he was sent to Naval Station Treasure Island, California, where he maintained seaplanes used for the transportation of troops and material. He was at Treasure Island until after the war’s end, then went to Moffett Field, California, as his final duty station. He was discharged on March 2, 1946. 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 Other veterans & civilians—Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401. Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/581eab3f0456f5e843234a1f5b785825.mp4 2b140f69bdc7dbaf8056daaecedfc08d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0077ea3343d784fa24765bcf66945fd5.pdf ab521396eb9069bf10bf044e233a4c64 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW KEN DAVID Born: January 1950, Gerard, Ohio Resides: Niles, Ohio Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, October 26, 2012 Interviewer: Can you start us off with some background on yourself, where and when were you born for instance? I was born in January of 1950 in the small town of Gerard and currently living in Niles. Interviewer: Did you grow up in Gerard? Yes, I grew up in Gerard. Interviewer: What did your family do for a living then? My mom was a housewife, she was a stay home mom, and my dad worked. Interviewer: What kind of a job did he have? He was a machinist Interviewer: Was he working in sort of a factory or repair shop? Yes, in factories, yes Interviewer: How many kids were in the family? I have a brother and two sisters. Interviewer: Did you go to public schools there? Yes, public school and public high school. 1:04 Interviewer: When did you graduate from high school? I graduated in 1968 and got drafted in 1969. Interviewer: What did you do between graduation and when you got drafted? 1 �I was recruited by the state of Ohio Highway Department and I worked in the centrifuge on black top plants, testing black top. Interviewer: How did you wind up with that? They came to the school and they went through certain records and they picked like seven of us and they hired two of us. Interviewer: Now, in your school, did most kids, at that point, not go to college? Most of them went to college. Interviewer: They did go to college. The ones that did not go to college got drafted. Interviewer: At the time that you got drafted, how much did you know about the war in Vietnam or what was going on over there? Nothing—they never talked about it in school. Interviewer: You didn’t see stuff in TV? 2:04 I didn‟t even know where it was. Interviewer: But you were aware of the draft though? Oh yes Interviewer: And were you expecting that sooner or later they would catch up with you? Yes Interviewer: Once you do get drafted then, take us through the process. You get your notice and then what do you do? 2 �I had to go downtown; they put us on a bus and took us to the Cleveland regional office. All day physical and that was the first time, you passed or failed, and we got on the bus and came home and waited for the next notice to come and report. Interviewer: When people went in for the physical, were there people who tried to find ways to beat the system? Yes, there were many, many. Some protested religiously, some wore sheets; some poured actual packets of water in the urine test. 3:10 Some acted up, and they just called the MP‟s, they hauled them across the hall and told them they were Marines and everybody calmed right down. Interviewer: People tried stuff, but it didn’t work? No, soap under the armpits to get their blood pressure up, it was all kinds of things. Interviewer: But you didn’t pull any of that stuff yourself? No, no need to. Interviewer: So, basically you were willing to go, and figured your country calls you have to go? Yes Interviewer: So, how long did you have to wait around before you got your instructions on reporting for basic? Not long Interviewer: Where did they send you for basic training? They sent me to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for August and September, and from there I went to Fort Polk, Louisiana until January. 4:04 Interviewer: All right, describe what basic training consisted of at Fort Campbell? 3 �They told us from day one that we were all going to a country called Vietnam, and they taught us everything to be able to survive from the basics to the most extreme. Interviewer: So, they were actually teaching you about conditions in Vietnam or trying to? They were, like I told the doctors before, they were programing us. In basic training they broke us down both physically and mentally, so we would react to different commands from our drill sergeants and once they got to that point we were functioning just like a group of, not boys anymore, but people following orders and not thinking about what the orders are, just reacting. 5:07 Interviewer: Now, how easy or how hard was it for you to make the adjustment to that? It was very hard, you come out of high school, you‟re all smiles and happy go lucky and then they‟re trying to get you into an environment that is hostile, if you looked the wrong way you‟re dead, if you act the wrong way, you‟re dead, and they really prepared us mentally. Interviewer: Now, were there—did you push back with the training, or did you just try to work with it the best you could? I did the best I could in whatever they were trying to teach us. Interviewer: Did you have people who were trying to resist, argue or fight back? Yes Interviewer: How does that play out, what kind of things would they do? 6:00 4 �They would recycle them. They would start them off in another training brigade as day one, and those who couldn‟t cope the second time around, most of them got a hardship discharge, unsuitable for the military. Interviewer: What proportion of the guys that you started out training with kind of finished the basic training on schedule? The majority of them Interviewer: Physically what kind of condition were you in when you went in? Nineteen years old. Basic physical health, but after basic training your mind was equipped to take on five Marines and beat them. Interviewer: Did you build up your physical strength or endurance as a trainee? Does the physical training do that or were you in pretty much the shape you needed to be already? No, the guys that were a little bit overweight, they went through more PT training, and for the rest of us, every day was the same routine to build up our endurance. 7:11 Interviewer: Now the guys that were teaching you, were they guys who had been to Vietnam or were they just drill instructors? We had one drill instructor that was in Vietnam, was wounded and came back to be an instructor. The rest of them, they‟re going through training just like the rest of us, in preparation of going over, and they were all sergeants. Interviewer: So they had been through the NCO training at this point and not rotated over yet. Okay, then you go to Fort Polk for AIT, that’s your next stop. Physically what was Fort Polk like or that area like? 5 �As the bus pulled in there were big signs called Tiger Land, and it was more God's country, open. 8:03 More physical training, more weapons training, escape invasion training, they started feeding us a hardboiled egg and a piece of toast for breakfast to shrink our stomachs in preparation for what was coming. Interviewer: Did they have forests or swampy areas around for you to train in? Yes, it was all wetlands, and a lot of times they would take us out and give us degrees and you had to find your way back, and it was all nasty and dirty. Interviewer: Were there problems with alligators or snakes and things like that? I didn‟t see any, no Interviewer: Now, the men who were training you at this level, had more of them been to Vietnam at this point? The same way, some were and some weren‟t. 9:00 Interviewer: Did they try to give you any kind of training in terms of how to deal with civilian populations, or populated areas, or was this just all out in the swamps? It was military vs. military Interviewer: About how long did this last? It was another eight weeks or ten weeks. Interviewer: What kind of MOS did you come out with? Eleven Charlie, which is a mortar, but they also trained us on the M16, the M14, the M60, LAWs, they gave it all to us. My specialty was the mortars, but when we got to Vietnam it was an infantry rifle. 6 �Interviewer: It’s what you’d need when you got there. When you complete AIT, do they let you go homer before sending you overseas, or do you get a post in the states first? 10:04 They asked for those who wanted to go to jump school, they could go to jump school and the other ones could go home for five days before going to California to be shipped out. Interviewer: Which option did you take? I went home for five days. Interviewer: what was it like to go home and know that you’re going off to Vietnam next? My family was sad, but I knew that I had to do what I had to do. Interviewer: Physically, how did they get you out to Vietnam? What was the process? From California they put us on a United commercial jet with stewardesses and meals, and flew us to Hawaii and then to Guam, another island, and then on to Vietnam. Interviewer: What was that atmosphere in the plane going over? Was this a chartered one for the military? Yes Interviewer: What was it like on that plane? 11:02 I passed out and didn‟t wake up until we got to Hawaii. My buddy nest to me said they couldn‟t wake me up, but I was emotionally drained because we were on the plane for twenty three hours and going over in your mind—you don‟t know what to expect. At nineteen years old I had been trained to kill people and am I going to be able to shoot somebody? 7 �Interviewer: What was you first impression of Vietnam when you got off the plane? It was hitting a brick wall as you stepped off the plane because you were so conditioned to the air conditioning on the plane. We landed in January and it was like walking into the twilight zone. Interviewer: Where did you land in Vietnam? 12:00 Bien Hoa Interviewer: You get off the plane and what do they do with you? They just put us in formation, called off the names and assigned you to a company. I remember doing KP, and then they shipped us off to what they call SERTS training for a week. Our instructors wore black hats, we lived in hooches. We were fenced in and during the day they would take us outside the wire on patrols, trying to prep us for when they put us in the real jungle. Interviewer: What kinds of things do they want you to learn, or what sort of preparation are you getting? Follow orders and if they say “stop”, you freeze, no question. Interviewer: Did they teach you how to spot booby traps and things like that? 13:07 Most of that was done in training. There was more that they showed us there that was on the job training more or less. Interviewer: Are they still focusing on just dealing with enemy military forces as opposed to people in civilian areas or things like that? They told us that where they were going to send us was strictly regular NVA army. Interviewer: Did you at this point, know what unit you were going to join? 8 �No Interviewer: But they had some idea? They had it all mapped out. When we finished out search, I remember, they put me and somebody else on a helicopter took us out in the jungle, and that‟s when I met my Lieutenant and graded myself on target. 14:07 Interviewer: What unit did they assign you to? I was in the 2nd platoon, Delta [Company], 1st [Battalion] of the 506th [Regiment]. Interviewer: In the 101st Airborne. 101st Airborne, Air Mobile, Air Assault Interviewer: Where were they based at the time you joined them? At Camp Evans, which was up north in the high country, and the first month we just patrolled the low land. About two months later we hit the A Shau Valley. Interviewer: Let’s talk about that first part first. They take you up—the helicopter—did they take you to Camp Evans or did they take you to a smaller place where your company was or how did that work? From Bien Hoa, from the airport, they put us on a Chinook, there was a bunch of us, and flew us up north, got off at Camp Evans, and from there they assigned. 15:06 Interviewer: Was your company at Camp Evans when you got there? They were in the field. Interviewer: Did you wait for them to come back from the field? No, they took me out. Interviewer: How did you get you out? By Helicopter 9 �Interviewer: So they fly you out, you go in and you join the company. What sort of a reception do you get when you get there? “Your cherry is here, you‟re blood.” Interviewer: Once you joined them, did anybody make an effort to kind of explain to you what was going on or give you any advice on what to do? The ones that I met at that time, they try to help you out, they tell you where to go, and the squad leader points you in more directions. Interviewer: Do you remember going out on patrol with them for the first time? Yes Interviewer: What was that like, or what do you remember about it? 16:00 They kept saying, “This is the real thing”. Interviewer: What was the country like that you were patrolling in? Was it open country or grassland? It was open grassland with little hills on it. Interviewer: When you were moving, were you going just as a squad, or platoon, or whole company? As the 2nd platoon Interviewer: About how many men were in the platoon when you joined it? I don‟t remember that, but there was there were about eighteen or twenty of us when we got shot up the last time. Interviewer: Do you remember how big your squad was when you joined that? I would say we had four squads, and maybe five or six in a squad. 10 �Interviewer: And when you go out, initially, where did they put you in the squad? Did they make you walk point right away, or the rear, or in the middle someplace? 17:04 Just—they had their point men already trained and they just put you in line somewhere. Interviewer: When you move through that open country, how far apart would you be normally? We were five or six feet. Interviewer: Now, were there trails in those places, or would you just walk in the grass or what? Our sergeant—from our sergeant we set off the trails. Trails always end up in an ambush, so we made our own trails. Interviewer: On that first patrol did you have any kind of contact? No contact, we saw them, but we had no contact. Interviewer: Now, when you were at Camp Evans, based at Camp Evans, did you spend time camped out overnight outside of the perimeter, at times, or were you just mostly inside of it at night? 18:03 The whole time I was there I night have slept on a cot three times. It was strictly all jungle. We would go out thirty-five or forty-five days and come back in. Interviewer: How long were you at Camp Evans before you started doing that? From the time I got to Evans and went through, I would guess it a week of KP duty, and a week on certs and then right out in the jungle. Interviewer: You get up there, and talk about SERTS, was this the training we talked about or was this another level of training? 11 �This was training in country, which were the procedures they wanted us to follow in country. Interviewer: Was this specific to the 101st? Yes Interviewer: All right, but once that’s done they’re pretty quickly sending you out into the jungle areas as opposed to—because you’re talking about going through grass and the hills. How long were you doing that? 19:12 I guess maybe a month or a month and a half. Interviewer: While you were doing that were you sleeping out in the field? Oh yes Interviewer: So, at night what would you do? We would set up in a perimeter. There were two guys in a squad and one would sleep and one would stay awake, and then they would shift back and forth all night. Interviewer: When you set up a perimeter, what kind of defenses would you have? We would set up the claymores, and the trip flares in front of us in case something did happen to sneak in. Interviewer: But, they’re not bringing in concertina wire or things like that? No, that was only on the fire support bases. Interviewer: Would you dig in at all? Sometimes we would, and sometimes, if the vegetation was high enough, just--- 20:09 Interviewer: Did the enemy try to probe those perimeters at all, or did they ever shoot mortars at you, or things like that? Yes, many times, like when we were in the valley. Satchel charges, mortars. 12 �Interviewer: But, were they doing it around Evans? No, that was pretty much quiet. Interviewer: Then when they tell you that you’re heading off into the jungle now, and you’re going to head off, did the veteran guys in the unit say, “Ok, this is going to be different or harder, or did you just go? We just went. Interviewer: How did they get you out of there? By helicopter again Interviewer: Were you going to an established firebase or a new LZ, what was it? It could just be an open spot in the jungle. It could be a regular fire support base that was leaving another company. 21:12 They told us very little, they just threw us on and dropped us off. Interviewer: Do you remember sort of going out into the jungle the first time, the first of those trips out, or do they all run together now? They all run together, and once you go to the first one they‟re all the same. Some are hotter, some are quiet. Interviewer: Describe, a little bit, the country you’re operating in now, the jungle terrain, physically what does it look like to you as you’re going through it? Lowlands, there were creeks, wetlands, grass, and our feet were always wet, and at night you always change your socks and put the other ones around your neck until they fried the next day, leaches, and when we got to the mountains, in the valley, the rains were cold at night and you could see your breath. 22:08 The rain lasted a long time and you were just miserable. 13 �Interviewer: Did you have any way to keep yourselves dry? Did you have ponchos? Our policy was, we didn‟t take ponchos because they made too much noise. The dinks would hear the noise and they would come. All we had was tropical blankets. Interviewer: Now, when you would—how long would you be out there on patrol at one time? How long were you away from the base? The first time was thirty some days. We came in for a day, got resupplied, showered and shaved and went back out the next day, and that was forty-five days. We came back in and the last time was--- 23:07 Interviewer: Now was there a sort of routine when you’re out on one of these long patrols out in the jungle, what happens day to day? You try to be quiet; you can hear somebody talking a long, long way away. No noise, no animals, just quiet. I had the answer on the radio as low as it would go, wrapped in a towel, and tied, trying to keep the noise down. Interviewer: So were you working as an RTO then? Yes, when my Lieutenant's radio man went to the Captain to be his radio man, they asked me to walk point or carry the radio. I said, “This is a no brainer, give me the radio”. There again, they gave us radio class training also. Interviewer: How heavy was the radio? Too heavy, and we had trouble with the batteries. 24:04 They made me carry two extra batteries because they would just go dead all of a sudden. Interviewer: Now, were these radios that had big, long antennas on them, or did you have a short antenna? 14 �In the beginning I had a big, long, flimsy antenna, and then I got a better antenna, that they sent me that was shorter. Interviewer: At certain points the RTO’s were targets for snipers, or anybody, and those big long antennas were a giveaway. Yes, I carried mine wrapped down and it was tied on, so I tried to conceal it. Interviewer: So, you were the RTO for your platoon leader then? Yes Interviewer: How early on did you get that assignment? Probably after a month, I‟m guessing. Interviewer: So, basically most of the time you’re walking around in the jungle carrying the radio? Yes, communicating with the other squads and the Captain. 25:09 Interviewer: Alright and when you moved through a jungle area, how would you go about doing that? Would you still stay off the trails or would you have to use them sometimes? We stayed off the trails. The trails were nothing but trouble. Interviewer: Were there other units that were using them and getting into trouble? Ambushes, yes Interviewer: But, if you’re going through jungle, aren’t you having to cut your way through with machetes or something? Sometimes, and sometimes you‟re just pulling and working your way through. If we did a click a day we were happy. 15 �Interviewer: So, in order to keep fairly quiet, you can’t just be chopping away hard on a scale like that? No Interviewer: Would you move by day or by night? By day, and as it was getting dark we always set up for nighttime. Interviewer: When you set up for nighttime, were you setting up as a company or a platoon? 26:08 As a platoon, even though the company was assigned to a certain region, each platoon had its own place to setup for the night and we got those from the Captain. Interviewer: As you prepare to setup for the night, what are the steps you take, or what happens there as you get ready for the overnight? If the ground is pure rock, we dug in the best we could, set our flares and claymores, in preparation for the long night to come. Interviewer: How often did you have contact then, whether by day or by night? Once we got in the valley and the mountains with the regular army, it seemed like every day. 27:03 Interviewer: Would you see much of them during the day or sometimes find them, or mostly at night when they came after you? Sometimes you would see them crossing, if you were high enough in the mountains, and most of the time they came after us at night. Interviewer: Did they have a standard procedure for doing that? They hit us with satchel charges first and then come in. 16 �Interviewer: How big was one of these satchel charges? Did you ever see one that hadn’t blown up? Yes, I was throwing them back at them at one point. Interviewer: How close would they have to be to throw them? The ones that we found, that didn‟t go off, were so big, so square, two inches square, six inches big, they were yellow dynamite with a blasting cap that they pulled that starts the fuse, wrapped in plastic. 28:13 Some of them were more sophisticated, but it would take your arm off or your leg off. Interviewer: Now, they throw those first—were they pretty much sort of throwing those blind in your general direction? Did they target individual foxholes? No, they kind of knew where everybody was setting up for the night, most of the time. Sometimes they would just throw them and get lucky and most of them that came in took somebody out. Interviewer: After they throw the satchel charges, what happens next? By this time we‟re all returning fire, except for the last battle, they just kept coming. Interviewer: The ones before the last battle then, are they just kind of testing you to see what happens? Yes 29:07 Interviewer: Then you fire, and if you’re firing then, can they see your gun flashes or things like that and know where you are? We used tracers going out. Interviewer: It would seem to me if they’re usually getting somebody effectively, were you constantly losing men? 17 �Yes Interviewer: Would you get replacements sent out to you in the field, or would you just keep getting smaller and smaller? We kept getting smaller and smaller and when they got replacements in the rear, they came out in a chopper. Interviewer: How long did it take—by the time you went out into the jungle, did you already feel like you were part of the unit and knew what you were doing, or did you still feel like the new guy at that point? After about thirty days you weren‟t the new guy anymore. 30:01 Interviewer: By the time you’re in the jungle, you’re at least part of the squad or the platoon at this point, and know who those guys are? Yes Interviewer: So, when they do bring in the replacements to your unit, did you have anything to do with them or try to help them? No, once I became the Lieutenant's radio man I stuck with the Lieutenant and the sergeant, we were always in communication. Interviewer: Did you work well with the Lieutenant? Yes, up to a point. When the Captain got ambushed one night the radio man lost his leg and died of a heart attack a couple of days later at the hospital, my Lieutenant, Fletcher, he turned on me, got real cold. We had a confrontation one night and that‟s when he broke down and he said he got real close with his first radio man and it tore him up when he died. 31:05 He didn‟t get close to me and I understood why and I said, “You be what you have to be”. 18 �Interviewer: It wears on the officers as much as anybody. Yes, the stress, I didn‟t care if he was an officer or not, if you have a problem, talk to me. Interviewer: So, you have a period there of several months when you’re spending a lot of time going on these long patrols. Go in, take some losses, get some probing attacks etc. Now, did you, at that time, conduct any operations that seemed to be successful, or doing what they were supposed to be doing? Were you able to ambush them, or make trouble for them? At certain times we go and ambush sites, nothing ever happened. It was always daytime skirmishes, or at nighttime for sure. 32:06 Interviewer: In a daytime skirmish, how would that play out? They would hit and run. We‟d send a little patrol out, they would hit at them, but they would hide. Interviewer: How much to you actually see of them, at least before the final fight? During the day very little except when they would sneak, and they had tunnels everywhere. Interviewer: Did you ever uncover tunnels or bunkers, or find any of those? Yes, we found a—we came around the bottom of a mountain, on a little higher ground, and there was a bunker complex, highly sophisticated for a company of a larger size. They had a latrine all bamboo lashed, but they weren‟t there. 33:12 A lot of, lot of bunkers, and they were setup at a good ambush site to protect the people inside. Interviewer: Except, they weren’t there when you got there? No, they had moved on. 19 �Interviewer: When you find a bunker complex like that, what happens, do you call in somebody to blow it up? We go through all the hooches with what we have, and we didn‟t blow anything up on this one, we just moved in, investigated, and moved out. Interviewer: Now, as the Lieutenant's radio operator, do you have any better idea of what’s going on, or what you’re supposed to be doing, or is it still mostly mysterious? As far as our missions, it was—people in the rear knew what we were doing. 34:06 They would send us out there to patrol the area and we just had to relay what we„d find, and so forth, back. Interviewer: Now, when you did make contact of one kind or another, or come under attack at night, Were you able to call in air support or artillery support? Yes, one time we called in fighters for us and they dropped napalm. Helicopters came out, airships came out, artillery, mortar support, and most of it was all there. I had all the frequencies to go to, to ask for support. Interviewer: Now, when the Vietnamese would attack you, what kind of fire power did they have besides their satchel charges? They would have their AK47‟s, and the last battle they hit us with machine guns, tear gas, they hit us with it all when we come in and landed. 35:11 Interviewer: Now, before you’re in the last battle, you’re going on patrols etc. How are you getting supplies? As we ran low, we called in resupply. I never set numbers on the radio. We had a “nasty shackle”, and a “nasty shackle” was just a dirty word for zero to nine. I would say “nasty 20 �shackle” like “alpha, “bravo”, which gave them a number of what we had left and they would set up a resupply and a helicopter would come out. Interviewer: Would you sometimes make a hole in the canopy for them to come through, or would you have open places for them to land? 36:03 Sometimes they would fly by and drop us cases of C4, det cord, and then we would set up a site big enough and we would blow one charge and the helicopter would come in before the dust settled and either get us out or give us what we needed and move out quick. Interviewer: But, the idea was to do it quickly because there were bad guys in the area. Yes, they would hear the noise and they would come. Interviewer: Now, did you have situations on these patrols where the helicopters were coming under fire anyway? Yes, at one point as the helicopters were coming out, they were getting shot down. Interviewer: Did you have some of those missions that were aborted because of that? Yes, we were already in the jungle, we had low water, low ammo, and finally a helicopter made it through. Interviewer: Were you also getting medevac’s coming in and taking out your wounded as they got hit? Only if the weather was good 37:06 For a night attack, they wouldn‟t come in. We had a guy, he had a big white dot on his helicopter, he was a ghost rider, and he came in, we were in the mountains, we were socked in, and a guy was dying, he had to go, and this guy came out and we talked him in by the side of the mountain, the echo. He came 21 �straight down and you couldn‟t see in front of you from the fog and mist and everything, so he shut her down and he said, “I‟m only shutting her down for ten minutes and if it doesn‟t clear, I‟, out of here. We loaded him up, and he waited, and ten minutes later he fired up and he said, “I‟m going straight up and if the echo doesn‟t sound right let me know”. The guy did survive. 38:06 Interviewer: So, you had some good pilots? Yes, we had some good pilots. We had some pilots that were afraid, but the majority of the pilots were good and that‟s why we‟re here. Interviewer: Now, were there occasions where they could bring you extra supplies or better food, or things like that, or drop in a case of beer, or did that not happen when you were out there? I can remember times when they would resupply us there would be an ammo canister with a plastic bag and it had either hot rice, or maybe spaghetti, but that wasn‟t too often. Interviewer: Occasional hot food, but that’s pretty much it. Yes Interviewer: What do you do for water when you’re out there, do you drink out of streams, or do you just--I‟d carry a quart and a half gallon canteen. 39:00 In the mountains the streams were pure, clean, and we would dump out the water they would send us, it was nasty, and we‟d drink from the streams. Interviewer: What are you doing for food at that point? We had our C rations. Occasionally we‟d get a dehydrated meal, but most of it was C‟s. 22 �Interviewer: When you got back to base camp after being out for a month, or whatever, than what was the process there? We‟d leave our ruck at the pad, take our M16 and walk down to the barber shop, and get a shave and a haircut. Interviewer: Did they use Vietnamese barbers? Yes, we had Vietnamese barbers on base. 40:01 Interviewer: Did you wonder about them at all? I said, “They‟re going to kill me with a straight razor, and they‟re going to do it here or in the jungle”. Interviewer: Would there be a lot of Vietnamese working on the bases during the day? I don‟t know Interviewer: Now there long enough to know? Not there long enough to find out what‟s going on. Interviewer: Would they issue you new fatigues when you go in? We had a bunch of fatigues I our duffle bags and we would just throw the ones we had on away and grab a new set. At one point they actually sent us out clean fatigues, but with different names you know, but they were clean. Interviewer: So, you have a certain kind of regular routine or pattern that you follow at times, but then the last patrol you go out on that’s the one that gets really ugly? Very ugly 23 �Interviewer: Take us through that patrol the best you can. You’re going out and what happens? 41:04 The last battle? Interviewer: Yes, how long are you out there in the field before that battle actually happens this time? We took off from a fire support base. It was a company assault, there were twenty one helicopters, and at least six guys in each helicopter. The helicopter would come in, land, and we would load up and take off. As you kept flying a big circle until we were leaded and we took off for an abandoned fire support base. The gun ships were on the first helicopter and on the way in they fired their rockets just to prep the area, and then the first helicopter landed. The helicopter I was on was the last to land. They started shooting at us, so we would pop red smoke, the other ones detoured away. 42:07 Our medic was on the other side of the helicopter, and he took a chest wound as he was getting off. They hit us with machine guns, tear gas, and it was a very, very hot LZ. The sergeants in charge and the squad leaders, we set up a very fast perimeter, we took care of business and they kind of folded back. The other helicopters came in, we made a big perimeter on top of the old mountain and that night it was quiet. That‟s was on may 5th, and on May 6th I did some patrolling on the bottom. 43:00 The one patrol that Greg was in, they were going up the hill and the dink jumped up. They had no place to go, and Roger, who was on point, he just fell back, and as he rolled back he took an AK in the rump, it wasn‟t a death wound, but it hurt like hell. That night, on May 6th, it was quiet until about two or three o‟clock in the morning and then they hit us. Our 2nd platoon was 24 �the only one on the mountain at this time, the other ones had all moved off, and the mountain top was too big for us to secure, we were spaced that far. 44:01 Interviewer: Were you spaced all around the clearing or just in one end of it? We were in a circle, somewhat, we were spaced that far, not closer like we normally did. The position to the left of me popped a grenade, minutes before I just asked for a sitrep [situation report], and everybody gave me their sitrep. Then I heard the grenade pop, he sat up and then it was the 4th of July. He took a—there was a dink right in front of him and when he sat up he gave away his position. He took a full mag, either AK or M16, the position to the right of me, they were dead, and the position to the right of them, they were already dead. 45:04 They had crawled in and slit their throats. Satchel charges were coming in everywhere and going off, they counted twenty some charges that didn‟t go off around me. At one point I was looking down at the top of the mountain, watching the battle and didn‟t understand what was happening. I kept saying, “I got to get back and help them, I got to get back and help them”. Interviewer: So, where are you relative to the rest of the men in the platoon at this point? You had your circle and part of it got broken into. They came up our side. It was me, sarge, Lieutenant, we were on this part of the mountain here, and we had people to right, people to the left and all the way around the circle. 46:09 it was basically sheer rock coming up this way and sheer rock here, but that‟s the side he decided to come up. Moments after the battle started the sergeant‟s weapon jammed; he grabbed the radio off me, and went to the center of the circle. When I came to, I still had my hand on my weapon. I took care of business, they were close, 25 �they were closer to me than you are right now, whether they were getting ready to pick my body I don‟t know, but I took care of business. Interviewer: So, were you knocked out by concussion from a blast? Probably for the satchel charges at that point, many of them. 47:01 Interviewer: Ok, but did you remember the sergeant taking your radio? No Interviewer: So, basically— When I came to—sarge said, in the hospital, that I was out for a long time. When I came to, my ear drums were gone, I heard nothing. I saw those dinks looking at me every time a charge would go off, and I did what I had to do. At this time I realized the sarge wasn‟t next to me, the lieutenant was lifeless, and every time a flash would go off I‟d see a new face. I had a basic lead M16 with twenty-one magazines and carried an extra seven. Sarge kept yelling, “Go help little David, they‟re all dead”, and I realized I was the only one left of basically on half a perimeter circle. 48:04 Finally Greg, who was the “thumper man”, grenadier, he said, “Got to do something‟, so he came running. As he was running toward sarg, he was running into the dinks. The thumper has to make seven revolutions to be armed on the warhead, and they were going right through the dinks. In the hospital they asked Sims, “What did you do?” He said, “I got dinks up there with holes in them”, well they didn‟t explode, so they went through them. To sarg he got some and from sarg to me he got more. Interviewer: Did they know where you were? You were firing, so they guessed that was you, at that point? Yes. We always made sure where our positions were before the lights went out. 49:03 26 �Interviewer: did you stay in your position then and just fire from there, or did you try to move and get to where the sergeant was? I stayed there because if I would have left, nobody would have made it. Then finally Greg made it to me, a dink jumped up real close, shot an RPG, it went between us, it exploded behind us, we both received shrapnel and as Greg was thumping his thumper he got shot in the side. He went down, but we held that part of the perimeter. Daylight came and the 3rd platoon was at the bottom of the hill on another little knoll, and as they made their way, when the battle started, they got ambushed, so it took them a while to take care of the ambush. 50:05 They finally made their way to us at daylight, and as they came up the backside, over to us, the sergeant came running over to help me my position with Greg. He got shot, I carried him back and that‟s when one of the medics was there and said, “You‟re not going anywhere soldier, stay here”, and that‟s when other people from the 3rd platoon---at one point Greg called in a flare ship, he can‟t hear, his eardrums are bleeding, he‟s screaming for help, and at one point the first flare ship out landed right behind me. I didn‟t even know. I was either out or I was too busy doing what I had to do. 51:00 The intense—when the doc told me I was wounded, that‟s when I said “ouch‟. Up to that point I had no idea I was wounded. The adrenalin was pumping so much that I had no pain. Interviewer: Was this shrapnel from the RPG? From the RPG, yes, and my back was peppered, I‟m sure it looked like a screen. Interviewer: At some point do they medevac you out of there? As everything got secured more, they called in for the medevacs, and they loaded up the guys that were the worst and then on the last helicopter out there was myself, Greg, sarge 27 �we called Greek, and our forward observer who called in the—we finally got a forward observer, he had direct contact with the artillery in the rear for our position, for fire. 52:05 Interviewer: So, were you able to get---how close in do they call for artillery in that situation, practically on top of you? We popped our flares in front of us as the gun ships were coming in, so they wouldn‟t go beyond a certain point. When the flares ran out we lit our C4 and popped it in front of us, so they had some kind idea of how far to come in. Interviewer: Now, were you doing that while you were in your original position at night? Yes, and I would jump from my hole to the sarge‟s hole. It was all rock, so the holes weren‟t that deep, but as the charges would come in I would jump and they would go off. Interviewer: So, you would go back and forth between those and not just stay in one place and wait for them. No Interviewer: While you’re doing all that, how long of time do you think this took, the fire fight you’re in, five hours or not? 53:05 From the time it started, on the Intel report, I think it lasted like three hours. During that time we had no recollection. It wasn‟t, in fact, until I applied for the intelligence reports that we actually knew what happened, and why it happened. The Generals in the rear knew that there was a battalion of NVA in our area where our company was held, but they didn‟t tell us that. 28 �Interviewer: And they targeted, specifically, your platoon, and the ambushed another one. Was there a 3rd platoon in the company out there somewhere? The 3rd platoon was at the bottom of the hill. Interviewer: Right, and what was your platoon? We were the 2nd platoon. Interviewer: Where was the 1st platoon? The 1st platoon, I have no recollection. They were out there somewhere. Interviewer: When you’re in that kind of situation, are you just kind of reacting automatically or do you have some kind of survival sense, and do you not even know why you did what you did? 54:02 You just do what they trained you to do. Interviewer: Now, you survived this, do they take you—do you go back to Evans or where do you go? They took us to an aid station, from the aid station they flew us to—they flew ne to 67 evac, and I met Greg and Greek at the hospital. Interviewer: Where was that? In Nam, close to Camp Evans Interviewer: So, it’s still at that area? That same area, yes Interviewer: How long were you in the hospital? Every day they would, after they stabilized me and did what they had to do, every day they would work me closer to Cam Ranh Bay, which was in the southern part, and I got 29 �shot up on May 7th, and I was home, back in the states for Memorial Day. 55:07 I spent four months in the hospital. Interviewer: What hospital were you in then in the states/ I ended up at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in the veterans hospital. Interviewer: After all of that, do you get discharged, or do you still have time left? I had a year left. They trained me for four months, I was off, I was five months in the hospital, I had a little less than a year to go, well eleven months. When I was discharged from the hospital they told me I was a clerk and they sent me to Fort Dix, New Jersey. Interviewer: Was that where you spent the rest of your time? Yes, the rest of my year. Interviewer: What did you do there? What was life like then in the last year? 56:00 It was hard readjusting from the hospital right back to civilian life. Military life stateside, it was—people around me, they didn‟t want to talk about it or listen about it. You know, I kept everything inside. You still had your quirks from nam, noises, didn‟t trust people, etc. Interviewer: What was the actual work you were doing there? I was in charge of the National Guard, crybabies that wanted to go home before their training was over. Interviewer: Were you just processing their paperwork? Just paperwork and record keeping to make sure their records were up to snuff. Interviewer: Was this just a nine to five sort of job? Basically 30 �Interviewer: Did you live on the base? I lived on the base, still had duties to company, KP, they assigned me to a burial detail. 57:03 They started one up because of the boys coming back. People were requesting military funerals I did five of those and I told the old man, “I can‟t do this anymore”. Interviewer: What proportion of the men around you, that you had been working with, had been to Vietnam already? I would say half. Interviewer: Did you guys talk to each other, or did you just kind of stay in your own? We stayed in our own perimeters. Interviewer: Were there things you could do to blow off steam or relive tension? Did you go into New York, or do anything like that? No, I kind of stayed low and did my time. Interviewer: Were you communicating with family during this time? Yes Interviewer: What were you telling them? What were you saying to them? That everything was fine and don‟t worry. 58: 03 When I got to the hospital they made us write a letter, and when mom got it, it was in a nice clean envelope and she wouldn‟t open it, she thought something happened because all her other mail, guys would give it to me and I would put it in a paper sack, but it was dirty fingerprints on most of the letters. You know, they got dirty. When the helicopter came out, I made sure the mail bag got on the helicopter to go back. 31 �Interviewer: When you were out there in the field, in Vietnam, how often would you write? Once a month Interviewer: Were you getting stuff from home? Occasionally you would get a care package and they would send it out and you would share it with the people with you. Interviewer: Were you able to tell the people at home what to send? Did you send any requests back? Yes, I sent a request back for my dad to send me a sheath knife. They didn‟t give us any knives. 59:06 Salted Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, anything with salt because the salt pills just weren‟t getting it. They packed stuff in popcorn and if there were no bugs in the popcorn when it got to us, we ate the popcorn, and cookies. Interviewer: Did you cook popcorn out in the field? It was all popped, they used it for packing. Interviewer: Oh, alright. To fill in the spaces Interviewer: Basically you family, at this point, doesn’t have any idea what it was that you were really doing while you were out there? No, they didn‟t Interviewer: So, you just kind of go through those last eleven months at Fort Dix, kind of do the job? 00:02 Just bide my time 32 �Interviewer: So, you get to the end—did anybody make any effort to get you to reenlist or anything like that? No, they had my ceremony thirty days before I got out, and the recruiting officer said, “I know you‟re not going to re-up”, and I said, “You‟re right”. Interviewer: You had your ceremony, what are you referring to? The sarge put me in for the Medal of Honor for that night, I ended up with the Distinguished Service Cross, and they included my award ceremony on base with the retirement ceremony. They had a band and refreshments, my parents came up, and the General presented me, and said that was the highest award he has ever given anybody in his career. 1:03 Interviewer: Now, did that—how did you feel about that at that time? did it mean something to you? I didn‟t even know what it was, the rank of the medal. Interviewer: But they were making all of this show over you. On some level did you appreciate that, or would you rather have been left alone then? At that point I had very mixed emotions. Why are they honoring me for the ones that got killed? Interviewer: Now, we’ve gotten you, in your story here, to the point where you’ve come to the end of your time. You’ve been given the DSC etc., and the army has figured out they are not going to get you to come back, so you get discharged then in 1971. What do you do then once you’re out? 2:08 For a while I did nothing, and then I went back with the highway department. Interviewer: Did you stay with them? 33 �No, I moved on to different jobs. I worked a while and moved on to another job. Interviewer: Were you having just a hard time adjusting to civilian life after all the stuff you went through? Yes, it was hard Interviewer: What kind of—was there any kind of support provided by the VA or anybody else? I knew of no support at all, I was on my own. I kept to myself and what little friends I had, I kept them. Interviewer: Did you have friends who were your friends before you went off and came back to? Yes, dear friends, no Interviewer: Had any of your friends gone to Vietnam too, or just you? 3:07 Just me Interviewer: Was the moving on from job to job just kind of part of it? Were you just restless or impatient with things? I tried to better myself. I got in one place and they laid me off, and I finally landed a job at a construction outfit and did paper work and I was with him for nine years. Interviewer: Did you just kind of stay with construction or did you move on? No, at that point is when I lost it and I went to counseling, and moved on with my life the best I could. Interviewer: How did you wind up involved with the Ripcord Association? 4:02 Doing research and having my brother Greg locate me, and get in touch with me. I found the sarge and the three of us started getting together and answering a lot of questions we 34 �had for forty years, and finding this happened two months after we got shot up, and a lot of people had survived us, and Maureen [the hilltop where the last fight took place was called Maureen, and the rebuilt company fought near Firebase Ripcord in July, 1970] went on Ripcord and it was good getting associated with Ripcord. We all have different stories to tell, different emotions, and met the people that replaced us. Met the people who went from Maureen to Ripcord, and what they went through, and it‟s a good healing process. 5:06 Interviewer: Are you now retired or still working? I‟m still working and planning on retiring in January. Interviewer: What kind of work are you doing now? I‟m in heating, cooking and refrigeration out of our local, back home. Interviewer: To look back on the whole thing, if you had to go through it all again, would you have gone done it, or at least accepted the draft and gone forward with it? I‟d do it tomorrow Interviewer: What do you see as the positive aspect of the experience for you? Are you in some way better or wiser for what you went through? 6:00 I appreciate life, I appreciate friends, I don‟t take things for granted, and a lot of people don‟t accept me for that. Interviewer: At this point do you know who you are? I have a real good idea of who I am, and what I‟m still capable of doing. Interviewer: Well, you have a compelling story and you tell it well, and I want to thank you for taking the time to share it with us. 35 �Thank you sir 6:38 36 � 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/. Title A name given to the resource David, Kenneth (Interview transcript and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource David, Kenneth Description An account of the resource Ken David was born in Girard, Ohio in January of 1950. He graduated from high school in 1968 and was drafted a year later. He took basic training at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, and Infantry AIT at Ft. Polk, Louisiana, and was sent to Vietnam in the fall of 1969. He was assigned to the 2nd platoon, D/1/506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. His company patrolled first in the lowlands near the coast south of the DMZ for a month, then spent about six weeks in the A Shau Valley at the end of the year. They then worked in the hill country to the north and west of the A Shau, and in early May the company's perimeter was hit by sappers, who overran the positions of David's platoon. He kept on fighting through the night, and was eventually joined by one of his friends. He was badly wounded in the fight and sent back to the US, and spent the rest of his hitch as a clerk at Fort Dix, New Jersey. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in his last battle. 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 Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-10-07 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DavidK1276V 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d914d4572e7acb0530d6e9cfaa21f3e6.pdf ce2ee939854debc2b190196f8477f6bd PDF Text Text � 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 Civil War and Slavery Collection Subject The topic of the resource United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865 Slavery--United States African Americans United States--Politics and government--19th century Description An account of the resource A selection of correspondence, diaries, official documents, photographs related to the American Civil War and to the institution of slavery, collected by Harvey E. Lemmen. The collection includes a selection of documents from ten states related to the ownership of slaves and abolition, correspondence and documents of soldiers who fought in the war and from family members and officials, diaries and letters of individuals, and a collection of mailing envelopes decorated with patriotic imagery. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lemmen, Harvey E. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/472">Civil War and Slavery Collection (RHC-45)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/470">John Bennitt Diaries and Correspondence (RHC-43)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/471">Nathan Sargent Papers (RHC-44)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/478">Theodore Peticolas Diary (RHC-51)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/476">Civil War Patriotic Envelopes Collection (RHC-51)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/479">Whitely Read Diary (RHC-52)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1804-1897 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg; application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image; Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1804-1897 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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-45_CW2815 Title A name given to the resource Letter from David Davis Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, David, 1815-1886 Subject The topic of the resource Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865 Davis, David, 1815-1886 Description An account of the resource Letter from David Davis, U.S. Senator from Illinois and associate justice of the US Supreme Court requesting a meeting, Feb. 28th. Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Civil War and slavery collection (RHC-45): http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/472 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8ad400fe621362e97a0f4a4e6be097e7.m4v 738c864323bf5e614d40e365eb26cbc1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/53e104d4a83cacf9e427dba0850b95b9.pdf 341ba1a9356d87df1089c9ea423abe61 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Cold War Mike Davis Length of Interview (20:08:15) Background (00:00:00) Born February 8, 1950 Served in the Air Force and Air International Guard; served during Cold War Highest rank: Lieutenant Colonel Born in El Paso Texas, Father was in Active Duty Air Force Moved numerous times: California, Virginia, England, Ohio, finally settled in California (when his father retired) Used to moving around, a normal way of life Father was a large influence in his decision to join the Air Force ROTC in College (California) four-year program; graduated and commissioned in 1973 (00:01:12) Has two older siblings, sister and brother, neither went into service Played a lot of baseball when he was younger, football September 1968, height of Vietnam War A lot of protests during that time Could always tell when there would be larger protests on campus because of college bumper stickers Fairly small college, in Southern California Active Duty (00:02:44) Drove to Phoenix, Arizona where his first assignment was Very competitive, all had initial training in college Previously in a Flight Instruction Program, had 35 to 40 hours of flying light or propeller-type aircraft �Some had more (50-60 hours) Initially went into T-37 training; twin engine, two seat side-by-side aircraft; January through June (including ground training) Then T-38 for about six months, “White Rocket” Extremely difficult training, competitive 30% of original class was gone due to: self-induced elimination, flying violation boards, etc. Selection Night (graduated in December); very high ranked officers from the unit there (Full Colonel, Colonel, Majors) (00:04:45)  Had missions written on the board (1-55, graded and ranked); number one guy would go first and choose, then down the line  Lucky enough to get a T-38 assignment as an instructor pilot Training (00:05:50) In the ROTC program, had 2 years of voluntary service (marching, protocol, etc.) Last two years, went to ROTC Camp for four weeks to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Tinker Air Force Base  Lived in barracks; more marching, survival training, etc. Had tan uniforms, blue hats and belts, black shoes Required to take sports, played baseball; was injured when playing shortstop,  Next day, when standing in formation, the wound began seeping through the tan pants  Ended up getting demerits for it Had great instructors; full-time ROTC instructors at the camp, their duty As student pilot would have a short cross-country flight, fly from Williams (home base) to another base Then Long Navigation Flights with an instructor (two hops); ended up in March Air Force base then Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada Instructor Pilots did four hop flights �1975 or ‘76, Strategic Air Command (flew the bombers and tankers) found some of their pilots were not able to maintain their professions and contacted Davis’s base to borrow planes (00:08:20)  End of Vietnam War, not as much flying being done, still had a lot of planes  Worked for them, went to Dios, Texas for a couple weeks  Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska for two weeks, as well  Got to fly with pilots instead of student pilots International Guard (00:09:30) With the International Guard, flew out of the country Fighter Group in Battle Creek, flying in the “Warthog” or “Thunderbolt II” (A-10)  Deployed over to Aviano, Italy; operation-at-night flight  NATO was attempting to work a solution between the Serbs and other foreign national groups formerly part of Yugoslavia  No combat, at the time; turned into combat in 1999, the group went over  Three groups (would often be split into three groups when deployed in this way); combat operation stopped after the first group went over A-10 his favorite to fly; a very opposing aircraft, easy to fly, wider range of weapons, felt the most secure Wrote a lot of letters to his family, phone calls; on active duty while he was married (00:11:15) Made good friends in the Air Force, meets up with them often  A shared experience between officers Off Duty: would play sports, watched games; used to run, 75 mile clubs; read a lot of history books, spent time with his children Never had any serious mishaps when flying; burner blow out in the “White Rocket,” radio problems, couple of weapons problems with the A-10 2300 hours of flying, very fortunate to have not lost an engine, etc. Two distinctive times of service: 1970’s and International Guard �After retiring from the International Guard, gave a speech  First Oil Embargo, gas went from 25 cents to 75 cents; then in ’79 another Oil Embargo occurred, and another rise in oil when he left in 2000; wasn’t his fault the gas went up whenever he left Had a good retirement party Promotions (00:15:20) Lieutenant Colonel  Went in as a 2nd Lieutenant, then 1st in two years, then Captain in another two; left active duty as a captain  When joining the International Guard, received credit for all his time in service and after a year and a half, promoted to Major, the Lieutenant Colonel (1994)  Had some command positions: Flight commander, operation support fight in Battle Creek 23 years of total service time After Service (00:16:35) Got a job with airlines after active duty; did both International Guard and airline jobs Very busy months A part of the American Airlines, very pro-Air Force Had a very supportive family, very understanding Still a pilot today A large appreciation for his work (00:17:45) Still gets sad during Veterans Day, lost quite a few friends in crashes Appreciates men and women going into the service today SAC front lines during the Cold War; had some friends that flew in many of the conflicts (one friend sank two Cambodian gunships; couple of friends flew in Desert Storm - 1991, etc.) Young men and women today face many more different and difficult problems than when Davis was flying � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Davis, Mike (Interview outline and video), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Mike Description An account of the resource Mike Davis joined the Air Force in 1973 after completing the 4-year ROTC program in college. He served in Active Duty as a Pilot Instructor and later went into the Air National Guard during the Cold War. He retired from the Guard in 2000 but still flies for American Airlines today. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Forton, Stacey (Interviewer) Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force United States. National Guard Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006-06-02 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DavisM 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1282cebb72d25fa64552b1b73cbf368b.mp4 6403ee7e8c78c27cc64dd9b5c2f5ddeb https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5927de4e44d279e1440b67f6a1b198c9.pdf ae65d69d5d218473352eb025c2037942 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Phil Davis Vietnam War Total Time: 08:38 Active Duty (00:40) • • • • Was in I Corps sector, in Northern Vietnam. Was a pilot in the Air Force. Joined the Air Force at the age of specifically because of the draft. Was in Kentucky when his service ended, and he remembers being very happy. Post War (5:30) • • Got a job when he got back to the United States, and tried to get back into education but by the time he would have been able to take advantage of the GI bill he was entrenched into his job. Joined the American Legion 20 years after he returned. � 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/. Title A name given to the resource Davis, Phil (Interview outline and video), 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Phil Description An account of the resource Phil Davis served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. He joined the Air Force because of his low draft number, and he was sent to Vietnam and served in the I Corps sector as a pilot. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vanloon, Danielle (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Air Force Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005-05-26 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DavisP 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1b61b1fc1cfe84acbb5dffe036fa2b85.pdf 6665751455d5ab2218b2c41a21e32c45 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Robert Davis Interviewed on October 1, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape # 25, 26 Biographical Information Robert Leland Davis was born 4 May 1894 in Grand Rapids, the son of George Albert Davis and Alice Barnard. Robert died 21 December 1979 in Grand Rapids. Coming to Grand Rapids in the 1880‟s from New England, George A. Davis was a founder of the Stowe & Davis Furniture Company. He later was president of the Grand Rapids School board for many years. George was born on 3 January 1853 in Windsor County, Vermont. He passed away on 27 March 1935 at the family home on Fountain Street. George was married to Alice Barnard in Springfield, Vermont in September 1882. Alice was born on 3 October 1853 in Springfield and died at the age of 85 in Grand Rapids on 30 March 1939. ___________ Interviewer: O.K. Yeah, you were saying about Fountain Street? Mr. Davis: Well I‟m one of the few people in the city living in the same house I was born in. There at five thirty-five Fountain Street. My father was, I can talk about it now, came west and bought the place about eighteen oh, eighty-five or there abouts. Oh, the next, the nearest neighbor was on the south side, a Mr. Charles W. Pike who has passed and his family has moved out. On the east side was a vacant block and, I‟ve forgotten, I think it was a family by the name Lamoreaux [William T.] that bought the place on the east. The neighbors around there, across the street were the Bundys and other, which were related to the Hollisters and Hollister was, well the mainstay of the Old National Bank, it was called the Old National in those days. The Old Kent is the name they‟ve taken on when they combined the Old National and the, oh I guess it was called the Kent County Savings Bank. And they were then in the corner of, now I wonder if they moved out of the Pantlind Hotel, that place now called the… Interviewer: Known as the Bank? Mr. Davis: Yeah, of course that‟s all new there, I mean when they built the Pantlind Hotel they, they had a corner built on there, just like the oh, Kent County Savings Bank or the Kent had the north, no the southwest corner of Lyon and Monroe. That‟s where WZZM or something like that, are in there now. But that was a, originally a bank. That was the one Old Kent formed they went in with them at that [ ? ] I mean it was the south of the other place now called the Bank, which [drinking started] and see the Pantlind Hotel, as I recall was built, the present Pantlind was about nineteen between twelve or �2 eleven or maybe fourteen or somewhere along in there. And that was quite a place built in those days. It‟s still quite a place, but on the other hand it isn‟t as new as it was, when I remember it then. And, now as I say, my father bought the place on Fountain Street and now I have lived there all the time since. I say that with reservations. I was an engineer in Westinghouse, living in Pittsburg for a number of years, I lived in Massachusetts for a number of years, but I always kept my legal residence in Grand Rapids. I might have lived in an apartment and had all the outward appearances of being a citizen of Pittsburg but when I wanted to vote, I voted here. Ganson Taggart our attorney, family attorney, was city attorney and he said well if you‟re interested you better keep it here and I said what do I have to do and he says just vote every time and I had this absent voters laws so I could vote by remote control you might say, here in Grand Rapids. Of course I was interested in the Grand Rapids activities because my father was on the Board of Education. And also in, had connections with other things around here such as StoweDavis Furniture Company and things like that. Interviewer: Did your father, was he one of the founders of Stowe-Davis? Mr. Davis: I wouldn‟t say he was a founder but he came here and bought into it, bought, when he moved into town in eighteen eighty-five. It was then a concern called Stowe and Height [Haight], I think. H-e-i-g-h-t or something like that and a, Height [Thomas D. Haight], my father bought him out and then a number of years later, I think L. C. Stowe was, see there‟s several Stowes around town here so, sold out but then he had the major stockholding in the company. Then of course when he retired, why that‟s now gone over to well the Hunting family I judge. That is the Steelcase and that crowd. Hunting in those days was one of my father‟s, associates. Interviewer: Which Hunting was that, David or the old man? Mr. Davis: Well, I don‟t know who you call the old man. The old man that I knew, I meant the, I think it was Edgar Hunting. He was well quite a bit older than I was, naturally and David Hunting I think the one you referred to, I‟m not too sure of him. I think a, he was a little bit older than I am. He graduated in the high school a year or two before me. But he was, and then of course was a series of other Huntings coming along… Interviewer: Well, your father served on the board of education. Was he connected at all with Davis Tech? Mr. Davis: Well, you can call it that. A, he was very much interested in promoting, a well [whether] you call it, technical high school. But you see he had an awful time with me. I cordially disliked school and one of the things he seemed to realize was that there wasn‟t enough technical stuff to keep me interested. And this Latin and all that line of stuff, well my mother who was very much, what do you call them, classical person, she made me hang on to that and he saw to it I kept on going to school. But he realized, I guess that it‟d be better to have a sort of technical school. I don‟t know if you call it really technical, not in my line of thought I wouldn‟t call it that but anyway it was �3 something. And I know he stated one time, it should be a type of school so if anybody quits for any one week, he could feel that the week before he had learned something of practical value. In other words if he had to quit at any time and go and get a job, why he‟d picked up something in the previous weeks which would do him some good. Rather than waiting for the Latin and the Greek and the corruption of that kind, that‟s what I called it, to do some good. Oh I can remember back in those days. You took a lot of English, Ancient English, what good did Chaucer do me? What good did all that kind of stuff do me? See, I‟m an engineer. I happen to be one of the few professional, and I don‟t say few but one of the professional, registered engineers in the city. I‟ve been a college prof[essor] and taught engineering and I‟ve got degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Tech and University of Michigan and I‟m an engineer inherently. All the rest of my family are lawyers. I‟m the only black sheep in the family. I‟ve no objection to lawyers but after all, they‟re the kind that stick to the commas and semi-colons. They don‟t concern themselves with, well, should I say the facts of life. They‟re going go with the law. The law. Well, I probably shouldn‟t be quoted on this but, in my mind I think the lawyers need to have a going over somewhere. Here‟s a thing somebody said as a joke but I can well believe it about true. It was said that one of the later states that is new, Arizona, New Mexico came in, or applied to come in or applied to come in and they set up their, oh what do you call it, laws and regulations and things like that. They had in there, whatever it was, a rule that the circumference of a circle should be three times the diameter in that area because that was convenient. Now, anybody who would do that is just so darn dumb and I don‟t know whether they‟re going or coming because there‟s nothing more fundamental in the universe, than that constant of pi. Just as a thing that is rather interesting, it is said that somewhere over in Europe, some monk or somebody like that who was secluded, he worked on a series to work out the value of pi and he carried it on out to seven hundred decimal places. It never comes to an end and never repeats, so trying to say it‟s going to be three times and that‟s all, why you might just as well said the length of the year is going to be something else. You can‟t change it. And pi is more fundamental even than the length of the year. A few million years, the length of the year is going to change. Nothing‟s ever going to change pi. Interviewer: Yeah… Mr. Davis: Now of course, somebody said that that‟s a joke to show that the lawyers stay with the as a, that‟s the law, well that‟s what it‟s going to be. They‟re going to decide cases on that. It couldn‟t be any cases are decided on that, well what are you going to do? It‟s not right but they have it set up that way. Just like they could go and call red green and green, red. That‟s the law. You see, I got my background of, oh I wouldn‟t say antagonistic to lawyers but, it amuses me how they operate. For instance, I had a cousin who was quite a high powered lawyer, he in his days in college, he was a great football player. And he liked to cite how he played and he won this game and won that game and he did this and he did that. Then he got through the law, high school or college and so on and took the law, then he liked to cite how he got to be a prosecuting attorney. And he likes to say how he won this case and he won that case, and he did this and he did that. Well, I said maybe you shouldn‟t have. Oh, but he says, that‟s what I got to do. Now, what do you do? That shows my attitude towards lawyers. They‟re more �4 concerned with the commas and the semi-colons than they are with the spirit of things. Gee, whiz look, you‟re recording all this stuff. Look what you‟re going to do to me, I‟ll be in jail… Interviewer: …Well you were, you were just talking about change and, you know, talking about change, how has the city changed since you know when you were [alive] growing up? Mr. Davis: Well, of course in those days we had practically no well-paved streets, I mean it was, well I might call „em macadam. But they weren‟t like they are now. So after a rain, why the streets had irregularities and a lot of puddles around. And of course we had streetcars then. And, oh I would say they were more convenient than they are now with the present buses. Fact is the streetcars used to run on a schedule in the middle of the day at every six minutes. You‟d go out and stand on the corner and just like that a car would be along for you. Of course, as an engineer I‟m very much interested in the streetcars.. The Lyon Street Hill Line had a special breaking system because it was steep and, oh there was a lot of things that I got interested along that line. And I think it‟s very unfortunate that, well, what should I say, situation is not suitable for fixed transportation like streetcars. That is you can‟t expect people to go out and stand in the street with the auto traffic these days. On the other hand it had been much better if we had equivalent of the street cars, well you might even say trolley-buses. They, they had those in Detroit for a while. They‟ve had „em in a lot of cities but, oh I don‟t know the economics and things don‟t seem to be too good. They can draw up at the curb, but of course they have the same trouble as the streetcars, they had fixed routes and well if something happens, well you‟re stuck on your fixed route, you can‟t go on around the block like on a regular bus can. And, well things like that I think it‟s very unfortunate we don‟t have more viewpoint of that type of transportation. Poor old city of Grand Rapids, well here again, of course it‟s my native town, I feel like I can take it apart if I want to. I think it‟s about the poorest operated engineering town of any place I know of. An illustration of that, as I mentioned this before, I looked up the number of engineers, registered engineers, professionals, in the city and there‟s fewer engineers per unit of population here in Grand Rapids than any other city in the state. In other words we‟re, we‟re just, well, I‟ll almost say a kind of an enlarged Rockford or something like that. We‟re just a bigger town. The companies that really do business here do most of their engineering outside. Bell Telephone Company, the other companies, they‟re all engineers from either Detroit or some other place. Grand Rapids is just a place to live or exist or something like that. And that‟s too bad, too much of a common attitude. We ought to have more people on the city commission say, that have an engineering background. They don‟t. Look we‟re full of insurance guys and oh, people [of] that kind, I was going to say, undertakers and whatnot, the undertaker‟s gone, but that‟s about what it is. What do they know about anything? They don‟t know anything. Interviewer: Was it different when you were growing up, the city commission, the composition of the city commission? �5 Mr. Davis: Well of course in those days we had the city, that‟s the thing I would like to, gee whiz you‟re getting me into awful mess. I would like to feel that we‟re going to have a return to what we used to have, namely aldermen and a mayor. My youngest days, up to the time I was about a senior in high school, I graduated in twelve[1912], we had the aldermen, 12 wards, two aldermen from each ward. Well, you know how things go in cycles. All of a sudden they got excited and they said we‟ve got to have a commission form of government. Some of it good. But look what happened, look what we got. As long as it went along on a good form of commission form of government with proper people in there, I think it wasn‟t too bad. They got a lot of us young fellows in high school to go out and stand on corners and hand out stuff and promote the city commission. Well it apparently got in. Now I‟d work just as hard to put it back out again, because we need more representation of the people. In those days, you had aldermen around, two aldermen for your ward. Of course he had a smaller group to look after, you might call it that. If you wanted something, I mean felt something ought to be changed, you could go down and talk with him and he was, why I don‟t mean to say he could do an awful lot, I mean he might not upset anything, he would at least be more, well I won‟t say more polite, but I mean more cognizant of what you were, willing to be cognizant of what you were doing. Now you go down and talk with the city commissioner, well, that‟s in the hands of the city manager. Now I‟d have thrown that city manager out there so far he‟d never come to surface. They have no business having a manager like that, who‟s little king god in the glass case down there, and he runs the town. I don‟t know which side of the fence you‟re on, I can see you‟re laughing, he acts as if he ran the town. He, the city commission rubber stamps what he wants. Now I got no use for that. I‟d say that maybe we need a city manager, a fellow who would be kind of a high grade book-keeper and well not exactly a lawyer but look at the things with the city man, the city commission tells him what to do, want the city commission to be enough of „em so that if they‟re going to look after you in your ward when you‟re, represent something, or want something, they‟ll say yes, we‟ll think about it, we‟ll do what we can. We‟ll give it consideration. Now they say that‟s in the hands of the city manager. Interviewer: Well who ran the town? If the city manager is running the town today, who ran the town a…? Mr. Davis: Well, it [goes] to the city a, the alder-man and the mayor. Now of course there used to be squabbles, and they said that the aldermen got crooked. Hell, my attitude is, if they got crooked, that‟s just up [to] the citizens to throw „em out. You used to hear about some petty graft of one kind or another, anything from garbage collection to what not, which they‟re squabbling over now. They, who got it, well they‟d be saying so and so‟s working and he was well associated with such and such and I don‟t know what [I‟m talking] you know. Well, I‟d rather have it in the shape of somebody who‟s gonna be interested in what you want, rather than what we got now. Now, being of course an engineer I‟ m all strong for having better engineering. And poor old Grand Rapids don‟t seem to have enough sense to know what to do. Let‟s cite a couple of things. I‟ve been a member of the Engineers‟ Club for a number of years. Oh I don‟t know, about in the late thirties when I came back here, that was because my father was in his last days and he, �6 they said you got to come back, to look after some of the family affairs. So I came back to Grand Rapids, and doing what I could of course, then I, I got mixed up in the Engineers‟ Club and they were then getting ready for the pipe line, they were fussing about it. And, well we said that they ought to have some engineers studying the thing and then, the mayor then went and appealed the Engineers‟ Club and anyway he got a committee started. I happened to be on that committee. And we recommended then to put in at least a sixty-inch pipeline and perhaps bigger. Look what they did they put in a forty-six. We knew it was gonna, was going wrong, but that‟s what you got. Well, I mean the type of, remember that‟s the city commission and, and aldermen. That‟s what they said you got to do. Another illustration of how they, they sort of needled us over it, obviously when they lay out a pipeline you try to lay it out according to engineering principles and grades and things like that. They said to me later on, are you working for Frank McKay? And I said no, what makes you think so? Well you got that running across some of his land. Well I tell „em I can‟t help the geography of the place. If the pipeline ought to go along that place because of the grades, well that‟s where it ought to go. Well that‟s part of Frank McKay‟s land you‟re recommend that he get some sold or you know. They made me so peeved one time that I went and told this bird, I said look if you, I‟ll quit the city entirely and I don‟t care whether it burns down or not. But if you‟re gonna look at things that way. Interviewer: Well, before they had the pipeline, where‟d they get their water? Mr. Davis: Oh, out of the river. And it was a pretty dirty mess. Why perhaps I shouldn‟t say that. Back in about nineteen eleven or twelve, I can remember as a youngster, they built the filtration plant that‟s down there where it is now. And they took water out of the river. Prior to that they‟d taken it right out of the river with no filtration. And I can remember in my youngest days, which is about nineteen hundred when I began to remember things, they used to have to boil all the water. It was all the health authorities recommended, any water used for drinking, you boil. Well, I don‟t know. I guess most of us did, at least that was up to my mother to run the kitchen department. I don‟t know what she did but anyway that was one of the things. Interviewer: Was there any sickness or anything that… Mr. Davis: Oh yeah, typhoid fever was much more prevalent than it is now. I guess we‟re fairly healthy now. But even at that, it‟s not too good a water supply because on the basis of what we figured it, you needed a bigger pipeline. There‟s not enough water in the city despite that, in the summer, despite that report that came in that we could get along for a while because during the summer months, they take water out of the river, to augment what they get over the pipeline. And of course they, they treat it some, but it still, is much harder than Lake Michigan water would be on a normal basis if we had straight Lake Michigan water. Well anyway it just shows that poor old Grand Rapids has got no engineering background. Another thing that griped me [to] no end, as an engineer, I‟m [an] electrical engineer, I believe in running everything electrical that you can. But there‟re some things that you got to be very fundamental about. Water is one of ‟em. You need water whether the juice fails or not. You can‟t run a hundred percent safe on �7 electrical pumps. Pipeline can be, I mean the transmission lines can get knocked down, or they can have sub-stations get knocked out, things like that. When the water works ran by steam, and there‟s a lot of good size cities that still do that and it‟s fundamental, you‟re independent. Maybe you can‟t furnish all the water they want but at least you‟ve got enough so that the power company can‟t close up for half a day while the Russians knock „em out or something like that. And you‟re dependent on the water. Of course they say, well we got storage. Yes, but that storage wouldn‟t last ya very long if we‟re totally dependent on outside power. A corollary end to that is that not too many years ago all the hospitals around here, the bigger ones used to have their own power plant, I can remember Butterworth out here, had its own power plant. Well, that‟s an ideal thing, make juice and then you have light and they run the elevators and it gives all the service you need and then you have heat from the exhaust when you need it and it‟s a very nice thing. Well, that costs a little more, the cost of labor‟s getting so high to hire engineers, I mean operating engineers to run the place is getting to be expensive. So the power company and I guess the board of directors of the hospitals says, well alright we‟ll buy power. And they went over and the power company went on a basis we‟ll furnish you two circuits, if both of „em won‟t get knocked out. Sounds good, but it wasn‟t too long before the power company and the people got together and they says look, we‟ve got to be sure about this. The telephone company, they want to be fundamentally supplied. They got a diesel engine down there to be used for auxiliary. Well, they recommend that the hospital put in a diesel and I think Butterworth has one. It won‟t furnish everything but it won‟t put „em black. Things like that, you got to think about. You might say, well it costs more. Well gee, insurance costs you more, why have insurance? Just get along and say I don‟t need insurance. But you buy insurance because you never know, you might want it. And to pay a little extra for auxiliary power, that‟s like the insurance. I‟m afraid I‟m getting off the track. I‟m just… Interviewer: Well, talking about electrical, what kind of electrical system did they have when you were a kid? Mr. Davis: Around here? Interviewer: Yeah. Mr. Davis: Well a, the water works had an auxiliary, I don‟t mean auxiliary generator, but a little generator and it made power for some of the, for the street light, on a, first place it had quite a plant for making street lights. They were the old arc-light type. The plant, when I first remember it, was down on the river way over on the east bank of the river between Fulton and Wealthy. Down where the market is and about in there. And it furnished juice to run all the arc-lights around. And, well at one interesting corollary on that, somebody had the idea that you ought to light from overhead and so they had some of these high towers. I don‟t know if you ever heard of them, towers about a hundred feet high and they had four arc-lights up on the top of those. And they would, supposed to cover the neighborhood. Well it didn‟t, „cause the trees covered up [?] fundamentally it was probably a good idea. But after a while the towers got kind of questionable and they took „em down and then they distributed the lights around the neighborhood but they still �8 were lacking plenty of light. We‟re gradually improving it, but I can‟t kick too much on that. Poor old Grand Rapids can‟t scrape up enough money to light the place the way it ought to be but I do hate to see „em get totally, and I‟ve no objection to the power company, I‟ve got a lot of good friends down there, I don‟t like to see a thing like a city get totally in the clutches of a company and say look, at such and such a time we‟re gonna raise the rates, well and , go on that kind of a basis. If they had their own power plant down there, even though it‟s standing still, could say alright, we‟ll take over whatever load we need and make it ourselves. Now on that basis, that‟s another thing that gripes me to no end. They went and tore down the smokestack on the waterworks. You probably remember when that stood up there, a big tall smokestack. They tore that down, oh I don‟t know, somewhere in the last two-three years. It was a good smokestack. Probably hadn‟t used it for several years because it had gone over to electric power. But on the other hand it needed some proper touching up. That is you know, pointing, as they call brick work. They should have been pointing up. So somebody says oh well it‟s getting to be a hazard now. It isn‟t safe. It wasn‟t so old, there‟s lots of older smokestacks than that around town. But they didn‟t pay any attention to it. They didn‟t do anything. Interviewer: What did , where did the homes get their electricity? Mr. Davis: Oh, we bought that from the power company. That was quite common in those days. I mean that‟s about all you could get. You didn‟t want to make a power plant in your own home. Although I had that kind of a rig. I lived out on Silver Lake, out here in the summer time and of course then, I‟d gotten away from town, and with Westinghouse, and I had a chance to buy equipment. So I went and bought what they called farm light equipment. Remember those things they used to call farm lights? Farmers used to have those because they wanted light and power, small amounts. So I went and bought farm light equipment, or had it shipped up here, put it in the cottage, and for a number of years out here we lit the cottage on our own power plant. I like that kind of stuff. I got the generator for the place down I my cellar right now. And the engine is still out in the summer, the cottage. I don‟t know what to do with it, I‟ve been thinking I might give it to the library, I mean the museum, a place of that kind. Interviewer: Did you, did your family home have electricity from the time you can remember? Mr. Davis: Oh, no no. Interviewer: What, what did they have? Mr. Davis: Well, they had gas. Gas. And still, I go on the basis if I want fundamental things in there, so the gas piping is still in the house. I think possibly I should cut it off but I, I don‟t want to do that. I like to have it there. Now, of course we use gas for water heating. No question about it, gas is cheaper, for just pure heat. It, you can make, I mean BTUs per dollar are cheaper with gas than with electricity. No question about it. �9 Interviewer: How did those gas lights in the home work? Mr. Davis: Well, you see „em around the streets now. They, they‟re putting „em out here, they‟re mantel lamps. Once of course they had the old fishtail lamps at one time. You go down to this gas light village down here and you can see a lot of „em. Fish tail lights were just jet on the end of a fixture you might say, a fixture arranged to be artistic and things of that kind, glass globes and all kinds of thing on „em. But the gas lights made a mild amount of [?]. They were better than kerosene lamps, let‟s put it that way. We had some kerosene lamps in our house; I can remember early days the kitchen had a kerosene lamp out there. Why, I don‟t know but it had, they never put the gas out there. They had a gas stove for cooking and it also had a, well I guess you‟d call it, coal range. You could cook on that and heat the oven and do that sort of stuff with a coal range in the winter. Interviewer: They burn coal? Mr. Davis: Burn Coal, small [?] of coal. Interviewer: I was talking to a fellow this morning who was involved in the fuel business in Grand Rapids and he was saying that most of the homes at that time were, in fact all the homes heated with coal. What was the air like in the city then? Mr. Davis: The air? Oh you would never know it. It‟s just as good as it is now. Probably better. We, this furor over pollution, I‟m all in favor of reducing pollution but let‟s go at it on the basis of knowing what we‟re talking about. There‟s a lot more smoke and stuff coming out of big places, which they don‟t fuss about, than there was probably was in all the the coal smoking days, I mean coal burning days of the city. Now it‟s not as bad here because they usually burn hard coal. That‟s more or less smokeless. If you lived in Pittsburg a while, you‟d know what it is to burn soft coal domestically. It‟s rather amusing down there, at least when I was first there. The coal is so plentiful it‟s practically in every farmer‟s backyard. And I boarded, that was before I was married, I boarded in a place in the, heard the man of the house say one time, along about this time of the year. Well, we‟d better call up the farmer and have him bring in some coal. Well I thought that was kind of funny and I asked him about it and he said oh yes he had a side hill out here and he brings in coal. I don‟t, it wasn‟t very good coal, I know that and they, you bring it in and dump it [in on] the sidewalk or I mean in the curb and then he‟d hire somebody to shovel it up and put it in the cellar for him. Interviewer: [When] hmm Mr. Davis: And, but it was, oh I mean they got along, but it was rather interesting though. I used to travel quite a bit between Pittsburg and New York City and they‟d come in from New York City on this train at night, I mean the sleeper car and get there in the morning, and as you‟d come into the city from the east, as you came into the town there‟d be a kind of a haze over the whole city; because practically every house was, letting out a little cloud of smoke. Not, I wouldn‟t call it smoke, but a kind of a haze. �10 And you could definitely notice it. Very definitely as you came into town, clear outside in the country, and as you came into the city, an awful smoke. Of course Pittsburg has a horrible problem, or did in those days. They‟ve cleaned up a lot now. The mills made a lot of smoke. Coal mills, I mean a, steel mills, all those things. They used to make an awful mess around there. You got so you, well you‟re just accustomed to it. Well when I got married and went down there and lived there awhile with my wife, well you couldn‟t [just] go out in the evening. You‟d put on a fresh shirt, because the one you‟d been wearing during the day time was sooty. [went up] ? ? ? wife says oh you have to clean tonight. And things like that. I mean it showed up. Interviewer: But Grand Rapids never had that…? Mr. Davis: Never, never that bad, no. It wasn‟t, oh I don‟t know, the biggest problem I had from it, of course that was after I got back here, the Central High School, was really quite a boiler plant down there, used to burn coal. And they were very careless about it and they used to make a lot of smoke. I worked with Boelens who was then smoke inspector, and took pictures of the place and I don‟t know as that had any results, well anyway, not too many years ago they changed over to gas. That‟s good, as far as the neighborhood was concerned because they‟re not so dirty. Used to be that, under the eaves of a house, where the rain didn‟t come down and wash it off, why it‟d always be dark there, I mean dirty. Because the smoke had drifted in and deposited the soot and that was that. Now they don‟t have to paint quite so often, as we used to. On the other hand though, the gas is a big problem. Most people don‟t realize that, on the, for instance we live in a very old house as you can appreciate, not very old, about a hundred years old but anyway it was built before the time of chimney specifications which required a ceramic liner. Now then, if you burn coal, the coal gas was dry. Now you burn gas and the gas comes out with a lot of water vapor if you know how the exhaust of a car is in the winter, a plume of steam. Well, that‟s just the nature of the stuff. If you put that gas, I mean a burner big enough to heat your house, into an old house, with an unlined chimney like I have you can‟t get away with it because it‟ll, the moisture in the course of two or three years will go through the [?] Interviewer: Ok. Mr. Davis: And the, well I can‟t do it in my house because the chimney runs right up through the living room. We got bookcases around it and all that sort of stuff. It‟d take the plaster off the walls and I couldn‟t tolerate it so I‟m still burning coal but I got it all automatic, it‟s got a stoker, as you call it, though it may be a little smudge out of it once in a while, you can oh, at intervals between stoker firings you might call it that, why there‟d be a little haze come out of the stack but there‟s not dirty around there like it used to, I mean it would be if you‟re burning coal raw or with the high school burning coal, I‟d get over to gas if I could and I have a lot of good friends down in the gas company I‟d tell „em, will you fix me up [an] arrangement so I can burn gas without [ruining] my house. And they say, oh no, we can‟t guarantee that. I say you‟ll have to put up a bond if you want to do that. And oh no we wouldn‟t do that. So here I am running along with coal for the fire and I might say it‟s something of a chore because I‟ve gotten to the point �11 where the doctors now tell me I shouldn‟t shovel coal to any great extent, and I have to hire a fellow in the winter to put the coal in the hopper. Well that takes effort. It‟s not the best thing [?] I‟d switch over to gas anytime. It‟d probably cost a little more but then I wouldn‟t have to pay a guy a, oh eight - ten dollars a week to come in and keep the coal hopper full. Particularly when we go out of town, why it‟s something that has to be taken care of, you can‟t just go along and forget it. But even at that I wouldn‟t recommend any-body with a gas heating plant to go along and I hear a, people going oh I just went south and I left it running. As an engineer I wouldn‟t let that thing run without attention at least once or twice a day on any account. Something could fail. Then what would happen? I wouldn‟t take long for in zero weather for the house to freeze. Then it‟d be several hundred dollars of plumbing repair. Interviewer: Um hm. Mr. Davis: For example in my house, too. When we go out of town, even though we have a fellow looking after it I have a light in the window, under the control of an auxiliary thermostat which is set at about fifty degrees. If the temperature ever got down to fifty degrees, that light would light, then the neighbors are supposed to gallop in and find out what‟s wrong. Well, why not? Interviewer: That‟s a good idea. Well, they say most of the air pollution today is caused by the automobile. Do you remember the first car that you ever saw? Mr. Davis: Oh yes. Interviewer: What kind of car was it and who had it? What was the effect on the city when the cars started coming in? Mr. Davis: [?] it was always a novelty to see this damn thing chugging down the street. There was a one cylinder Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles one cylinder running along underneath. You cranked it on the side by putting the crank on auxiliary. You had a chain drive running from the engine shaft to the rear axel, and you‟d get in there and you‟d steer it with a tiller. They used to have the cold, curved dash, Oldsmobile had a curve on the bottom of it, sleigh you might say. Oh they‟d run around. Sure they had, interesting, they gradually got more and more and they got the cars so you didn‟t have to…, there used to be the joke, every now and then they get stuck and somebody‟d go by and yell at „em, “Hire a horse.” Oh but that lasted, the first cars I remember were oh probably nineteen two and three and four, somewhere along in there. Some of „em were steam cars. I had a great respect for steam cars. The old White Steamer, was a steam car. It had a boiler under the seat. The engine in the first ones was right alongside the boiler, it drove with a chain drive. Then the better White Steamers, I mean newer ones came out with the engine under the hood, the boiler was still under the seat. But they were quite a car. They would outrun most anything that you could imagine these days. I know I had a test ride in one one time. A fellow came in the factory, a neighbor of ours had one and went out and drove down the Cascade road. That was about the only passable road out of here. And they used to have a lot of pumps along the dash, if you‟d pump awhile and do �12 different things with „em and the fellow was in there and he was steering with one and he was looking at the road and pumping these things and she was running sixty and he says, “She ain‟t steamin‟ quite like she ought to.” Well, I thought it was just as well she isn‟t steaming [?]the thought of goin‟ much faster over that rough road and him steering one hand and twiddling his pumps and looking at his gage and just sprinting down the highway. Interviewer: What year was that? Mr. Davis: Oh, that was probably in nineteen hundred and three or four. Interviewer: That was a pretty fast car, wasn‟t it? Mr. Davis: Yeah, the White Steamer was a very good steamer. They could run anywhere. Interviewer: Did you ever have any accidents with the boiler blowing up? Mr. Davis: Oh no. I don‟t think so, I never heard of any. The worst thing about the steamers, and is still the reason that prevents them from being common these days is thefact that it takes a few minutes to get on steam. If you leave it sitting in your garage and you want to start the next morning, you‟ve got to allow, oh I don‟t know what it might be, ten, fifteen minutes to raise enough steam to run out of the barn. Interviewer: Um hm. What kind of an effect on the city did those early cars have? Mr. Davis: Oh, there were, there was just a joke, annoyance for the most part. The steam cars, they weren‟t bad, some of „em did exhaust direct into the air but that was steam that came out then. And, oh they‟d go along down the street leaving a fizzling kind of a steam out behind, was kind of a joke. I know one time, even quite more recent than that we drove east down to Massachusetts, the family places. And we used, I think it was an Oakland then, it was a good gas car. Then it had a maximum speed of about 40 miles an hour, and we drove down and came back, and on those good roads in Massachusetts, I came up behind a steamer, a Stanley Steamer, that was different type, but it was a good car, very good. But they couldn‟t maintain their speed; the boiler wasn‟t quite big enough to keep „em running as fast as they‟d like to run. I mean they might try to run. And I‟d come up behind „em then he‟d really open up and run away from me leaving this big cloud of steam out behind. And then he‟d re-use up about all his steam and perhaps my speed a run thirty-five forty miles and hour and oh, two [or] three miles, I‟d catch up with him again. Then he‟d do the same thing again. Just run away from me like nothing. That steam engine, well that boiler with that steam bottled up in there could run way from practically anything that was going on in those days. Some of the world‟s records for steam were made by the Stanley Steamer; I think a hundred and twenty some miles an hour down on the, well the Florida beaches. Interviewer: Daytona? �13 Mr. Davis: Down there somewhere. Well there, they did the high speed work. It‟s too bad the Stanley went out of business. There‟s quite a story on that. If you go to the library you‟d probably get a book down there called the Story of the Stanley Steamer. I think you‟d enjoy reading it. It‟s really worth while. And well I used to enjoy the Stanley Steamer; I‟d like to see that again. I hear oh that Bill Lear is planning one. I hope he gets it going. I‟m kind of afraid he may not because, well for what I know of Bill Lear, he‟s a kind of, oh a, visionist guy. He can imagine doing this, and he can imagine doing that and that was about it. I knew him, I mean I knew of him because that when I was at Westinghouse, he was in competition with us trying to furnish government equipment. And he didn‟t have enough background and enough sense or enough anything so when it come to making competitive bids, he couldn‟t make „em equal to what we did. But on the other hand he would under bid us „cause he‟d just say we‟ll make it for so much. I don‟t know what he did. I don‟t think he ever made anything, get very many contracts. Sometimes I know we would lose a contract but of course when you bid on government stuff you got to turn in all your specifications. Then of course, they‟re common property. He probably then could pick up these specifications I mean the things we had and build around our specs and do it for a lower price, and we did, but you notice he‟s not in business doing too much of that. I mean he didn‟t stay in it. Then he came here to Grand Rapids and, oh then I think he got other people in conjunction with him who kind of gave some ballast to hold him in control although he used his good ideas and they worked that way. I don‟t know. It used to amuse me and when I was here first there were a number of people I knew moved down there at Lear‟s and, yet every practically every year they‟d change. They couldn‟t stand it apparently, to stay with him. I know one time was a joke told about he had a conference in his organization somewhere, at least this was the story I heard, that he said, that we ought to do something this way; it was rather fantastic and the engineers didn‟t think about much of it. And a couple of days later, he went out into a development lab and he asked one of the fellows, “How‟d you come along with what I was outlining the other day” And the fellow apparently wasn‟t too diplomatic, he says, “You didn‟t expect I was gonna do that fool thing, did you?” He got fired right away. But Bill Lear was accust…, might do things which would be fantastic, which an engineer wouldn‟t do, but he ought to be diplomatic enough to say, “Well look, we‟re thinking about it still.” Or stuff like that He wouldn‟t go and tell the boss, look I wouldn‟t try that fool thing. Interviewer: Yeah, what was your family a prominent family in this city? Mr. Davis: Oh, I don‟t know, you might call „em that. That is Stowe-Davis, and my father being on the Board of Education for some thirty-five years. He went on the board when, oh I was about the fourth grade in school, or fifth grade, somewhere along in there. And I couldn‟t do a thing out of line which any youngster would do. He had a pipeline virtually from the teachers right into him. And he knew about it when I got home that night. He knew about it and I was in for trouble then. So it was a heck of a job, about bad as being a minister‟s son, living with a situation like that. „Course he was on there until, oh, well he died in thirty-five and I think technically he was still on the board when he died. He didn‟t do much the last six months. But anyway he was on the board and all �14 that time, when I graduated from High School And then I went on to College and stuff like that, and of course he didn‟t have to do about the college end of things but in the high school he, well, still had his say. The only time he ever did anything for me, you might call it, was, I was no good in languages. It was, my mother said I had to take some German. We had a German down here who really was German, at least she acted so much like it. And when we‟re taking the courses in German she insisted to learn the rules for German grammar in German. Well just imagine that. I didn‟t know anything about German, how was I going to learn the rules? Well I, I got, passed it off as next to nothing then I got flunked in the course. Well apparently that stirred up my mother enough, so she talked to my father and said look, you better do something about this. Well, the next thing I knew, he had it arranged that I would not continue with German course in high school here. But I would get a tutor. A tutor was, well a professional tutor who‟d had, was recognized, they had some around town, for various subjects, by the public schools and I finished the course by tutoring with her. I got my credit for that year of German, unofficially, but it counted. So when I went to the university I got by with it Interviewer: You mentioned the Bundy family lived in your neighborhood. Mr. Davis: Yeah, the Bundys lived right across the street. Bundy was, I can‟t say positively, but Mrs. Bundy was a son of, well Hollister, I‟ve forgotten his first name. He had a son, Clay Hollister, you may hear about. And then of course he had several sons younger than that. I‟m not so sure but one of „em is you about him there is a Bundy down there in Washington doing something. That might be some of the family, I don‟t know, „cause they‟ve all pulled out of here. But I can‟t quite imagine that crowd going over to the Democratic [?] Interviewer: What, what kind of business was Bundy involved in here in Grand Rapids, do you remember? Mr. Davis: I think he was an attorney. Interviewer: Well, the thing I was going to ask you about your family, if they were prominent, did they a, socialize with those families that lived in the Hill District there? Mr. Davis: Oh, I don‟t know, I didn‟t pay much attention to what they was going on. I don‟t think they had too much contact with „em. I know they used to talk about the Hollisters and the Bundys. My mother used to know Mrs. Hollister, and she used to talk about Clay Hollister And he was known, see he went to the bank with his father, was quite an official in the Old Kent Bank, not the Old Kent but the Old National. And well they were well, they know their way around [?] My mother was quite, well both my father and mother were active in Park Church. My father was a deacon down there for a number of years, which added troubles to me, and my mother was very active among the ladies societies. Oh boy you want to live in those days. You went to church on Sunday morning and before you knew it you had to go to church in the Sunday evening. Want it? No. I didn‟t want it. You went to church. �15 Interviewer: What kind of organizations was your mother involved in? Mr. Davis: Well, a lot of missionary work, she also worked with the LLC, that‟s the Ladies Literary Club down there on what is it, Sheldon or something like that? Interviewer: LaGrave I think. Mr. Davis: Yeah, it‟s down there still. And my aunt was also, lived with us part of the time. She was active in the, I wouldn‟t say active, but I mean took part in the thing. And oh things of, they were doing their share in a mild way, around town. I don‟t mean to say they were very prominent, like being wives of senators or something like that, but they did their stuff around town. They were known. Interviewer: What was living up at, what was living in that neighborhood like as a kid? Mr. Davis: It wasn‟t so crowded as it is now, and you could do lots of things. Of course our big lot, that‟s the thing that amuses me, now you can‟t get youngsters to mow grass. My father says look, you mow that grass, and you mowed that grass. You raked it and did all this kind of stuff. There‟s a lot of things that youngsters don‟t do these days. My very youngest days, the family had a horse. They had, before I was born, had a horse that they kept in what we call a barn now. But then they decided it was too much of a job to keep the horse up there and so they kept the horse at a Livery stable downtown. And when you wanted the horse, you‟d phone down - the phones had been established by then - oh, you‟d call up whose livery stable it was, they had changed around at different times. The one fact [?] place called Albee‟s, Albee‟s Livery Stable, and we used to keep the horse down there and they would bring the horse up and a fellow bringing the horse up would hitch his bike on the back of the buggy and would ride the bike back downtown and after I got to be a little older, perhaps, a middle high school age when we got through with the horse that afternoon or evening you‟d drive, I‟d drive the horse downtown. Then it was up to me to my own shift to get back up the hill. Albee‟s Livery Stable was on Crescent, oh I should say it was about where the Regent Theatre used to be. Do you remember the Regent Theatre? Interviewer: Um hum. Mr. Davis: That was in, about in there. Typical horse barn and stable. They had probably thirty [or] forty horses in there. Well taken care of. Interviewer: Did you spend much time downtown when you were a, young? Mr. Davis: Gee whiz. I was busy doing things around the house and oh playing with other kids around there, and things of that kind. Interviewer: Did you do a lot of tinkering when you were a kid? �16 Mr. Davis: Oh yes, I always tried to do that. See, that‟s one thing that gave me a good start on most youngsters that didn‟t have the advantage. My father was Stowe-Davis Furniture Company, of course that was when plants ran on the steam engine, Every Saturday afternoon, cause they ran Saturdays, except right straight through to five o‟clock Saturdays, not only five days a week, I‟d go down to the engine room, hang around the engine room down there and just hanging around with the engineer, I‟d get accustomed to doing things. Starting at first, well probably just sweeping up a little bit, then doing more things. I know one of the first things that amused me was at night, when they‟d quit, you‟d blow the whistle. And I wasn‟t big enough then to reach up by the whistle cord so I‟d take the stool over and stand that on that by the wall when the whistle cords came down and he‟d signal to me and I‟d pull the cord and blow the whistle. You don‟t hear whistles these days. I don‟t know as there‟s hardly one in town. But it used to be quite a thing, At five o‟clock or six o‟clock, the whistles would blow here in Grand Rapids from various power plants. Now they got practically no plants that got a whistle. That was quite an interesting thing and then New Year‟s Eve or New Year‟s Night you might call it, there‟d be quite a, I wouldn‟t say a ceremony, but nearly every plant that had a whistle would blow it at midnight. No, I enjoyed my work at the factory. I don‟t call it work; I just hung around over there. Oh but I did have to do work one time. He got, I don‟t know if you‟ve ever been in a furniture factory much, you know they have planers, with plane oh surface boards, like this, big wide ones long, tops of tables and oh things like that and oh, I probably was fourteen maybe. He says, “You‟d better go to work” and so he says. One of the jobs in the factory that I got was tending the planer. That is the fellow runs the planer, he puts the boards in the front there and runs through the planer then they come out the back side and you had to pick these things up. I mean they, they just come through, they don‟t let „em fall on the floor, that‟s part of the job. And put „em on a hand truck where they can be carried away and do something else with them. And a, so he says, “You‟re gonna work over there this summer.” And the superintendent put me to tend the planer. The amusing part about it was, I mean that showing how things have changed, they had a regular kid who did it. I don‟t know what they did with him when I was, when they gave me a job of doing it, during the summer, but anyway, he was around there. Once or twice they had him, when they had some very heavy tops in there, they had him help me pile these big heavy tops on a truck to get them away. Now when I say truck, I mean one of these trucks, you know, industrial, not a power driven truck. But the thing I think is humorous about it was that he says, “Well we‟ll pay you eight cents an hour.” He says, “I can‟t pay you as much as the regular guy. That wouldn‟t be right for the boss‟s son to have a salary equal to a regular guy. He was getting I think twelve cents an hour. But we‟ll give you eight cents an hour.” So I worked all that summer for eight cents an hour. Interviewer: Was that, was eight, what, the guy that was working for twelve cents an hour, he was working at what, a ten hour day? Mr. Davis: I suppose so. Interviewer: Was that, I mean could you live fairly well on that? �17 Mr. Davis: Well he was just a kid in high school, just I mean in school, like I was He wasn‟t living, I mean his family probably took care of him. I mean wasn‟t, oh the regular rates weren‟t very high, no I should say not. Well, I can remember my father used to talk about some of the higher paid men over there make sixty cents an hour. That was good pay for those days. Sixty cents an hour. We used to say a penny a minute. The kids, the rest of „em got, oh probably after they got along, thirty-five, forty cents an hour. It wasn‟t very much, but they used to live, and be quite happy I would say. Well I got eight cents an hour. Interviewer: Where did the furniture factories get their workers? Mr. Davis: Oh just all around town. Interviewer: Was, as I understand a lot of Dutch … Mr. Davis: Yeah, that‟s right. Oh yeah, most of the factory men were Dutch. Interviewer: Do you know the reason why so many Dutch people migrated to Grand Rapids? Mr. Davis: No, I don‟t know Interviewer: Why they chose this town? Mr. Davis: I often wondered. They just came in here. Well why‟d the Poles come in here? They, came in here too. I don‟t know. They just migrated West and some of „em stopped here. Interviewer: Where did your family come from, Massachusetts, did you say? Mr. Davis: No, Vermont. But even a generation or two before them they came out of Massachusetts and so on. Interviewer: Why did your father come to Grand Rapids? Mr. Davis: Well, I don‟t know exactly. One story I heard was that my mother didn‟t like living in Massachusetts. It was, they were then living down near Boston, it‟s kind of a sea-coast atmosphere. And she said the, at least the story I heard was that she told me the general sea coast attitude and moisture and all that kind of stuff was tough on her throat. She didn‟t like it. And so next, what she told me was she says they decided they‟d go West and, oh one story I heard was that they thought of once about Omaha. But she did have a brother who‟d already got into business in Detroit. There was no automobile business then. That was just business. And he I think encouraged them to come to Grand Ra.., come to Michigan and, oh Michigan was only probably, I mean Grand Rapids was only about seventy thousand or something like that. And they took over, I mean they bought in then. They boarded downtown here, I used to joke about, it was quite a fancy �18 boarding house you might call it that. It‟s where the police station used to be. Do you remember where the police station used to be on the, Ottawa Street down here on the corner of Ottawa and Crescent? Alright, about a house or two up from there, of course the police station wasn‟t there then, was where this boarding was. And they lived there a year or so while he was looking around the town and getting started at Stowe-Davis and stuff of that kind. I used to tell her, yeah, they kept you right close to the police station, didn‟t they? And well she used to get kind of aggravated about that but anyway, it was downtown then, is still, I think it was quite a place. Well, you can see kind of a remnants of it, you know what is it Bostwick Street, the one that goes up from oh, past the front of the Butterworth hospital? You know on Bostwick Street between Crescent and Lyon, there‟re a couple of old brick buildings in there. They used to be more of those downtown. They were boarding houses, I mean you could live in that. Well it was quite a thing. People in Boston lived in, I wouldn‟t say boarding houses, I mean they lived in, houses which were built right along in rows. Not from what you call those row houses these days, but I mean, there‟d be individual units in a series of perhaps four or five houses, usually built of brick, anyway pretty well put together. And you could live in there and you didn‟t have the responsibility of a lot of stuff. It was good living I guess, for those days. I don‟t think I‟d like it now but I mean that‟s what people did. Interviewer: Was there very much crime in the city, when you were growing up? Mr. Davis: Oh, I don‟t know about that. I never had any experience with it. I guess about the way crimes were was on Halloween night us young fellows used to go out and do out stuff of dumping garbage cans over and a few things of that kind but I don‟t suppose you‟d call that crime. No, Grand Rapids I was satisfied? was a model city, if you might call it that. But I suppose there must have been the usual stuff going on. But then it was I would say a safe city. Nowadays you won‟t dare go out on certain streets after dark. Then you could walk or drive anywhere. I wouldn‟t trust… I mean the city isn‟t nearly as good as it used to be in those days. I don‟t know what they‟re gonna do with the city now. It isn‟t safe. Well… INDEX A C Albee’s Livery Stable · 16 Central High School · 10 B D Barnard, Alice · 1 Bell Telephone Company · 5 Boelens, Inspector · 10 Bundy family · 1, 15 Butterworth hospital · 7, 19 Davis Technical (school) · 3 Davis, George A. · 1 E Engineers’ Club · 6 �19 H P Hollister family · 1, 15 Hollister, Clay · 15 Hunting family · 2 Hunting, David · 2 Hunting, Edgar · 2 Pantlind Hotel · 1, 2 Park Congregational Church · 15 Pike, Charles W. · 1 R K Regent Theatre · 16 Kent County Savings Bank · 1 S L Ladies Literary Club · 15 Lake Michigan water · 7 Lamoreaux family · 1 Lear, Bill · 13, 14 Lyon Street Hill Line (streetcar) · 4 Stanley Steamer · 13 Steelcase Company · 2 Stowe family · 2 Stowe, L. C. · 2 Stowe-Davis Furniture Company · 2, 14, 16, 19 T M Taggart, Ganson · 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology · 3 McKay, Frank · 6 U O Old Kent Bank · 1, 2, 15 Old National Bank · 1, 15 University of Michigan · 3 W White Steamer · 12 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/132e520c7707c8a5c9a353930e1007cb.mp3 b53a818c8a514af2a475310f9e427223 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 Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. 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-23_25-26Davis Title A name given to the resource Davis, Robert Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Robert Description An account of the resource Robert Davis worked as an engineer for Westinghouse and was a professor of engineering. Mr. Davis had degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Michigan. He was active in the public schools and was a local historian. He died December 21, 1979. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/07d4fc2370a569384c674cbe39edbb5f.mp4 9266827184de4afa760db6a4a50e8689 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7aa4e43ce40b47c1300515262016b1fb.pdf 27f98bc1d3cf17d18e6c81e548c8c233 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project Roy & Marion Davis World War II 1 hour 52 minutes 40 seconds (00:00:15) Roy's Early Life -Born in Hartford, Michigan -Small town of about 2,500 people -Grew up in Hartford -Marion's family moved to Hartford -Roy and Marion met in school, eventually dated, and got married after the war -Born in 1924 -Father owned the Hartford Greenhouse -House was attached to the greenhouse -Provided flowers for funerals, anniversaries, and school dances -Sold the greenhouse in 1946 after Roy came home from the war -Had a sister -Always had three meals a day during the Great Depression -Father planned on building two more greenhouses -Great Depression made it impossible to finance that project (00:02:35) Start of the War -Didn't pay much attention to the fighting in Europe and Asia before World War II -He was in a drugstore playing pinball and a kid came in and said Pearl Harbor had been bombed -Meant nothing to Roy because he didn't know what, or where, Pearl Harbor was -Remembers riding in the car in 1938 and listening to the radio -News broadcast came on the radio announcing Hitler's conquest of Czechoslovakia -Father predicted that war was coming and Roy would have to fight in it -After Pearl Harbor, gas rationing went into effect -Family had a “B” sticker because his father owned a business -Meant they could get a little extra gas -National speed limit was set at 35mph in an effort to conserve gas -Young men enlisted or got drafted -Graduated in 1942 -Went to the Willow Run manufacturing complex (near Ypsilanti and Belleville, Michigan) -Turned away because he was draft age (00:05:10) Enlisting in the Army Air Corps -Enlisted in the Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet -Always interested in flight -Remembers the first time he flew was in a biplane at a fair -Went to Fort Custer, Michigan to take the mental and physical tests (00:06:54) Basic Training -On June 1, 1943 he reported for basic training at Sheppard Field, Texas -Took 12 weeks -Ran five miles every morning around the inside perimeter of base -Had a huge obstacle course -Climbed to the top then rappelled down in a parachute harness -Received gas mask training �-Went into a tent filled with tear gas, stated name and serial number, then put on mask -He did it successfully -Some men washed out -One man couldn't complete the obstacle course and got washed out -Reassigned as a cook in the mess hall (00?:10:47) College Training -Sent to College Training Detachment at Wittenberg University -Received navigation, math, and science courses and taught how to be an officer -Got ten hours of flight time in the Piper J-3 Cub -Flew with an instructor -He wasn't very good at flying that plane -Did that for three months (00?:11:58) Active Pre-Flight Training -Received Active Pre-Flight Training in San Antonio, Texas -Most likely at Lackland Air Force Base -Took courses on navigation, Morse code, engines and airframes -Had to decode 10-15 words per minute in the Morse code class -One man couldn't handle it and quit in the middle of the class (00:13:25) Primary Training Pt. 1 -Sent to Uvalde, Texas for Primary Training -Flew the Fairchild PT-19 -Got an instructor that swore at him whenever he made a mistake -Flew with a different, calmer instructor and did much better -Original instructor admitted that he was being too hard on Roy -His instructor taught him airplane acrobatics -Will never forget the first time he solo flew -Remembers singing at the top of his lungs (00:17:42) Basic Flight Training -Next portion of training was Basic Flight Training -Flew the BT-13 Valiant -Noisy and shaky airplane -Had a tendency to get into spins and wouldn't get out of spins -Cadets were ordered to bail out of the plane rather than try to get out of a spin -He was the first man in his squadron to solo fly the BT-13 -Had a fighter pilot for an instructor that showed him more flying tricks -Remembers solo flying the BT-13 the first time as well -On the last flight with his instructor they switched places -Roy got to critique the instructor for making mistakes (00:21:38) Downtime during Training -Didn't get off base because he was too busy with training -Busy with navigation courses, engine courses, and airframe courses -Remembers getting a half inch of snow and the base was shut down for the day (00:22:52) Multi-engine Advanced Training -Sent to Waco, Texas for further assignment -Some men got assigned for training on the B-25 Mitchell -He was selected for Multi-engine Advanced Training -Trained on the Cessna UC-78 -Did navigation training with another cadet or with an instructor -Flew cross country training missions at night �-On one of those flights the copilot didn't feel well, so Roy had to fly the whole way -Told to bail out or make an emergency landing if one of the engines cut out -Promised himself he would never bail out over the desert (00:26:24) Training Accidents -During Basic Flight Training one cadet was having trouble with touch and go landings -On one take off the cadet crashed and got decapitated -First fatality in his squadron -Two men died in Advanced Training doing touch and go landings -Lost radio contact with the plane and the two men came in for a landing -Hit a plane on the runway and both men died -Before graduating he had a dream about being in a mid-air collision -Had the same dream many years later, but bailed out in that version of the dream (00:30:19) Transition Training -Sent to Reno, Nevada for Transition Training in the C-46 -When he began Transition Training he was officially a pilot with the rank of 2nd lieutenant -Before going to Transition Training he received 30 days of leave -Went back to Hartford and reconnected with his high school sweetheart -They would eventually get married after the war -Only flew a total of 10 hours in the C-46 -Not enough training -The C-46 was the biggest, freight hauling aircraft at the time -Could fly fully loaded with only one engine -Great airplane, but it required sophisticated maintenance (00:32:50) Flying the C-47 -Had only ever been a passenger in the C-47 -He was the youngest pilot in his squadron when he went overseas -The older men took care of him and taught him extra flight skills -Eventually got into flying C-47s in Burma -The C-47 was easier to fly than the C-46 because the C-47 was a smaller plane -C-46 felt like flying a barn, but it was still a great plane if you flew it right (00:34:43) Deployment to China Burma India Theater -Gathered at St. Louis and told to collect their gear -Officially, they didn't know where they were going -Received hints that they were going to the China Burma India Theater (CBI Theater) -Went to Fort Totten, New York -Spent the night there -Went to the PX, bought a jungle knife, and sharpened it while drinking beer -Still has the knife -Next morning had to fall out at daybreak and he had a terrible hangover -Flew on a C-46 mail plane -Stopped in Bermuda to refuel -Stopped in the Azores to refuel -Stayed overnight in Casablanca, Morocco -Ordered to stay out of the native quarters -American servicemen disappeared and were never seen again -Remembers all of the white houses -Stopped in Libya -In Iran it was 100 degrees, so they stayed in the plane �(00:40:17) Arrival in India -Stopped in Karachi, India (now Karachi, Pakistan) -Stayed there for two or three weeks -Bought a pair of Karachi boots -Flew to Sookerating Field in Assam Valley, India -Started flying missions out of that field when he got established -Treated well by the men there, but not officiously -Shortly after arriving he was made officer of the day -Meant he wore his best uniform and carried a .45 caliber pistol -First time he cleaned his pistol it discharged without warning -Learned that it had a hair trigger and had to be handled with care (00:43:30) Flying Missions in India -First mission was a flight over “the Hump” (eastern end of the Himalayas) to Chengdu, China -Delivering fuel and picking up Chinese conscripts to be trained in India for the Chinese Army -Flew over uncharted territory -All of the conscripts got airsick -When they landed at Sookerating Field they delivered the conscripts to a Chinese sergeant -Flew countless missions out of India (00:46:39) Weather Conditions -Primary weather concern for flying over the Himalayas was the powerful west wind -If there wasn't wind, dense fog would roll in making it almost impossible to land -During one mission the fog rolled in and they ran low on gas -At the last minute an airfield told them they could land -Made the landing with only their instruments -Most dangerous weather concern was the severe thunderstorms over the Himalayas -50,000 to 60,000 feet in height -Flew through a storm once and experienced St. Elmo's Fire (00:51:05) Stationed in India -While stationed in India they lived in tents on an old tea plantation -Had Hindu waiters -Aware of the distinct cultural differences, especially concerning food and animals -Always felt bad that the Hindu waiters served the Americans beef stew -Went into the nearby town and got his picture taken -Ran into British soldiers -Stationed in India for three months (00:54:38) Stationed in Burma -Sent to Myitkyina Airfield, Burma -Liberated from Japanese occupation by Merrill's Marauders on May 17, 1944 -Remembers seeing a Japanese Betty (Mitsubishi G4M) bomber on the runway -Found the corpse of a Japanese soldier buried at the airfield -Had a squadron of P-47s that flew bombing runs against the retreating Japanese -Knew that the Japanese were retreating from the area -Arrived after Christmas 1944 -Stayed there until the war ended -Lived in British Army tents -Pretty good tents -Hired natives to build a hut for them -Never got to move into the hut though because the war ended -Continued to fly missions over the Himalayas �-Used water from the Irrawaddy River and purified it with chlorine -On one mission out of Burma he flew a colonel to a party in India -Stayed in the officers' quarters while the colonel went to the party -The next day the colonel was hungover and reeked of alcohol -Severe thunderstorm rolled in, but colonel insisted they take off anyway -Fortunately, they made it through the thunderstorm -Got back to Myitkyina and thick clouds meant planes had to wait to land -Colonel grew impatient and ordered Roy to radio the tower -Given clearance to land because of the colonel's rank -They got to land before everyone else -Bothered Roy that the colonel complained and got his way -Flew half the time during missions -One pilot flew to the destination, and he flew back to Burma -Had a friend that had delivered P-39s to the Soviet Union -Excellent pilot -Flew with him on one mission across the Himalayas -Made it to their destination and then had to take off in a rainstorm -Turned into an ice storm -Had intense turbulence and ice building up on the wings and propellers -Gradually increased their altitude to get out of the storm -Able to fly by moonlight -Got back to base, debriefed, and received two shots of medicinal whiskey -Worst flight he ever experienced (01:08:10) End of the War -Remembers dropping off cargo and picking up cargo on a routine mission -Saw an old friend from training -Didn't know it would be his last missions -Finally felt like he could handle the C-47 -Next day got sick and the flight surgeon grounded him for 30 days -In that time, the atomic bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered -Remembers hearing the news that Japan had surrendered -All of the men fired their guns into the air -Day after that command ordered the men to turn in their weapons -In September 1945 he was ordered to a hospital in Calcutta, India -Had to do sick call every day -Doctor determined that he had a fever and “allergies” -After 30 days he went to the commanding officer and requested a return to duty, or go home -Commander decided to let Roy go home (01?:11:00) Coming Home & End of Service -Went home on a hospital ship -Took 30 days to sail from India to the United States -Indian Ocean to Red Sea, through Suez Canal, across Mediterranean Sea -In the Straits of Gibraltar they ran into a bad storm and got issued lifebelts -Told that if they sank the lifebelts would be useless; they'd die in the water -The next morning he was the only man in the ship's mess hall -Everyone else was seasick -He never got seasick, or airsick -Landed at New York City -Saw the Statue of Liberty �-Greeted by the Salvation Army -Given doughnuts and real milk (as opposed to powdered milk) -Sent to a hospital in Indiana -Given 30 days of leave -Parents sent him to see a doctor in Hartford -Administered a shot of penicillin -Doctor had been a flight surgeon in North Africa with the Army Air Force -Became lifelong friends -Delivered Roy and Marion's children -A day or two later he felt much better -Marion eventually worked for the doctor as a nurse in the office -For years after the war Roy still had bouts of the illness -Most likely contracted malaria while in India or Burma -After the leave reported to Indiana with Marion -Stayed there for a week or two -Sent to Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois to get discharged in early 1946 (01:17:41) Life after the War -Came home and felt lost being a civilian -Expected perfection coming home, and it wasn't -Married to Marion for 68 years -Got married in 1947 -Marion plead to the Air Force not to call up Roy for service during the Korean War -Got his commercial pilot's license -Flew around the Hartford area -Buzzed Marion's family's house while they were still dating -Eligible for the GI Bill, and Marion encouraged him to go to college -Went to college at Western Michigan University -Lived at WMU for his first semester -GI Bill paid for his bachelor's degree and part of his master's degree -Lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan then moved back to Hartford -Write a column for the Tri-City Record -Has done it for 30, or 35 years -Thought he would only do it for a year when he started writing the column -Wanted to be an engineer -Found out he was bad at math, and the engineering job market was saturated -Found out he was good at literature and the arts and enjoyed it -Became an English teacher -Taught drafting for a while, closest he got to engineering -In 1977 he decided his students ought to keep journals -He decided to keep his journals as well -Has completed 125 journals since 1977 -Taught at Pioneer High School, St. Joseph High School, Lake Michigan College, University of Michigan -Got his doctorate at the University of Michigan and at Yale -Teaching literature and preparing English teachers -Moved back to Hartford in 1982 and still lives there (01:28:54) Marion's Nurse Training Pt. 1 -When she was a little girl her cousin was a nurse -Decided she wanted to be a nurse �-Applied for South Bend, Indiana Nurse Program at St. Joseph Hospital -Parents paid for the tuition for the first year -Became a cadet nurse in September 1943 -Meant she was a government employee -Witnessed an autopsy -Within ten days four or five girls dropped out -Issued cadet uniforms and cadet pay -Paid $15 a month -Received six months of preliminary training -Cleaned IV tubes, cleaned bed pans, made beds, cleaned syringes -Pulled general duty on the medical floor -Prepared corpses for transfer to the morgue -After a year put on night duty -Did things the older nurses were afraid to do -Wanted to get into the Navy if she was going to get into the service -Father served in the Navy and didn't have to worry about going overseas (01:35:40) Nurse Schedule -Worked seven and a half days, then got a half day off -In the summers they didn't have classes -In the winter, days started at 7 AM, classes all day, studied, and pulled duty at night -Strict regulations -In her last year of training she had to wait to the end of the year to get leave -During that leave they reconnected and started dating again (01:39:47) Marion's Nurse Training Pt. 2 -In the nursing program for three years -Dealt with a rape case from the city of South Bend -A nursing supervisor couldn't handle it and walked out -Marion remarked that a supervisor shouldn't be in charge if they can't handle that -Got in trouble for that -Came out of the nursing program more mature and more responsible -Allowed to see USO Shows -Had to do switchboard duty for the hospital one night without any training -Fortunately they didn't get many calls that night -Learned not to look down on people, no matter what they were doing -Nurse training allowed her to get a career wherever she and Roy moved (01:47:32) Contact with Roy -Hadn't heard from him for a while when he went overseas -Roy's mother thought that he was missing in action -Marion knew that he wasn't MIA until the Army officially said he was MIA -At one point hadn't heard from Roy for weeks -All of a sudden started getting old letters from Roy -Eventually received word from Roy that he was okay -She sent him a picture when he was in Burma, for morale purposes (01:50:05) Getting Married -Completed nurse program in September 1946 -Decided to wait a year after she got out of nurses training -Wanted nursing experience before starting a family -Saved her money to prepare for starting a family � 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 DavisR1914V Title A name given to the resource Davis, Roy M. and Marion (Interview outline and video), 2016 Description An account of the resource Roy Davis was born in Hartford, Michigan in 1924. He grew up in Hartford and after graduating from high school in 1942 enlisted in the Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet. He reported for duty on June 1, 1943 and began training at Sheppard Field, Texas. From there he went to Wittenberg University for College Training then went to San Antonio, Texas for Active Pre-Flight Training. He received flight training in Uvalde, Texas, and after graduating as a pilot and receiving his commission as a 2nd lieutenant he was assigned to Multi-engine Advanced Training. In Reno, Nevada he trained on the C-46 cargo plane. In late summer 1944 he deployed to the China-Burma-India Theater and was stationed at Sookerating Field in the Assam Valley of India, flying supply missions into China over the Himalayas. Three months later, after Christmas 1944, he was transferred to Myitkyina Airfield, Burma where he continued to fly supply missions until the war ended. He contracted a disease (most likely malaria) and stayed in Burma until he was transferred to Calcutta, India in September 1945 for 30 days in a hospital. In October 1945 he returned to the United States and arrived in November. He received 30 days of leave and was discharged in early 1946. Marion Davis grew up in Hartford, Michigan and in September 1943 enrolled as a cadet nurse at St. Jospeh Hospital in South Bend, Indiana. She received hands-on training on how to be a nurse and planned on joining the Navy after she completed her nursing program if the war was still going on. She completed her nursing program at St. Joseph Hospital in September 1946, and married Roy Davis in 1947. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Roy M. and Marion 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 Air Forces Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text 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/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-01-04 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives