Interview with Dr. Charles W. Rezek, Jr.
[b. 9 / 18 /1923]
Recorded on 10 / 6 / 2007
[Interview starts at 0:00:12.0 on counter]
Patrick Rezek: *Today is October 6, and I am interviewing Dr. Charles W. Rezek, Jr. who served in World War II in the Headquarters Battery, Artillery Division of the 85th Infantry, while holding the rank of T5 Technician 5th Grade. Dr. Rezek, is 84 years old. He was born on September 18, 1923, and currently lives at 3405 Hamilton Street, West Lafayette, Indiana. Dr. Rezek is my grandfather. My father Richard A. Rezek participated in the interview as well.
PCR: Were you drafted or did you enlist into the military?
CWR: I enlisted. Now, there was a reason. They instituted what they called an Enlisted Reserve Corps. Now they had lots of people, in fact, the army eventually from the states was twelve million men. And they didn’t have anything like twelve million men in the army at the time, when the war was starting. It takes a while to process people to make a soldier out of a civilian, ninety days, and they had to have a lot of place to put them they had no place to put me. So they just said you’re going to school, keep on, but enlist. So in August of 1942, I enlisted in the Army. I was a private whether I believed it or not. I was in the Army, really, at that point. I wasn’t just going to go, I was in it, but they assigned me in this Reserve Corps, and if you were studying, go ahead and keep on doing it till we’re ready. When we’re ready, we will just send you a little note, here’s where you’ll be for sure on this date at this time or else, that kind of thing.
[0:01:28.3] *Interview Introduction was actually made here.
PCR: So when you were in the Enlisted Reserve, where were you exactly, what college did you attend?
CWR: Purdue University. That’s where I was and that’s where they told me to stay.
PCR: And before going to Purdue, where did you live?
CWR: In Chicago.
PCR: So when you were called out to be in the Enlisted Reserve, how did they inform you that you were in it? Did they give you a call and say we’d like to be in the Enlisted Reserve?
CWR: No. You actually had to go down and enlist. It was known that they had no place to put me because they couldn’t handle the volume, so they were just as happy I was learning and progressing, so at that point you went and you enlisted. You actually had an army number and it was only a question and they just had to call you up when they’re ready, in which case they would wait till the end of the semester, the end of the school year, finish a term and then go.
PCR: Why did you join, why did you enlist?
CWR: Because this was the thing you did. Otherwise, I could go out and get a job, but I didn’t want to do that.
PCR: Why did you pick the service branch you joined?
CWR: I didn’t really pick it. You see, Purdue had a ROTC that was all artillery. We had artillery training for two years before the war. We went through all that stuff. So when I got to the place where they actually assigned me now this is when I’m going into active duty after the Enlisted Reserve they said go. When I got to the place that I was assigned, they looked and saw all this field artillery and said Infantry, Air Force, Navy, FA, boom, they put that on top of the … and go, so I really didn’t have a choice. I had to be field artillery because I had the training for it.
[0:03:53.9]
PCR: Do you recall any of your first days in the service?
CWR: Oh golly, yes. That’s when I actually went in. We went to Camp Grant. The first day that we went in, I remember they assigned us to (the whole barracks full of people) that we should cut the grass. One of the fellows asked where was the mower? They said you got it in your pocket. See, you take two fingers and put them on the ground. Any grass that’s higher than two fingers, you pull it up. And that’s how I spent the afternoon… everybody was out there mowing the grass. Well, there were other things. I think I told you before, but I’ll mention it again. My bunkmate (he had the bottom and I had the top) and he had been in the CCC (that’s the Civilian Conservation Corps) for several years before the army, and they bend very much like the army. So he knew all the tricks, and so the two of us were on our way to KP. They were just lining up a bunch of people; we didn’t know who they were. They just lined them up and marched them over to KP. We had to make this turn to go in and there were no non-coms around that turn. And he was on the inside, so he just rode straight and he pushed me with him. So the two of us walked away. And the rest of the group went in where they were supposed to. So the two of us were walking around, actually a wall we weren’t doing what we were told to. Anyway, it turned out that he said let’s go to the _____, absolutely. And every building had a furnace room and in the furnace room there was odds and ends of things. A board here, a broom there, then he found a hammer, and he found a nice light, but a formidable looking board. So he said you carry the board, and I’ll carry the hammer. He was smart all the way. Anyway, it turned out that we walked all around Camp Grant. Everywhere. And, then there was a place where it was “Officers Only,” big sign, and guys with guns and all that stuff. We just walked up the street and walked right on in. And nobody as long as you look like you’re working, nobody bothered you. So we went in there, walked around, looked in the officers’ quarters and just had fun. Then finally we came back out. We went over to the PX. We’d take our board and hammer, and hide it underneath the steps. Go in have a Coke or whatever, and go out and walk around and when we got done, bring the hammer back to our place. So I learned a lot from him. That’s another interesting thing. The haircut. When we, they marched us over to a fully equipped barbershop. It had the chairs and the clippers and the stuff you squirt on the hair, you know, it had that whole bit. And they marched us in, and the first guy in line was a sergeant asking, “Do you know how to cut hair?” He said, “no.” He said, “I’ll show you.” Then they took the second guy and he went zoom, zoom, zoom, done. Now you do that to them. So everybody, you got whatever he learned with one demonstration. So that was our first haircut.
PCR: Tell me about your boot camp or training experiences.
CWR: Now, after you leave this Camp Grant that was where you sort into the army. Then they send you to wherever you are going to take training, basic training, and I was sent to Camp Roberts. And during World War II, they were very smart. They would send the soldier as far away from home as they could because if you have him close to home, they send him back and forth and bringing him pies and cookies, and they wanted to cut all that stuff out so they sent the soldier far away from home. So they sent me to Camp Roberts in California and there we went through the basic training.
PCR: Was it difficult to do… how did you feel about it?
CWR: It didn’t bother me really. I was amenable. I knew what the score was. There was a war on and I wasn’t going to get away from it, so I just joined.
PCR: How did you get there?
CWR: To Camp Roberts? By train.
PCR: How did you get through it? How did you get through all the odds and ends of the camp?
CWR: Well, they pretty well didn’t give you much choice. You did what you were told. They always had something to tell you.
[0:09:14.3]
PCR: Where exactly did you go in World War II after camp Roberts?
CWR: After Camp Roberts, then I had to join the division. The after basic training, then they send you someplace. Well, the 85th Infantry Division, which had artillery in it, was forming in Fort Dix. They had been training for years, for a long time and people drop out, they had holes in it. So they sent us to the division and we filled in the holes that they needed, so that was the situation. So we went to Fort Dix, and that’s where we joined the division, and its from there, after we were all assimilated and did a little training, when we took the train, we went on one train ride all the way from Camp Roberts to Fort Dix and the rumors always got around in the army. But we always got the truth. When the train stopped, one of our guys says, “Momma and Dad, here I am.” They found out what train he was on and they were there to meet him. So that was an interesting ride. Anyway, we got to Fort Dix; then we went down to Camp Patrick Henry, and that’s where we got boats. They just take people. They have all kinds of barracks. Go in that barracks and live until we call you. And then when they would call, our ship is ready to be loaded, we’d get our stuff and march out. March out to the boat with everything you’ve got. That’s the way that worked.
PCR: Now where did you go after you got on your boat at Camp Patrick Henry?
CWR: After we got on the boat, that boat sailed from Newport News, Virginia to Casablanca. It had no escort. We were all just sitting ducked all by ourselves. If we’d been hit by a U-boat, we all would’ve been swimming.
PCR: Tell me what your journey was from Casablanca to…
CWR: That was an interesting ride. They put us on a train and we went going to essentially the area of Oran, down south of that to a town called Sidi Bel Abbes. That’s where we formed as a group in Africa, but there was a 500 mile ride on the 40 and 8. The 40 hommes and 8 chevaux. And it doesn’t hold 40 hommes or else we had more than 40 hommes +, because when we went to sleep, some people had to stand. There wasn’t enough room for everyone to lie down. So, that was an interesting ride.
PCR: Was this your first time out of the United States?
CWR: I don’t know whether I went to Tijuana before that or not. I think we did. But that was just across the border.
PCR: So, how long were you in North Africa before you moved on to Italy?
CWR: I think probably three months.
PCR: Did you stay in the same place, or did you move around a lot in Africa?
CWR: We just stayed more or less in the same place.
[0:13:09.1]
PCR: So before you got to Italy, could you tell me some stories of your experiences in North Africa?
CWR: Well, one experience was that in North Africa around ten at night, there’s a haze forms about three feet, due. Above that there’s no moisture. Below it it’s fog. People looked like this half person. There are no feet. And it’s weird. And what happens is that at nighttime the temperature, it can be one hundred in the daytime, but at night it could be freezing. And as a result, the first night that we slept out, everyone put their shoes out. In the morning when you woke up, there was a quarter inch of ice all over your bedroll and it was really the crack of dawn when the ice broke. And the shoes filled with ice, they never did that anymore, they put the helmet on top of the shoes to keep the ice out of the inside of their shoes.
PCR: So where did you land in Italy and what time of year was it?
CWR: It was springtime and we landed just below Naples. Actually, our ship pulled in as close as it could get to the plank and there was a sunken ship, there were several sunken ships in between it and land. And so we got off on the plank that they put down to the first ship and we walked on the side of the ship that was sticking out of the water till we got to another plank, then we would walk over from one ship to another till we got to land. And then they had trucks waiting. See artillery always rides on trucks. So we didn’t have to actually march from one place to another, and so as a result it was easier for us. It wasn’t a big problem from getting from A to B. We didn’t have to do all the extra work.
PCR: Do you remember any of your leaders in your artillery crew?
CWR: Well, I remember all of them. One day, and this was during the battle, an officer came up to me and said, “Soldier, where is the message center?” Well, I could see he had three stars everywhere, General Mark Clark was who it was. He was commander in the whole area in the American side. Anyway, it so happened that he wanted the message center, so I brought him over. I knew how to address a general, I did everything by the book, and I brought him in and we had things on the doorways. Anytime for nighttime you had to keep the light from shinning so they had hung some canvas that they put on the door. Anyway, it turned out that I pulled this aside, he walked over and there was this one fellow on the telephone. And he had all the equipment he could plug in this and that and everything because it was all plug in. If you wanted hooked to Henry, you plug in hook to Henry and that’s how it got through. Anyway, he was a character. He was sitting there looking at how, I watched him, he looked up and his eyes got big and all he could see was three stars on the hat, three on every shoulder. There were stars everywhere. And his comment was, “What the hell do you want?” So he told him what he wanted. And he got it for him and it really worked.
[0:17:35.8]
PCR: How many men were in your group and what did they all do?
CWR: Well, in our group we probably had one hundred twenty men. That was the headquarters of the field artillery. We had wiring because you always had to have wiring. You had to lay the wire to various places and the wire didn’t always stay where you laid it. If a shell came in and blew a hole in it, then they knew that the line to … what’s her name, I forget the name, that’s out, so they had to go along and find out where the break was and repair it. So we had the wire crew. Then we had a section of cooks. And since we had a general, you better believe we had a good cook. He was Chinese, and he was good. And he was probably fifty years old at the time, but he’d been in the army a long time, so he worked his way up and that’s how he got there. Then we had the operation section. That’s where the maps were, and that’s where I worked. Now, originally I had been in instrument survey, but during the fast moving war, we had no need for survey. Besides the maps we had were sufficiently good, we could use them we didn’t need a survey. So that’s the way that worked.
PCR: Now, when you’re in artillery, did you ever see combat?
CWR: Yeah.
PCR: Did you see casualties?
CWR: Oh, all around you as you go through. Sometimes we would move in to an area that the infantry had moved out of twenty, thirty minutes ago. We saw the results. Incidentally, every time you go out you had to shine your gun, and get it absolutely spit, polish perfect. Well, I wasn’t dumb. I did that. I made that gun look as good as it could get. And when it was that way, I took it and wrapped it up in some very clean, canvas that was waterproof, and I would wrap it carefully, and then tie ropes around it. And then put that in the bottom of our truck. There was a place where we sat and you could put stuff under, so that’s where I put it. So as we did one time, we went through a town, that was not taken, the Germans were there. You look out, there’s a German, and he has got his gun. And I was thinking I said oh my God, I couldn’t get it in a half an hour. If everybody up and let me try. So my gun was not available. But whenever I got it out and we had an inspection, I could pull out an immaculate gun, give it a once over ready to go.
PCR: Were you ever captured at all?
CWR: No. Other than the fact that I could’ve been, if that German soldier had been smart.
[0:21:02.7]
PCR: Do you have any stories about when you were in the kitchens?
CWR: Well, the first day of combat, was in Minturno, and we were in this monastery, well, actually it was a convent, anyway it turned out that here was this big door, huge, wooden door, twelve inches thick, it must have been twelve feet tall, two of them, big wide doors. And they were just open, and you could’ve driven a truck in there easily. Anyway, it turns out that that’s where the kitchen stuff was. And when you walk out, I walked out and everything was peaceful, I didn’t see anything. It was a beautiful scene. That was the front lines. I didn’t know that. And, so I went in to check the fire to see if it was getting the ___ water warm, I checked that and I came back out, and where I was standing there was a hole, about three feet deep. They saw me. I didn’t go out again. That was the last time I went out there. And then Corporal Wazniki and I were looking for a place to stay, where we were going to put our bedrolls for the night, there’s carpet, there are rooms all over the place. We were standing in this room, and there was this guy and he had this scope, he was adjusting. He said, “Fire mission”. He was a forward observer. He was firing the canons. Well, anyway, we went to another room, and we were standing there looking at the wall, at the same time we were looking at the wall, there was a huge explosion on the other side of that wall. There was a big crack along the wall. I didn’t see Wazniki for a couple of days. At that same place, that evening, a hundred fifty-five pound shell came in, and they had this kind of iron gating. It was like a prison wall, and these were one-inch bars. They were strong. That shell came in through that window and broke apart and went right on through several rooms, and there was a courtyard, and that was where it had stopped. And later we checked it, and the stuff that was in the shell, would not ignite. It wasn’t an explosive. These shells were built by the Polish in Poland. And they sabotaged the shells they were building. Whenever they could they filled one with garbage, something that would look and feel the same, but it wouldn’t explode. And that’s what saved us, well, those people and I. We would’ve been really blasted if that had gone through that window and blew up. Any way, that’s… you got to be thankful to the Polish people.
[0:24:31.3]
PCR: Were you awarded and medals or citations?
CWR: The Bronze Star. I was given the job of looking at aerial photos, and the aerial photography that they had at the time came with checkpoints on it, equivalent to map points. So I could figure the coordinates of a particular hole in the ground, and there were holes in the ground and in the daytime there was nothing there, but in the night, that’s where they would fire mortars, or small cannon. They could go in there with mortars, and you could see it go up, but you couldn’t see where they started, it’s ______. Except that I had these targets picked out which they fired during the day, they checked each one to see if they were hitting the target. At night there was a fire mission scheduled, that I would make out and we had variable time fuses, called the VT fuse on the shells. What this did was that when the shell went up, it armed, and on its way down when it hit a certain altitude, above whatever is below it would explode. Then the fragments would rain down, and it would kind of go dark, light up on the target. Then also we had what we called time on target, you would say what time you want the shell to land because some of these outfits, the time of flight would be two minutes and for somebody else it would be four minutes. Well they all fired knowing how long it would take their shell to get there, so that hey all get there at the same moment. Otherwise, one comes in, hide here they come. You didn’t want that opportunity. So I ran that project, and that’s how I got the bronze star.
PCR: So how did you stay in touch with family members back in Illinois?
CWR: By mail. There was one time after the war, when I was in Switzerland, I was able to make a phone call home, and we talked for a couple of minutes. I think it was fifteen dollars for a couple of minutes. We didn’t have the World Wide Web.
PCR: What was the food like where you stayed in Italy?
CWR: Well, it was basically army food, whatever the army provided, that’s hat we had. We had food while, essentially the Italians didn’t. Because the Germans had been through and they would have taken anything they needed when they left. So there were no restaurants.
PCR: Did you feel any pressure or stress at any times when you were out in combat?
CWR: Not really. No more than… I’ll give you one time I did have stress. It was in a town called Fondi. And the Germans at this point had aircraft, which they flew at night. Daytime, they sit like ducks, and at night they would fly. And they bombed Fondi, and I don’t know if you’re familiar with but they have something called a stick of bombs, six that would go off one after the other. There was a time delay between each one. The first bomb went off far away, then closer and closer. And at this point, there was an Italian lady in this building. This building was empty, there was no big hole in the middle of it like the historic one, there was nothing in there. She ran over and she was scared to death, and she grabbed me on the stomach, and just held on just shaking. Then I got scared. I was really scared. I couldn’t move. That’s what did it. I wasn’t able to move. The bombs were coming closer and closer finally the fifth one landed just before our building and the sixth one landed just after. Just a split second difference, and that building would have been gone, and we wouldn’t be here.
PCR: Now was there something that you did or something that you had you did for good luck?
CWR: No.
PCR: How did people entertain themselves when they weren’t out in the fields?
CWR: For me it was poker, the big boy’s poker. We had two groups of poker. One the fifty cents and the other the dollar add in.
PCR: Do you care to share any stories about some funny experiences during poker games?
CWR: Oh, well there were lots of them. So many. This one particular night, one of the staff sergeants that was playing, he had a bad night. And every time he lost it was to me. I was the one that beat him. Every hand that he bet in that had any importance, some hands are just you know open, close, but any good hand, he would lose to me. And the thing that really got him was, he didn’t lose by much. We had four cards alike, it was the fifth card he would have a three and I would have a four. And I beat him. It was that close every time. Finally, he just got mad, but he was just cussing the books, and he just got up and left. The next day he apologized, and said it wasn’t my fault.
PCR: What did you do and where did you go on your leaves?
CWR: Well, if you were near a town, and you could get a pass into town, we did that. Especially Rome would be one, and Florence, and those bigger towns. It depended on what the war was doing, whether or not you could get a leave. But if depending on how things went, we did get to go out.
[0:31:40.2]
PCR: Do you recall any events that occurred humorous or unusual when you were out on leaves?
CWR: Well, sometimes we took our own leave, and if you were doing something if you had no specific thing nobody cared where you went as long as you kept showing up doing your job. There was this one person, he was a driver, Sergeant Bellow, and he drove a jeep, and that was his main job in the army, driving that jeep, and we were in Rome, or the Rome area, and he said, “Want to go for a ride?” Yeah. So we went and we drove into Rome. Now Rome hadn’t fallen yet. Rome was still occupied by Germans. And we drove up and down the streets, just enjoying ourselves and nobody particularly bothered us, and we didn’t bother them, so I was in Rome before it fell. Another interesting thing in our survey group, we were in a jeep, and all loaded up, all of us, there were many people, and when we went into Rome, we went to Saint Peter’s because the head of our group was Catholic and other people and so we went. And of course we had our rifles on our backs at this time, and we were all armed. And we started to walk into the Basilica. And one of the brothers that were near came over “oh no no no, put those guns over here, I’ll watch them.” Well we believed the brother, so we put the guns down, and we went and looked. That was interesting.
PCR: Do you remember any pranks that you others would pull on other officers in your barracks?
CWR: There isn’t many. I don’t remember any, only one that I can think of. There was one officer that was particularly bad. He wasn’t in our group, but he was near enough that we knew about him. And they fixed up the officer’s latrine, in such a way that what he would do would cause something to break and he would fall down into the goosh. We’ll call it, up to his waist. And he started shooting his gun. And of course nobody would go near the hole. He can’t get him out. That was the nearest thing I... And that was done deliberately and they laid it for him and they set the trap.
PCR: Did you ever keep a personal diary?
CWR: No. I probably should have, but I never did. As a matter of fact, I was in the perfect position because we had maps of the area, great maps every little building was on the map, and we had those in our group, and when we got rid of some, I could’ve easily taken one that we got rid of. They probably burned them because there is no point once you have taken the ground, why worry, it’s up ahead you want. So, I could’ve had maps of every place, but I didn’t. That was a mistake.
[0:35:25.0]
PCR: Are there any stories that you want to share with me before we move on to the last days of your service?
CWR: One time, we pulled into this area and you mentioned, did we see dead bodies around, well, the infantry had just left. There was a German position they had an old truck, no wheels, just like a bus. And in that room in that bus, that was there message center. That’s where all the messages were transcribed and done. When I got there, there were two “ENIGMA” machines; this is the top-secret code device. There were two boxes, side by side. So I picked one up, and I knew that they were important, so I carried it back to our headquarters and turned it in. Then I went back to get the other one thinking oh, I’ll get that one too. It was gone. Nobody was around. I have a feeling what happened was that the Germans were around there and hey didn’t want to shoot me because it would give their position away. And they got the other one. Which is one of the two, is good for them, so that was the situation.
PCR: Did you only take one of them because you had to be able to carry your gun also?
CWR: Now I don’t think I was armed. This was the time when the gun would be wrapped in canvas. We passed the part where you carry the gun.
PCR: Were the ENIGMA machines heavy?
CWR: No, they weren’t heavy. They were like a heavy portable typewriter. They had all kinds of gears and locks, and things, but it was a very elaborately designed toy. So I found that. Another interesting story, since there is no place to put it. We were in this particular area and we were going to take over from the British. They had the area we were going to move in where they were and they were going to move out. So they sent forward a liaison group, which comprised our lieutenant, our driver, and two sergeants. I was a corporal. And the four of us were to find the lay of the land and be able to report to anybody what is smart and dumb, when they first moved in. So, anyway we were attached to the British for a week, and I ate with them. They eat five meals a day. They don’t eat three. Their main meal is noon, lunch, that’s the big one. The other ones are all smaller. But that was fun. I enjoyed that. Record the difference. Anyway, it turned out that this particular place we were, there was this hill that was kind of steep, high and not wide. It had a winding road up to the top, and winding road down, just a big trampled hill. Anyway, down behind that hill, was an Indian outfit, an Indian mule outfit. They had mules. But of course, being Indian, they would have been governed by the British soldier. British people would run it, but the Indians were the main help. Our driver on this particular night, drove down this hill. He drove down just a path, a footpath. The vehicle went we got down near the bottom. It started to slip on the snow, which he didn’t work us particularly. When he tried to turn it on to go back up, the snow had just enough, the wheels we skidded us on the rocks, and he couldn’t bring the vehicle back up. It was the only vehicle we had, that was it. His stripes were on the line. Anyway, it turns out that he came up and asked the other sergeant and myself, “You know, what can we do here?” So we went down and looked over the situation. Of the three of us, I had learned enough Italian at this point, that I could make my ideas known to people, that spoke Italian well. Anyway it turned out, I asked this one guy and he had a yoke of oxen, and if he could hook them up and see if we can pull it because you would have to pull it on relatively level ground for about a block, block and a half. However the snow was by this point in time was about foot and a half to two feet deep. It had really come down. So we tried the oxen, and he hooked them up and gave them some kind of a yell, and they moved maybe one inch. Try it again another inch. And then the snow started to pile up, half inch. I could see that those oxen couldn’t, they couldn’t pull it. So, we had to go to sleep on it. The next morning we got up bright and early, and went down and things were just no particular answer, so I said, I’ll tell you what, there is a mule team over there. I’ll see if I can’t get somebody over there to come and hook up a team of mules and maybe we can pull it out because if we get to the main road then everything’s clear no problem, we just got to get on that road. Anyway, it turned out that I started about half way down to the bottom; the outfit was at the bottom, same as the vehicle, our place we stayed was on top. Half way down there was this road that wound down to that place. So I went up and started down that road and turned out that I didn’t get very far. There was an Indian guard, he was small and wasn’t big, and he was yelling and screaming in Hindu, I didn’t know what he was saying. I asked him do you speak English. “Blah blah” and I couldn’t get anything from him. Anyway, he had this gun. It was six feet long all by itself, and it had a two and a half foot bayonet. Oh my golly, long. When he stood at attention that thing stuck up in the air, way above his head. And he that thing aimed right at me. So I looked him in the eye, and I pointed down and said, “capítano, capítano.” So then I raised up my hand and went this way come on. And he was walking behind me and I had my hands in the air. We walked down this path, and finally got down to the bottom. Anytime, if I would slow up or anything, ump, I had the bayonet in the back. Anyway, it turned out that we got to the bottom and luckily there was a British officer there. He was a lower rank British officer, but I could talk to him. I said I want to speak to the person in charge here. I told him I was an American soldier and I wanted to talk to the commanding officer. So he brought me in, and at that point I knew the army down cold, so I gave him every bit of spit and polish he could ever expect. The salute and the whole bit. And when he says at ease, I went to parade rest. What can I do? Well I told him, what our problem was and we were stuck and could he get a team of mules and perhaps be able to pull us out and solve our problems. So he agreed that they could do that, but it would take a while to get the group together. He said that in the meantime would you like some libation, would you like some whiskey, or tea? I pulled the old shrew; I’ll take the tea. That made me instant not enemy. So and of course, the British are very strange. When we living with the British on the top of the hill the week, our sergeants had to stay with sergeants, the corporals had to stay with corporals; I mean they kept you with the same rank level. They wouldn’t put the three of us together, because there’s no class distinction there as it should be. They put me in some kind of a tent, where I was waiting for the team to be formed. They fed me tea, and it was good. I enjoyed the tea. Well then finally, they took and brought one single mule. This mule, the top of his back was way over my head. He was big and powerful and sleek he was in perfect condition. So they brought that mule over, and they had a little leather thong that was much smaller than my little finger, bigger than half that size. They tied that knot to his harness, and then they tied it on the bumper of the car. And we thought that thing was going to snap and somebody’s going to get hurt. They made some kind of a yell, and the animal made a lunge, the car started to move, and the snow was flying like it was… and they went that block and a half, I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t keep up in the wake of this stuff. Oh it’s amazing. So, finally, they got the car on the road and of course these two sergeants were so thankful we unloaded every cigarette we had. We passed out cigarettes any place any body there could have cigarettes. The three of us got in the car, got the car started, go up to the top of the hill, turned in and now the building was to the left of this inlet were we come in and it was a two story building, and just about the time we just parked, the door of the second floor opened up and our lieutenant came out. He looked “ oh, you guys are really on the ball.” He never knew the trouble. So that was an accomplishment. I figure to get the Indian army into the business.
[0:47:44.9]
PCR: Do you recall the last days of the service?
CWR: At one point we were in combat, and we had a meeting that was called by the heads of all of our artillery, and they were demanding that they be given the right to knock down the Leaning Tower of Pisa because they were using that as an observation point and that it was going to knock down hill and this they didn’t like. So they wanted that knocked down, which we could do. Anyway, it turns out the argument raged, and how there was a general was there, the colonel, the lieutenant colonel, oh it was loaded. And of course there was me. They didn’t ask my opinion. Anyway, it turns out the argument raged, and finally by a narrow margin, they decided not to. Otherwise that would have been gone too. It may fall yet, but we wouldn’t do it. One time we had a leave, a leave of absence and we went to Venice. And when we got there, many things you want to do, there’s the, this one particular palace, the Dogges Palace, and in front of there are four horses. Now these horses are bronze, and they are probably 2000 B.C. when they were poured, they don’t know who did it, but they are very old. And just after they were able they dug these horses up and they put them in their place where they belong. At this time the horses have been moved, they got fakes up there in front, in the weather. And the real ones are on the second floor of some building, you go to go and pay something to get and look at them. Anyway, it turned out that we wanted a picture. The four of us were on leave at the time, and wondering together. So we paid some Italian to take the camera and go up the bell tower, which was adjacent, and it looked down on those four horses, bronze horses. And he gave a signal when he was ready to take the picture, and then the four of us leapt up and jumped on top of those horses. Now the horses are four feet off the ground to begin with, on these pedestals. So you got to get on a horse that is four feet in the air. We did it. We were in good shape. Anyway, I got a picture that I am showing on these horses. Incidentally, there is another story along that. This bell tower has a huge bell, and it has a twelve foot bronze statue that rotates, and it has a mallet, and as it rotates that’s how it strikes. So the mallet on this thing, so there is a big room filled of gears and all that sort of thing down below. Well, when I was by myself I happened to walk past this and looked and saw all these wires and gears and all kinds of things and springs and weights and all sorts of things. Well, I had just finished a course of mechanisms at Purdue, before I went. So I just started to figure out how this thing was put together. And there was about fifteen or sixteen wires going horizontal past this window, and these were the type of tension wire that they were to operate the bell. Anyway it turns out that I had figured out that there is one wire down here and if that wire had been moved to the right, the whole bells thing would start. That was the clue. Well, now with such a theory, what’s the chance that I would try it? So I reached down there and grabbed that wire and give it a jerk and pull, and all of a sudden, BOOONG. The bells started to ring. I know every Italian in the area was looking at his watch saying why is that ringing? So that was an interesting story.
[0:52:44.0]
PCR: Do you recall the last day of service?
CWR: Well the first thing they do is anytime they want to move troops, they move them to some point, gather them together, and then as a group they go somewhere. Well, it so happened that we wound up in Naples, at a college. And they had us, it was cordoned off, you couldn’t just walk in and out. They had us there as a final place that we stayed until the boat was ready for us then they would just line us up and away you go. And you didn���t take much with you because you didn’t need bedroll, sleeping bag, that stuff. You got rid of a bunch of that. Anyway it turned out they finally loaded us on a boat, and I had plenty of points to get out of the army. There is a point system; I forget what it took to get out. I had way more than that. However, they needed people in Japan. They were going to have to go in to Japan, and if they ever invaded Japan, that would have been death to anyone that went there. Their chance of getting out of that was very slim. And they wouldn’t need artillery, so I would’ve gone in as an infantry type soldier. So anyway, we knew that we were going to leave and go over to San Francisco, or some place like that, and then over to Japan to start the war there. Well, they dropped these bombs at Hiroshima and Naqasaki and Japan collapsed, while we were on the boat. And they decided then, that since Japan had surrendered they wouldn’t have needed us, so they just sent us to the nearest place that we could be discharged or wherever we started, and I started in Camp Grant. They sent me back to the same place, and then I was discharged. It was the A bomb that they dropped those bombs that saved me. I wouldn’t be here. I know that.
PCR: What did you do in the days or weeks after you were discharged?
CWR: Well, I first congratulated myself. Of course I was always going right back to Purdue as soon as it opened. It wasn’t quite a semester starting, but I only had to wait a matter of some weeks before they were starting up again. So I was down at Purdue back as a student. And that’s essentially what I did.
PCR: Now were you married before or after the war?
CWR: Oh much after.
[0:56:15.5] End of Interview
