War Stories III (3 page)

Moscow, Russia
2 July 1940

I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the field artillery of the United States Army in 1935. When I graduated in June of '36, I went
almost directly to the Army Flying School in Randolph Field. I had to resign my commission in order to enroll as a flying cadet, and attend the Army Flying School at San Antonio, Texas. I completed my training and was assigned in 1937 to Langley Field, Virginia, flying a PB-2A.

At this time America was antiwar. I don't think we had really one ready division in the United States Army at the beginning of World War I. And now, just before World War II, we were only a little better off. The country just didn't want to prepare for war. If we'd had the level of preparedness for the beginning of World War II that we had two years later, the war would've much shorter. And cost far less. And we would've saved the lives of a lot of really good kids.

I'd been flying for two years when General Claire Chennault asked me to demonstrate a new P-40 fighter aircraft for some Chinese who were buying the planes for China to use against the Japanese, and right after that, I was sent to England with the P-40s to help the RAF assimilate this new American aircraft under the Lend-Lease Plan.

I think our greatest help was as a morale booster, giving them hope that the Americans were going to come in and help them fight this war. But we only flew over Britain. When we left General “Hap” Arnold pointed his finger at us and said, “Look . . . you know, the antiwar sentiment that's going on in the United States today. Your RAF friends are going to say, come on, fly over France with us. If you do, I'm not going to court martial you—I'm going to have you shot! If an American officer is shot down over France and we're not at war, the antiwar sentiment and the active press that we'll be getting, if you're shot down, it'll do us tremendous damage. So don't you dare cross the channel!” So, of course we took that seriously.

Then Hitler invaded Russia. The president was interested in keeping Russia in the war because he anticipated that later on, we were going to be involved too. When the Germans attacked the Russians, the president sent his assistant Mr. Harry Hopkins and me to Moscow.

We tried to find out from the Russians what they really needed most but they were very secretive. As matter of fact I never saw one act of
genuine cooperation between the Russians and our side. I met with the Russian generals and Hopkins met with Stalin; we tried to find out about their tanks—whether we could improve on them; The flat answer was, “We have a good tank.” Artillery pieces—“We have good artillery.” Airplanes? “We have good airplanes.” But finally it was agreed that we would send the P-40s to Russia. They didn't need much training but we put together a system to supervise the assembly of the airplanes. And my partner and I test-flew every airplane before we delivered it to the Russians.

I was in Moscow when the Germans got to the city in October. We had to evacuate. The provisional capital had been moved from Moscow to the Caucuses. I requested that I be relieved of my assignment in Moscow and sent back to my unit in the United States—because I knew by now that America was getting ready for war. It hadn't happened yet, but I knew it was coming.

Des Moines, Iowa
2 July 1940

I joined the National Guard December 21, 1939. At that time, my father and mother had been divorced and I was living with my sister, in Des Moines, Iowa. So, I joined the National Guard, to gain both discipline and money. In the summer of 1940, we went to Camp Ripley, Minnesota, on maneuvers. We had come back from that twenty-one-day encampment, and we settled in to do more training, in our armory there in Des Moines.

And later, we were mobilized from the National Guard of Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota into the Army of the United States, and were sent to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, for a year's training. We trained on forced marches, ten-mile marches, with full field pack. And we had to dig foxholes and let a tank go over, to make sure we got that training. We had no amphibious training or desert training.

We trained with very old World War I equipment. Our rifles were 1903 Springfield rifles. We had some Colt .45s, but revolvers—not the automatic pistols. The Army Air Corps would “bomb” us during the maneuvers—they'd drop flour bags as bombs. And some of our units had wooden guns. And our bayonet training, and hand-to-hand combat, was very limited.

But in the meantime, they started the Selective Service. We received these Selective Service draftees into our unit. We then trained at Camp Claiborne throughout the summer on basic maneuvers. Later in the year the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, in December. We were alerted, and sent to guard different structures in Louisiana and along the Texas border.

And then, we come back, and were ordered to get on a troop train. Our destination was unknown. We later found out we were going to Fort Dix, New Jersey. There we waited to be shipped out. Every day we marched around the field, or ran around the perimeter of Fort Dix doing calisthenics. And it was cold, living and sleeping in those tattered tents. We were scheduled to leave on the USS
Normandy
. But the
Normandy
caught fire and burned. So we were delayed two or three weeks, until another ship could be refitted for troops. They used these luxury liners, and refitted them for us. Everything was done in a hurry. And before long we sailed on the
Mariposa
.

When we boarded the ship and sailed, our convoy rendezvoused at Nova Scotia. We picked up other ships for the crossing. And we still, at that point, didn't know where our destination was. But we landed in Ireland, and after six or eight months, we were transferred to Scotland where we trained some more without the proper weapons and equipment.

Des Moines, Iowa
2 July 1940

My friend had joined the National Guard and asked me to join too. He said, “It's a dollar a drill. And we're gonna go to Minnesota for twenty-one days of maneuvers.” Well, that seemed like big money in the middle of the Depression.

My family and I lived on a farm. My dad worked as a laborer, for the farm. My older brother and I got work shocking wheat and oats. But, for fifty cents a day, it wasn't much money. So, the opportunity came along to enlist. And we were paid—every three months we got twelve bucks. It paid for a lot of little things here and there. In fact, it paid for my graduation suit when I graduated in May of 1940.

My cousin always believed that we were going to have trouble with Japan—not Germany. I mean, he wasn't a college graduate, but he was well-educated enough from reading the papers and books that Japan was going to be our enemy. And we weren't at war with either Japan or Germany then. But France and England were. And the U.S. was trying to supply them with ammunition, weapons, and war equipment. That was what we were supposed to do—help France and England. But not get into the fighting.

Well, most Americans realized what the situation was. I think our parents back then—a lot of them had sons in the service—they had to know what was going on. They had to realize that their sons would soon be involved with the war.