My Father’s Memories of Being a Draftee in World War II

Introduction

As I turn into the last part of my 71st year, I’ve had an occasional memory of the time that I spent in the old Army Air Corp, during WWII. These thoughts were either the result of old age or the many newspaper articles about the 50th anniversary of the end of the great war. In any event, I shall attempt to jot down some random thoughts. This is not to be a record of great battles or heroic actions, but will attempt to portray the average GI draftee. If I have an occasional mention of some war-like action it is only to fill in details and not to inflate my part in the war.

Sherman Collins

Weeki Wachee, Florida

1995

January 1943: Paterson, New Jersey

I still remember the Sunday afternoon when the radio programs disclosed the attack on Pearl Harbor. At this time, I was still in high school and expected to graduate in January 1943, and, as usual on Sunday, I was catching up on home work which was due on Monday. Since these were the days before television, the radio was always on on Sunday to listen to the latest programs such as “Jack Benny”, “The Shadow”, etc. My family was very disturbed at the news flash, especially Mom. She was probably using her background experience and could see that I would be involved. Most of the neighbors who dropped by were predicting a short end of the war with the “Japs” and couldn’t wait until Monday when the recruiting offices for the various services opened. Patriotism was running at a fever pitch with every one wanting to join some branch of the service. The following weeks found long lines at all the recruiting offices with men from all age brackets.

On Monday following the attack, I was talking to a school friend (Ted Bush), and we began planning how to get into the navy. We were both under age and could not just sign up, but had to convince our parents that this was the only thing that mattered. Our campaigns did not bear immediate success, the typical answer was “wait until you finish school”. As the months rolled by and all the older guys (20’s) were shipped to the various camps, we became more devious and kept up the pressure on the home front. We found out that the navy would give high school certificates, if you had a certain grade point average and were at a point in your schooling that showed you would graduate. In addition, the navy would send you to school to start your college degree. This appeared to be a fool-proof method of conning my mother. So Ted and I cut class went to the local post office and visited the navy recruiter. We both passed the physical and were sent over to the huge navy office in New York City for extensive testing. Both of us passed the tests and another physical, but when they found we were both under age, we were given waiver forms for our parents to sign. With high hope, I approached Mom with my best salesmanship, I explained how I would be going to school in the navy, had been promised a nice office job on board ship and had to go before the war was over. Mom smiled took the waiver slip and promised to sign “after I finished school”. Ted had the same results when he went home.

The war effort was close to home now with army antiaircraft guns and big search lights stationed in all the city parks and surrounding hills. Soldiers lived in tents around their guns and many nights the sky was lit up with the big lights practicing. It was not uncommon to see many big army trucks speeding throughout the whole city. It seemed strange to see the trucks driving around at night with only blackout headlights showing. All cars and trucks had the top part of the headlights painted black to cut down the amount of illumination. Street lights were either turned off or had the lights reduced to a feeble glow.

Rationing had started for all the civilians, they needed coupons for butter, sugar, meat and most common food items. The food coupons were adjusted according to the type labor you performed and how essential you were to the war effort. Gasoline coupons were needed to purchase fuel; the lowest coupon was an “A” which limited you to four(4) of gallons per week but was later changed to 3 gallons. Speed limits were established at a top speed of 35 mph. Automobile tires were almost impossible to get unless you went to some one in the black market and the black market didn’t take long in coming into existence. Most things were going to the war effort, shoes were made with paper soles and didn’t last long on a rainy day. Even worse on a rainy day was the painted legs of the ladies. Silk stockings were in short supply since all silk was going into the production of parachutes, gilder tow ropes, etc. As a replacement, someone started to paint their legs but on rainy days the paint washed off or got spotted. One of the difficult things with the ladies painting their legs was the painting on of the seams. In those days all stockings had a seam down the middle of the back of the leg, and trying to imitate the real thing didn’t always look real. All complaints to all the shortages was met with the phrase “Don’t you know there’s a war on” but for the most part the general civilians were united behind all the war effort maybe because unemployment had disappeared. Prior to the war in Europe, there was a large segment of the population that did not have jobs. Women for the most part did not work outside of the home. Men would build shacks in empty fields and live in large groups but with the start of the war in Europe the Hooverville towns disappeared and jobs became available. I was sorry to see some of the men move since I would go and visit with them and listen to their stories.

Large bins were all over the towns for the collection of different type metals, in order to get a new tube of toothpaste you had to turn in the old tube. Toothpaste came in lead type tubes and could be recycled. We were told that all the normal items used by civilians were needed for the war effort, why even “Lucky Strike green had gone to war”. Blue flags began to appear in the windows of most homes, the flag would have a white star for every member serving in the service while a gold star would indicate someone had been killed. The blackout was strictly enforced with air raid wardens patrolling the streets after dark equipped with white WWI helmets and loud whistles to alert people if a shade or blackout curtains were not drawn. Many drills were held to teach the people how to react during a raid. Sirens would blow, the air raid wardens would run around shouting orders for the people to follow. The Jersey shore practiced a sort of blackout with large pieces of canvass between the boardwalk and the ocean. Schools practiced air raid drills with the students during school hours. Students had to hid under their desks or in halls. PT in the schools for the older students was the learning of close order drill to save time when you went into the service.

Later, I tried again to enlist in the navy, but this time could not pass the eye examination. So I finished high school the regular way, the war wasn’t over yet, and I had to sign up for the draft where I received a 1A rating. The draft age had been lowered to 18 years and was kept at this bracket even after the war ended. They did reduce the upper end after the war to 25 years and planned to keep drafting until all the combat troops were sent home, but of course this was announced after the war ended when all was serene except with the veterans who wanted to go home.

When I finished school in January 1943, with a 1A draft rating it was hard to find a job in any of the large defense industries since it was a law that any person drafted into the service was entitled to receive the same job back after the war with all pay increases. I shouldn’t have worried since in Feb. I received a ”greetings” letter that gave me a job. However, before we were permitted to go off to the playing field of war, the government wanted to make sure that you were in good physical condition. They sent a group of us down to the armory in Newark. One of the neighborhood fellows also had to go down the same day, so we stayed together during the trip.

The Newark armory was a huge building with lots of army personnel shouting at you. First we filled out many different forms, learned how to say “yes SIR” and had our first government meal, lunch was hot dogs and beans. After lunch the physicals started. At this time we were all lined up, told to disrobe except for shoes and carry all our clothes with us. Most of the fellows there had probably never been completely naked before a large group and had a hard time trying to appear nonchalant. I only had one experience of being naked before a crowd. This occurred during Y swim lessons when everyone had to go swimming without suits. This building as I mentioned was a very large place and in February was not very warm, so everyone could hide behind their goosebumps. Still with the neighborhood fellow, we stood in line back to front trying not to touch the one in front. At the time I was 5’8” tall and weighed 123 lbs., the other guy was 6’3” and weighed in at 93 lbs. I looked great standing next to him. He ending up getting a 4F classification, while I was 1A. The lucky winners were given a short furlough, sent home and told to get ready to go for basic training.

FORT DIX, New Jersey

Day 1

The day finally arrived when a large bus pulled up to the curb and all the neighborhood guys climbed aboard. We went down to Newark and became members of the Army. Almost none of this group had ever been away from home and when we arrived at the huge armory we were given our first army meal of hotdogs and beans, then were put in a long line to begin the processing. At this stage it was mainly paper work under the friendly eye of a PFC. After being lulled with this routine, we bused down to Fort Dix, where it all changed.

Clutching a large envelope with all my records, we joined a huge mass of other confused young draftees. Forming long lines we learned how to count off into groups of ten. Being number ten in this group, I was assigned to a tent that held ten cots. The last one in(me) got the cot next to the door so that when anyone opened the door a cold blast of air would refresh me that, is when the snow wasn’t blowing in. The tent was equipped with a small potbellied stove in the center of the tent which provided the warmth if you remembered to keep it fueled. We did have one guy who was so homesick that he stayed up all night, crying and kept the stove going. So ended the first day in the army, homesick, cold, wet, confused and without the foggiest idea of what the next day would bring.

DAY 2:

I found out that they (army) still used bugles to wake the troops, along with loud-mouthed sergeants. Our drill instructor proceeded to intimidate the new recruits, running us in formation to breakfast and then off to a full day of getting more physicals along with many different shots. Again you lined up in the buff and were passed from one person to the next; while you were watching the guy on your left who was holding a needle, the opposite side was sticking you and vise-versa. We were then given our army clothes, which were heavy woolen pants, shirts, long underwear and a bag to hold the extras. Shoe size was determined by having you lift two pails full of sand and your size was selected then. So loaded down with much gear, clothes, rifle, gas mask, and heavy overcoat, we retired to our cozy tent where everyone promptly put on their long woolen underwear and tried to get warm. Each one there had an opinion of where we would end up, with most believing some cold spot like Alaska or Greenland. So ended day 2 with us already beginning to feel like veterans.

Day 3 found us back to the hurry-up routine. We began more paper work and a long series of tests. The IQ examination was a breeze for a recent high school graduate(135), but the radio man’s test was a complete disaster. I had never listened to code before and quickly fell behind in translating the dots and dashes. The mechanical part went smoothly with all parts a breeze, even though I had never done any mechanical work before I ended up with a score of 115. During one of the phases of this day’s testing I was asked what area of the army I preferred to serve in. After much thought and figuring that the infantry would be getting the latest recruits, and since I didn’t feel like doing a lot of hiking, I selected the tank corp. This seemed like a good choice, since I would be riding most of the time and inside a lot of protective iron walls.

The next several days passed quickly, much like the first two except we were now involved with drilling, marching and policing up the area. Finally, a formation was called, and we were called out to prepare to ship out for basic training. We boarded a train, found a seat with our now close buddies, hooted out the train window, “you’ll be sorry,” at all the new confused recruits as they shuffled by. The train left Fort Dix and started south, we all heard rumors of our final destination but why go south with all the heavy winter clothing? I was certain that we would end up in Fort Benning, Georgia since this was the training school for the tank corp. After many days and many more rumors, we kept passing one site after another until one morning we began to see palm trees, but the train still headed south. Finally the train stopped in the freight yards of a large town; shouting out the window to some local workers, we found that we were in Miami, Fl. Very few could believe our good fortune, since Miami Beach was the basic training school for the Army Air Corp. We expected the train to begin traveling to some other location, but soon were taken off the train, loaded on trucks and taken to the southern end of Miami Beach hotel area. Hotels along the beach front and across the street were mainly occupied by green troops, with some civilian hotels intermixed with the government hotels. These rooms were not air conditioned and had from 4 to 6 guys in each room. Room assignments were given, and we were told the first project was to remove all the black paint that had been applied over the brass buckles and buttons of our uniforms. So much for the winter clothing, which was turned in for lighter weight tropical uniforms, Miami in March was hot.

More processing followed, we were assigned to squadrons and flights and our training started to develop us into soldiers. We learned how to march or double time while singing at the top of our lungs; how to shoot the old WWI rifles, machine guns, how to avoid sunburn and how to goof off. It wasn’t long till I found out that if you claimed you didn’t know how to swim, you could go into the surf for swim lessons instead of taking calisthenics, which I did. Of course, if the beach was littered with Portuguese men-of-war or they were floating in the water it was better to forget the swimming lessons.

Every morning each hotel looked like an ant hill. Troops would run out and fall into formation in the center of the street. Each squadron would try to outshout the rest of the troops, all you could hear up and down the beach was much noise as roll call was taken. Then down the center of the street each squadron would double time to the mess hall, singing at the loudest pitch. If you were not loud enough, the DI would take you for an extra mile or two before breakfast. After breakfast we went to Collins Park for calisthenics or swim lessons.

These 13 weeks passed quickly, I made friends with lots of guys, some have remained friends after all these years. Pete Casteline is still a close friend (Note the C). It seems at this time all my friends had names ending in B or C. We still correspond with Jerry Cohen, John Brady, Bob Canavan, etc.

After our allotted basic training time, we received shipping orders to various schools. Some went to flight school, some to radio school, some washed out and ended in the infantry or the MP’s. I received orders to go to Sheppard Field, Wichita Falls,Texas, to attend mechanics school.

Sheppard Field, Wichita Falls, Texas

After a long train ride, arrival at the school was welcomed. This was a complete change from the Miami Beach Hotel area. Sheppard Field was a permanent flight school with airstrips, hangers and mechanics courses held in the hangers. I expected to be an aircraft mechanic, but was assigned to glider mechanic school.

The barracks were large two story affairs, again without air conditioning. West Texas in June, July and August did get a little warm. The long rooms were equipped with double decked bunk beds approximately 24” apart with room for a foot locker at the foot of the bottom bunk. We had frequent inspections of the foot locker and the tightness of the bed blanket cover. If a quarter couldn’t be bounced high enough off the bed, the DI would give you demerits. With or without demerits, we still had latrine duty or washing the barrack’s floor with a tooth brush. Any infraction of the rules by a single person would cause the whole group to have some punishment. I suppose this was so that the whole group would watch each other for infractions. Each barrack was in competition against other barracks with the winners getting a pass to town or to the post movies. This is where I first encountered the early morning “short arm” inspections, where you would be rousted out of bed at 2,3 or 4 am, get dressed in raincoat, shoes and helmet liner and stand in formation outside the barracks for inspection (“skin it back and milk it down”). I never did figure out why we needed helmet liners. Between these inspections and the VD movies, we began to learn about life.

We soon started school but only after receiving additional shots to keep us healthy. Life became a routine thing, calisthenics in the morning or a 5 mile run wearing full packs and then off to school. Meals became a bore since we had to consume pork for each meal for over three weeks. This was a learning time for hands and head. The hands-on part was learning how to use large sewing machines and wood working tools since the gliders were made of wood and cloth. We found out that the glider mechanics were considered to be co-pilots on these flying boxes with wings even though they didn’t know how to fly the thing but would go along for the ride.

School also was learning how to use some of our equipment, and how to identify our airplanes along with the enemy’s. This wasn’t always easy since some of the planes were quite similar. We would sit in a large dark room and black shadow pictures of enemy and friendly aircraft were flashed for a second on a screen and we had to properly identify each one. The lessons in how to use a gas mask were interesting, one day we had to gain confidence in the mask and were taken inside a windowless building that was full of tear gas. When the instructor told us that all was clear and to take off the mask I noticed that he kept his on so I kept mine on. The rest learned that you test the air before removing mask and don’t take anyone’s word that no gas is present.

I also learned not to be the first one out on the calisthenics field and the obstacle course. I learned this by being the first one to arrive at a large pit of muddy water which we were supposed to swing across, however the rope was hanging dead center and not moving so with a mighty leap I jumped and grabbed the rope but could not get it to swing enough to reach the sides. After several attempts to swing up to the edge, I slipped off the rope into the muddy waist deep water and became the laughing stock of the entire crew. The DI sent me back to the barracks to change while the rest of the guys finished several hours of fun and games out in the hot sun. The next time several more people dropped into the muddy water but had to finish the course in wet dirty clothes.

Near the end of our school term, a severe hail storm hit an advanced flight school near Lubbock, Texas. Some of the more advanced students were sent to this field to repair the damaged planes, I was lucky enough to go on the assignment. We were sent by bus and given a box lunch to enjoy on the way. The bus made a stop in the small town of Benjamin, Texas just at lunch time, and in front of the town hall. Several of the female employees were eating on the front lawn and invited me to share their brown bag lunch, While I didn’t take any of their lunch, their friendly offer greatly impressed me with southern belles.

The environment at the advanced flight school was quite different than at the school training field. We got away from the pork diet and began to see how the other half lived. PX’s with ice cream, candy, books, etc. Curfew was forgotten, passes for town were given and life in general was good. This was where I had my first airplane ride. One afternoon I was walking on the airstrip looking at the planes when 2 pilots started to preflight a two engine plane. They stopped to talk to me and told me that they were getting ready to do some local flying. They assumed that I was one of the base mechanics and asked me to stand by as a fire watch while they started the engines. I explained that I had never done that before and wasn’t quite sure what to do. They called a nearby mechanic to fire watch. I asked if I could go for a ride with them and they agreed. It was a lot of fun to climb into the back seat of this plane and fly above the clouds. It made quite an impression at the time and whetted my desire for more flying.

The few weeks speed by and we had to return to the old school grind but now nearly finished and looked up to by the other students since we had “field experience”. Upon completion of the course, we were divided up for different areas. The “luck of the draw” saved me again since the back half of our class was assigned to go to Africa. Much later I heard that this group had been part of the ill-fated glider flight to Italy that had been mistakenly dropped in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with complete loss of life for all the troops aboard the 200 gliders, including the group that I went to school with.

I was not aware of the “luck of the draw” that the army used and which served me well during my years of service. It would appear that when there was a group of soldiers involved with anything that required separation and assignment, they just looked at the roster and divided the required number by what was handy(usually the alphabet). Since I was listed in the C column(Collins), I usually was near the front in being picked (this worked for KP, guard duty, and dirty jobs too).

As you can see, I have been blessed in being in the right place or not being in my normal spot several times during my years.

Completion of school made us all privates except for Carl Bussy. Since Carl was the old man of the group, he was made a PFC and put in charge of the group shipment to our advanced basic training or overseas training. Carl had enlisted for the service while he was in his thirties, married and with several children and very determined to serve his country. However, this fine group of high spirted young soldiers were put on a single railroad car which was very old with pot-bellied stove, straw seats and windows that were either missing or wouldn’t open with much dirt on the unbroken windows. We were not told where we were going, but Carl had a huge envelope with all our records and we thought our destination. For several weeks this railroad car was shifted all over the southern half of the country. We would be put in a siding and forgotten about for days. For food we would jump out of the car and go to some local restaurant where they usually gave us a free meal. Dirty, smelly and not too happy we made one stop in Greensboro, NC and were able to go to the local YMCA for showers and food. We finally ended our journey in Goldsboro, NC at Seymour Johnson Field.

Advanced training seemed like the same old stuff; fall out early every morning, march to breakfast and then off to a hot drill field or obstacle course. Several times I noticed that Jerry Cohen would line up at the very end of the formation, but always was missing at the drill field. The next time I lined up next to Jerry and when he marched into the PX as we were going by it, I followed him inside. Jerry explained that he didn’t like the hot drill field or getting up early, so he would stay in the PX have breakfast, lunch and rejoin the squad as they marched by in the afternoon. This seemed like a good thing to do so I joined Jerry in the mornings. We were still under curfew in the evening and could not leave our area. In order to enforce this rule, guards were posted around the sides of the block. The guards carried guns but no bullets. This worked fine until a squadron that was rotated from overseas moved into the barracks next to us and promptly had all the guards removed from their side of the block. With this easy short cut, most of the fellows would sneak off to the movies or PX.

Life became a routine again learning how to use our rifles or machine guns. Everyone had to qualify on the rifle range or be washed out and shipped to some unknown group. I was selected to be an instructor because I qualified early. If you had a friend that hadn’t qualified and was having trouble shooting a decent score, a message to the guys in the pits would soon fix that problem. Every one had to spend some time in the target pits. In this area you had to raise the targets, mark the areas that had bullet holes, patch the holes and signal to the shooters what their score was. You learned to keep your head down during the shooting and hesitated to lift you head above ground level when they announced that the firing was finished. Somebody always missed the order to stop shooting and there were frequent wild shots. It was fun to find the permanent party hot shot instructors were going to shoot, then you made sure that they had a lot of misses by waving a red flag (maggie’s drawers) after each shoot.

We suspected that our training was coming to end when 3 day passes were given out. We were told not to exceed a short distance from the camp but promptly went down to the railroad station to go home. No trains were scheduled to stop for a day or so but the local agent flagged down the 20th Century Express so we could go up to the NY area. The train was completely full not a seat to be had but the conductor permitted us to sleep in the aisles and the passengers didn’t seem to object to stepping over us. Catching a bus from NY Grand Central Station to Passaic, NJ, I was in Passaic waiting for a local bus to go to Paterson when a car stopped and offered to drive me home. People were very friendly to soldiers in uniform during the war. All too quickly the time to return arrived and I left by bus for NY and the camp.

What we suspected about shipping out proved correct, we were assembled and taken to a troop train. This was the longest train I have ever seen with passenger cars on the ends, cook car in the middle and several engines attached to the front. Going thru the Rocky mountains, on some of the curves, there were times when you could look out the side window and see both ends of the train. All our gear was packed on one end of the car and we all took chair seats. These seats proved to be our home for the next 10 days, we slept in them, went to the cook car and picked up our food in our mess kits and returned to eat in our seats. Long lines were the norm for the limited bathrooms or food line. Being experienced soldiers at this time, you spent the time sleeping or playing cards. After a long ride we arrived in Camp Stoneman, Pittsburg, CA.

October 1943: Camp Stoneman, Pittsburg, California

Camp Stoneman was a shipping out camp(POE) for the Pacific theater. We went into the routine of drilling, obstacle courses. The obstacle courses were generally 2–3 miles long with many deep pits to swing across, high walls to climb, ropes to climb, belly crawls under low wires and in some camps fixed guns fired live ammunition just above the wires so that you didn’t cheat by getting up.

We received special training on shipboard life. We learned all about blackouts on board ship; that no fresh water was available for showers and that the only soap that would work in salt water was Lava. Lava took the skin off when rubbed too hard and would not lather up but did remove the dirt. Tales of sunken ships circulated the camp because some one was careless about something. We learned how to climb cargo nets that were suspended from great heights. We were told that this would enable us to disembark from the ships when we got to the end of our cruise. Climbing down those nets with two large duffel bags, rifle, gas mask and dressed in heavy duty fatigues didn’t sem like the proper way to visit a new country. Several guys froze at the top and couldn’t get down by themselves, we never saw them after their failure. Carl Bussy injured his hand and got a severe infection, the medics were going to put him in the hospital and not ship him with the rest of us. Carl raised such a fuss that they permitted him to train with us on a light duty basis and finally said he could go with his squad.

San Francisco in November was a cold, wet, foggy and miserable place, but did have good restaurants and friendly people. We were able to visit San Francisco by bus instead of going into the closer city of Pittsburg which had hundreds of bars, call girls and not much else. While on base we could take in a movie and once a touring USO troop did put on a show for the departing troops.

After making wills, church services and many dire warnings about girls, the day arrived for our departure. Again the “luck of the draw” came into play, I was selected for KP for the entire trip aboard ship. The lucky winners went aboard first, and were assigned their bunks. The sleeping arrangements were very close quarters. The beds were canvass over a pipe frame and were so close that you could not sleep on your side without hitting the bunk above you. These ran from the bottom floor to the floor above you and required the one on top to climb from bunk to bunk in order to get in their bed. Barrack bags were kept in your bunk when you weren’t sleeping and at night you shared the bottom with your bags or if you were near the floor they could be placed in the aisle.

November 22, 1943

We were immediately put to work in the mess hall. I was assigned to the day shift and so did not see the rest of the troops loaded on the ship, nor did I see us leaving the dock or going under the Golden Gate Bridge. The first I was aware that we had left was when the ship started to roll as I was serving the lunch meal and people started to become seasick at their tables. Returning to my bunk after work, I took a short cut thru the head(bathroom), a very large room with many rows of toilet bowls and sinks. Upon entering I noticed that all the utensils were full and that the floor had several inches of vomit rolling across it as the ship rolled and pitched. Since this sight and smell didn’t cause me to become sick, I figured I would survive the trip. The ship was one of the Liberty type that were put together in a hurry, we went across the ocean rolling, and pitching but no zigzagging since we were all by ourselves. Pete C reminded me that the name of the ship was “Sea Snipe”, I had forgotten the name either to forget the long trips or because I never did see it in daylight. Some claimed because we were too slow to keep up with a convoy or that we were going to a secret invasion spot. Gun drills kept us busy, shooting rifles over the stern at make believe targets or watching the antiaircraft gun crews have dry runs. Smoking was permitted during daylight hours on deck but banned at night because the “enemy could see the lighted butt for many miles and track the ship”. The green troops were taken in hand by the merchant marine crew as we were crossing the equator, we graduated from pollywogs up to King Neptune’s servants. The hazing did help to break up the boredom of the trip for the ones that didn’t have any work to do. No one was hurt during the ceremony just messed up with paint, wigs, and greatly embarrassed by the crazy costumes.

After our ~18 day cruise, with KP every day and some wild rumors about submarines, we arrived at Brisbane, Australia during the dark of the night. When the anchor was dropped it hit the side of the ship with a loud bang and rattle; this created a near panic among the sleeping troops. They boiled out of the holds afraid that we had been torpedoed and were surprised to see a brightly lighted large city. It seemed strange that the coast area in the states were under blackout rules while the Australian coast cities that had been bombed and shelled from submarines did not observe any blackouts.

December 1943

Unloading from the ship ended my tour of KP which now looks like it was a good way to keep busy during the trip and did result in lots of extra food items as well as trading material. I made friends with the guys working the cold storage locker and we traded their apples or oranges for the supplies that I could get , such as ice cream, etc.

The air corp troops were separated from the other GI’s aboard ship and were taken to Camp Muckly just outside of Brisbane. More shots were given, all our old equipment was taken from us and we were given passes to see the town. A few of us caught a tram to sightsee. Not being familiar with Australian money, we held a hand full of different sized coins to the conductor and let her pick out the correct fare. She was very helpful to us Yanks and took each coin, named it, and what it’s value was.

It was strange to find yourself in a country where all the young and middle aged men were off to war and all the heavy work taken over by women(remember it was in the 40’s before women’s lib). The local movies were held in the evening, outside with hard benches to sit on. This was the first time I saw advertising displayed on the movie screen. Hours for the pubs were limited and they did not require ID. I guess they felt that if you could fight that you could drink their warm beer. Street signs and other signs were hard to decipher with their strange wording. Example: Weight machines were in front of many stores where you could drop in a coin and get your weight but it gave the weight in “stones” instead of pounds. The local cars, buses, etc. had charcoal burners on the back to provide power or big bags on the roofs that contained natural gas to fuel the engines.

Two Weeks at Brisbane then onto Townsville, Queensland, Australia

At Camp Muckly, after more processing our group was split into smaller segments and assigned to various units. I was assigned to the 6th squadron of the 374 Troop Carrier Group, 5th Air Force. Later on the 5th Air Force combined with the 13th and was called the Far East Air Force (FEAF). Members of each air corp were permitted to wear both arm patches for identification. The 374th group contained 4 different squadrons and were based in 2 different areas. This squadron had just been pulled back from New Guinea, some of the other units were also taken out of the battle and assigned to duty in Australia, but continued flying into New Guinea. It was feared that New Guinea would be taken by the Japanese since an intense battle was being fought in the Port Moresby and Stanley Mountains by the Australian troops. This was about the last barrier between the Japanese and Australia.

Let me briefly give some background data on the 6th Squadron starting with their early background and progressing up to the end of the war.

October 1, 1933 6th Transport Squadron formed. activated on October 14, 1939. Redesignated 6th Troop Carrier Squadron July 1942 and the 6th Troop Carrier Squadron (Heavy) May 21, 1948.

Assignments: 10th Transport Group October 14, 1939; 60th Transport Group, December 1, 1940; 61st Transport Group May 19, 1941; 315 Transport Group March 1942; 63d Transport (later Troop Carrier) Group June 1942; 374 Troop Carrier Group November 12, 1942; 403rd Troop Group May 15, 1946; 374th Troop Carrier Group October 15, 1946; 1503 Air Transport Wing November 18, 1958.

Stations: Olmsted Field, Pa. October 1939; Camp Williams, Wisconsin March 23, 1942; Dodd Field Texas September 16–23, 1942;Port Moresby, New Guinea October 13, 1942; Garbutt Field, Townsville, Australia October 2, 1943; Nadzab, New Guinea ~ August 26, 1944; Biak Netherland East Indies~ October 20, 1944; Tacloban, Leyte March 12, 1945; Nielson Field, Luzon May 10 1946; Okinawa June 10, 1946; Tachikawa, Japan April 13, 1947; Harmon Field, Guam December 1, 1947; Tachikawa, Japan March 5, 1949.

Campaigns:World War II: Offensive, Japan; Papua; New Guinea; Northern Solomons; Bismark Archipelago; Western Pacific; Leyte; Luzon; Southern Philippines.

Decorations: Distinguished Unit Citations: Papua, October 1942-January 23, 1943; Papua November 12, 1942-December 22, 1942; Wau New Guinea January 30, 1943-February 1, 1943; Philippine Presidential Unit Citation.

The above dates for moves and stations were the official dates that the squadron was transferred to their new stations and do not reflect the actual dates that their personnel were operating from these stations.

At this time the 6th squadron was the most heavily decorated unit in the Pacific operations. They had been one of the first units into combat and needed rest and new equipment. Some of the older members were due to be relocated back to the states and they needed replacements to take their place. The squadron had flown their C-47’s as a unit from the states to Australia and into combat in New Guinea. The group’s squadrons were currently located in Brisbane and in Townsville. Townsville was located north of Brisbane. I was shipped north by train to join them in Townsville on Christmas Day 1943.

Our arrival at the 6th was the first replacements received, we were greeted as “the kids” since most of us were in our teens and they were all in their 20’s or even 30’s. Christmas Day had been a party day for them and no one was in a mood to entertain green kids. However, we were given our tents to live in, which were the barest of necessities with cots and netting. (Note: the entire time spent overseas, I lived in tents, some good many not so good, the mess hall was a large tent with long tables and benches, the latrine (outhouse) was at best a tent with half a drum that was emptied when full or a large clump of bushes, while the showers were outside and sometimes had a wing fuel tank that was filled with water by buckets, heated by the sun and dribbled out from a homemade shower head.) It took a short while for us to make the tent more like home. Tents became a way of life the entire time that I spent overseas. The squadron only had tents for sleeping, eating and open air showers when they were available but rivers or ocean were used for bathing, swimming and washing clothes. All repair work on the planes was performed on the flight line under the baking sun.

I was assigned to be a flight line mechanic, but since I had never seen an engine before had to learn on the job. The old-timers were great teachers and showed us how to get covered with oil when changing oil filters, but if we didn’t get too mad they accepted us as part of their group. This was where I learned to drive. Shortly after we arrived, another greenhorn and myself were given the last shift on guard duty at the airstrip. The OD picked us up drove us to the airfield, picked up the old guard and gave us our orders. We were to patrol the entire airstrip in a jeep and shoot anyone who came close to the planes. We were informed that many Japanese lived in these parts and would sneak onto the field to destroy the planes. This was the first time we had been given loaded guns on guard duty. After the OD left, I looked at the other guy and told him that he had to drive since I had never driven a car. He informed me that he didn’t even know how to start a car.

It was one of the fastest periods of guard duty that I ever had. All night long I practiced driving in and around the planes and when dawn came, we returned the jeep back to the motor pool at camp. The only problem was that we learned to drive in Australia and they drive on the opposite side of the road.

Quickly learning how to perform the basic type of mechanical checks and preventive maintenance items with the assistance given by the old-timers I felt like I would be able to someday be able to keep a plane flying on my own. We would work from early morning until dark. The work area was outside on the flight line, rain or shine. We were supposed to dress to protect ourselves from the sun but almost everyone would only wear a pair of cut off-shorts, a long billed cap and shoes. At this time I had been exposed to the tropics for almost a full year and was quite tan except for the covered areas. We were required to take a daily tablet of Atabrine to prevent malaria, this medication would turn the skin a bright yellow where it wasn’t tan. It was quite a sight to see the different colors while in the community shower.

We would work 7 days a week, no time off for holidays or other reasons. Since we were skilled personnel in a war zone, we did not have any drilling, calisthenics, or obstacle courses to run. Most of us didn’t perform any KP or clean-up duties, but did pull guard duty as well as your regular work. You could be up doing guard duty all night and then have to work on the flight line all day. Flying crews rarely pulled guard duty when scheduled for flight duty.

In the evenings, we had outdoor movies and a rare stage show from a touring USO troop. The movies were held under the stars and were usually old, worn and lots of bugs present. The best part was the showing of the armed forces newsreels. These were not shown to the civilians because they were quite graphic with killed, wounded and damaged airplanes or ships shown but you got a good feel for the state of the war. The mess hall was converted into a card room after chow with gambling going on most of the night. This was one of the few places that had electric lights, bench seats and sometimes snacks left over from supper. This was a good place to write your V-mail letters. The postal service gave each soldier franking privileges so that they could send airmail letters by putting “free” in place of a stamp. V-mail were single sheets of paper that were written on one side, folded and addressed. These were then taken and photographed, reduced in size, shipped and then reassembled back to the original size. Of course, everything we wrote went though censors. I was told that mine were generally badly cut up. Any thing you put in the mail was looked at and if the censor could use it they would put in a note that “for the good of the war effort” it had been taken but would be returned after the war. I’m still waiting for many Japanese items that were seized.

As with all army life, you learned the routine and how to survive without complete boredom. Time passed quickly and I was becoming a much better mechanic. One day on the flight line a plane was getting a late start, I asked if I could go with them. Their mission was a short flight to the upper part of Australia to a radar station called Mitchell River Mission. The Australian crew stationed there received all their supplies by air every several months and had very little contact with the outside world. We would take extra items such as ice cream, books and whatever we could steal. I was permitted to join the crew on this flight (my 2nd flight) and was surprised when we landed in a grass covered field. The Australian crew was very pleased to see outsiders, receive their supplies and other goodies. They liked to talk to outsiders and find out what was going on in the different regions.

The flight engineer, on this flight showed me the duties that he performed before, during and after the mission. He must have reported my interest because shortly after I was asked to begin training. Training consisted of a couple of local flights with an experienced flight engineer. Since flight crews were in short supply, I was placed on flying status. In fact on my first flight, the rest of the flight crew were standing around for 30 minutes when the pilot remarked that the engineer didn’t show up and they might have to send for another. I told him that I was their engineer, had preflighted the plane and was waiting for them to take off.

The flight engineer had to get up before the rest of the crew, usually around 3 or 4 am, have breakfast and go down to the aircraft. Once there, he performed a preflight inspection of the plane, started the engines to check their operation, fueled the plane for the flight’s distance and checked the load for weight and correct tie-down. The flight engineer then had to sign the mechanical log so that the plane could fly. If he didn’t sign the log or listed any problems with the plane, no one else could over rule the grounding until he signed that all problems had been fixed. Minor mechanical problems were ignored since planes were in short supply and everything with wings and an engine would be assigned to flying status.

Each plane had several inflatable life rafts in the rear opposite the doors, extra jerry cans of water and some rations in the rear storage compartment. Enough parachutes and Mae Wests (life jackets) for the crew were also in the rear area, along with a small first aid kit.

The cockpit had the normal two seats for the pilot and co-pilot. The radioman had a small area on the right side of the plane near the door that separated the cargo area from the cockpit. The flight engineers had a stool (no seat belt) opposite the radioman and a small table. A small compartment behind the co-pilot was used for storage of our guns(1-Thompson machine gun and each crew members 45 ca. pistol in a shoulder holster) and other items such as extra parts and tools. During take off and landings the flight engineer stood between the pilots, watched the instruments, worked the wobble pump (fuel pump) and raised or lowered the landing gear.

The cargo compartment was equipped with metal bucket bench seats that lined the two outer walls and had room for 24 people. A metal static line was on the right side(facing the rear) near the top of the plane and was used to open parachutes when troops were dropped. Two large doors were in the rear of the plane. These doors would be used to load bulky cargo. The door closest to the front of the plane would be left off when carrying paratroopers or if on a drop mission. The paratroopers would line up near the door with the jumpmaster watching the signal light that the pilot controlled. When the light went from red to orange to green, he would send the guys out the door. Lots of times the last one in line pushed them out. They didn’t have to pull their chute’s rip cord since the steel cable along the roof of the plane, had their cords attached. After they jumped and fell a short distance the cord would be pulled by the steel cable. Usually 20 paratroopers were carried, it took less than a minute for them to jump(pushed) from the plane. On drop missions, the cargo was pushed out the door as you were flying ~2/300 feet above the ground although many drops were made only 100 feet above the ground sometimes in valleys the trees were above the plane. The plane slowed to almost stall speed with flaps part way down and made a very nice big target for small arms fire. The Australians were very brave(?) doing this and would clown around by pushing some of the crew out to the edge of the open door. Most of the regular flight engineers would have a rope tied around their waist and attached to the bulkhead opposite the open door. You had to be crazy to stand in front of the door and not be tied down since the suction was quite strong.

The crew normally consisted of the pilot, co-pilot, radio man and the flight engineer. On very rare occasions we would sometimes have a navigator included as a crew member. The flight engineer was the only permanent person that was assigned to one plane; the others were rotated among all the planes. We were supposed to have two flight engineers to each plane so that one would fly every other day but a shortage of personnel washed out that schedule. At this time the 6th squadron was flying Douglas C-47 type airplanes with different models mixed in. Most of the planes were not equipped with oxygen and could not fly too high. The flights that I was involved with would normally fly from 5000 to 8000 feet but on occasion we would go higher for a short period of time or till the altitude got to us. Most of our planes would cruise in the 125–130 mph range when loaded but a couple of the planes were equipped with different type props and could exceed 150 mph. The fuel was held in wing tanks, 2 per wing and held a total of 800 gallons of high octane fuel. This would usually permit a 15 /16 hour flight.

Shortly, I found myself assigned to a plane and starting to fly almost every day. Starting with local flights around the northern Queensland area, we would fly over the western outback area which was rough terrain with mountains and many deep canyons mixed with desert type areas. The Australians had many early warning sites along the north coast which had to be supplied from the air.

The day began long before dawn and usually ended after dark. Normal flights at this time would be to supply combat troops in New Guinea with any type item that would fit into the plane, such things as rations, ammunition, medical supplies, whole blood, replacement troops, etc. The planes would land in small grass jungle strips, unload their cargo, reload with wounded combat troops and return to the closest friendly field. Some trips would supply the troops by dropping supplies out the rear cargo doors while flying about 200 feet above the jungle trees. It was not uncommon to deliver troops to one end of the airfield flying in over the Japanese who held the opposite end of the runway. The replacement troops would charge out of the plane, guns ready to fire and dash into friendly foxholes, the following trip would sometimes pick up the same fellows who had been delivered earlier and been wounded. All this was happening with in gun shot range of the enemy who didn’t make you feel at home.

During Easter week 1944 (which is their summer), I was given a 7- day furlough and was able to go to Sidney, since our squadron had planes flying into this city. Easter is almost a national holiday in Australia with most business closed for a week. The local citizens spent their holiday at the beach or at the local parks. I was staying at a small hotel near Hyde Park and would wander thru the park trying to impress all the girls who were sunning themselves on blankets on the grass. One day I heard a loud commotion and saw some people chasing a fellow across the lawn towards me. Being young, immortal and still trying to impress some Australian Army women, I grabbed the guy as he got close to me and knocked him to the ground. Shortly, a policeman arrived and took the guy away to jail. He had robbed somebody on the other side of the park, but didn’t count on the “Yanks” getting in the way. It was my first furlough and was most enjoyable being able to go to restaurants, good beaches (even with their sharks), and learning how to talk without swearing.

Early 1944

The Australian troops had turned back the Japanese invaders at Port Morsby and started to recapture more sections of New Guinea with the help of the US soldiers. It was during the battle for New Guinea that I was transferred up to Lea and Nadzab, NG. This was a temporary assignment with some of our mechanics, cooks and flight crews moved up there while our main base was still in Townsville. This lasted for several months. We could now fly to more northern areas with less flying time and quicker turnaround time. It was while at the Lea field that I established the record for the most number of people to have ridden in a jeep at one time. On a rare day off from flying(not from work), I drove a jeep down to the strip to pick up some guys for supper, as I picked some up, more and more kept climbing into and on top of the jeep until it contained 26 men. I could not see but could steer with some shouted assistance and could work the clutch and brakes. We had people sitting on the hood, on my left, right and on top of me.

It was during my stay in this area that I started to write to Audrey. At first it was just idle curiosity about her and something to do but soon the feelings developed into friendship and beyond. This was probably the biggest advantage to having been drafted into the service and sent overseas. Without going into the service I would never have met her.

Life in this area was a learning process, you learned to put small flat cans under each cot leg and keep the cans filled with water in order to prevent the ants from chewing you up at night. I found this out the hard way when I RON’ed (remained over night) at a transit camp and forgot to check the cans and fed the ants during the night. Everyone used mosquito netting suspended over their cot. The net was the same shape as your cot and you had to tuck all the hanging edges inside to keep out the mosquitoes, and made sure that nothing dangled down to touch the floor other wise all kinds of creatures found their way into your bed. Shoes were not laid on the floor if possible, but placed in the “V” leg support of your cot, but every morning the shoes were shaken out to check for visitors.Clothes were never laid down on the ground, but taken inside your netting or placed on top. Huge spiders roamed all over the area and would march thru your tent up and over your cot. They followed a straight line and would not be turned aside. You learned to eat using one hand. Our mess tent was unscreened and was the favorite hang out for flies; the flies were so numerous that they would try to climb into your mouth, eyes and ears as you were eating. The jungle was very hard on leather watch straps. A strap would last about 30 days before it fell apart on your arm. The sheet metal mechanics had a good side line by making stainless steel watch bands that lasted until the rivets wore out, and the rivet could be replaced with little effort.

It was here that I began to see more of the New Guinea natives. The people were very dark colored, not too tall and kept to themselves in their local hut villages. They coated themselves with an oily material possibly coconut oil which after a time began to stink. This may have been to keep off the bugs but it also keep everyone else at a distance. They would chew a local bean(betel-nut) which turned their teeth black, and would make a very strong drink by putting a hole in a coconut, adding something, then plugging the hole and waiting for the milk to ferment. The coconuts were still growing on the trees, and they would run up the trees like it had stairs. I never did taste the drink since it had a terrible sulfur odor. Their sanitary habits were straight out of the jungle, when they had to urinate they would stop where ever they were and do their duty. The women would stand straight up while the men would squat. We were told to avoid them but they would hang around our tent area and take what wasn’t tied down. The natives that were located further inland were head-hunters and were working for both the Japanese and the American’s. They were paid for killing the Japanese and could claim their reward by turning in an ear but it was soon found out that they were collecting twice for the same person, so the bounty was changed to two ears rather than one. They didn’t care who the killed in order to collect the reward, so the Allied forces promised a bigger reward for downed airmen that were returned alive to the right side. Most flyers did not want to come down in the jungle because of the danger of the native’s business methods but you didn’t always have a choice.

Lea airstrip was directly on the edge of the ocean with a large Japanese ship(Tenu Maru ?) beached at the end of the strip. It had been bombed by our planes and had to come ashore or sink in the ocean. Our planes would take off over the ocean, starting their take-off from the jungle side and over a small embankment at the waters edge. The embankment dropped about ten feet to the ocean. This was the airfield that was the last stop for Amelia Earhart on her trip around the world before she disappeared. Nadzab was located in the same area but further inland, and didn’t have the ocean breezes. We first went into Lea, then to Nadzab, and for a short time into a jungle strip near Nadzab. I believe the strip was Dobodura but with the passage of time the name eludes me.

The time at the jungle strip was spent with several other troop carriers squadrons of our group. We were training with paratroopers and the good old CG-4A gliders that I trained on in Texas. Some large mission was in the planning stage, and we were learning how to snatch gliders off the ground or take off towing one or even two gliders. One of our planes was lost due to a ground fire, it couldn’t be towed away due to the safeties on the rear tail wheel. The planes had a shaft sticking out each side of the tail wheel that a tow bar could be hooked up, and towed with a tractor. However, when you were dropping parachutists these tail towing hooks were covered with caps so that the parachutist would not catch on the tow hooks. This happened during the glider training mission while we were dropping paratroopers, but they were able to cut their lines and use their spare chute. This temporary duty didn’t last very long before all the squadrons returned to normal duty. It was nice at this camp since there was a small river flowing thru that we could go swimming in, and the river had lots of small gold flakes on the bottom. Several miles above the camp was a gold mining dredge that was not being used due to the war. This same area is where Bob Canavan’s hair turned white over-nite. He had been sleeping in the back of a transport plane when we were coming in to land at the strip, the co-pilot tried to land the plane and bounced the plane so hard and so high that Bob almost hit the ceiling. He awoke suddenly and thought that we had crashed. This experience turned his black hair gray.

One day as we were getting ready to take off from Lea a truck ran across the strip at the end nearest lift-off point when suddenly it disappeared into the ground. When we looked, it had fallen into a large Japanese underground tunnel that no one knew was there. No one in the truck was seriously injured and the hole was soon filled in. Another day, one of our planes was taking off and could not gain altitude when it plunged into the ocean about a mile or 2 from land. The flight engineer kicked open the rear cargo door and started to unload the life rafts but forgot that they are held in place with a slip knot on the tie-down rope. He broke the 1/2” rope with his hands, suffered deep cuts in his hands, got the rafts out and later admitted that he forgot about the slip knot.

Since more and more of my flights were being made over open ocean to the small islands, and I didn’t like the idea of floating about in a raft without water, I added more life rafts, several more 5 gallon cans of water to my supplies, and would fill all my fuel tanks to the top even though this added extra weight to the plane and we were always overloaded with the normal cargo. This was the only concern that I ever had while flying in these combat zones. I did return with many large holes shot in the tail of my plane, most occurred over friendly areas. This excited the ground troops more than the flying crew. Most of the time since I could not see the enemy shooting it did not bother me. Only one time did a bullet come close to me. This occurred on the ground where a bullet landed closer than 6 inches from me. Never did see who was shooting. I did retrieve the bullet, and carried it for years but have since lost it. Being a cargo plane, we didn’t carry much armament, I had a 45 pistol, a flare pistol, a carbine full of dust under my bunk and a couple of 45 Cal. Thompson machine guns on the plane(same type old style that gangsters used). This lack of armament worried some of our passengers more than the crew. On one trip we were carrying a group of construction engineers when one asked to come into the cockpit to observe. While there he heard the radioman getting a weather report and relaying it to the pilot, not understanding the slang language being used(Savannah 4:good weather ahead)he asked what that meant and was told that meant there were 4 enemy planes nearby. He rushed to the rear of the plane and had his troops point all their rifles out thru the small port hole windows until we landed. C-47’s had square side windows with a round rubber insert in the center that could be removed. When we had this type of passenger on board, we have been known to put the plane on auto pilot and the entire crew walk to the back, hold a small conference, each pick up a parachute and return to the cockpit shaking their heads. Well, we thought it was funny.

Almost all the passengers were easy to get along with. Since all flights were in a combat zone(possibility of getting shot at) or on a combat mission(you will get shot at), the crew did not wear any rank on their uniforms. Uniforms were wool jackets and flight coveralls, made with heavy warm gabardine type material with many pockets located in the knees and other odd places. We wore heavy coveralls while flying since most of the planes did not have any operating heat in the cabins or cockpit but stripped to shorts when we landed because of the heat. While we had fleece lined flying suits available, we did not wear them because of the low altitude, the bulky size. This informal type dress held true even when a crew flew into a large city on furlough and we would borrow from friends or stop at a local quartermaster to get a proper uniform along with whatever rank was handy.

We transported field hospital units closer to the front and had a lot of enjoyment talking to the nurses. Only once did a newly ranked officer start to give me a hard time about suppling her with some coffee when her superior officer climbed all over her for being out of line. Her boss was a major that I had flown several times before and we would share a cup of coffee in flight, but she knew that I didn’t have time to give snacks to all the passengers. The biggest problem with flying the ladies was the lack of bathroom facilities on board. The planes were designed for male crews and had urinal tubes designed for men and not women. I never did ask how they were able to use the tubes, but most of them did although I did keep a bucket in the rear closed compartment. The WAC”s from headquarter companies never complained about the planes lack of bathroom or heat although they were always happy to use some of my blankets to keep warm. The USO show people always wanted special treatment. They expected their luggage to be carried for them, and looked down their noses at the enlisted men. It was while at Lea that I transported a USO troop. This troop did have a name star, while most of the USO shows in combat zones were the lesser stars. I met Carl Landis and was assigned to transport her until the brass found out who was on my plane then everybody wanted to crew the ship. She was easy to talk to, and dressed to keep the GI’s spirts up. (short shorts and very brief halter top)

Since our squadron had their own planes, we contributed to a food fund and a weekly trip was scheduled to larger southern towns to buy milk and steaks. We were a well feed outfit. The plane would always have extra room so the crew would buy beer and whatever else they could find. This was turned over to the PX and everyone would have their name drawn to purchase some of the items. Liquor made a excellent trading material for some of the comforts that made your tent more livable. If you were on flying status, a 3-oz ration of liquor was given to you after every combat mission or you could save your ration slips to collect a whole bottle. I had been credited with 26 combat missions, collected my liquor, but later they went back and reduced my total to 13 missions. This removed the Air Medal that went for 25 missions but couldn’t retrieve the liquor.

September 1944

After returning to Townsville for some medical treatment, I was sent up to Biak. Biak is a small, white coral island that sits almost on the equator and is extremely hot. The sun would heat the surface of the plane so hot that blisters would result if you touched the planes wing. We were still living in tents with large bags of tepid water hung throughout the area, every morning underneath the dripping water bags many large earth worms would collect. These worms would measure several feet in length, up to 6 feet. It was much later that I found out that Biak held the record for the largest worms in the world.

On a return trip to Townsville, the temperature dropped down into the 70’s during the nights. The days would warm back up to normal temperature but the night was cold. Everyone got extra blankets to keep warm in bed. I ended up with 5 wool blankets and put a wool lined fling jacket on top of this pile and still wasn’t any too warm.

The heat must have thinned my blood so much that I just wasn’t used to this range of temperature, although it did get much colder when we were flying. One of the favorite things was to cool your beer/soda by putting it in the rear of the plane. Special parties would have a plane go on a short local flight just to cool the refreshments.

October 1944

Biak led to some long range flights up to the Philippines. The invasion had started and our squadron was flying in as soon as the first airstrip was captured on day one. I was flying into Tacloban on Leyte while they were still fighting inland. This was the spot where they took the picture of Dugout Doug,(General MacArthur), wading thru the surf with his “I have returned”; too bad I missed the picture taking, but I was busy that day. This was the time when the Japanese fleet fooled the US Navy and lured them to the north while they sneaked thru the southern area. The battle of Leyte Gulf was taking place with only small US carriers against large battleships, but at a distance. The American carrier’s planes held off the Japanese fleet until the main US fleet could get back, but they took a terrible pounding and lost several ships. Their planes had no place to land except the captured strip at Tacloban which did not have enough room to store all the planes. As a carrier plane would land they had big bulldozers push the planes out into the water after getting the pilot safely ashore.

Tacloban airstrip was located on a finger of land jutting out into the bay. I landed during a lull with a plane load of extra fuel tanks for the fighter planes. We were not allowed to shut off our engines, but had to unload the fuel tanks and then quickly take off. As we were leaving, I looked out and saw all the fuel tanks caught in our prop wash and blown out into the bay where they went sailing across the top of the water. These were rather hectic days with days and days of flying. All the crews were getting quite beat from the heavy schedule. We were flying so heavily over-loaded that the plane didn’t have enough fuel to fly from Biak to the Philippines non-stop, but a recently captured island (Pelileu) was manned by the marines and seabees so we landed there. Peleliu had been taken from the Japanese during the middle of September 1944, this island was one of a group and was used by the Japanese as an air base. The island was 6 miles long and 2 miles wide and was not of very big spot to find in the middle of the ocean. The surrounding islands were left in the hands of the Japanese since we only needed the airfield. This was a good stop since the navy cooks always had better meals than our boxed rations, which we ate when away from home base. We would plan to make an overnight stop to get dinner and breakfast. One night after several long grinds, we stopped and after eating the entire crew went to sleep. We were all sleeping in the plane with one fellow sleeping under the wing. During the night the marine guards woke him up and informed him that a Japanese raid was taking place, and we should guard the plane. Japanese troops were landing from the next island and were blowing up all the planes on the strip. He acknowledged the warning, but fell back to sleep. The next morning when we awoke, planes all around us had been blown up and a raging battle had taken place on the airstrip before the Japanese were killed. We had been so exhausted that not one of us had heard the battle.

Flying from New Guinea up to the Philippines involved mainly flying over the ocean and was extremely interesting. The ocean at this time was very clear and blue colored. As you flew over the water you could look down to great depths, sometime you could see sunken ships especially when you got near an island. Another day as we were returning from the Philippines our plane encountered an area of waterspouts. These covered the sea as far as you could see and were all different sizes from several inches to many feet. The columns of water vapor extended from the ocean up to the clouds which were several thousand feet high. We could not climb over the columns or fly around them, so we flew thru the smallest ones we could find. The only thing that happened was that we got the planes washed. Sunsets were very beautiful in this area and had a wide spectrum of colors with magnificent cloud formations.. Flying at night or dusk was different since the runways were not lighted and made landings a little more interesting. On one late flight when we were transporting a group of nuns that were being returned home, they became very excited and distressed. I talked to them to find what the problem was and they reported that the plane was on fire. This didn’t seem right since none of our instruments reported any trouble but they showed me the long tongues of flame shooting out of the engines. It took a little while to convince them that the flames were normal and only coming out of the exhaust pipes.

After the area around Tacloban had been secured, my squadron was ordered to be transferred to the Philippines and into Tacloban airfield. The squadron’s official base was still located at Townsville even though the advanced elements had been in Lea, Nabzab and Biak for some time. We were given an area close to the airfield and close to what used to be the town of Tacloban. There was no town left, only some grass huts that the local Philippine people had rebuilt after the invasion. This area had been the main invasion point in Leyte and was pounded quite hard with bombers and naval artillery prior to the first landings.

While the squadron was preparing to move to Tacloban, I continued flying in supplies. One night when the plane and crew was to remain overnight at the strip, I stayed with the plane rather than go to a transit camp. Transit camps could be uncomfortable for sleeping and most meals were simply warmed over rations. I preferred staying, guarding the plane and since I had equipped it with extra rations, cots, netting, etc. During the early morning hours the nightly Japanese air raid occurred. Each night they sent at least one bomber over to harass the ground troops by coming in high and dropping some small bombs around the edges of the field. Normally the night fighters (P-61, Black Widows) patroled the field and chased them away before any damage was done. This night the enemy bomber had a bright moonlighted target in the personal airplane of General White. General White had converted a B-17 for his use and had all the wartime paint removed and the aluminum body polished to a bright, shiny finish. The Japanese bomber headed straight for this nice target, dropped a bomb that landed dead center on the plane. The only thing wrong was that I was directly across from the revetment where the General’s plane was bombed ( ~50 feet away). Having heard the warnings and the antiaircraft guns shooting, I was awake and outside the plane. I could see the Japanese plane heading directly for me, flying straight and low and didn’t know their target, so I found a rock at one edge of the revetment that was about the size of a weekend suitcase bag and fell behind that protection. This piece of rock offered protection from flying debris from the General’s plane and piece of mind to me. Never had such a small rock been hugged so hard but it did what it was supposed to do. The General was unhappy but I was quite happy with the results. All this fun for $78 a month. I was getting this big money since I was now a sergeant, overseas and on flying duty. Overseas duty earned a 20% increase while flying earned you an extra 50% pay.

After the rest of the squadron arrived in Tacloban we began to get our tent area in livable condition. The Christmas replacements were now seasoned veterans in finding supplies for their own use. Since we still had a weekly plane going to Australia, we could get hard to get items for trading. Our tent area was selected and the same crew decided to bunk together. The four of us Cohen, Casteline, Collins and Bussy started to acquire building materials. No more would we have a tent that was on the ground, we all acquired different items either by trading or stealing from the supply depot. The first items that were acquired was several steel drums which were placed upright in the sand and then a wood floor was added over the drums with the outside walls built to support the sides of the tent. I was able to trade a bottle of liquor for a roll of netting. No more sleeping inside a small netting, now the whole tent was mosquito proofed. The lumber came from trading with the quartermaster corp or from some of the glider shipping boxes that we found. We had enough lumber to build a sitting porch, table, desk and chairs. In order to help keep the tent cool, we had a parachute suspended for a ceiling. This was by far the finest tent in the whole area. We hired a young Philippine girl to keep our tent clean and to do our laundry.

We acquired a monkey as a pet, he loved to chew gum, hated women, and used to have our housekeeper scared of him.

The whole area had to rebuilt latter when a huge very violent typhoon roared thru the Philippines up to Okinawa during June 5, 1945. This storm wrecked our camp, sunk many ships at sea and killed a lot of people. We had been alerted and had removed our planes to a safe spot, but couldn’t take any personal possessions.

Tacloban was now becoming a replacement depot for the whole of the islands. The squadron started to receive replacements for worn out equipment and personnel that were being rotated back to the states or to replace fellows that had been killed. We received a shipment of some of the old-timers that had been rotated when we arrived in Townsville and were now starting their 2nd tour of duty and several new green recruits. The old-timers were welcomed back with a large party while the newer replacements were confused and had that lost expression. Our tent had so much room that we were selected to receive two of the new guys. After much complaining about the unfairness of this, it was agreed that they would only stay until they could assemble their own tents. Of course the new guys did not want to leave the luxurious quarters and promised to get us anything within reason. We needed a radio and electric lights to hook up to the generators that had just arrived, so they supplied these items and put their cots out on our porch. The radio was handy since we liked to listen to Tokyo Rose or the armed service network. They stayed for a while but later went with the fellows that they arrived with and set up their own tent.

One of the fellows (Ken Peters) that was in this group wanted to build up flying hours and asked me if he could take one of my flights. The trip was a “milk run” down to New Guinea to pick up a group of nurses. I didn’t feel comfortable about flying this trip and agreed that he could fill in for me. Their flight disappeared and was not found for 15 years when their plane was found inside the lip of a dead volcano in New Guinea.

The new equipment that we were receiving were now C-46 aircraft. This type plane was used to supply the Chinese by flying over the “hump” in India. These planes were still 2 engine planes but with much bigger engines and a much larger cargo area. This increased the payload and flying range, but caused a bigger headache in maintenance since these planes had different type props that would malfunction. Our squadron started to accumulate different type planes that just happened to be sitting around doing nothing. We had borrowed a B-25 bomber and a small L-5 scout plane. The B-25 was a much faster flying plane and could make the trip back to Australia for our extra food supplies in a faster time. The scout plane was just for fun flying. Bob Canavan borrowed a navy landing ship so that we could cruise out into the bay for fun and fishing. Fishing was usually done with a hand grenade which was tossed into the water and the stunned fish taken for supper. I never had the chance to do any of this type fishing, but did enjoy the fresh fish.

At this time the war in the Philippines was going quite well for our side, the army had landed in Lingayen and was moving toward Manila. The navy had chased the Japanese fleet out of our area and it was looking good. One day the navy had a battle fleet anchored in the gulf between Tacloban and Samar, this was about a 5–10 minute flight from our base. My plane had to fly to Samar over the fleet; we notified the proper people and left for Samar. When we were starting to approach the fleet, they decided to have antiaircraft gun practice. We could look out the window and see the massive layer of shells exploding a couple hundred feet below us, to be safe we climbed up another 200 feet but the layer of shells would follow us up every time we went up. I was glad they were on our side and not mad at us.

We were still very busy flying supplies to combat troops. When the battle of Manila started, I had several flights with medical supplies into the city. No airstrip had been captured yet so we were landing in a city park. The park had a nice straight road down the center except for at the end where the road turned into a traffic circle. The planes were so overloaded that we could not stop before getting to the circle and were went speeding around the circle. We even used the circle to help us get up speed for take off. Most of the return flights had wounded soldiers aboard and were given swift transport to hospitals. On one of my flights to Manila, we passed over Corregidor shortly after they had dropped US paratroopers onto the island, it was a sight to behold. The ground was so covered with parachutes that it looked like it was covered with snow.

During this campaign, US troops recaptured Clark airfield, I was on the first American plane to land on this strip after the capture. The airfield was in a valley but the strip was a very small concrete pad that was not long enough for our plane. We rolled off the end, but the ground was hard and flat so we had no damage. Several months later, I flew into the same strip and didn’t think it was the same place. The combat engineers had converted the strip to a B-29 strip with runways that looked miles long with the portable steel mats that was used for runways.

During this time more troop carrier groups were brought over to the area and our combat work load was eased a little. The higher brass decided that we were so well in control of the area that our squadron had to start two courier routes on a routine basis. We would carry mail, supplies and passengers. One route was the southern trip to Mindanao stopping at Zamboanga. This was a long flight, but could be done in one day and was nice since we landed at the Del Monte pineapple plantation and could buy a bushel of pineapples for a pack of cigarettes(cost 5 cents). Cigarettes were always a good trading item since the civilian supply was limited to local homemade brands and the GI’s had a monthly ration of 4 cartons of different brands, cost was $0.50 a carton. The Philippines people had a strange habit of smoking their cigarettes with the lighted end inside their mouths. Don’t know how they avoided getting burnt from the hot end.

This airstrip was on a plateau with deep canyons surrounding the small level strip. Without enough airspeed the plane would drop when we left the end of the field. Most of the time, we would go to the very end of the strip, gun our engines to maximum rpm, have the brakes set and the flaps down. When the tail started to feel light, the brakes were released and off we went!

The northern courier of this non-scheduled airline went from Tacloban to Cebu, Negros, Panay, Manila(at the airport now and not at the city park) and into Lingayen. Some of these field were very small and were hazardous to leave with tall trees all around the ends of the field. Many times we would brush the trees and end up with branches of leaves in our landing gear. At this last stop we would remain over night. The flight engineer normally stayed with the plane to perform maintenance checks while the other crew members went to a transit camp. The town of Lingayen had been wiped out, no permanent buildings were standing, some small homes were still scattered about. Lingayen had been the invasion point for the Japanese and then by the American troops. After all the bombings and fighting nothing really remained of the town except the people. The people were very friendly to us and would visit the airfield after dark to talk with the plane crews. A young boy (Albert; age 12–14) used to come down to see my plane every time I was there. One evening I had been working on the brakes and decided to test them. He asked if he could come with me, against all regulations I agreed to let him sit in the cockpit while I taxied the plane up and down the strip. He dashed off telling me that he would be back shortly. He soon returned, but with many of his relatives who also wanted a ride. Well they all climbed aboard and we went up and down the runway many times at a speed that raised the tail off the ground. They thought that this was the greatest thing. After this visit, every time my plane landed they would all run down to wave and to invite me over to their house for dinner. Fish and fresh fruit were quite plentiful and was always on the menu. Local fishermen would sell a big bag of cooked shrimp and this was very good to eat as snacks. Albert’s father had been a high official before the Japanese came and was still working in the government.

The courier plane duty did not stop our combat missions but were a welcome break from that routine. We were still taking supplies to the front line troops and hoping that the war would soon be over. Returning from one mission, we were not aware that our IFF was not working properly until some fighter planes(P-47) zoomed in on us at 300 mph. They took up stations on each side with their wings over-lapping ours and were able to contact us via radio. After identifying us they left since they didn’t like to fly as slow as we were going and wanted better prey. The fighter pilots loved to buzz us while we were flying and tried to scare us. One day as the day mechanics finished work and were getting ready to return to our base area for dinner, we stopped to watch one of our planes flying over head. They were flying around the field to test a new engine when a fighter plane swooped down out of the clouds to make a pass at the transport plane. The fighter pilot misjudged, hit the wing of our plane and cut off the wing near the main body. The fighter plane crashed into the ground but the transport plane was able to come to a safe landing in a local rice pad. The crew rode the plane to the ground without any serious injury while we all watched the wing flutter down and the plane stagger over the sky. The flight engineer later told us that he had opened the rear door, put on his parachute and was ready to jump out when he remembered that the pilot didn’t have a chute in the cockpit. He took off his chute, went up to the cockpit with the parachute, and returned to the rear but lost his nerve about jumping when he looked out the second time.

One slow afternoon, a plane was readied and a crew drafted to do some check flights on a couple of co-pilots. The normal procedure would be to let the co-pilot take the controls, preflight the plane, take off, fly close to the field and do several maneuvers as directed by the pilot. Having been on several of these before, I knew what to expect, the pilot would throw some unscheduled type problem at the new pilot. As we were doing the various maneuvers (banks, turns, climbs, etc), the pilot told his new man to climb up to a stall position and then to recover air speed for a safe recovery. I knew that the pilot would try to do something else at the apex of the climb and sure enough as the plane started to stall and go into it’s shuddering stage, the pilot reached up and shut off one engine. The co-pilot very calmly knowing what to do reached up to feather the prop and shut off the magneto, but instead shut off the running engine. This started the plane to slide backwards on it’s tail towards the ground and to flip over it’s back. C-47 cargo planes only have seat belts for the pilot and co-pilot and not for the flight engineer, the engineer normally sits on a stool opposite the radio man. This sudden shift of direction caused the entire contents of the plane to encounter “0” gravity for a short time. It was the strangest feeling to float thru the air with everything that I had inside the plane. In the rear of the plane where the life rafts were tied down was a small compartment with a door, this door opened and the life rafts floated in thru the open door and then the door closed. It was impossible to open the door from the outside and so we finally had to cut the door out in order to retrieve the rafts.

The battle for the Philippines was just about finished, only pockets of Japanese soldiers were still fighting in isolated areas. The city of Manila was a mess with big fires raging in some sections. Flying into the city you could see the smoke a hundred miles away. We had to be very careful when deplaning at the recently captured airstrip since the Japanese had planted land mines in and around the runway. The field was littered with their planes that had been caught on the ground and bombed. Things slowly came back to normal with lots of kids chasing you down the streets trying to get some candy from the troops. They would try to trade Japanese occupation money which was so worthless that it was blowing around the streets. We had lots of Charms, chewing gum and tropical chocolate. Tropical chocolate was a small bar that was found in certain rations and was made not to melt in the heat. It was so hard that you had to nibble at the corners in order to obtain any. A bar of this candy lasted a long time and was generally given to the kids. Several different types of field rations were available, some was good, most was not. We had selections of small tins of scrambled eggs, beans with hot dogs( again) or Spam type mystery meat. When you got hungry it all tasted fine but we always welcomed getting back to home base for our mess hall’s steaks or whatever they had.

April 1945

The island hopping campaign continued with the invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945. This invasion was made with a greater number of troops than the invasion of Europe on “D day June 6”. The landings were not too difficult since the Japanese troops were hidden in caves thruout the island. Causalities were very high on both sides, the 6th squadron was sent into this area. I remember landing at Naha airfield near the end of the campaign and seeing several of our naval ships in the area that had been hit by Jap kamikaze suicide planes. The Japanese were also using one man suicide submarines that would be released by a mother sub and the smaller sub would ram into an Allied ship and try to sink the ship. The bigger the ship such as an aircraft carrier the greater glory when they died. The Japanese had a code that honored suicide, they would not surrender when trapped in their caves, but would try to kill as many US soldiers by blowing themselves up and killing anyone close.

With the approaching end of the battle of Okinawa, a large airfield was being built north of Clark Field in a little town of Floridablanca. The field was to contain B-29’s for additional bombing of Japan. I was assigned to this strip on temporary duty and went there with several other members of our squadron. Living in a transit camp, we saw how poor the people of the town were and how little they had to eat. When we left the mess hall the transit camp people had guards stationed at the mess hall door so that we would not sneak out any food for the people that were going thru the garbage cans. GI’s were soft hearted and would take extra food out to the kids and adults if not stopped. I noticed one older woman at a garbage can and the next day saw her walking down the road, since I was alone driving my jeep, I stopped and gave her a ride into the small town. As she was leaving, I gave her a couple boxes of rations intended for my plane. She asked my name and thanked me several times. Several days later, several of the guys in the transit camp asked if I would give them a lift into town as I was going down to the strip. They had heard of a house of ill-repute and wanted to visit the establishment. I gave them a ride and they directed me to this house in town and had me stop in front of the same house where I had dropped off the woman. One of the “ladies” saw the jeep stop and called inside, the same woman that I gave the rations to came out, saw me called me by name and ran over to the jeep followed by her working girls. She invited me in for some coffee or tea. It made quite an impression on the crew since I told them that I had never been into town before, but when the town’s biggest madam knew me, I had a hard time explaining my innocence. I could not partake of the tea since I was on my way to work, but thanking her and giving them some more rations I left the crew and headed out to the strip. Arrival at the strip disclosed that my plane had been taken from the squadron and reassigned to a special group. It was later that I found out that my plane had been equipped with lots of radio equipment and was used as the control tower at one of the early fields in Japan. The next day I was transported back to home base for another plane, but couldn’t live down my reputation gained because of my good deed. I was sorry to leave since we had found a beautiful swimming spot in a small river. This same area where we used to go swimming or bathing we found out later that a colony of lepers were doing the same thing about a mile or so up river from us.

Everyone could feel the approaching end of the war, but dreaded the final invasion of Japan. Every island that we advanced closer to Japan seemed to have a higher number of US soldiers killed. We hoped that more aerial bombing of their mainland would prevent us from having to invade, but no one felt sorry for their state of punishment. I had the privilege of returning a load of British POW’s that had been captured in Singapore. These soldiers were in the very best physical condition in their camp but resembled pictures of some of the Jewish captives from German camps. Men weighed 75–90 pounds and could barely walk, but were the happiest people alive. We landed at a refueling stop, and were met by members of the Red Cross who served them refreshments, but refused to give me a cup of coffee because “you don’t deserve it”. I supposed that I did look a little worn since I had been flying for 10 straight days with out returning to home base and needed a shave, shower and clean clothes. You can only take so many baths out of a helmet. I should have expected this reply since it was not the first time but other times they only charged me for a drink. In Brisbane, Australia, there two canteens, one run by the Red Cross while the other was run by the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army had free coffee, tea and snacks for any one in uniform while the Red Cross sold the same items to the troops.

We continued to fly the couriers and began to feel like an airline. Repeat passengers started showing up, ground crews at the other fields became familiar faces and could arrange trading with some of the locals. I would come back with loads of bananas or other fresh fruit which cost very little. I observed many Japanese prisoners that worked on the airstrips by breaking rocks into gravel. They were frightened of our planes, and would not like to be buzzed. The local fishermen didn’t like to have their boats blow over by our prop wash when we buzzed them. It has been known to have some of our planes return with tree branches stuck in the wings or landing gear. This never happened to me, but we did hit a large road grader and took off the wing tip. The grader got too close to the edge of the strip when we were landing and we hit his exhaust stack. It was an odd thing to fly back for repairs with the wing tip flapping in the air.

August 1945

When we heard the news of the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6 at Hiroshima while at base camp. At the time it was just another bombing raid by some new type bomb that did a lot of damage but so had the fire bombing raids on Tokyo. Anything that would shorten the war was welcomed by the combat troops. After the second atom bomb, we knew that the end of the war was close, and tried to cut down on the number of flights taken. For some strange reason whenever a crew got close to going home time some accident happened to them. Either they crashed or simply disappeared. Everyone was counting their points. Points were the basis for rotation with a minimum of 70 points needed to go back to the states. Points were given for months overseas, combat time, missions, etc.

August 15, 1945 (Other side of the date line)

The announcement of the war’s end found me at our home base at Tacloban. A huge VJ victory party quickly started with lots of trading liquor and Australian beer being consumed. All you could hear were guns of all types being fired all over the island and from navel ships in the bay. Even though I was not a drinker, I joined in the party and consumed lots of the very strong beer. The next day I paid the price since I had a very strong headache (hangover), and had to fly to New Guinea, but the whole crew felt as bad so I had company. We pointed the plane in the general direction, put on the autopilot and took turns sleeping, and with good luck we reached our destination.

After the wars ending, the point counting started to be the biggest topic. Bulletin boards were checked daily to see who was on the shipping list, gripes were aired at the slowness of the processing. The port of Tacloban was a main POE, and we continued to fly, and bring solders down to the transit camps or deliver new troops to various islands. Finally my name appeared on a shipping list with orders to go to San Francisco.

The return trip was longer (over 30 days on board) than the first trip, but since I now had some rank, I didn’t have any duties except to read and sleep. Our arrival at San Francisco revealed that Camp Stoneman was so crowded that we couldn’t get off the ship. They tied up our ship (Santa Monica, another Liberty ship)at Fisherman’s Wharf for a week. We were not permitted to leave the ship, and this started a big protest since it was Christmas, and everyone wanted to go home. We sang loud chants, made huge banners and protested mightily. The only good it did us was to have newsreel cameras come out and take our pictures, but didn’t get us off the ship. We finally disembarked for Camp Stoneman where they feed us steaks and milk, took away our guns and tropical clothes and worked on lots of papers. After all the paper work was complete, we were shipped via train back to Fort Monmouth, NJ for separation from the service. At Monmouth, we had more physical examinations, given our discharge papers, back pay, a last meal of hot dogs and beans and a ticket to go home.

It was very strange to get back into civilian life again. Everything seemed so different and boring. No longer was I up before dawn and off flying. Living in a city with lights, streets and people was completely different than what I was used to. Walking into a store with shelves of merchandise for sale was a strange experience after being lost in the jungle for a couple of years. Items were still in short supply, you couldn’t buy tires for cars. When I drove from Paterson to Roselle it was not uncommon to have 4 to 5 flat tires. The tubes were removed and patched on the side of the road with patching kits. It was getting so that you were putting patches on top of patches. Air was pumped in to the repaired tire with a small hand pump and you hoped that all the holes were fixed and were going to hold air. New cars were in short supply with dealers ripping off anyone who bought one. They got full list price plus a large bribe under the table. They were delivering cars from the factory with parts missing, example being wooden bumpers which would be replaced when they were available. I had to purchase clothes since I gained weight in the service, up to 145#, and was not used to having to pay for any clothing.

As with all old memories, the sharp edges of the picture becomes a little blurred. Unpleasant events tend to not be quite as bad as during the happening. Old buddies that were killed or missing still are missed and remembered. The lonely days, boredom, heat, cold, discomforts, and other discomforts have slipped to the back of my memory bank and only come out on special occasions. The pleasant memories have pushed the other thoughts to the background and make it all seem worth while. The bitterness against the Japanese, whom I consider to be the worlds most inhuman people, has not completely disappeared. It is had to forget the torture that they inflicted again all their prisoners, where they killed over 60% of the Bataan prisoners, where they injected Chinese civilians with plague germs and turn them loose in cities to kill the people. The American flyers that where cut up with swords. All these items take a long time to forget. However, with the passing of the veterans of this era, I sure that the Japanese will be forgiven, but enough dwelling on the past on to the future.

Back Home

Sherman and Audrey Collins, newly married, in the Pocono Mountains, New York, late 1940s.