Interview with Leon Hutchinson
(born 7/4/1920)
Interviewer: Erin Hutchinson
Interviewee: Leon Hutchinson
I interviewed my grandpa Leon Hutchinson, at his home on, March 2, 2003. Leon was born on July 4th, 1920. The people attending the interview were my mom, grandpa, and I.
[002] EH: Did you enlist?
LH: I was drafted.
EH: And where were you living at the time?
LH: Down in the country, down in Pearson Township.
EH: And why did you join?
LH: I didn’t join. I was drafted.
EH: Ya, Sorry.
EH: Why did you pick the service branch you joined?
LH: Well, that was just what I was drafted into. I didn’t have no choice.
[006] EH: Did you recall your first days in service?
LH: Ohhhh… Not too much. No, I was on the train most of the time.
EH: Okay then, which wars did you serve in?
LH: In the European Theater
EH: Where exactly did you go?
[011] LH: Ohhh.. Went over, we went over on the Queen Elizabeth. Took us five days to get there and landed in Glasgow, Scotland, took a train down to London, England and lived in Chelsea Barracks.
EH: Do you remember arriving. What it was like?
LH: No, I don’t remember too much about that.
EH: What was your job assignment?
LH: Well, when I got over there they had sent us to the wrong place. We originally thought we was going to the West Coast to uh work on the Alccan highway going to Alaska and for some reason they sent us east and we wound up in London. Didn’t have no trucks, didn’t have nothing, so they took all the fellas and made chauffeurs out of us and we drove British cars around hauling officers around to different places.
[023] EH: Did you see combat?
LH: No, not actual combat, no.
EH: Were there any casualties in your unit?
LH: No. We only had one…. one uh….was a air plane strafed our convoy and everybody jumped out of the truck and hit the ditches and this one guy he broke his ankle when he went into the ditch that’s the only thing that we had.
[028] EH: Can you tell me about a couple of your most memorable experiences?
LH: Ohh, one of the things I remember the most, when we first got there, in the Chelsea Barracks , it was a great big barracks. We lived up stairs with the Scottish Army that guarded the Buckingham Palace, and first night we was there we had an air raid and the air raid went off and we didn’t know nothing about it. We run down to the end up the barracks and there was an arrow pointing down the stairs to where to go to an air raid shelter and there was about four of us and we went down them stairs and we stood around and waited for the all cleared sign and the lights were out at that time, and when the lights come on after the air raid was over, there we stood in a green house. It wasn’t an air raid shelter at all. We hadn’t went far enough down the stairs to …. there we was in a glass green house.
[045] EH: Umm.. Were you awarded any medals or citations?
LH: No… No…. service medals. We just got the ribbons and stars for the areas we here we was at like in France and Belgium.
[050] EH: How did you stay in touch with your family through out all of this?
LH: Wrote letters to them.
[051] EH: What was the food like?
LH: It was pretty good. We hauled all the food so that way we always had more than anybody else because everybody else was rationed out. We hauled the food out and dished it out so much to every place but by us hauling it, we kept more than we dished out.
EH: Did you have plenty of supplies?
LH: Yep.. Yep.. after one time they--we was hauling ammunition and gasoline wasn’t hauling any food at all and the only thing we had was K-rations, and we dished out these K-rations. See, they was suppose to be for each meal, but we only had three per person for about three or four days, and the lieutenant said we would tell us when to eat them. But we didn’t listen to him, we eat them when we got hungry (laugh).
[063] EH: Did you feel pressure or stress during this?
LH: Ohh…. not too much.
EH: Was there anything special you did for good luck?
LH: No
EH: How did people entertain themselves?
LH: Ohhh, a lot of the fellas played cards and shoot dice a night, there wasn’t too much to do.
EH: What did you do when on leave?
LH: Well, here in the states, I come home for a couple of weeks, but over seas I never did get any leave.
[073] EH: Where did you travel while in the service?
LH: Ohhh, Let’s see, we took our training in Camp Lee, Virginia, for basic training, then they shipped us to Custer, Michigan and we was there for sometime then we went to McCoy, Wisconsin, from there we went on a cattle train in box cars to New York, to I think New Jersey some place and then we caught, caught the Queen Elizabeth and went overseas.
[080] EH: Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual events?
LH: No, there’s one time, right at Christmas time when the Battle of the Bulge started, why they sent us all of our trucks to there because they had new troops up there and they got scared or something happened to them. The Germans took over and they fled and come back to, on the back roads and we had to go up there and go around the roads and pick them up and bring them around to some other camps to get them organized again.
[089] EH: What were some of the pranks that you or others would pull?
LH: Ohhh, I don’t know of any pranks, we pulled so many pranks. This one fella that was with us why we took some chicken guts and put inside of a bowl and put cereal on top of it and give it to him to eat, but he didn’t like that (laugh).
[096] EH: What did you think of officers or your fellow soldiers?
LH: Most of them was pretty good.
EH: Did you keep a personal diary?
LH: No
EH: Do you recall the day your service ended?
LH: Yep.. Yep.
EH: Where were you?
[102] LH: Ohh, you mean after we got back here in the states and was headed home? I think it was in New Jersey at that time and we waited until we got our papers together, and then we come went to Camp in Indianapolis Atterbury, is that it? and was discharged from Atterbury.
[107] EH: What did you do in the days and weeks afterwards?
LH: After. Well,I didn’t do to much because I was looking for a job. Got home a little bit before Christmas and I started to work at the glass factory a couple days after Christmas.
EH: After that did you work or go back to school?
LH: No, uh I worked at the glass factory until it closed down.
EH: Was your education supported by the G.I. Bill?
LH: Well I didn’t take advantage of that.
EH: Did you make any close friendships while in the service?
LH: Oh ya, I made a lot of them.
EH: Did you join a veterans organization?
LH: No, never did.
[118] EH: What did you go on to do as a career after the war?
LH: Well, after the glass factory closed down, I went to work for my uncle on a refrigeration for awhile then I left him to work for Commercial Sullivans for awhile and then I only worked there for a year or two then I went down and worked at the Federal Penitentiary.
[123] EH: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general?
LH: No. Not too much I don’t think.
[125] EH: Did you attend reunions?
LH: Yep, we have a re.. get together usually every other year.
[128] EH: How did your service and experience affect your life?
LH: Ohh, I got acquainted with a lot of fellas I never did know.
EH: Is there anything you would like to add that we have not covered in the interview?
LH: No, this last reunion we had in Little Rock, Arkansas that was the 59th anniversary and they kind of thought would maybe that be our last cause we was losing so many every year and their health was getting so bad. Didn’t think we would never be able to get together again.
[137] EH: Will you tell us a little bit more about your job and what you did?
LH: Ohh, We had a truck company we hauled old trucks loads of ammunition and gasoline and everything from Normandy up to Patton wherever he was. But every time we went up there they would tell us where he was at and when we would get there, he was gone about fifteen, twenty miles away further away and we would have to catch up with him, and he never wanted anything but gasoline and ammunition. He didn’t want any other supplies at all.
EH: And weren’t you a cook?
LH: Yep, I was cook part of the time, and drove the truck part of the time and….
EH: Why weren’t you in combat?
LH: Well, we was the assignment that we had we just hauled all the stuff up to where the combat was and left it then we turned around and went back to the beach to pick up more supplies and haul it back.
[151] EH: How many people were in your infantry?
LH: In the company they was a 120 in the company.
EH: How many usually show up to your reunions?
LH: HUH?
EH: How many of them usually show up to the reunion?
LH: Ohh…This last time there was twenty, but since then we’ve lost four.
EH: Did you ever meet Patton?
LH: No, never did.
[158] EH: I know that you are colorblind, did that affect your position or anything to do with the army?
LH: No, it didn’t affect me, but at one time they was going to reclassify me and put me in the Air Force as a spotter because they said a fellow that was blind, colorblind could spot a plane at a distance off quicker than a normal person could, but they never did, never did reassign me.
[166] EH: How long were you in the Army?
LH: About three and a half years.
[168] EH: Tell me about the boat ride over.
LH: Going over wasn’t too bad, it only took us five days on the Queen Elizabeth. It was a big boat, but the food wasn’t a bit good at all. They had lamb and mutton and it wasn’t good so most of us just eat the fruit, but then coming back why it took us about fifteen days and it was stormy and we was all sick. It was a horrible mess a coming back and then when we got a days out before we landed, we didn’t have anything but sea water to wash in and about a day out why they lined us all up and let us go into a shower and lather up for thirty seconds and then another thirty seconds to rinse off with fresh water, cause that sea water you would get no soap suds or anything.
[181] EH: What were the living conditions like when you were in Europe?
LH: Ohh, most, most of the times they was pretty good. When we got off the beach why they put us in a apple orchard for a little while until they could capture St. Lô, after they got St. Lô well then they our trucks was able to get on the roads and get farther towards the front and then we wound up in to Paris. After we was in Paris, why we usually had fairly decent living quarters.
[191] EH: Did you stay in buildings or tents?
LH: Well, when we was in the apple orchard, we was in these pup tents. Two fellas to a tent. This one fella was a buddy of mine; he went out and some way got some lumber, brought it back to me, and I built a small, you might call it a hog house. It was big enough for two of us to get in and get off the ground. We didn’t have to sleep on the ground then and then when we left there, he sold it to one of the navies there for a gallon of they called it cider but it was hard cider.
[201] EH: Did you get paid in the army?
LH: yep, before I went in they was paying twenty-one dollars a month, but when I went in they raised it to fifty dollars a month. Then they took so much out of that and then they added some to that for your dependents so I drawed about seventeen dollars a month after they took out the money for the dependents.
EH: Where did they send the check?
LH: Back home here to….
[212] EH: Were you ever really close to the battles or anything?
LH: No, we landed in Normandy about the week or ten days after D-Day. And the engineers usually went in ahead of us and used to lookin’ for land mines and clearing the roads and everything and then they’d put flags along where we was allowed to go so we wouldn’t have any problems with any land mines. But we never did get up in to actual combat. We would get up to where Patton was and drop off the supplies and he went on to the combat and we turned around to the beach to get more supplies.
EH: Were you scared ever?
LH: No, not really we never was in that much of a fight.
[226] EH: What was your training like?
LH: Ohh, Some kind of aggravating there in basic training. There was every hour or two have a break for fellas to take a smoke and cause I didn’t smoke why I waited around and when they started to go back to work, why had to pick up their butts and matches and everything. And because I didn’t smoke I didn’t think I had to, but I didn’t dare miss it because anybody that would fuss about it, they would put them on K.P.
[237] EH: What else can you tell us about your experience?
LH: Well, when we went across the channel after D-Day, we went on a real small boat, and It was awful stormy and rough but they give us some pills to take. They call them motion sickness tablets, so we could take them so we wouldn’t be sick and it took us about four or five days to get across the channel to get to the beach, after the beach had been taken, but we didn’t get sick on account of them pills. But then coming back home when it was rough and stuff they didn’t care weather we lived or died because we got as sick, as sea sick as a dog.
[250] EH: Did your whole unit move in the same place together?
LH: Ya, whenever we moved, uh moved overseas there, we all went together we was a company. But then when the war was over and we was coming home everybody was sent home they accumulated points, either by your age or how many kids you had or how long you’d been in the service and those points determined who would come home first.
[260] EH: Do you feel luck you had the job that you did?
LH: Ya, I liked it good enough. One of the best things I remember about coming home after getting off the boat at New York. Always seeing the Statue of Liberty we come over and got off the boat when we come off the plank from the boat at the bottom of the places the girls from the red cross was there passing out donuts and milk. And we have never had any fresh milk for over two years and the milk at that time was in this cord paper boxes and we’ve never seen anything like that before because when we left why milk was still in the glass bottles.
[277] EH: When you were over there did you meet many of the French people, and how did they treat you and think of America?
LH: Ya, they was one family that lived across from where we was stationed. They had us over there for dinner one time and their food was pretty well rationed, but he was a fellow that had a market that sold eggs and poultry and stuff, so they had more than the other people did, so they’d feed us a meal once in a while. They was pretty nice people.
[288] EH: What was just in general Army life like?
LH: Ohh, you’d… you’d had your bed time. You had to be in bed at a certain time, you got up at a certain time of a morning, your laundry here in the states after you got settled down over seas they had a people that done their laundry for ‘em, but when we in the convoy on the roads why we would have to do wash our own laundry and maybe do our stuff and takes our baths in stuff in the creek or something when we found a creek that was deep enough to wash in.
[300] EH: Were you expecting to get the letter?
LH: Ya, I was excepting to get draft sometime.
EH: How did you feel about that?
LH: Well, I didn’t worry about it too much because everybody else was going too.
EH: So most of your friends were going?
LH: Yep, they was about all of them going.
EH: How old were you?
LH: I was about twenty-two years old.
EH: Were you married?
LH: No, not when I went in. After.. . I was in … about a year then I come home and got married and then went back in and … me and my wife was together for about three months before I was shipped over seas.
[315] EH: How long were you overseas for?
LH: Ohhh.. about two and a half years
EH: How did she live? Like did she have a job or…
LH: Well, she lived with her folks and I think at one time she got a job working at Quaker Maid for awhile, but she didn’t work there too long. Her mom was an invalid and she stayed home and took care of her.
[325] EH: At the time you were working on the farm for your dad, how did that affect him and his work?
LH: Oh, I was helping my dad farm all the time and, then didn’t make much money there so then I went up and started working at this parking lot and then part time in a hamburger stand and while I was working at it, that’s when I got drafted.
EH: Did it affect your dad not having enough people to help him work.
LH: Yep, I expect it hurt him ‘cause he didn’t have enough help to do things.
[339] LH: I didn’t smoke and everybody wanted my rations, so when I would go to the PX and get my supplies or what I wanted, why I would get the cigarettes and they took turns at taking them when I got the cigarettes.
EH: Did you… Did you have to….. What are rations?
LH: Well, they … you’s only allowed so many cigarettes to buy a week and I think it was about two packs a week.
EH: Did they give you money to go buy them?
LH: No, No, you had to go buy your own cigarettes.
EH: If you didn’t smoke them, why would you buy them?
LH: Just for my friends that had a habit of smoken, they’d smoke a couple packs a day and they was always short of cigarettes and always wanted mine. [361]
(start of side two) [437]
EH: Was there any kind of Sunday worship?
LH: No I don’t ever remember any Sunday worship or anything like that we was on the go so much that we weren’t able to find any services to go to
EH: How often were you on the go? Like how often did you have time to just sit around?
LH: Ohh.. when we got over seas there after D-Day, we were on the go all the time hauling supplies and stuff we never got a day off.
EH: And for holidays like Christmas and that kind of stuff, did you have any kind of entertainment?
LH: No, no well one time there was a ohh I don’t know if it was Bob Hope or Bing Crosby or somebody was over there fairly close to us having a show but we could never go to it because we was too busy never had a chance to go.
EH: Could your family send you packages?
LH: Ya, they could send us stuff once and a while cookies or something like that.
LH: After we got there any Paris anything that was German had or occupied we was allowed to take over so in the kitchen we had we didn’t have no refrigeration or nothing like that so we went to this big factory the Germans had and I took my two packs of cigarettes I got that week and gave one to a crane operated and one pack to the fella on the dock that had cables and stuff and out them around this big reach in cooler and loaded it on the truck and I took it back to my company and we was the only company that had refrigeration we could out a quarter of a beef in the doors area it was big enough it was a big one.
EH: Where did they get the meat?
LH: Oh we issued it every once and a whole. It was stationed to us and one of our fellas there he was a butcher and he would cut it up.
EH: Did all the food and supplies come in that ship?
LH: Yep.
EH: So they didn’t air lift it?
LH: No, I don’t think they, there was time there in France we had our tents up out in the field and the war was going on not too far from us and these planes would go and pick up the wounded bring them back and drop them off. The skies was so full of planes, going and a coming that two of these big planes collided and we were out side in the field watching them we saw them collide and this one plane it crippled and it went on but the other one went to the ground and crashed and we went over to this where it crashed there and, it had about eight or ten people on it, nurses and doctors and casualties but they were all killed.
LH: You was asking me about the families and who this one family crossed the way, everything over there was rationed and this one family he took me in a truck some place there in Paris to pick up a load of butter and eggs that was coming in it was suppose to be black market and he wanted me to go with him because me being an American while the French wouldn’t stop me and ask me any questions they would let him get by with it with out causing him any trouble.
EH: What’s black market?
LH: Ohhh.. stuff was rationed back then and the… if the you were allowed to have just so much and anything you got extra left over that was black market it wasn’t allowed to have that you weren’t suppose to get that but these people they could get this other stuff extra.
EH: Where were you when the war ended and then what happened?
LH: Well it ended while I was there in France and well uh.. they reclassified all of us and was going to send us back to the states and give us about a month leave. Then take us back into the service an ship us back over to the Pacific side but when we got back to the States, the war ended in Japan so we never did have to train or anything or get ready to go to the pacific.
EH: Is there anything else you would like to say or talk about before I end the interview?
LH: No, just that I enjoyed these fellas and learned to know during my service and we enjoyed our conventions. We had our 50th anniversary down in Memphis, Tennessee and the person that put that on got an Elvis impersonator to come and entertain us a while and after he was done there was three girls that imitated the Andrew Sisters and they put a show on for us there for our 50th anniversary.
EH: Thank you for letting me interview you grandpa.
