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Katz, Morris oral history

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Mr. Morris Katz

[b. 4/24/1915]

Recorded 3/1/03

[Tape counter starts at #001]

MT: It is the beginning of an interview with Morrie Katz, at his home, 7865 Westfield Blvd. 46240, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mr. Katz is 87 years old, having been born on April 24, 1915. My name is Mollie Tavel and I will be the interviewer and Sandi Tavel is the recorder. Mr. Katz is my great uncle on my dad's side of the family. He is my grandma's brother.
Uncle Morrie, could you please state for the recording what war you served in?

K: Which war I served in? I'll be very happy to tell you because I'm still here. I, on December 7, 1941, was having Sunday dinner with all my family at our Sunday house at 3070 North Delaware. And we didn't have television in those days, we had radios. And as always, we would turn and listen to the radio and as a kid, I'm listening to this record show and all of a sudden, a flash came across that Pearl Harbor…that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. This was about noon on that Sunday. Needless to say, I was shocked and dismayed. However, since I was part of the draft, I went in on the early part of September of 1941 and I was on a temporary leave. When this happened, I didn't stop to eat dinner with my family. I jumped into my car and I rushed out to Fort Harrison. Actually, when I got to the reception center I was the only one there. Fort Harrison is almost a thing of the past now, but it was quite a reception center. Hundreds of thousands of GI's came through that reception center. So, to bypass all the preliminaries, I reported to the draft first thing in the morning and I went to work helping to....they were starting to bring in draftees by the truck load, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, car by car and since I was the only one there for this that could actually write and read and speak English, they put me in charge and I was amazed to find how many people came through there that could not read or write. A lot of them came through from West Virginia, Kentucky, and southern Indiana. And I was one of the first from Indianapolis to be called in. So, I just wanted to give you a preliminary of my entry into the war effort. At that time I think I was about twenty-six. So, what was your question now?

MT: What war?

K: What war? World War Two.

MT: What branch of service did you enter into?

[043]

K: Well, I started as an infantry man. I was in the reception center as a civilian for a month to register people who could not read or write. However, that didn't keep me from going into the service. So I worked for a month at the reception center and then I was sent to Daniel Field in Augusta, Georgia, which happened to be right next to a golf course. And I spent a couple of months there and the Colonel suggested that I go to Officer Candidate School (OCS). So, you want this part don't you? How I got in? The abbreviation for that is OCS. I went to Petersburg, Virginia where the Officer Candidate School was and registered. I was supposed to be there for ninety days for Class 5 and then the other sixty days they put me in as a second lieutenant and gave me a stack of books THAT high. I would use the term 'mile high'. And the philosophy in the army back in those days for the GI who was just coming in and didn't know his way around was, take the books keep them with you, and when there's a question that comes up that you don't know the answer, look it up in the classification of the information and someplace in one of those books, in which I had maybe were twenty-five or thirty of them, you would get your answer. And it made you very smart, it made you appear VERY smart. Unfortunately, I couldn't carry that many books with me in order to have all the answers. But nonetheless, I completed sixty some odd days at Officer Candidate School and became a second lieutenant. And strange as it seems, I was shipped off to an outfit called Camp Atterbury which was the 83rd Infantry division. And that was located down in southern Indiana and that is where I actually started my basic training. They placed me in the quartermaster corps and with my serving background and I started to help the enlisted personell that were being drafted, who were all civilians. But we didn't have any army people coming in. They were GI's like myself. Everyone had to be interviewed, checked in, so once I transferred to the 83rd infantry, my job was to get the people organized and find out where to put them, whether they engineers, ordinance, or whatever the men may be. I won't bypass you from all these little details because I could write a truck loaded with books with the information I can remember everything so vividly and so well. It was what….fifty years ago that we are talking about? And I can remember my first days of service in the army and the interesting thing was when they entered me in at Camp Atterbury, I was only forty miles from home which was very much of a surprise and which I really didn't expect. So I was there for a very short period of time and from Camp Atterbury, I was transferred into the…. the U.S. Army Air Force. At that time the Air Force was was a very, very small branch of the Army. Matter of fact, when you look back on our Air Force, when we first started, you'd be shocked and amazed at fifty years ago at what our Air Force was like. It was just like being on a truck farm. They had fellows who were learning to fly who didn't know his left foot from his right foot. Nevertheless, we all were there for one purpose, and that was to get our training and to be sent wherever the Defense Department felt was necessary. I'll stop for a minute and ask you if you have any questions to ask at the moment.

[100]

MT: So, why did you join the service? Because you were drafted?

K: I didn't JOIN the service, the service wanted me. You see, when you join the service, that means that you voluntarily go in and enlist.

MT: So you WERE drafted?

K: I was a draftee.

MT: And where were you living at the time?

K: I was assigned Camp Atterbury when I was in the 83rd Infantry Division.

[105]

MT: What did it feel like, in your first few days of service?

K: I think the unknowns are probably what bugged me. It wasn't where I slept; it wasn't what I ate. It wasn't who I was associating with. When you were assigned into a branch of service, not knowing which branch you are going to actually wind up in [was unnerving], because I know the army has fifteen or twenty different branches. If you go into the Air Corps, you didn't know where to go because it had so many different branches. But I was looking forward to my career, I was not one who felt he did not want to go into the service. I definitely went into the service after Pearl Harbor, I thought I could go out and lick the world myself; including the Japanese. So, what's the next question?

[119]

MT: Tell me about your boot camp or training experiences.

K: Well my boot camp training experience, since I was so sloppy and I did very little exercising, it was a very interesting experience. I started taking calisthenics, exercise, physical education, and marched a lot. They were building you up physically to start walking. You were in the service and you were going to carry a canvas pack on your back and a gun on your shoulder and you were a member of the United States Army. And you were gonna go where they told you to go and the officer who was in command of your unit, he will treat you just like everybody else. And you have to understand that most of the enlisted me that came from my neighborhood, 31st and Delaware in Indianapolis, must have been about fifteen or twenty men, they were all guys like me. Same age group, in business, professionals, and we didn't cry on one another's shoulders. We didn't have anything to be worried about, I mean all we had to do was make sure we were alive and could train, and then eventually we were going to go overseas and help fight the battle. That should answer your question shouldn't it?

[142]

MT: Where exactly did you go after you were drafted, where did you serve?

K: Well, I first served, first was transferred from the 83rd Infantry of Atterbury into the United States Air Force. The U.S. Air Force needed enlisted personnel, so I requested a transfer. My first assignment was Bowman Field in Louisville, and my second stop was George Field in Vincennes,Indiana. And then I was sent to Grenada, Mississippi, where I was assigned to an Air Field unit. That was a unit that was training glider pilot and DC3 aircraft. Actually we were training what they called CG4A gliders. And that is, you were being trained to fly DC-3's or C-47's that would be assigned to Europe for the invasion three years later. But the assignment at the time was you were going to learn how to be a glider pilot and I don't mind telling you that I had second thoughts about becoming a glider pilot. I had flying experience with the single engine aircraft but I didn't ever think about gliders. But I soon learned and the first time that I really opened up a real big one was in Grenada, Mississippi Air Base. They made me the chief supply officer of procuring supplies. And I don't mind telling you that you have 5000 personnel that come in one week, you have to provide bedding, you have to provide housing, you have to provide food, and there's a thousand and one things that you have to get done and you did what you were supposed to do and that was my responsibility was to open this place up and get the enlisted personnel started so they could start being trained. Well, I could go on, but will try to make this short because anybody who is gonna be watching this is gonna say 'gee, is there anything else he can talk about?' Let's go over the next thing, cause, for you who is watching this picture, I'm only telling you, I'm trying to relive fifty years later. I was born in 1915 and that makes me a young man. For the people that are watching this, I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be alive to day and especially with my great niece and my niece, Larry's wife. I'd never dream in a million years that I'd ever still be here so, when Mollie asked me if I'd do this piece…. Sure. Because all I'm going to try to convey to you, and I'm not going ramble on and on, I'm going to try to get down to the nuts and bolts. I know you've just got so much time otherwise you're going to get bored stiff and I don't want you to get bored. I just want you to remember that your Uncle Morrie served five and half years in WWII. And, most of it was overseas in the South Pacific. You should know that it was a great experience. Would I do it again for my country? Yes, definitely yes. I think its very important that they're people like me who want to serve for their country and I, for one, utilized as much as I can, and I traveled all over the South Pacific and trained, especially in New Guinea. But we'll get to that, and I'll tell you that because that was one of my first experiences in the jungles.

[212]

MT: Where exactly did you go as a pilot? I know you went to the South Pacific, but can you tell me about your first experiences like in New Guinea?

K: OK. ’s good. Uh, I wasn't assigned as a pilot. I was an enlisted man and then I became a second lieutenant, and I became a first lieutenant because they couldn’t find anybody else to give the gold bar to. So I became a first lieutenant. My first assignment was in Finschaven,New Guinea, and we left San Francisco or Oakland, a boatload of GI’s. Back in those days I smoked and believe me if you stood out on the deck in pitch black at night, you could not smoke a cigarette and you couldn’t see the person next to you. For twenty-one days I spent most of my time on this freighter and I was looking for things to do. So I put together, with permission of the captain, a newspaper. And you have got to remember there were 5,000 GI’s on board that freighter. So with them, they had to have something to do. So I started publishing a local paper and I had a bunch of these kids running around getting me the news. I was typing it up and we were putting a newspaper together for these guys to read for the next three weeks. That kept me busy. So let’s go on to the next question.

[236]

MT: What exactly was your job assignment?

K: My job assignment was identified as P and C, Purchasing and Contracting, I went overseas as a second lieutenant. You remember when I left Petersburg quartermaster corps, I became a second lieutenant. And that’s what I had. I had one of those gold bars that you carried on your collar. I went as everybody else at some point I learned, went to the South Pacific, a place called New Guinea which was about, oh, I’d say maybe five, six, seven hundred miles from the northern part of Australia. This was the jungle. This was where you saw the natives with the lap cloths wrapped around them. And these are the same people that you see that have markings on their face. And we were living in tents. We were all eating the same food—Spam. Cold. No hot food. Everything was cold. And that was the beginning of my career, I might say, of making life better for yours truly and helping thousands of other GI’s who received the benefit of some of the things I was going to set my heart out to do. I wanted to try to make it a lot easier for the guys that enter the service. And I went to the Colonel and he knew his morale was very low (I mean the GI’s). So I set out to find out just what there was. P and C officer was what I was, purchasing and contract officer. I knew there was a better way for them to treat the soldier in the service than the way they were being treated.

[266]

MT: The question was “what was your job assignment” and you had just said that you were a P and C officer and you knew there was a better way….

K: Purchasing and contracting. The role of a purchasing and contracting officer, which I was qualified and trained at, in those days, in the South Pacific was we were trying to help the GI with his food and anything else that would assist his"morale". Then, after approaching Colonel John Henebry, AF134, Air Force QM School, who was the presiding officer at the time, he agreed with me. He assigned me a DC-3 twin engine aircraft with an entire crew and an engineer and gave me a blank order that I could go anyplace in the South Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand, and if there was anything I could do to help the GI’s who were at New Guinea, he was leaving it up to my discretion as to what, when and how. And it was really easy for me to travel throughout that part of the world. I’d never been there and I had a mission in mind. That was my fellow military personnel that wasn’t being treated well. They didn’t give him much training. And they shipped him to the South Pacific to start fighting the Japanese. Well, anyway, I just avoided it and checked back with--for the benefit of anyone who is listening to this because things could have been better, but they were not that bad. Because there was always somebody that could help. In the South Pacific, yours truly decided that he would look for food, soft drinks and whatever else the GI’s needed. And I had a blank order so I used to load up DC-3s and ship them back to New Guinea. And I guess I must have shipped close to fifty plane loads of food and supplies, including an ice plant—an ice refrigeration plant, which is something unheard of in New Guinea, which was given to me with the assistance of the Masonic order of the Tocksith Lodge in Sydney, New South Wales. I was fortunate that they even came up to New Guinea to help put it together so we wound up with a refrigeration operation to take care of some 15,000 GI’s. That’s one of the first accomplishments that I thought I felt very comfortable with when I first went into the service. This happened within, I’d say, a year of my being in. After that, I was traveling all through the South Pacific…

[321]

MT: Did you see any combat when you were in World War II?

K: No, I was not in combat, but I was around combat. The purpose of my job was to get the necessary equipment and supplies for the GI’s, but I always carried a rifle. Did I use it? I think once or twice. But I, I was never assigned to a fighting unit. I was always assigned to a supply unit. The next thing is that in the South Pacific, I traveled throughout Australia and New Zealand and northern part of Australia to get supplies for the Army and the GI’s. Yours truly loved his work. I made my headquarters in Sydney in New South Wales and set up an office in the Grace Building and then they saw that I had a symbol of being part of an airport. And there was Logan Field (Mascot Airdrome). It was the local airport in Sydney, and they asked me would I take charge of that airport and I told them I didn’t know how long I was going to be there. The General asked me would I look after the airport. And he said don’t be concerned about that. Little did I realize that what he said was true. He took the local airport and they made an military base and they assigned it to me as an additional duty, meaning with all the other duties that I had, I would also have to look out for the airport, which I did. I found being in Sydney, Australia is where I spent most of my time. I was there for almost two years, maybe longer. I can’t remember. Did I meet anybody? Yeah, sure I did. I met little, we’ll call Joy—that was her first name. And I found her very interesting and through her I was able to find an apartment and for $40 a month, I got myself a beautiful two-bedroom apartment furnished right down on the water. I was living high on a hog. Right up the hill was what they called King’s Cross. And King’s Cross, I think you were in Australia, I don’t know if King’s Cross is still there or not. It’s probably not. Being in that area—they had night clubs and they had restaurants and so forth. Being a very social sort of a guy I went around and introduced myself to a lot of the locals and let them know that I was from Indianapolis and they said “Indy-who?” I have to tell you this and I have to put it in here because I soon learned that very few people knew anything about a place called Indianapolis. So, what else?

[381]

MT: Tell me some of your most memorable experiences.

K: My most memorable experiences, was actually when I was assigned to help build these squadrons from nothing and they were the ones that were going to tow gliders for the invasion of Europe. We were doing that in New Guinea. I don’t remember any of our gliders being towed anyplace around in the South Pacific. But I soon found that when they were preparing for the invasion of Europe, that they wanted those gliders that were being pulled by DC-3s and DC-4s and they were being towed by noncommissioned officers and many of the guys that would ride with parachutes and they either fell out of the planes and they landed or they jumped out on the invasion of Europe. So it shows that we played a part in the South Pacific for the European invasion. A lot of our guys were then transferred to the European fighting units, but I continued to stay in Australia. I think one of the reasons was that I liked it so well that I figured that as long as I knew where I was and what I was doing, I didn’t know where I was going to go if I left myself wide open to being reassigned and going into a branch of service I knew nothing about. I knew that much about the Army and the Air Force. Does that answer your question?

[422]

MT: Were you ever a prisoner of war?

K: No, I was never a prisoner of war nor was there any attempt to make me a prisoner of war.

[425]

MT: Were you awarded any medals or citations?

K: Yes, I was awarded a citation for the unit, but don’t ask me what I did with it.

MT: How did you get them?

K: How? It isn’t how you get it. Its how somebody else looks at what you did. It was in a distressful period as I recall in New Guinea where there was not what you call “command unit under commanding officers.” You usually had—I’m talking about commissioned officers—usually you had enlisted personnel who, such as a sergeant or a corporal or a second lieutenant, who was in charge. But, not being assigned to that type of branch of service would not put me in touch with actual fighting. My job was to make sure that I serviced the organizations that such as the supplies, the food. After all, they don’t fight on an empty stomach.

[451]

MT: Which leads me to my next question. Did you have plenty of supplies and what was the food like?

K: Yes, we had plenty of supplies because I was in charge and I always made sure that I took care of my GI’s that needed food. I knew that there was no way that a guy carrying a gun can go out and go in a store and get something to eat. It was up to guys like me to make sure that food was made available and primarily most of this was all in special containers, especially Spam. Everybody loved Spam. [Tape stops 466] [Second side 631] We had wine—Minchinbery Champagne. General McArthur came and he came over to me in Nadzab, New Guinea, and he says—at that time I was a lieutenant—and he said to me, “Do I understand you know where to get some Minchinbery Champagne?” And I said “Yes, Sir.” And he said, “Well, if you have an opportunity to pick up a case,” and he reached in his pocket to give me money to pay for it, and I said, “General, you can pay me when I get it.” Because I didn’t know whether I was going to get it or not. Anyway, the short of it is I did get the champagne and I did fly it from Nadzab, New Guinea to Manilla and delivered it to him. And I did my job. He was very happy that he got it. He- when he found out there was a second lieutenant out at the door with a box for him…

[642]

MT: So you delivered it personally?

K: Yeah. He came out personally.

MT: But, you delivered it to him in New Guiana.

K: Oh, yeah. I delivered it to him personally. He, at that time, was living in Manilla at the ambassador's house. There was no ambassador there at that time. Anyway, when we occupied Manilla, after we—remember I also came to Manilla which I hadn’t said much about—from Australia at the end of the war—before the end of the war—you had to go to Manilla in order to go back to the States. Once I got my outfit assigned, turned over to another officer, it was just about this time when the General wanted a case of Minchinbery Champagne. I managed to get it. The only way I knew he was going to get it is to fly it and it’s about 5,000 miles. We thought nothing about it. So we flew from Sydney to Manilla and got a Jeep, rode out to the house and delivered the case of Minchinbery Champagne to him. He was very excited and I gave it to him with the compliments of the United States Army. And that took care of that. I don’t think he ever forgot that. Next.

[660]

MT: How did you stay in touch with your family?

K: How did I what?

MT: Stay in touch with your family.

K: I’m not much of a letter writer. Occasionally I would have access to a telephone at some civilized place. I would go to a—when I was in Australia—I would call back to the States and I would call home and I would talk to my parents. And I fell in love over there with a very young girl by the name of Joy Lee. And I thought I was going to marry her and stay there. Actually, I was thinking of going in business there and so when I told that to my mother and father that I was thinking of not coming home for a while but I was going to stay in Sydney and I also was going to join up with an outfit with a guy that I sold a couple of planes to. He was the guy that started the, what is now known as the famous Quantas Airways. At that point, in the early days of that port, I was offered a job with that outfit. Who wants to join an Air Force, not an Air Force, and later on they’re flying around in Australia and New Zealand. I didn’t think much of it. But, of course, we know now that it is Quanta Airways. That’s an interesting experience. I’m not going to bore you with the details. Next.

[680]

MT: Did you feel a lot of pressure and/or stress when you were serving?

K: Did I feel a lot of pressure what?

MT: Or stress when you were serving.

K: No. I never felt any pressure OR stress. I think it was the attitude that I had. The only pressure that I would have or get is something that possibly I might have created. But I was pretty much left alone. I was doing a good job. The officers who I was working for knew it and they didn’t want to push their luck because I was delivering what they needed. And that’s should answer to that question.

[689]

MT: So you were head of operations at the distribution post?

K: Yes. There wasn’t anything that I wanted that I couldn’t get. That’s saying a lot. Especially in the service when it’s so big that people you’re dealing with are not that smart. They don’t know where to go. They don’t know what to do. Now, how many people would know to join a lodge? I joined the Tockith Lodge (Masonic). You know, like the Monument Lodge is here. And I would go up there when I needed something special, they cooperated with me. I will give you an example and I’ll make it short on that. I wanted to put in an ice maker for refrigeration in Nadzab for the GI’s when fresh meat could be located and anything in the way of packed foods would be coming in where they could put it in a refrigeration operation, which I did. I built the plant there. And I took the guys at the Tockith. It was a Masonic Lodge. And these guys were very friendly and wanted to do anything they could to help me and with that I utilized—I used to go there for lunch and then I’d pile four or five guys in my truck and take them to the airport and they all agree they’ll go up and help build the ice plant in Nadzab, New Guinea. Which they did. I’d take them up and they’d work all day there and then I’d take them back to Sydney. It was a long flight. It was about a four-hour flight but they were willing to do it. They saw the fruits of their effort for some twenty-, twenty-five thousand GI’s that needed fresh food. And these guys are the guys that delivered it. Not me. I was able to put the package together for it. Next.

[719]

MT: How did people entertain themselves and who were the entertainers? Were there any?

K: Oh, well, I knew, I met a lot of entertainers over there. They had what they call it when they send them over… Well, I met Milton Berle. I met Milton Berle and Jack Benney and Fred Allen and Phil Foster. They would be coming through and I knew some of them because I had, was a member of the Friar’s Club and so when I would hear that, (what the devil do they call the entertainers, can’t even remember anymore). Anyway, I would want them, I would manage to get a hold of them and bring them in to wherever I knew we had four or five thousand GI’s and they’d put on a show for us. Next.

[732]

MT: What did you do when on leave?

K: What I did when I was on leave? Well, I think I was on leave all the time. [Laughs] I spent most of my time in Sydney, Australia. Sydney and Melbourne. And I used to go down to Canberra. And I had a girlfriend there. And the British, I might add, the British and the Aussies (Australians) they hated one another’s guts. The British would come to Sydney. They would, (you almost have to have the police to separate these guys), they used to fight all the time. But that’s about all on that. What else?

[746]

MT: Where did you travel while in the service?

K: Well, every place in the United States. Every place. I traveled California, Texas, the Midwest, but most of my travels that I found more exciting were those that were in the South Pacific. And that started when I took that boat ride from Oakland to New Guinea

[735]

MT: Was that a nice boat ride?

K: Twenty-one days. Black. Pitch black. Couldn’t stand on the deck and light a cigarette. I mean if you did, you’d get everything but court marshaled. And, but you could smoke inside. And people used to sleep on top of one another. I mean it was terrible going over.

MT: Bad weather?

K: No. It wasn’t bad weather. It wasn’t weather. I mean we were going into a climate, how I shall I put it? The more we left the states, the calmer it got. See, we left Oakland, and we went like this to New Guinea. Then when I came back, I came back to San Francisco. Then from San Francisco, I went to L.A. and then I got on a plane and I had a, some friends of mine and flew home. Go ahead.

[769]

MT: Do you recall any particular humorous or unusual events? And what were some of the pranks that you or others would pull, if any?

K: Humorous events. Was that what you mean?

MT: UmHum.

K: I don’t think you could come up with anything that would—I’m trying to think of what was humorous. Anything I did, I always had a sense of humor. Is that what you mean?

MT: UmHum. Did you ever pull any pranks on anyone or with anyone?

K: With anyone?

MT: No, did you ever pull pranks on anyone or with anyone?

K: Come again.

MT: Did you ever pull pranks on anyone or with anyone?

K: No. No. If somebody did, I didn’t pay attention to it. But I was never involved in anything like that.

[782]

MT: Do you recall the day that your service ended and where were your service ended and where were you?

K: I was in Washington at the Pentagon in the lower level. And I had my release papers and I was discharged there and sent back to Camp Atterbury where I got my final papers. And then I came back to Indianapolis. That’s how simple it was. Everybody else had a lot of problems and I never had any problems. I wound up getting—I got an assignment to go to Washington from the embassy in Manilla. They had a package. Paul McNutt was the ambassador and I knew him. And so he gave me a package to take to be delivered to somebody in Washington to a department or however you want to call it. I remember they put, they had a lock and key and they tied that to my wrist. And I was carrying that small packet or briefcase with the papers all the time I left Manilla 'till I got to Washington and they unlocked it. I left the pouch with it and then they directed me down to the lower level, the third or fourth level down under, where I could get my discharge. And then they wanted to know where they could assign me to go home. So it was easy to say Camp Atterbury. Because I was on the registered list. If I said “Indianapolis” maybe they would and maybe they wouldn’t. But I got, they sent me back to Camp Atterbury. The full fare, everything, was paid. Then, I can’t remember, I think it was Izzy or Al [Morris Katz’s brothers] came down to Atterbury and picked me up and I came home. And that was the end of my military career.

[816]

MT: What did you think of officers or fellow soldiers?

K: What did I think of officers?

MT: Or fellow soldiers, yes.

K: How do you mean?

MT: The officers that you served with and the fellow soldiers. Were they friendly? Were they homesick? Did they treat you well or respect you?

K: Yeah. I mean I had not problem. They were friendly, they were not homesick, and they treated me with respect. I mean I was treated well by officers and enlisted personnel. You learn one thing. You cooperated. You couldn’t be selfish.

MT: Do you think they were well prepared when they came to you?

K: Well prepared?

MT: Had they been trained well enough in boot camp?

K: Oh, no. Nobody was trained well enough.

MT: What do you think they were lacking in mostly?

K: Training.

MT: What kind of training?

K: Military.

MT: Combat or respect or….?

K: I was already a first lieutenant. And I was an acting captain until I was going to be reassigned and then I was going to get my assignment. I can’t say. You asked me a question that's very …. it's a good question but it’s a hard question to answer because you’ve been in the service for five years, over five years, and you had one thought in mind: if you weren’t going to stay there and I wasn’t going to get married there and I wanted to come home, and I was anxious to come home and the only way I could come home was to go to Manilla, to a place called Clark Field which was a part of Manilla, and then you had several options. You had the option to get on the USS General Brewster which had 25-30,000 military personnel they were returning from Manilla to Oakland, California, or San Francisco. Or you (if you decided that you were going to stay in Manilla, as an example), then you’re on your own and the military wasn’t going to pay your way back or bring you back to the United States. If you decided you weren’t going to stay in Manilla for one reason or another, you could take and get a discharge there. Well, I wanted my discharge in the States. I wanted them to have all the obligation of getting me back home. They picked me up at home, take me back home. That’s the way I looked at it. I think it’s your attitude when you go away. And I can’t say what happened. When you look back at the five years I spent, I have absolutely no regrets. I think I told you at the earlier part of the interview, everything is the attitude that you have. And if you feel, if you’ve got a chip on your shoulder that you��ve carried with you, it’s going to show up. But if you’re an ingenious sort of guy and you sit down with the fellows, I think one of the things that, why my career was in the military was the way it was, is I made it that way. Remember, I had experience in what we call P and C, purchasing and contracting, before I went into the service. So when I went into the service, I already had the education of buying and selling. I was doing P and C at the bag company. I still do P and C to this very day. When you say “P and C”, that’s purchasing and contracting, that’s what it amounts to—Larry (Morrie Katz’s nephew and interviewer’s dad) would make a terrific officer. Why? He’s P and C; he buys and sells all the time. Purchasing and contracting. Was that a choice job? Yeah. You had to have the knowledge and the experience in order to do a good job. And you could not afford, I could not afford to gamble and take chances. If I didn’t know something, I would say, “I don’t know. But if you want me to get an answer, I’ll look around see who I can ask to get you an answer. But don't depend on me telling me now because I can’t give you an answer now.” And I think that's one of the big things that got me through is I was on the level. I mean they, a guy knew if they asked me something, it was the truth. I didn’t BS him. And most of the guys were pretty much that way. But this Army today is a whole different Army. I watch these people, these young kids seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old going into the service. The girl is in the military. The only girls we had in the military were nurses. And they were few and far between. Today you see women go instead of their husbands. It’s a different world now. As I said earlier, I have no regrets. I knew generals, I knew people that have big stations in life, and I could carry on a conversation with anybody. I was a businessman. I was a salesperson before I went into the service. So it was much easier for me, because when you’re a salesman and you’re selling bags or whatever or glasses, as the case may be, it’s … People have asked me time after time, “Would you do it again?” I would say, “Yes.” Under the circumstances at that time. Then there was a Pearl Harbor. And we would do what we were doing. With the way things are now, I’m not qualified to answer. I don’t know. I don’t know all the intricate things that are going on in the world.

[928]

MT: What did you do in the days and weeks after you left the Army? Did you work or go back to school or did you get a GI loan?
K: Well, the one thing I didn’t do, I didn’t get a GI loan. What did I do? I remember what I did. I came home and after being home about two or three weeks, I went to New York and I checked in at the Pennsylvania Hotel in mid-Manhattan and I was there for one solid month. I was out all night and I slept all day. [Laughter] I had nothing but a good time for a whole month. And then I was ready to…and that’s where I joined the Friar’s Club and then I met Jack Benny and Milton Berle and then, of course, Phil Foster. A lot of these guys had come overseas and I had seen all of them and I was invited to join the Friar’s Club and when I joined the Friar’s Club it cost me $10.

[947]

MT: What does it cost today?

K: $1,000-$2,000 whatever. But being in the service is an experience. Do I recommend it? No. But should you go if you’re called? Absolutely.

[953]

MT: Did you make any close friendships while in the service?

K: None that I’ve got today. I think they’re all dead by now.

[956]

MT: Did you join a veteran’s organization?

K: Yes. I belong to the 83rd Infantry Division which was the outfit that I was initially assigned to at Camp Atterbury when I first went into the service. When I came out of being a second lieutenant.

[961]

MT: What was your unit when you came out of the Army?

K: Headquarters. Air Force.

[964]

MT: What did you go on to do as a career after the war?

K: My career? Well that’s a good question. I went into the bag company [Max Katz Bag Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, the family business started by Mr. Katz's father].

[965]

MT: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general?

K: Oh yes. I can’t tell you what. But I mean that different things that come about. You think about it, but it’s not an influencing factor in your life. It’s part of a decision that you would make. Would I do this? I don’t know. Should I? Nah, forget it. That’s the way you get that kind of an attitude. You came out of the service. Am I glad I went in? Sure. What difference does it make whether I’m glad or not glad? I was called to duty. My attitude was a good attitude. I had a GREAT attitude. I went when I saw an opportunity of getting transferred, I transferred. I think I showed you. I’ve got a picture around somewhere where a fellow by the name of Jimmy DeMayo who later became a general in the 13th Air Force and myself and I can’t think of the other guy’s name in the middle and the three of us were in a Jeep. And we were in Sydney, Australia, and the guy on the outside, he was the commanding general of the 13th Air Force . And I would take these guys out and get them laid. I knew all of the girls in Sydney. And that’s all they wanted. So I would give them my apartment.

K: Yeah, whatever you wanted to call it. And I had numbers. But those two guys were my buddies.

MT: Is your veterans’ organization still active and are you still active in it?

K: 83rd Infantry still is, yes. Air Force, no.

[998]

MT: Do you attend any reunions?

K: No.

[1003]

MT: How did your service and experience affect your life?

K: For the better. Values. It made you appreciate, it made you appreciate life, living. Because when you’re around and you saw so many people near you getting killed and died or whatever the case happened to be, and you saw where life didn’t mean a lot, you can’t compare World War II to today. Fifty years ago people get killed right and left. So they put a star in the window and that was it. Today it’s a whole different ball game.

[1015]

MT: Is there anything you want to add that we haven’t covered in this interview.

K: No, but I do appreciate your asking me these questions because I think you’re doing the right thing when you complete what you’ve got on your interview, there’s some things in there that I probably wouldn’t want in there. The general conversation. The facts are what you want.

MT: I want your stories. Thank you for your time.

Mollie’s Mom: I do have one comment. I know that throughout your life you have had some really important things that you have done and some fun things. Like through all of Milton Berle’s life you were friends with him. Do you think that relationship was as a result of your having met him in your capacity in the war?

K: I can’t say that had anything to do with it other than Milton when I first met him said "if you ever get to New York, come over to the Friar’s Club and I’ll introduce you to the boys" and to the extent that I first met him. And from then on, he and I became friends. And the same thing with Jack Benny.

Mollie's Mom: Jack Benny.

K: Phil Foster. There were maybe a dozen people I met who belonged to the Friar’s Club. Then when I came back and I spent a whole month in New York, I used to go into the Friar’s either for lunch or for dinner. If I had a date, I’d take them in. That was the cheapest place in the whole city where you could eat. You could get a meal for $7-8 a person. Today it’s $40 or $50 a person. In fact, in those days…. And everything’s a different world.

Mollie's Mom: I have another question. Do you think the good job that you did during World War II had anything to do with the trust they placed in you when you went to Iran? Was that a job that people you knew from the War assigned you to-

K: No. The part when I went to Iran, I went to Iran because of my affiliation with the Israelis. Like why should they, all the others that I met in the war of liberation, none of those people are alive. Everybody’s gone. There are all new people. When I see what’s happening in Israel, it’s like moving into a new neighborhood. You don’t know a soul.

MT: Thank you.

[1075]

Description

Title	Katz, Morris oral history
Subject	World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- New Guinea United States. Army. Infantry Division, 1st -- History Flight training -- United States United States. Army Air Forces. Air Force, 15th -- History
Description	Audio recording of oral history interview with World War II veteran, Morris Katz.
Interviewee(s)	Katz, Morris, b. 1915-04-24
Interviewer(s)	Tavel, Mollie
Recorder(s)	Tavel, Sandi
Date Interviewed	2003-03-01
Item Type	sound
Item ID	KatzMorris.mp3
Transcript	Mr. Morris Katz [b. 4/24/1915] Recorded 3/1/03 [Tape counter starts at #001] MT: It is the beginning of an interview with Morrie Katz, at his home, 7865 Westfield Blvd. 46240, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mr. Katz is 87 years old, having been born on April 24, 1915. My name is Mollie Tavel and I will be the interviewer and Sandi Tavel is the recorder. Mr. Katz is my great uncle on my dad's side of the family. He is my grandma's brother. Uncle Morrie, could you please state for the recording what war you served in? K: Which war I served in? I'll be very happy to tell you because I'm still here. I, on December 7, 1941, was having Sunday dinner with all my family at our Sunday house at 3070 North Delaware. And we didn't have television in those days, we had radios. And as always, we would turn and listen to the radio and as a kid, I'm listening to this record show and all of a sudden, a flash came across that Pearl Harbor…that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. This was about noon on that Sunday. Needless to say, I was shocked and dismayed. However, since I was part of the draft, I went in on the early part of September of 1941 and I was on a temporary leave. When this happened, I didn't stop to eat dinner with my family. I jumped into my car and I rushed out to Fort Harrison. Actually, when I got to the reception center I was the only one there. Fort Harrison is almost a thing of the past now, but it was quite a reception center. Hundreds of thousands of GI's came through that reception center. So, to bypass all the preliminaries, I reported to the draft first thing in the morning and I went to work helping to....they were starting to bring in draftees by the truck load, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, car by car and since I was the only one there for this that could actually write and read and speak English, they put me in charge and I was amazed to find how many people came through there that could not read or write. A lot of them came through from West Virginia, Kentucky, and southern Indiana. And I was one of the first from Indianapolis to be called in. So, I just wanted to give you a preliminary of my entry into the war effort. At that time I think I was about twenty-six. So, what was your question now? MT: What war? K: What war? World War Two. MT: What branch of service did you enter into? [043] K: Well, I started as an infantry man. I was in the reception center as a civilian for a month to register people who could not read or write. However, that didn't keep me from going into the service. So I worked for a month at the reception center and then I was sent to Daniel Field in Augusta, Georgia, which happened to be right next to a golf course. And I spent a couple of months there and the Colonel suggested that I go to Officer Candidate School (OCS). So, you want this part don't you? How I got in? The abbreviation for that is OCS. I went to Petersburg, Virginia where the Officer Candidate School was and registered. I was supposed to be there for ninety days for Class 5 and then the other sixty days they put me in as a second lieutenant and gave me a stack of books THAT high. I would use the term 'mile high'. And the philosophy in the army back in those days for the GI who was just coming in and didn't know his way around was, take the books keep them with you, and when there's a question that comes up that you don't know the answer, look it up in the classification of the information and someplace in one of those books, in which I had maybe were twenty-five or thirty of them, you would get your answer. And it made you very smart, it made you appear VERY smart. Unfortunately, I couldn't carry that many books with me in order to have all the answers. But nonetheless, I completed sixty some odd days at Officer Candidate School and became a second lieutenant. And strange as it seems, I was shipped off to an outfit called Camp Atterbury which was the 83rd Infantry division. And that was located down in southern Indiana and that is where I actually started my basic training. They placed me in the quartermaster corps and with my serving background and I started to help the enlisted personell that were being drafted, who were all civilians. But we didn't have any army people coming in. They were GI's like myself. Everyone had to be interviewed, checked in, so once I transferred to the 83rd infantry, my job was to get the people organized and find out where to put them, whether they engineers, ordinance, or whatever the men may be. I won't bypass you from all these little details because I could write a truck loaded with books with the information I can remember everything so vividly and so well. It was what….fifty years ago that we are talking about? And I can remember my first days of service in the army and the interesting thing was when they entered me in at Camp Atterbury, I was only forty miles from home which was very much of a surprise and which I really didn't expect. So I was there for a very short period of time and from Camp Atterbury, I was transferred into the…. the U.S. Army Air Force. At that time the Air Force was was a very, very small branch of the Army. Matter of fact, when you look back on our Air Force, when we first started, you'd be shocked and amazed at fifty years ago at what our Air Force was like. It was just like being on a truck farm. They had fellows who were learning to fly who didn't know his left foot from his right foot. Nevertheless, we all were there for one purpose, and that was to get our training and to be sent wherever the Defense Department felt was necessary. I'll stop for a minute and ask you if you have any questions to ask at the moment. [100] MT: So, why did you join the service? Because you were drafted? K: I didn't JOIN the service, the service wanted me. You see, when you join the service, that means that you voluntarily go in and enlist. MT: So you WERE drafted? K: I was a draftee. MT: And where were you living at the time? K: I was assigned Camp Atterbury when I was in the 83rd Infantry Division. [105] MT: What did it feel like, in your first few days of service? K: I think the unknowns are probably what bugged me. It wasn't where I slept; it wasn't what I ate. It wasn't who I was associating with. When you were assigned into a branch of service, not knowing which branch you are going to actually wind up in [was unnerving], because I know the army has fifteen or twenty different branches. If you go into the Air Corps, you didn't know where to go because it had so many different branches. But I was looking forward to my career, I was not one who felt he did not want to go into the service. I definitely went into the service after Pearl Harbor, I thought I could go out and lick the world myself; including the Japanese. So, what's the next question? [119] MT: Tell me about your boot camp or training experiences. K: Well my boot camp training experience, since I was so sloppy and I did very little exercising, it was a very interesting experience. I started taking calisthenics, exercise, physical education, and marched a lot. They were building you up physically to start walking. You were in the service and you were going to carry a canvas pack on your back and a gun on your shoulder and you were a member of the United States Army. And you were gonna go where they told you to go and the officer who was in command of your unit, he will treat you just like everybody else. And you have to understand that most of the enlisted me that came from my neighborhood, 31st and Delaware in Indianapolis, must have been about fifteen or twenty men, they were all guys like me. Same age group, in business, professionals, and we didn't cry on one another's shoulders. We didn't have anything to be worried about, I mean all we had to do was make sure we were alive and could train, and then eventually we were going to go overseas and help fight the battle. That should answer your question shouldn't it? [142] MT: Where exactly did you go after you were drafted, where did you serve? K: Well, I first served, first was transferred from the 83rd Infantry of Atterbury into the United States Air Force. The U.S. Air Force needed enlisted personnel, so I requested a transfer. My first assignment was Bowman Field in Louisville, and my second stop was George Field in Vincennes,Indiana. And then I was sent to Grenada, Mississippi, where I was assigned to an Air Field unit. That was a unit that was training glider pilot and DC3 aircraft. Actually we were training what they called CG4A gliders. And that is, you were being trained to fly DC-3's or C-47's that would be assigned to Europe for the invasion three years later. But the assignment at the time was you were going to learn how to be a glider pilot and I don't mind telling you that I had second thoughts about becoming a glider pilot. I had flying experience with the single engine aircraft but I didn't ever think about gliders. But I soon learned and the first time that I really opened up a real big one was in Grenada, Mississippi Air Base. They made me the chief supply officer of procuring supplies. And I don't mind telling you that you have 5000 personnel that come in one week, you have to provide bedding, you have to provide housing, you have to provide food, and there's a thousand and one things that you have to get done and you did what you were supposed to do and that was my responsibility was to open this place up and get the enlisted personnel started so they could start being trained. Well, I could go on, but will try to make this short because anybody who is gonna be watching this is gonna say 'gee, is there anything else he can talk about?' Let's go over the next thing, cause, for you who is watching this picture, I'm only telling you, I'm trying to relive fifty years later. I was born in 1915 and that makes me a young man. For the people that are watching this, I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be alive to day and especially with my great niece and my niece, Larry's wife. I'd never dream in a million years that I'd ever still be here so, when Mollie asked me if I'd do this piece…. Sure. Because all I'm going to try to convey to you, and I'm not going ramble on and on, I'm going to try to get down to the nuts and bolts. I know you've just got so much time otherwise you're going to get bored stiff and I don't want you to get bored. I just want you to remember that your Uncle Morrie served five and half years in WWII. And, most of it was overseas in the South Pacific. You should know that it was a great experience. Would I do it again for my country? Yes, definitely yes. I think its very important that they're people like me who want to serve for their country and I, for one, utilized as much as I can, and I traveled all over the South Pacific and trained, especially in New Guinea. But we'll get to that, and I'll tell you that because that was one of my first experiences in the jungles. [212] MT: Where exactly did you go as a pilot? I know you went to the South Pacific, but can you tell me about your first experiences like in New Guinea? K: OK. ’s good. Uh, I wasn't assigned as a pilot. I was an enlisted man and then I became a second lieutenant, and I became a first lieutenant because they couldn’t find anybody else to give the gold bar to. So I became a first lieutenant. My first assignment was in Finschaven,New Guinea, and we left San Francisco or Oakland, a boatload of GI’s. Back in those days I smoked and believe me if you stood out on the deck in pitch black at night, you could not smoke a cigarette and you couldn’t see the person next to you. For twenty-one days I spent most of my time on this freighter and I was looking for things to do. So I put together, with permission of the captain, a newspaper. And you have got to remember there were 5,000 GI’s on board that freighter. So with them, they had to have something to do. So I started publishing a local paper and I had a bunch of these kids running around getting me the news. I was typing it up and we were putting a newspaper together for these guys to read for the next three weeks. That kept me busy. So let’s go on to the next question. [236] MT: What exactly was your job assignment? K: My job assignment was identified as P and C, Purchasing and Contracting, I went overseas as a second lieutenant. You remember when I left Petersburg quartermaster corps, I became a second lieutenant. And that’s what I had. I had one of those gold bars that you carried on your collar. I went as everybody else at some point I learned, went to the South Pacific, a place called New Guinea which was about, oh, I’d say maybe five, six, seven hundred miles from the northern part of Australia. This was the jungle. This was where you saw the natives with the lap cloths wrapped around them. And these are the same people that you see that have markings on their face. And we were living in tents. We were all eating the same food—Spam. Cold. No hot food. Everything was cold. And that was the beginning of my career, I might say, of making life better for yours truly and helping thousands of other GI’s who received the benefit of some of the things I was going to set my heart out to do. I wanted to try to make it a lot easier for the guys that enter the service. And I went to the Colonel and he knew his morale was very low (I mean the GI’s). So I set out to find out just what there was. P and C officer was what I was, purchasing and contract officer. I knew there was a better way for them to treat the soldier in the service than the way they were being treated. [266] MT: The question was “what was your job assignment” and you had just said that you were a P and C officer and you knew there was a better way…. K: Purchasing and contracting. The role of a purchasing and contracting officer, which I was qualified and trained at, in those days, in the South Pacific was we were trying to help the GI with his food and anything else that would assist his"morale". Then, after approaching Colonel John Henebry, AF134, Air Force QM School, who was the presiding officer at the time, he agreed with me. He assigned me a DC-3 twin engine aircraft with an entire crew and an engineer and gave me a blank order that I could go anyplace in the South Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand, and if there was anything I could do to help the GI’s who were at New Guinea, he was leaving it up to my discretion as to what, when and how. And it was really easy for me to travel throughout that part of the world. I’d never been there and I had a mission in mind. That was my fellow military personnel that wasn’t being treated well. They didn’t give him much training. And they shipped him to the South Pacific to start fighting the Japanese. Well, anyway, I just avoided it and checked back with--for the benefit of anyone who is listening to this because things could have been better, but they were not that bad. Because there was always somebody that could help. In the South Pacific, yours truly decided that he would look for food, soft drinks and whatever else the GI’s needed. And I had a blank order so I used to load up DC-3s and ship them back to New Guinea. And I guess I must have shipped close to fifty plane loads of food and supplies, including an ice plant—an ice refrigeration plant, which is something unheard of in New Guinea, which was given to me with the assistance of the Masonic order of the Tocksith Lodge in Sydney, New South Wales. I was fortunate that they even came up to New Guinea to help put it together so we wound up with a refrigeration operation to take care of some 15,000 GI’s. That’s one of the first accomplishments that I thought I felt very comfortable with when I first went into the service. This happened within, I’d say, a year of my being in. After that, I was traveling all through the South Pacific… [321] MT: Did you see any combat when you were in World War II? K: No, I was not in combat, but I was around combat. The purpose of my job was to get the necessary equipment and supplies for the GI’s, but I always carried a rifle. Did I use it? I think once or twice. But I, I was never assigned to a fighting unit. I was always assigned to a supply unit. The next thing is that in the South Pacific, I traveled throughout Australia and New Zealand and northern part of Australia to get supplies for the Army and the GI’s. Yours truly loved his work. I made my headquarters in Sydney in New South Wales and set up an office in the Grace Building and then they saw that I had a symbol of being part of an airport. And there was Logan Field (Mascot Airdrome). It was the local airport in Sydney, and they asked me would I take charge of that airport and I told them I didn’t know how long I was going to be there. The General asked me would I look after the airport. And he said don’t be concerned about that. Little did I realize that what he said was true. He took the local airport and they made an military base and they assigned it to me as an additional duty, meaning with all the other duties that I had, I would also have to look out for the airport, which I did. I found being in Sydney, Australia is where I spent most of my time. I was there for almost two years, maybe longer. I can’t remember. Did I meet anybody? Yeah, sure I did. I met little, we’ll call Joy—that was her first name. And I found her very interesting and through her I was able to find an apartment and for $40 a month, I got myself a beautiful two-bedroom apartment furnished right down on the water. I was living high on a hog. Right up the hill was what they called King’s Cross. And King’s Cross, I think you were in Australia, I don’t know if King’s Cross is still there or not. It’s probably not. Being in that area—they had night clubs and they had restaurants and so forth. Being a very social sort of a guy I went around and introduced myself to a lot of the locals and let them know that I was from Indianapolis and they said “Indy-who?” I have to tell you this and I have to put it in here because I soon learned that very few people knew anything about a place called Indianapolis. So, what else? [381] MT: Tell me some of your most memorable experiences. K: My most memorable experiences, was actually when I was assigned to help build these squadrons from nothing and they were the ones that were going to tow gliders for the invasion of Europe. We were doing that in New Guinea. I don’t remember any of our gliders being towed anyplace around in the South Pacific. But I soon found that when they were preparing for the invasion of Europe, that they wanted those gliders that were being pulled by DC-3s and DC-4s and they were being towed by noncommissioned officers and many of the guys that would ride with parachutes and they either fell out of the planes and they landed or they jumped out on the invasion of Europe. So it shows that we played a part in the South Pacific for the European invasion. A lot of our guys were then transferred to the European fighting units, but I continued to stay in Australia. I think one of the reasons was that I liked it so well that I figured that as long as I knew where I was and what I was doing, I didn’t know where I was going to go if I left myself wide open to being reassigned and going into a branch of service I knew nothing about. I knew that much about the Army and the Air Force. Does that answer your question? [422] MT: Were you ever a prisoner of war? K: No, I was never a prisoner of war nor was there any attempt to make me a prisoner of war. [425] MT: Were you awarded any medals or citations? K: Yes, I was awarded a citation for the unit, but don’t ask me what I did with it. MT: How did you get them? K: How? It isn’t how you get it. Its how somebody else looks at what you did. It was in a distressful period as I recall in New Guinea where there was not what you call “command unit under commanding officers.” You usually had—I’m talking about commissioned officers—usually you had enlisted personnel who, such as a sergeant or a corporal or a second lieutenant, who was in charge. But, not being assigned to that type of branch of service would not put me in touch with actual fighting. My job was to make sure that I serviced the organizations that such as the supplies, the food. After all, they don’t fight on an empty stomach. [451] MT: Which leads me to my next question. Did you have plenty of supplies and what was the food like? K: Yes, we had plenty of supplies because I was in charge and I always made sure that I took care of my GI’s that needed food. I knew that there was no way that a guy carrying a gun can go out and go in a store and get something to eat. It was up to guys like me to make sure that food was made available and primarily most of this was all in special containers, especially Spam. Everybody loved Spam. [Tape stops 466] [Second side 631] We had wine—Minchinbery Champagne. General McArthur came and he came over to me in Nadzab, New Guinea, and he says—at that time I was a lieutenant—and he said to me, “Do I understand you know where to get some Minchinbery Champagne?” And I said “Yes, Sir.” And he said, “Well, if you have an opportunity to pick up a case,” and he reached in his pocket to give me money to pay for it, and I said, “General, you can pay me when I get it.” Because I didn’t know whether I was going to get it or not. Anyway, the short of it is I did get the champagne and I did fly it from Nadzab, New Guinea to Manilla and delivered it to him. And I did my job. He was very happy that he got it. He- when he found out there was a second lieutenant out at the door with a box for him… [642] MT: So you delivered it personally? K: Yeah. He came out personally. MT: But, you delivered it to him in New Guiana. K: Oh, yeah. I delivered it to him personally. He, at that time, was living in Manilla at the ambassador's house. There was no ambassador there at that time. Anyway, when we occupied Manilla, after we—remember I also came to Manilla which I hadn’t said much about—from Australia at the end of the war—before the end of the war—you had to go to Manilla in order to go back to the States. Once I got my outfit assigned, turned over to another officer, it was just about this time when the General wanted a case of Minchinbery Champagne. I managed to get it. The only way I knew he was going to get it is to fly it and it’s about 5,000 miles. We thought nothing about it. So we flew from Sydney to Manilla and got a Jeep, rode out to the house and delivered the case of Minchinbery Champagne to him. He was very excited and I gave it to him with the compliments of the United States Army. And that took care of that. I don’t think he ever forgot that. Next. [660] MT: How did you stay in touch with your family? K: How did I what? MT: Stay in touch with your family. K: I’m not much of a letter writer. Occasionally I would have access to a telephone at some civilized place. I would go to a—when I was in Australia—I would call back to the States and I would call home and I would talk to my parents. And I fell in love over there with a very young girl by the name of Joy Lee. And I thought I was going to marry her and stay there. Actually, I was thinking of going in business there and so when I told that to my mother and father that I was thinking of not coming home for a while but I was going to stay in Sydney and I also was going to join up with an outfit with a guy that I sold a couple of planes to. He was the guy that started the, what is now known as the famous Quantas Airways. At that point, in the early days of that port, I was offered a job with that outfit. Who wants to join an Air Force, not an Air Force, and later on they’re flying around in Australia and New Zealand. I didn’t think much of it. But, of course, we know now that it is Quanta Airways. That’s an interesting experience. I’m not going to bore you with the details. Next. [680] MT: Did you feel a lot of pressure and/or stress when you were serving? K: Did I feel a lot of pressure what? MT: Or stress when you were serving. K: No. I never felt any pressure OR stress. I think it was the attitude that I had. The only pressure that I would have or get is something that possibly I might have created. But I was pretty much left alone. I was doing a good job. The officers who I was working for knew it and they didn’t want to push their luck because I was delivering what they needed. And that’s should answer to that question. [689] MT: So you were head of operations at the distribution post? K: Yes. There wasn’t anything that I wanted that I couldn’t get. That’s saying a lot. Especially in the service when it’s so big that people you’re dealing with are not that smart. They don’t know where to go. They don’t know what to do. Now, how many people would know to join a lodge? I joined the Tockith Lodge (Masonic). You know, like the Monument Lodge is here. And I would go up there when I needed something special, they cooperated with me. I will give you an example and I’ll make it short on that. I wanted to put in an ice maker for refrigeration in Nadzab for the GI’s when fresh meat could be located and anything in the way of packed foods would be coming in where they could put it in a refrigeration operation, which I did. I built the plant there. And I took the guys at the Tockith. It was a Masonic Lodge. And these guys were very friendly and wanted to do anything they could to help me and with that I utilized—I used to go there for lunch and then I’d pile four or five guys in my truck and take them to the airport and they all agree they’ll go up and help build the ice plant in Nadzab, New Guinea. Which they did. I’d take them up and they’d work all day there and then I’d take them back to Sydney. It was a long flight. It was about a four-hour flight but they were willing to do it. They saw the fruits of their effort for some twenty-, twenty-five thousand GI’s that needed fresh food. And these guys are the guys that delivered it. Not me. I was able to put the package together for it. Next. [719] MT: How did people entertain themselves and who were the entertainers? Were there any? K: Oh, well, I knew, I met a lot of entertainers over there. They had what they call it when they send them over… Well, I met Milton Berle. I met Milton Berle and Jack Benney and Fred Allen and Phil Foster. They would be coming through and I knew some of them because I had, was a member of the Friar’s Club and so when I would hear that, (what the devil do they call the entertainers, can’t even remember anymore). Anyway, I would want them, I would manage to get a hold of them and bring them in to wherever I knew we had four or five thousand GI’s and they’d put on a show for us. Next. [732] MT: What did you do when on leave? K: What I did when I was on leave? Well, I think I was on leave all the time. [Laughs] I spent most of my time in Sydney, Australia. Sydney and Melbourne. And I used to go down to Canberra. And I had a girlfriend there. And the British, I might add, the British and the Aussies (Australians) they hated one another’s guts. The British would come to Sydney. They would, (you almost have to have the police to separate these guys), they used to fight all the time. But that’s about all on that. What else? [746] MT: Where did you travel while in the service? K: Well, every place in the United States. Every place. I traveled California, Texas, the Midwest, but most of my travels that I found more exciting were those that were in the South Pacific. And that started when I took that boat ride from Oakland to New Guinea [735] MT: Was that a nice boat ride? K: Twenty-one days. Black. Pitch black. Couldn’t stand on the deck and light a cigarette. I mean if you did, you’d get everything but court marshaled. And, but you could smoke inside. And people used to sleep on top of one another. I mean it was terrible going over. MT: Bad weather? K: No. It wasn’t bad weather. It wasn’t weather. I mean we were going into a climate, how I shall I put it? The more we left the states, the calmer it got. See, we left Oakland, and we went like this to New Guinea. Then when I came back, I came back to San Francisco. Then from San Francisco, I went to L.A. and then I got on a plane and I had a, some friends of mine and flew home. Go ahead. [769] MT: Do you recall any particular humorous or unusual events? And what were some of the pranks that you or others would pull, if any? K: Humorous events. Was that what you mean? MT: UmHum. K: I don’t think you could come up with anything that would—I’m trying to think of what was humorous. Anything I did, I always had a sense of humor. Is that what you mean? MT: UmHum. Did you ever pull any pranks on anyone or with anyone? K: With anyone? MT: No, did you ever pull pranks on anyone or with anyone? K: Come again. MT: Did you ever pull pranks on anyone or with anyone? K: No. No. If somebody did, I didn’t pay attention to it. But I was never involved in anything like that. [782] MT: Do you recall the day that your service ended and where were your service ended and where were you? K: I was in Washington at the Pentagon in the lower level. And I had my release papers and I was discharged there and sent back to Camp Atterbury where I got my final papers. And then I came back to Indianapolis. That’s how simple it was. Everybody else had a lot of problems and I never had any problems. I wound up getting—I got an assignment to go to Washington from the embassy in Manilla. They had a package. Paul McNutt was the ambassador and I knew him. And so he gave me a package to take to be delivered to somebody in Washington to a department or however you want to call it. I remember they put, they had a lock and key and they tied that to my wrist. And I was carrying that small packet or briefcase with the papers all the time I left Manilla 'till I got to Washington and they unlocked it. I left the pouch with it and then they directed me down to the lower level, the third or fourth level down under, where I could get my discharge. And then they wanted to know where they could assign me to go home. So it was easy to say Camp Atterbury. Because I was on the registered list. If I said “Indianapolis” maybe they would and maybe they wouldn’t. But I got, they sent me back to Camp Atterbury. The full fare, everything, was paid. Then, I can’t remember, I think it was Izzy or Al [Morris Katz’s brothers] came down to Atterbury and picked me up and I came home. And that was the end of my military career. [816] MT: What did you think of officers or fellow soldiers? K: What did I think of officers? MT: Or fellow soldiers, yes. K: How do you mean? MT: The officers that you served with and the fellow soldiers. Were they friendly? Were they homesick? Did they treat you well or respect you? K: Yeah. I mean I had not problem. They were friendly, they were not homesick, and they treated me with respect. I mean I was treated well by officers and enlisted personnel. You learn one thing. You cooperated. You couldn’t be selfish. MT: Do you think they were well prepared when they came to you? K: Well prepared? MT: Had they been trained well enough in boot camp? K: Oh, no. Nobody was trained well enough. MT: What do you think they were lacking in mostly? K: Training. MT: What kind of training? K: Military. MT: Combat or respect or….? K: I was already a first lieutenant. And I was an acting captain until I was going to be reassigned and then I was going to get my assignment. I can’t say. You asked me a question that's very …. it's a good question but it’s a hard question to answer because you’ve been in the service for five years, over five years, and you had one thought in mind: if you weren’t going to stay there and I wasn’t going to get married there and I wanted to come home, and I was anxious to come home and the only way I could come home was to go to Manilla, to a place called Clark Field which was a part of Manilla, and then you had several options. You had the option to get on the USS General Brewster which had 25-30,000 military personnel they were returning from Manilla to Oakland, California, or San Francisco. Or you (if you decided that you were going to stay in Manilla, as an example), then you’re on your own and the military wasn’t going to pay your way back or bring you back to the United States. If you decided you weren’t going to stay in Manilla for one reason or another, you could take and get a discharge there. Well, I wanted my discharge in the States. I wanted them to have all the obligation of getting me back home. They picked me up at home, take me back home. That’s the way I looked at it. I think it’s your attitude when you go away. And I can’t say what happened. When you look back at the five years I spent, I have absolutely no regrets. I think I told you at the earlier part of the interview, everything is the attitude that you have. And if you feel, if you’ve got a chip on your shoulder that you��ve carried with you, it’s going to show up. But if you’re an ingenious sort of guy and you sit down with the fellows, I think one of the things that, why my career was in the military was the way it was, is I made it that way. Remember, I had experience in what we call P and C, purchasing and contracting, before I went into the service. So when I went into the service, I already had the education of buying and selling. I was doing P and C at the bag company. I still do P and C to this very day. When you say “P and C”, that’s purchasing and contracting, that’s what it amounts to—Larry (Morrie Katz’s nephew and interviewer’s dad) would make a terrific officer. Why? He’s P and C; he buys and sells all the time. Purchasing and contracting. Was that a choice job? Yeah. You had to have the knowledge and the experience in order to do a good job. And you could not afford, I could not afford to gamble and take chances. If I didn’t know something, I would say, “I don’t know. But if you want me to get an answer, I’ll look around see who I can ask to get you an answer. But don't depend on me telling me now because I can’t give you an answer now.” And I think that's one of the big things that got me through is I was on the level. I mean they, a guy knew if they asked me something, it was the truth. I didn’t BS him. And most of the guys were pretty much that way. But this Army today is a whole different Army. I watch these people, these young kids seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old going into the service. The girl is in the military. The only girls we had in the military were nurses. And they were few and far between. Today you see women go instead of their husbands. It’s a different world now. As I said earlier, I have no regrets. I knew generals, I knew people that have big stations in life, and I could carry on a conversation with anybody. I was a businessman. I was a salesperson before I went into the service. So it was much easier for me, because when you’re a salesman and you’re selling bags or whatever or glasses, as the case may be, it’s … People have asked me time after time, “Would you do it again?” I would say, “Yes.” Under the circumstances at that time. Then there was a Pearl Harbor. And we would do what we were doing. With the way things are now, I’m not qualified to answer. I don’t know. I don’t know all the intricate things that are going on in the world. [928] MT: What did you do in the days and weeks after you left the Army? Did you work or go back to school or did you get a GI loan? K: Well, the one thing I didn’t do, I didn’t get a GI loan. What did I do? I remember what I did. I came home and after being home about two or three weeks, I went to New York and I checked in at the Pennsylvania Hotel in mid-Manhattan and I was there for one solid month. I was out all night and I slept all day. [Laughter] I had nothing but a good time for a whole month. And then I was ready to…and that’s where I joined the Friar’s Club and then I met Jack Benny and Milton Berle and then, of course, Phil Foster. A lot of these guys had come overseas and I had seen all of them and I was invited to join the Friar’s Club and when I joined the Friar’s Club it cost me $10. [947] MT: What does it cost today? K: $1,000-$2,000 whatever. But being in the service is an experience. Do I recommend it? No. But should you go if you’re called? Absolutely. [953] MT: Did you make any close friendships while in the service? K: None that I’ve got today. I think they’re all dead by now. [956] MT: Did you join a veteran’s organization? K: Yes. I belong to the 83rd Infantry Division which was the outfit that I was initially assigned to at Camp Atterbury when I first went into the service. When I came out of being a second lieutenant. [961] MT: What was your unit when you came out of the Army? K: Headquarters. Air Force. [964] MT: What did you go on to do as a career after the war? K: My career? Well that’s a good question. I went into the bag company [Max Katz Bag Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, the family business started by Mr. Katz's father]. [965] MT: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general? K: Oh yes. I can’t tell you what. But I mean that different things that come about. You think about it, but it’s not an influencing factor in your life. It’s part of a decision that you would make. Would I do this? I don’t know. Should I? Nah, forget it. That’s the way you get that kind of an attitude. You came out of the service. Am I glad I went in? Sure. What difference does it make whether I’m glad or not glad? I was called to duty. My attitude was a good attitude. I had a GREAT attitude. I went when I saw an opportunity of getting transferred, I transferred. I think I showed you. I’ve got a picture around somewhere where a fellow by the name of Jimmy DeMayo who later became a general in the 13th Air Force and myself and I can’t think of the other guy’s name in the middle and the three of us were in a Jeep. And we were in Sydney, Australia, and the guy on the outside, he was the commanding general of the 13th Air Force . And I would take these guys out and get them laid. I knew all of the girls in Sydney. And that’s all they wanted. So I would give them my apartment. K: Yeah, whatever you wanted to call it. And I had numbers. But those two guys were my buddies. MT: Is your veterans’ organization still active and are you still active in it? K: 83rd Infantry still is, yes. Air Force, no. [998] MT: Do you attend any reunions? K: No. [1003] MT: How did your service and experience affect your life? K: For the better. Values. It made you appreciate, it made you appreciate life, living. Because when you’re around and you saw so many people near you getting killed and died or whatever the case happened to be, and you saw where life didn’t mean a lot, you can’t compare World War II to today. Fifty years ago people get killed right and left. So they put a star in the window and that was it. Today it’s a whole different ball game. [1015] MT: Is there anything you want to add that we haven’t covered in this interview. K: No, but I do appreciate your asking me these questions because I think you’re doing the right thing when you complete what you’ve got on your interview, there’s some things in there that I probably wouldn’t want in there. The general conversation. The facts are what you want. MT: I want your stories. Thank you for your time. Mollie’s Mom: I do have one comment. I know that throughout your life you have had some really important things that you have done and some fun things. Like through all of Milton Berle’s life you were friends with him. Do you think that relationship was as a result of your having met him in your capacity in the war? K: I can’t say that had anything to do with it other than Milton when I first met him said "if you ever get to New York, come over to the Friar’s Club and I’ll introduce you to the boys" and to the extent that I first met him. And from then on, he and I became friends. And the same thing with Jack Benny. Mollie's Mom: Jack Benny. K: Phil Foster. There were maybe a dozen people I met who belonged to the Friar’s Club. Then when I came back and I spent a whole month in New York, I used to go into the Friar’s either for lunch or for dinner. If I had a date, I’d take them in. That was the cheapest place in the whole city where you could eat. You could get a meal for $7-8 a person. Today it’s $40 or $50 a person. In fact, in those days…. And everything’s a different world. Mollie's Mom: I have another question. Do you think the good job that you did during World War II had anything to do with the trust they placed in you when you went to Iran? Was that a job that people you knew from the War assigned you to- K: No. The part when I went to Iran, I went to Iran because of my affiliation with the Israelis. Like why should they, all the others that I met in the war of liberation, none of those people are alive. Everybody’s gone. There are all new people. When I see what’s happening in Israel, it’s like moving into a new neighborhood. You don’t know a soul. MT: Thank you. [1075]
Owning Institution	Park Tudor School
Usage Rights	http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/copyright
Have Questions?	Contact Kathryn Lerch, klerch@parktudor.org
Digital Publisher	IUPUI University Library
Digital Collection	Park Tudor School Words of War Oral History Collection
Digital Date	2010-03-11
Digital Specifications	MP3 audio file

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Katz, Morris oral history

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