Interview With Mr. Leon Mahakian
[b. 3/2/23]
Recorded on 11/23/04
[recording starts at 003]
Michael Rardon: What’s your date of birth?
Leon Mahakian: March 2, 1923
MR: And your current address?
LM: 520 West 53 Teris Hialeah Florida
MR: What branch of service were you in?
LM: I was in the army.
MR: What was your rank?
LM: Sergeant.
MR: Where did you serve?
LM: When I was shipped over seas I was in France and Germany.
[011]
MR: Were you drafted or did you enlist?
LM :I was drafted in June 1943.
MR :Where were you living at the time?
LM: I was in Newton, Massachusetts.
MR: Why did you pick the service branch you joined?
LM: Well it’s a long story. By the time I got through some of the early things in my basic training I finally at the end of the last year and a half ended up in the combat engineers.
[018]
MR: Do you recall your first days in service? What did they feel like?
LM : We were getting off the bus at the army base and people were running around telling us directions, telling us to fall in which we didn’t know what that meant at the time. What they were trying to do was get us to line up like soldiers. So we finally made it. We didn’t have time to think.
[023]
MR: What was your boot camp or training experience like?
LM: Well, spending time in basic training is quite an experience, because if we weren’t in good shape before we started that we certainly were after we finished. We got up at five-thirty every morning washing having breakfast, and then we went outside to do all kinds of calisthenics.
MR: How did you manage to get through it?
LM: I made it, I made it. The culminating thing was a twenty-five mile march on graduation day. Everybody has to do the twenty-five miles in order to get their grade and out of basic training. I remember that the last five miles the only thing that kept me going was a couple of guys up in front who were whistling. I could hear the whistling. They were whistling army songs and we just kept putting one foot in front of the other until we finished twenty-five miles and we felt pretty good about it. And by the way I forgot to mention, we were carrying 25 pounds on are back, because we had to carry a riffle with us, and a sleeping uh sleeping bag. So that was some trip.
MR: Which war did you serve in?
LM: World War II
MR: Where exactly did you go?
LM: Well, I haven’t looked up the towns, but the very first place we landed was in England and I spent three months there in a place called Bath, England. B-A-T-H which is a famous town for its Roman baths that were there so I guess that’s where it got its name. I spent three months there and got to socialize with some English people which was interesting. From there, we crossed the English Channel on Christmas morning [December 1944]. I remember well Christmas morning cause we had turkey the night before, but most of us couldn’t eat. And on Christmas morning we took off from England to go across the English Channel to France and we almost got to France when the order came through to stop and our boat stopped there. It wasn’t a very big boat, but our boat stopped there in the middle of the English Channel and the reason why they made us stop was that a passenger ship, I mean, a cargo ship had gone into Cherbourg, was the name of the harbor, before us and some how or another the German marine had managed to send a torpedo in and blow up the ship and we were the next boat in line to go in. So that was kind of scary, but we were out there for about eight hours then they directed us into Cherbourg. We got off the ship and started walking right away. We got off the ship at about four o’clock in the morning and started marching right away because that was the time the Battle of the Bulge was taking place and we were going towards that Battle in order to relieve some troops. But I know, the reason I know this is because the first stop that we made was a French village called Looneyville. Well we called it Looneyville, but it is actually Luneville. We know how to pronounce that better than I do. That’s where we spent our first night in France. With the temperature down around zero I am going to say.
MR: What was your job assignment?
LM: Well, I was what they call a, well at that time I was just a corporal. I was what they call a line corporal. And our job was to fix bridges in some places and build them in other places and I was in charge of a squad. We would get orders to do things and then the sergeants would tell the squad leaders and then we would do whatever had to be done.
[072]
MR: You saw combat right?
LM: Well, we saw, yeah we were in areas where we were shot at and where we fired back. It’s not much fun.
MR: Were there many casualties in your unit?
LM: No, we were very fortunate. Because we never got directly to the front line because we were in the second echelon and so the people we were fighting against were not the front line troops and most of the time, you know, they were ready to surrender. But, you know it gets scary because you’re out working on a bridge and on the other side of the river is German troops. Sometimes they’re firing back at you and we always set aside a half a dozen GIs to spread out on our side to fire at them so they wouldn’t be bothering us while we were working. It’s interesting.
[083]
MR: What were a couple of your most memorable experiences?
LM: Well, let me tell you one, I think I told you one time. I was on guard duty at night after everybody has gone to bed. I am at the top of a stairway in a building. My back is against the door and the door is locked so nobody can come up behind me. And I am sitting there and it’s pitch dark. This is the kind of dark you hear people talk about when they say you can’t see your fingers in front of your face. That’s how dark it was. I am sitting there. I am on guard duty from two o’clock in the morning until four o’clock in the morning for two hours. And I’ll tell you ,Michael, I was scared to death. I had that rifle in front of me un-cocked ready to fire if even a friend had come up in front of me he would have dead. But I did that for two hours and there was no falling asleep. Two hours later the sergeant of the guard, he is the guy that brings your release man, he came up and before he got too close he identified himself and, of course, I said “come closer and be recognized.” I couldn’t see him. But anyhow I knew his voice so that was one experience.
Another one was in the last couple of weeks of the war, we were in a town in Germany called Tegernsee. Now ‘see’ at the end of the word means Tegern Lake, because that’s the German name for lake. We were there for we had been in there for two or three days and my roommate and I decided to go up a hill that was just off to one side there and just look around and see if we could capture any Germans. This was a pretty dumb thing to do when we thought about it afterwards, because we are out in the open walking up this hill and we knew, but never even thought about the idea that Germans as well as Americans and Russians used to dig holes in the side of a hill and camouflage themselves in there and therefore they would be able to pick off any enemy that came by. So we walk up the hill, looking pretty good dragging our guns along with us and all of a sudden one of us says, “You know what are we doing up here? We can’t see anybody and this place could be loaded with enemy soldiers. Let’s get the heck out of here and back to where we belong with our unit.” So those were two of the things that happened. We did some other things. We had to go in the Austen Mountains in France to hook up with General Patton’s Seventh Army. I am sure you have probably heard of him. Because for about two months we were attached to the Seventh Army which meant we had to go where they went and build roads and bridges to keep them moving. Do you know, well you probably don’t know, but he moved very fast. And that was interesting. We are up high in those mountains freezing to death and working. We got through it.
[125]
MR: Were you in any major battles?
LM: Well, the battle were not major battles, they were minor battles because we were always on the outskirts of any action that took place. I remember one time when we were marching on the way to Munich and there were German planes flying overhead and there were American planes trying to keep up with them. That was the first time any of us had seen a jet plane. Remember the Germans were the people who invented the jet plane. And they had a few at the tail end of the war. The trouble is they didn’t have enough of them or enough fuels to keep then going fortunately for us. Then, while we were walking down the highway or marching down the highway to Munich on the side of the road I guess the Germans used the highway as a landing and taking off place. On the side of the road we walked past maybe fifteen-twenty German airplanes that had been left behind. We moved fast, you know.
MR: Were you ever a prisoner of war?
LM: Never a prisoner of war.
MR: Were you ever awarded any medals?
LM: Yes, I got a Good Conduct medal and a Sharp Shooters medal for marksmanship with the rifle and a battle ribbon for European Theatre of Operations. I think that was what they called it ETO.
MR: Did you ever sustain any injuries?
LM: No
[147]
MR: What was it like when you were under fire?
LM: Well, when you are under fire you are nervous and scared and tense. Once the bullet passes you, you start concentrating on shooting at where you think there is enemy. Most of the time you don’t see them. Every now and then one stands up or you see a helmet to aim for because you’re fighting from trenches. Although as a combat engineer we didn’t spend too much time in trenches. Most of our battles were while or army, well part of our army was building bridges or repairing bridges trying to keep them safe. So we are battling that way. We sustained some wounded people and one person got killed from fire. But we were very fortunate some of the other people in other divisions who were under heavy fire. So ours wasn’t. When you stop and think about which I did afterwards, all over you feel good about having done it and gotten through the war and it was very interesting when you go back home and you don’t much want to talk about it.
MR: How did you stay in touch with your family?
LM: The mail man was always around. It might have been a week or ten days before your mail came in, but it always did. There was always mail call in the morning and you would go out there and the mail would come in and the sergeant would be passing out whatever letters or cookies or you know whatever cartons had been sent to you with food in them and stuff like that.
MR: Did you send lots of letters?
LM: I didn’t write as much as I should have. I tried to write once a week. I got letters from my parents once a week and they sent me goods once a week.
MR: What was the food like?
LM: You mean the army food? [laughs] Not good, Michael, not good. You wouldn’t want it. But you know when your hungry, you will eat anything. So you know we had cooks and they made hot food when they could. Otherwise we had to use the pre-packaged stuff. It had some basic kind of food and dessert in it.
[180]
MR: Did you have plenty of supplies in your group?
LM: Plenty what? Oh plenty of supplies. Yes, we did because we were a service unit and therefore we had to supply others with material, therefore the headquarters saw to it that we always had enough supplies on hand. The only thing we didn’t have, I’ll tell you about it. They had come out with new boots to wear in the winter time and never got to the front where we were. As a matter of fact some day I’ll show you I’ve got a picture of me in this Luneville that I was talking about my shoes weren’t keeping me warm and I wrapped newspaper around both my feet as much newspaper as I could get around there and I walked around for a couple of days like that so I could keep my feet warm. I don’t know why, you know what happens is you can get frozen toes and frostbite. So you had to be careful.
MR: How much stress or pressure did you feel?
LM: Well, the pressure was being alert all the time that you’re out in foreign areas. You’re not home in the U.S.A. anymore, you know. You are in areas where you don’t know if the people are going to like you are not like you, if there are enemy soldiers hiding in with the people or hiding in bombed out buildings, because they used to do that and sharp shoot at you. So there was always constant pressure because you were always alert of what was around you. You know, you learn to deal with it. That’s what the boys are doing over in Iraq now.
MR: Was there something special you did for good luck?
LM: Something special I did for good luck? Not really, I just made sure my rifle was clean and loaded. “Lock and load” they used to call it in those days.
MR: How did people entertain themselves?
LM: Well, if we weren’t too close to the front, we used to get a movie maybe once a month that we could see. We were never in an area where we saw U.S.O performers. We were too far up to the front. Later on, when I got a pass to go to Paris then I saw U.S.O places in Paris when I went there and saw performers and so forth. While the fighting was going on, no time for pleasantries.
MR: So you never had any special entertainers come?
LM: No
[215]
MR: What did you do when you were on leave?
LM: Well, like I just told you I went to Paris and after the war was over, I got another ten-day pass and we spent that on a bus tour through Austria and Italy and Switzerland. We spent four days in Switzerland that was nice, I enjoyed it. The people were very good to us while we traveled around. That was all after the war. Then I spent, let me see, I was in London for five days. You know I don’t remember if it was before the war or after the war. I think it was when I first got to England from the U.S.A. and I was in Bath I got a three day pass and went to London. So I probably saw some of the same places you saw didn’t you got to London? “yes.” Went to Piccadilly Square. You went there? The Parliament building and Big Ben, I saw all those things.
[233]
MR: Do you recall any particular humorous or unusual events?
LM: Humorous or unusual event? Yes, our main friends were the German girls after the war was over. I used to visit her and her family at her house. I would take candy and coffee over. One night I came in kind of late and I came in through the kitchen and she and her mother were where I could see them when I entered the doorway, but I could feel that there was somebody hidden behind the door. Don’t forget now I am in Germany and the war is over and the Allies including the U.S. have won, so people don’t talk about Hitler generally. But, I open the door and I don’t know who and I don’t know who the man behind the door thought I was, but I heard him say, “Heil, Hitler.�� I looked over at the girl and her mother and they are petrified and I am laughing. I looked around the room and the guy almost dropped dead when he saw who it was. That was kind of funny.
MR: Did you ever pull any pranks or did others ever pull any pranks on you?
LM: Oh, in the army yes especially in special training you kind of mess around with the guys in your platoon because you’re together. I was in a, I don’t think I told you, I was in a ASTP program which meant that after I finished my six weeks of basic training I was going to be sent away to a college to fill in, ASTP stands for Army Specialized Training Program. So when I finished that I was either going to go into a college for engineering or a college for foreign languages. After you learned that that you were assigned different jobs for the army. We were all young men who basically had about the same IQ because that’s how you got in there. You had to have an IQ of a 119 or better to get in. So you know we messed around with each other by short-sheeting the cots that you sleep in and tying their shoes in knots and stuff like that. Nothing dangerous, but kind of humorous at times.
MR: Do you have any photographs from the war?
LM: I took photographs yes.
MR: Do you remember the people who were in them with you?
LM: I am going to have to dig out the photographs and look at them.
MR: Do you ever thing of fellow officers or soldiers?
LM: For a time we used to have a reunion, the 256th Combat Engineer Battalion was what I was in. They used to hold a reunion; as a matter of fact it wasn’t far from here (Miami, Florida) because two of the guys who put the thing, the union, together lived in Fort Myers, upstate in Florida. So I got in touch with them and went to one of them.
MR: How long did they last?
LM: They were just two day weekend things. You know, because the combat battalion had 600 men in it. We never had 600 we probably had maybe 400 and they are scattered all over the country. My best friend was from a place called Cadillac, Michigan. I used to write to him, and then we grew out of touch. Then I had the officer, the warrant officer who was in charge of my outfit was from Kentucky. The reason he sticks out it is because his first name was Percy. He had to go through the army known as Percy what-ever-the-heck his last name was, I forget. I won’t forget that guy because it was funny.
MR: Are you in touch with anyone still?
LM: I am not in touch with anyone anymore. You know all those people who know if they are still alive or not, you are talking about men who are in their seventies or eighties.
MR: Did you keep a diary?
LM: No, I didn’t keep a diary.
MR: Do you recall the day when your service ended?
LM: Yes, I think it was January, 31.
[303]
MR: Where were you at the time?
LM: I was in an army base in New Jersey. That was quite and experience because I met my brother who was getting discharged at the same time and he was there and another close friend of ours was there from our home town. All three of us met there in that camp in New Jersey. I’m trying to think of the name, my discharge paper probably had it. We spent a couple of days there while they were doing all the paperwork with each other. We left there together and went to New York. We were dying to see a baseball game and we went to Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees play. I remember the night. That was humorous. Then we came back and visited an Armenian family. They were very kind to us and gave us dinner. After dinner we got on the train, on the army train, to go back home. And that was it 1943 to 1945, two and a half years.
MR: Did you go back to school after the war?
LM: No. When we got home, we had two stores. My mother and father kept both stores going while we were both overseas. Well, my brother never went overseas he was down in Texas; they kept him down there because he had flat feet they wouldn’t let him out. My mother and father kept the two stores open and when my brother and I came back we went right into that. We kept the stores going for two or three more years after that.
MR: Did you join a veteran’s organization?
LM: No, I didn’t. I should have joined the Army Reserves. Except if I had join the Army Reserves they would have sent me off to Korea or Vietnam. So I am just as happy I did not. It was over, I was thankful I got through in one piece. I did my duty as well as I can see.
MR: What did you do after the war, other than the family owned shop?
LM: Well, as a career we operated two different stores, so we were quite busy. I didn’t start another career until we sold those stores and moved out here to Miami and opened up another business. Then I started going to the University of Miami.
MR: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or the military in general?
LM: Yes, there was a famous general P.T. Sherman in the Civil War they asked him about was and he was quoted, maybe you have seen it someplace, “War is Hell.” That’s my sentiments also. You are talking about a human being that’s being hurt, killed, whatever and it shouldn’t be. People should be able to learn to live with each other. Not in favor of war Michael.
[374]
MR: How did your service and experience affect your life?
LM: Well, it brought me into good shape; it taught me how to get along with people. When you’re in an army, in a unit, in close quarters with half a dozen men for days, weeks, months at a time it makes it difficult to get along with people. If there was one thing the army taught me it was being patient and looking at the other person’s viewpoint. That has helped me a great deal because I can accept what they are no matter what they say. We can get along.
MR: Are there any other things you would like to add?
LM: I don’t know I think we went through my army career pretty good. One thing you find out being in the army is that American soldiers are very prone to giving whatever they have to the local people who might be in need of things. So when you read about soldiers giving gum and candy and this and that it didn’t start in this war, who knows what war it started in. You can see it happen with friends and yourself doing it yourselves overseas. There were times when the people were very much welcome to any kind of food that you could give them.
MR: What was your most memorable moment was it when you were on guard?
LM: I’ll never forget that. But, the most memorable moment was just walking out of that camp in New Jersey and having the sergeant at the door asking if you want to sign up for the Army Reserves and saying, “No thank you. I did my share. See you later.”
End of Interview [386]
