“Today is Wednesday, October 6, 2010. I am Robert Flaherty and I am interviewing James E. Anderson at 8750 Rosewood Lane. Mr. Anderson is 87 years old and was born on June 15th, 1923. Mr. Anderson served in WWII. Mr. Anderson was in 94th Medical Gas Treatment Battalion and held the following rank of corporal.”
[00:00:30]
RF: Were you drafted or did you enlist?
JA: I was drafted.
RF: Where were you living at that time?
JA: At that time—I was living at 626 E. 61st Street [Indianapolis].
RF: Why did you pick the service branch you joined?
JA: I didn’t.
RF: Do you recall your first days of service?
JA: Oh yea, very—oh well, I was really upset because they put me into the medics because they said my IQ was high, and that’s they reason they put me in.
RF: How did it feel?
JA: Going in, strange.
RF: Tell me about your boot camp or training experience?
JA: Really rough tough, yea. Well, I mean back in those days these corporals or sergeants we had were regular army and they were from the old army and they just loved to beat us up. They thought it was fun
RF: How’d you get through it?
JA: Well, you know, I really enjoyed it and I was athletic and it helps when you’re really athletic when you go in.
RF: Okay and now I am going to asking about your experiences and you served in WW2 and where exactly did you go?
JA: I was in Europe.
RF: Any more specific locations?
JA: I was in a special outfit. I can tell you about it. We thought we were going to land about three days after D-Day, but we didn’t land until twenty-seven days after. And it’s still—they just had captured St Lô, and they it was nothing terrible, but still they didn’t know what to do with us and you’re an outfit that has been special trained and here [they] don’t know what to do with you.
RF: Do you remember arriving and what was it like?
JA: You know, it’s really strange when I got off the LCI I was on, and by the way, all of our foods got sunk and it was on a different LCI, so for a long time we were on D-rations and you know being in a strange country and, you know, you’re scared you don’t know what’s going to happen and, you know, you never got brave because the thing is if you got brave that was the time when you’re in trouble.
RF: What was your job assignment?
JA: Well, when I first landed I was like I told you I was trained as a non-commissioned officer and in that I told you I got busted because back here in the States just right before we went overseas, so I’d really didn’t know much about medical stuff, but we had some training. So when I went in we were put to work right away. I said that we did air evac; we had these airfields where we were—just like plotted ground. We had engineers, signal corps, and anti-aircrafts outfits attached to us because we had to protect the airfields, and everything for us. All of a sudden Patton moved—he moved like heck—he needed the supplies, so we would bring in supplies from the C-47 and we would bring wounded back to England. So we did air evac for a while. Then I joined with the 11th Armored Division and I was trained in nitro mustard gas—all of us were, and so if anybody had got burned or got in trouble, we knew what to do in case of that. So we went ahead and we either be with some division up in the front lines or I’d be back right behind the front lines doing air evac. And we did that practically across Europe.
RF: Did you see combat?
JA: Yea, indirectly for a while when I was with the 11th Armored Division I did. I mean not for long length of times. Like I said, we were a battalion—they didn’t know what to do with [us].
RF: Did your unit suffer many casualties?
JA: Not very many.
RF: Can you tell me some of your most memorable experiences?
[00:06:28]
JA: Which ones? One of them—I went on a secret mission here in the United States before I went overseas. One day our battalion commander told us: he says,“You guys read the bulletin board tomorrow morning. If your name is on it, be ready by 6 o’clock and packed and ready to ship out.” Well, we didn’t know what it was and so my name—it seemed my name was on the list of things I didn’t want to do, and it was always on there. But anyhow, we went down—we went through town. We were at camps—that was another thing they put us with a chemical warfare outfit at Camp Seibert, Alabama [?]. None of these camps I mention aren’t in the system anymore. And I went down there and being a medic I didn’t get to carry a gun. We were trained in medical and how to throw hand grenades. I was trained in everything. So uh we went down to Bushnell, Florida. Bushnell is by the center of Florida and back in those days (I am talking about 1943 now), that, you know. Florida wasn’t built up that much like it is now this is back in the wilderness now. So we drove in back in this forest ranger had his location and he met us and all of a sudden he says, “This is going to be the area you will be in for awhile.” We couldn���t understand what was happening. So we get there and all of a sudden a truckload of soldier—well, they were not US soldiers—[they] showed up and they weren’t U.S. soldiers. Now this what I am telling you. I could not never tell what I’d done to here up to about eight years ago, I was under oath; I was told I would end up at Leavenworth And Leavenworth was a prison for soldiers. And so anyhow, we found out they were Canadian soldiers and, you know, U.S. didn’t want to be involved in this I guess. Canada agreed to take the responsibility and I was actually in the Canadian Army for thirty day. We were issued Canadian uniforms and everything. And I told you we came through Tallahassee, which is the upper part of Florida. So they told us we were going to areas that were going to be actually bombed [by the] Canadian Air Force. They were stationed at Mayburry. So when we went into the area, we took whole dog racing, you know. They have a lot of racing down in Florida, took in cows, pigs horses, everything. These non-commissioned officers with the Canadians they would lead them in. So these Canadian airplanes came over and they dropped anti-personnel off which would explode oh maybe twenty to twenty five feet above the ground. What one of them was nitro mustard, which we didn’t know, but it was dyed purple so we could see it. And we got leaves on the trees and everything we could see this stuff dripping. And we went through this and we had to keep our gas mask on and, you know, these Canadian soldiers kept telling us make sure gas mask were on right. We thought, well, we’ve been through some other stuff. But anyhow one guy had trouble and he didn’t seal his mask and they rushed on that. We found out about two years later he died; the mustard gas killed him. And so we went into the area and before we went in we were given this clothing it was U.S. See, we—it was U.S. Army Flight Center. Dress uniforms—now, they don’t but back then they did and it was put in a peregnic solution and they stuff was really stiff when we put it on you know. I’d didn’t feel good at all. Your neck was protected our bodies, plus our gas mask. But all these animals just peeled over ‘cause the gas just killed them easily. Their spleens were cut up and sent back to someplace we don’t know what it was. So anyhow we—after this, so when we came out we thought we start taking off, but the Canadians said, “no” and they completely undressed us and they burned the uniforms and everything we came in with. And we went and had a shower. They said, “boy, really soap you up.” Well, I got a few burns on this part of my arm not really outstanding in fact I could still see them up the two or three years ago. I think one scar I could still [have?], and I had some here where the protection didn’t protect me. So, anyhow—we—I was in the first group to go. We were there like I said for thirty days. Then another group went the next week and the first week went through the whole time then the second week another group went through then the third week another. Then the fourth week they analyzed everything. So, and after the war it was kind of hard to keep something secret. It was hard for me, but I never told. I had five kids and they said, “Dad, what did you do in the army” I said, “Nothing, chase women around!” There was a lot of truth to that. And it—well, we just couldn’t tell anybody. And like I said earlier they finally broke the silence, but they still don’t recognize the United States government. Still doesn’t want to recognize us. I wrote letters to Lugar and Bayh locally and to Washington D.C., [but] never got an answer, but this one friend of mine, John Staley, who lives in Florida. They said, “Andy, guess what they found in Bushnell Florida? I said, “What?” “They found canisters of nitro mustard that weren’t exploded.” And see, the thing is you’re not supposed to believe my story .Nobody else is supposed to believe us and that’s just the way things were. And there’s a lot of things kept secret in this country [but] you just don’t realize it. But I was lucky; I had burns, but later in life they think the mustard gas got into their lungs and shortened their lives after the war. So I—we don’t know how true that is, but we had a couple of wives of the guys that they think that was a problem. And I also if I could bring in a little bit of tid-bits here, Park Tudor was [as] you know an apple orchard. Well, my Grandfather was the head farmer for the whole J.K. Lilly. And my brother and sister lived on the farm. But I was one of the Oops babies that weren’t supposed to come along. In fact I was shipped away at about I guess at about eight months to California. And my name is James E. Anderson now, but my name was James Edward Knolton back in those days. But my grandmother must have felt sorry, so she brought me back, but her name was “Encolcen”. That’s the reason my middle name is that. But my stepfather I found out, I thought he was my father, but he’s not and my brothers and sister were half sisters. But anyhow, that’s just it. They lived on Park Tudor, but my grandmother would serve meals and she served two Presidents of the United States up there at Park Tudor, but I don’t know how your history I, but that’s something that happened. Now another thing that I’d did, was —did you ever hear of Buchenwald? Well, you new, the Germans took well—I[‘ll] show you some of the pictures, but the Germans were trying to eliminate Jewish people. I don’t know why the Jewish people were smart and he had a lot of smartness there and I don’t know why he wanted to destroy smartness, but he did. They were put in these concentration camps if they got too weak and couldn’t work they put them in these. I’ll show you furnaces to burn their bodies. And I’ll show you pictures of where I was In Buchenwald and just these stacks and stacks of bodies and I mean, and the smell was terrible and being a young kid, you know, I had that time I was maybe twenty and, you know, you just don’t believe things like this can happen. Well, to this day there’s a lot of people that don’t believe this actually happened, but it happened believe me. And I am not trying to convince you of anything, but I happened and I’ve got pictures to prove these stacked bodies and everything and to me that was one of the worst things I had to go through, because being a medic you couldn’t feed these guys cause they take food in and it would just come out the other end like that. So we had to give them I.V's. And trying to find a person whose arm is that far around I like trying to find like a a pin in a straw bale, but we had to do it. I was sitting there for about two or three days, but after that they started evacuating them to other hospitals through Europe. I was in France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium. God, I came through, you know, the country side was in Czechoslovakians, but I ended up —but I didn’t—the Russians had the south, but the Russians had kept the south because the Russians came up through Czechoslovakia. But I don’t know, I was awfully fortunate, you know. I came close to a lot of times, but close don’t count and we had guys who’d—but we never—well, we did with that poison gas Nitro Mustard we know we lost one guy.
RF: Did you know him personally?
JA: Not really. I was see in a battalion you had three companies plus headquarters and I was in B and he was in A and it seemed like A and us never got together much, you know. We’d go in the kiosk and, you know, that’s where you go to drink and everything that’s where you go on the camp, but it seemed like you just didn’t see A companies guys, but C company guys we;d see a lot and some of headquarter. But A was kind of into themselves, but even when we was in Europe when we traveled we didn’t actually travel as a battalion. We would be maybe like I said I was with 11th Armor Division and another was with the 1st Infantry Division or the 53rd Division and it was— things are a lot different now than it was in war ,you know. We had no protection or anything and, you know, we didn’t get sleeping till after I was in Europe for about two years. Like I said, one [of] my company’s commander one time we’d kicked some Germans out of their homes and was sleeping in them for a couple of nights and Patton heard about it and he put an order out, “You sleep on the Ground!” and I’ve slept out in the open in my sleeping bag when snow was falling, rain was falling, but you’d zip that thing up and sleep there because being with Patton you’d didn’t know what he was going to do the next morning, and there was many times you’d never had breakfast because you had to move right away and the mess sergeant he was a good guy and he was from California. In fact, he became the head cook for the university—UCLA after the war. And I mean I had a lot of experiences and a lot of things happened to me I when we went through Europe. We never saw—Europe’s a beautiful section of the world, but everything was destroyed. The only city I was in there’s two Frankfurt, Germanys—one on the Rhine and one’s on the, well, I think and one’s on the Mossel not the one. Now the one in off of in Frankfurt, Germany it was in pretty good condition when we got there, but when we did air evac, boy, it was right behind the front lines. It was nothing to go [to] maybe. I remember many times I didn’t sleep maybe forty hours because prior we was taking care of the guys and we were crude. Now a days they’ve got these guys back in two minutes after they’re wounded and you know a lot of the guys I took car eof personally to this day, I wondered if he lived after I took care of him, but some guys were shot up pretty bad and everything and I know guys had legs blown off, but now a days everything is so quick. They got helicopters; they’d take right off with the guys and we had so many at the battle of the Bulge in Belgium. We had so many wounded, so they put us back to air evac again and they were using a little a Piper Cubs that were scouting planes during WWII. They could get one to two litter case and two walking cases and every time they flew to our place they were forced to take somebody back to England. At that time in Belgium they took them back to France because that would be too far for a Piper Cub to fly. But now I tell you the truth is the way I feel about things. We’ve been in too darn many wars and you know I’d like this last couple wars like this Afghanistan everything. I’d use to maybe read about these guys if I see another guy get killed and I’ve seen death so much and I’ve seen many guys dead and like you, you don’t need to be in a war now, you know, if you want to join the reserves. The funny thing is I was three years in the army and four years in the navy reserves ‘cause all my buddies were in the navy reserves, so I joined them and I had seven years of service altogether. And guys like you, you’re a young good looking kid and you’re important. You’re going to Park Tudor which is a excellent school and we need you out in this world to make it a better place to live and it’s got to be that. There’s no—to be a Democrat or Republican when you get my age you don’t you get to a point you don’t trust either side of the fence. They all got goods but one’s got to a good thing on this side the other side don’t want to go in because it hurts them. And if a guys got a suggestion and its good, it don’t pan out for you and I so—you know, you’re at a school where you know from the way I understand, you know, you’re in the upper eschelon and that’s good. All my kids went to North Central and but we need you in a different way than we need you as an army man or a navy man or a Marine or whatever you are to be. We need you out here making this country better and I hope that you understand what I am trying to tell you because, you know, I am and old fart and you’re a young person and you got to change things the way they are now. They’re not good, so that’s about all I got to tell. Like I said, I was awfully fortunate.
RF: Do you have anymore-memorable experiences or anything that sticks out in you mind?
[00:29:30]
JA: Yes probably, when we landed believe it or not the first person we took in was a German soldier and he already had a gangrene set in his right leg and like I told you, all our supplies got sunk in the English Channel. And we’d did and—I still think the word for eggs in French and do you take French?
RF: No, I take Spanish.
JA: Okay, well, the only class I ever flunked in high school and college was French believe it or not. But anyhow, the thing is I think is Duzus and we were starving to death and the Normans along the coast along the channel were, the Germans had then their fortresses and everything, you’ve probably seen maybe some pictures. Do you get some History Channels?
RF: Yea.
JA: Watch them because they’re educating for you even you—and you see how these Germans built these things. Well, the Normans along the channel were being paid real good to help build these things and well, the Normans didn’t like these Americans when we landed. And we went up to this one Norman farmer about five or six of us and there were a couple guys that were pretty big boys and we said we’d like to get some food. We—they were starving to death and he didn’t want to give us any. He wanted to sell us some. Well, we had invasion money that they could use. The French people their self—so we said, “We’ll give you this money” and everything and finally we threatened him and well, one of the guys did. So we got these eggs. So you have a helmet—a steel helmet and a helmet liner. And we had these arms splints’ they’re just a piece of metal that we’d put around the guys with a bad wound or a broken arm and we’d wrap it crude or wrap it. And we used that. We put two sticks up and we cracked all those eggs in that steel helmet, we cleaned it up a little bit—best meal I’d ever had—scrambled eggs. That’s sounds stupid to you, but here [are] about four guys slopping in steel helmet eating scrambled eggs. Yea, it’s hard to believe, but God, we would of ate almost anything!
RF: Were you a prisoner of war?
JA: Nope.
RF: Were you awarded any medals or citations?
JA: Yea, quite a few.
RF: And how’d you get them?
JA: How did I get them? Well, because the war and the work we did and everything and after the war I got some of my medals from the French and the British armies—[they] awarded me certain medals later on in life. And they’re all marked up there if you want to see them or anything each one of up there tells you underneath them if you want to read them. Now, that’s the highest award I got, but that’s all the medals I got, but you’ll see that some of them when you get down below you’ll see the French government and the British government gave me medals after the war.
RF: Yea the British Normandy, French Normandy what’s this Russian one up here?
JA: Yea, the Russians gave me that.
RF: Okay, battle of the bulge.
JA: And these are sealed and that’s the Third Army and that’s the medical insignia that’s what we wore on our lapel and that’s what we wore on our hat. And because of the outfit I was in, I got a special award. This is a patch you wore on you sleeve. That’s the Third Army and that’s the seal and when I first went in and when I was stationed in Illinois that’s what we wore on our heads up here, and that’s times I’d have in the service that’s the time I went in, and that’s my identification card and that’s some pens and stuff . Over here is just medals and like I said, I was with the 11th Armor Division so I’d had that patch for awhile on me and so that’s just some other, and this is— there I am when I am the move. And this is me playing basketball back in Cathedral back in 1938 and back to this guy right here—Leal Barnhart played for the New York Knickerbockers in the NBA. And a couple of these guys—he went to college and became a star, he played football at Indiana University, but he—they all went in after the war and I went to Butler. And that was a picture just before I went overseas, and that’s me as a sergeant getting guys together, that’s my wife at out first reunion and that’s me and that’s a French girl, and like I said, that’s that same picture there, and so this is me at Camdenton and I think I am right there. And that there Wales is a beautiful country and that’s a bridge between Tilvanith [?] and Pontypree [?]and there both little villages and I got picture of all of them, and that bridge was still there, but they put up a more modern bridge because, you know, you couldn’t take trucks or anything over that type of bridge, but today it’s still there. But over here that’s when I first went into the service and that’s my wife when I fist dated her back in 1945. She was voted “Hoosier Colleen” —she was Irish and there’s a picture of all of us went to the White House a few years ago. And there’s photos there of some of our reunions, but almost all of—but like I said, I somewhat like the Last of the Mohicans, and I got some hats and stuff. Okay, what else?
RF: Now, I am going to ask you about you life in the service. And uh how did you stay in touch with your family?
JA: With my family, just by letter back in those days all of our letters were opened all of our letters that came to us. And I was in, you know, like I said, my family wasn’t real close because I was so much younger than my half brother and my half sister. I was kind of an outcast and not having a real dad, and I finally that picture over there I found my real brother. And he’s dead now. He just died a couple years age and I found all my real family and yea, but I was in my seventies when I found out.
RF: What was the food like?
JA: In the army? —You wouldn’t want to eat it, we had a mess sergeant that tried real hard. I got to hand it to him. But we had C- and K-rations and stuff. I’ll tell [you] there wasn’t much fun ‘cause you were eating cold stuff all the time. You never got hot food. The only hot food was fixing you own coffee
RF: Did you have enough supplies?
JA: Yea well the quartermaster did a real good job at that.
RF: Did you feel any pressure or stress?
JA: Not really I mean the way I look at it was—everybody was doing it, everybody got drafted everybody wanted in the service. So you just didn’t feel like it everybody was feeling stressed if you want to know the honest truth. And things were rough, you know, being away from home and meeting a bunch of guys from all over the U.S. God, we had them from every State in the Union. And I did go in with a couple guys that I wanted to be with, but they separated to other outfits later on over time. No, I was fortunate —real fortunate.
RF: Was there something special you did for good luck?
JA: I was never superstitious.
RF: How did people entertain themselves?
JA: You mean in the service? Dating women—I mean, it is just being truthful. I mean you just you didn’t have anything. Well, did you of ever hear of Glenn Miller, band leader orchestra leader?
RF: No.
JA: Well when—you know, we were back in the army, it was what they called swing era. And Glenn Miller was supposed to come over to entertain us and we couldn’t believe it, we thought Patton wouldn’t slow down enough to let somebody, but he is if you ever heard the story probably, that his plane—something happened to it. They don’t know if a German shot his plane down or what, but it went into the Channel. [He] never got to us and we were there waiting like everything, never showed up.
RF: What did you do on leave?
JA: When I came home?
RF: Yea on leave.
JA: Went around, there was nobody home there was a tavern up in Broad Ripple that I visited a few times. I was hoping that somebody would come in but nobody did. Everybody was in the service.
RF: Where did you travel while you were in Europe?
JA: Well, I spent a lot of time in the States. I spent a lot of time in Illinois, Indiana, Alabama. Oh, God that state—I’ll tell you, and I was in New York before I got shipped. I was stationed at Camp Shanks, New York; it’s not around anymore. That’s when I got on the ship to cross the ocean.
RF: Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual events?
JA: Just didn’t have that much really. You know, we—the guys, you know, we had some men in our outfit that were really talented in different ways, you know. We had one guy that was a pretty good entertainer, could play certain instruments pretty well. Sometimes we would be lucky enough to stop long enough for a guy to play the trumpet, some but nothing outstanding.
RF: Okay, what were some of the pranks that you or others would pull?
JA: Oh God, many of those that was you know, you know, we would pick—we’d come in early in our barracks and we knew somebody was out real late ,we call “short sheeting” his bed. So when he got in he couldn’t get in and he gets real mad. And, you know, they were double bunk beds. We’d pull pranks on guys and a guys snoring, we’d get a pale of water and put his hand in there.
RF: Do you want to show me some of the other photographs that you have?
[00:47:11]
JA: Okay, now this is starting to show you some of the stuff, that’s when we were at the White House; they’re both dead. Lots of pictures of us in an airstrip. Some of the stuff of us still in the States. During WWII there were so many guys in the service we didn’t have barracks; we lived in these tents. There are some guys—this guys just died. Here some pictures of overseas. Now here is Buchenwald. This is the ovens they put them in, they pile dead bodies up; it was hard to believe all of this, and you had to see it. That’s our setup. We had a Jewish officer; his name was Lowenstein who lived in Indiana he looked me up. He would come down to Indianapolis and take me and my wife out to the best places in town. These are—at one time when we were in Europe, I’ll show you the picture. Did you ever hear of Brea Gerwal, she was a German actress? They put her with our outfit to find her family. I don’t know what happened to that picture. One of my sons might have taken it. Well, she signed it for me. She was with this gal and there were two of them. Here is more of the stacked bodies and everything. Some of this is still when we were in the States. Some stacked bodies. I finally got to go to Washington D.C. to see the Memorial. We were one of the last memorials to be [built].. Now these there, I know I have to go through, I think. These are some of the fortifications that was in Germany, that we went through. There was one of the planes that landed all cracked up. One day we had this P-47 flying in and it hit the ground really hard. Nobody knew he was coming in, we rushed down to the plane and this guy gets up and out and he looked young just like you do and he was Polish, he was nineteen years old. Here are some bunkers. I know I've got better pictures than this. These are some of the tanks during the war. Don’t worry about here. And all these guys are dead. Well Mickey’s still alive he lives in Florida, he’s a good guy and one of my best friends. This was an airstrip that during the war in France where the planes would land. This is from Wales. Here’s something, we went into this one area with the camouflage, and we went down this road with a bunch of trees like a dome, we go down there and here are a bunch of medics, we run in and find all these German planes, about a few miles we go down and we see this on the side of the road we see this huge factories or something, and you know young kids are scavengers and we go in there and we see these planes without propellers. Jets! We said, “Let’s go back there” and we couldn’t get in. They had MP’s around there like mad. During the war they had what they called double British time to have more daylight for fighting in. It would be sometimes 10 or 11 o’clock before nightfall would come. And one time at night we were sleeping there and we heard this thing just zoom by and we were wondering what it was. Have you ever heard of the Germans V2 rockets? They would fly over to England; they were detonated on a time thing when they went out and caused tremendous damage to the British Isles? These rockets would come over and they were jets. And they sounded very strange like “mmm-mmmm” it wouldn’t have a steady flow of engine like a plane. But that night we saw a jet fly over. Little bit later at the airstrip we asked a pilot of a C-47. We said we saw a plane that passed over so quick, but, you see, in combat, pursuit planes wouldn’t fly real high; they would fly right over the tree tops, even bombers, because anti-aircraft couldn’t get straight up, so by flying low they couldn’t get hit. This pilot said, “Yes, we found out that the Germans had jet fighter planes already.” And if you saw the History Channel you’d see stuff on jet planes. There’s two of them and if you can get access to them, but I know you might not be gung ho at your age, but if you ever get a chance watch that channel. Do you like history?
RF: Yea.
JA: Well, I was a history buff. I like to learn anything. Well, you should watch that. I think I am getting into more damage, some of the cities, oh you see that duck? He was our mascot for a while, and that’s our company commander. Oh he is an intelligent son of a buck, and you know what, he committed suicide after the war, but anyhow we had this duck. And whenever we traveled we took him with us, but one day he was missing. These two guys took him and ate him. But this is just showing how some of the travel was like for the people. This is some of the pictures of overseas. This looks like our airstrip. This is a C-47. Oh, you’ve probably seen this on T.V. I was there right before it was destroyed. These are pictures of their parts and our airstrip. Oh Marlene Dietrich that’s who it was she signed it for me. But that’s her German name, but, oh she was beautiful. Oh there she is. I took a picture of her when she was with us. You want to hear a silly story? We had so many wounded soldiers, they got these huskies and they would load wounded on the [sleds?] and transfer them across Europe. That only lasted for a couple of months. Here are some of the pictures of our reunions. That was one of the cantinas; we finally had a cantina in Nuremburg, Germany. We couldn’t believe they were giving our coffee and doughnuts, it was a big deal. These were a lot of guys that died. People were kind enough to send me an obituary in our group. Here is one guy Mickey Weiner. He was the one who got the Purple Heart. I told him “God, Mickey I dodged those bullets”. Here is an extra that came out of the Stars and Stripes. This is when I was in the service, this is 1943.
RF: Do you recall the day your service ended?
JA: Yes, very up to this day. I could tell you exactly what I did.
RF: Where were you?
JA: I was in this station where they put me up in Pennsylvania. And you��re too young to remember, but you family would [know] and there was a company called Strauss that sold high class suits and I bought one right before I went into the service. I was a high school kid with just enough money to go in there and buy a suit. Well, I happened to come out of the Union Station and walking downs the street. I said, I knew the guy who was the head buyer for Strauss, because I dated his daughter. When I walked in there I saw one of the guys and I said, “Is Mr. Neinlinger around.” (And I was in uniform.) They call up and said there a guy here in uniform called Anderson. He said, “I am taking off work and I am taking this guy home.” And the thing is coming down we came down Central Avenue to 63rd Street where I lived and when you’re away I was actually gone from my home about thirty month.s I didn’t see my house or home and you couldn’t believe how much the trees grew in that much time. It just seemed that everything was so much closer driving down College going east on 63rd Street; that was quite a feeling and I can remember that feeling to this day. You know, being gone from your home for so long. Now they only spend eight months then they come home.
RF: What did you do in that days and the weeks afterward?
JA: Well, I started going to Butler.
RF: Was your education supported by the G.I. bill?
JA: It had to, I didn’t have any money.
RF: Did you make any close friendships along your service?
JA: Oh, God are you kidding me? I tell you like that’s John Staley and his wife right there and I got letters and stuff. Right there there’s, I got thirty names in there and I don’t know them all, but at one time I had over 115 names in there and my telephone ‘cause I worked for AT&T was free for long distance. And my poor wife would come in here and say, “Are you calling and trying to find guys?” and I did. I had guys actually cry. They’d be, “I didn’t think anybody ever remembered who is.” We had thirteen in our first reunion. And up there to the left of my picture there are the thirteen original guys.
RF: Did you join a Veterans organization?
JA: Yea, when I got out I joined the American Legion— the VFW. But when my wife got her thing I gave up. I still belonged to the American Legion. But now I belong to the American Legion, the VFW, the Knights of Columbus and I rejoined them and I belong to an outfit where we meet the last month of every, it’s a organization of all guys from all wars. It’s just, I am a going to speak there sometime around the 1st of September. This is how they send me notes. This one is held at 107th and College. And most of our meeting—what they call the Round Table membership. This is from guys from all wars WWII and on down. And we have these meeting all the time and I also am going to give this speech at the Knights of Columbus and I don’t know when I am going to give that speech to the guys. And you know you’re helping out and you bringing back certain things that I kind of forgot. And I’ll also get to write books and I’ll take that stuff with me.
RF: Did your military experience influence thinking about the war and other military in general?
JA: No, I had enough. But like I said I did join the reserves.
RF: How did your service and experience affect your life?
JA: It took the smart-aleckness out of me and made me a man.
RF: Is there anything else you want to add that we didn’t cover in this interview?
JA: I don’t know. I had a wonderful life and afterwards with my wife and I got all these stuff and that was a flag that was in my window when I was away. And no, I worked for AT&T for thirty-five years. They kicked me out because, you know— they kicked me out when I was fifty-eight years; I wanted to work till I was sixty-two. That cut my pension down. But I had a tremendous medical plan ‘cause that’s how that woman lived to be eighty-five years old.
RF: Well, thank you for this interview. It was great.
JA: Well, I hope I didn’t bore you. Well, I wasn’t a hero or anything, but I did go on the secret mission and I kept my mouth shut for all those years. And like I said on this poison gas—this well I could have been devastating, but I think the Germans had enough brains that if the wind blew it could’ve killed their own troops. They had enough sense. Like I said, I was in an outfit that nobody new what to do with us. I remember my company commander was before he was a doctor he was on the cavalry—when it was cavalry on horses, then he became a doctor. And when he reported to Patton, [he] said, “Well, why are they sending me another medical outfit and I don’t want this. What do you have for a backdrop [backup?]. He said, “Well, I am a WestPoint graduate.” Patton—and another funny thing is—that’s another thing when you get my age things don’t flow right, but I am awfully lucky. God, I mean, how many eighty-seven-year-old men do you know?
RF: Not many.
JA: Well, there aren’t many left. Well, I mean I lived a good life. I was married twice and all five of my children were born under my first wife and they all did real well. Two of them graduated from college, and one girl took two years of college [and] she thought she needed to work, but she still thinks she needs to go back.
[01:39:37] End of interview.
