Mr. Dale Gillespie
[b. 3/15/1924]
Interviewed on October 22, 2006 by Marcy Newman.
The interview was transcribed on November 24, 2006 (re-transcribed on February 10-11, 2007).
[000]
MN: Today is October 22, 2006. I am Marcy Newman and I am interviewing Dale Gillespie at 6031 Wexford Road. Mr. Gillespie is a friend and is 82 years old and was born on March 15, 1924. Mr. Gillespie served in World War II and was in the 82nd Airborne Division and held the following rank, corporal.
MN: Were you drafted or were you enlisted?
DG: I enlisted on my 18th birthday.
MN: Where did you live at the time?
DG: I lived in Columbia City, Indiana—a small town twenty miles west of Fort Wayne on U.S. 30 highway.
MN: Had you always planned on joining or was it just a spur of the moment?
DG: No, I enlisted because it was shortly after Pearl Harbor, and in those days, in the army, you couldn’t get in unless you were 18 years old. And even then, you had to have your parents sign a waiver.
MN: Why did you pick this service branch to join?
DG: Ha, well I didn’t really pick it. It was rather amusing when the man interviewed me he asked— "in those days an eighteen year old isn't suppose to get a choice." I did choose the army because I didn’t like water and I was always afraid of heights as a kid. So, I told him that I was pretty good in high school in mathematics. So I said, I wouldn’t mind being in finance or something where you could use your intelligence a little bit. I found out later that the man had stamped on my form 20, “U.S. Army unassigned.”
[018]
MN: Do you recall your first days in service?
DG: Yes, we were a busload of draftees. They made me wait a few days—so I could go down to Indianapolis. We went to Fort Ben Harrison, and then we went by train to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, which is near Alexandria. We found out then that we were assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, and at that time I was put in the medical detachment of the 325th Infantry.
MN: Now you said you went through boot camp training?
DG: Well, no. They don’t call it boot camp—that’s Marines. We went to basic training and at that time General Omar Bradley was our commanding general.
[029]
MN: How did you get through it. Was it hard?
DG: Well, not for an eighteen-year-old, it wasn’t.
MN: Where exactly did you go for training?
DG: Well, as I said before, I went to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana.
[032]
MN: Do you remember arriving and what it was like?
DG: Well, yes, it was—I remember I had never traveled much before and the ground had a lot of red clay and also, where we were at had a lot of sand.
[035]
MN: What was your job assignment?
DG: Well, you really don’t have a job assignment at first, you just go through the basic training and nobody has an assigned job, except I was in a medical detachment which is attached to the infantry.
MN: Did you have any friends that went with you or did you know anyone?
DG: No, I knew of no one, I enlisted by myself.
[040]
MN: Explain to me some of your most memorable experiences.
DG: Camp Claiborne or the Army? Well, probably one of my most memorable experiences was after I became a paratrooper—was jumping into Normandy on D-Day, (and in the Indianapolis chapter, at one time, we had eighteen people who had either parachuted into Normandy or went in by glider and today, I am the only one still living to my knowledge.)
[047]
MN: When did you start traveling the most?
DG: To give a background, you almost have to know how we got into the Airborne. After basic training, they said that we showed such esprit de corps that they were going to give us the honor of becoming the first airborne division in the United States Army. They froze all transfers and couldn’t get out only on account of a physical and the 325 Infantry that I was in at that time was designated the 325th Glider Infantry. I was in the gliders in the states—I didn’t like the gliders. They landed at 90 miles an hour. (I noticed on my first—I happened to be sitting behind the pilot. I could see it was 90 miles an hour.) We landed on a runway at an airport, and I thought, well, that would be like landing 90 miles and hour on rough terrain. So, when we went overseas in the latter part of April 1943, and we landed at Casablanca, in French Morocco, North Africa, May the 10th, 1943.
[060]
MN: How did you stay in touch with your family?
DG: Well, by writing is the only time. While I was stateside, I received two furloughs, but other than that, everything had to be by letter.
[063]
MN: What was the food, the housing, and shelter like there?
DG: Well, the food wasn’t bad. I liked the army food, but the shelters, for instance, at Camp Claiborne—we were in tents at first with wooden floors. Then we moved into wooden barracks that were covered with black tarpaper. The window was a wooden window that you had to prop open with a board and then go out and get it if it rained, or something, but you didn’t really mind because you were with other fellows. Most of them were from the Midwest.
[071]
MN: How did you handle all the stress?
DG: Well, you don’t really worry about stress in the army, at least I never did. I just lived day to day.
MN: Was there something special you did for good luck?
DG: Yes, well, I'm sorry to say that I didn’t open it very much, but once we got overseas, our chaplain gave us a little pocket Bible and I always—(I made four combat jumps during the war) and I always carried it in my pocket—breast pocket. I don’t know, I just felt having it with me.
[080]
MN: How did people entertain themselves?
DG: Well, on the weekends, of course, (after basic training) you got out on passes. And of course, stateside you could do about anything that you wanted. You had movies and everything else, but of course, when you got overseas—we were actually on the northern edge of the Sahara Desert. There wasn’t really much entertainment except possibly going into—being inaugurated into [?] consuming some alcoholic beverages. That was about all there was to do.
[088]
MN: Do you recall any humorous or unusual events?
DG: Yes, I think one of the most humorous events that I recall was after the war. We were going from Ludwigslust, Germany, which is about 90 miles north of Berlin, where we were when the war ended. And of course, enlisted men, they never tell you what the plans are; we were put on a train, which is an old box car. They used to call it—it either held 40 men or 8 horses, so you were very crowded. They never think of men’s needs and I had to answer the call of Mother Nature so very badly. They finally stopped in a little town, which had a overpass and there were a lot of—I am pretty sure this was still in Germany—they had a lot of civilians up there watching us, and I had to relieve myself so badly. So, they stopped the train at the edge of this town I guess to take on water or something, and I saw a little block house about a hundred yards away, and so I went and got behind it so the people could not see me. A paratrooper—we usually wore suspenders as well as a web belt, because we carried so much equipment with us when we went into combat. I had to take off my jump jacket in order to get my trousers down. I was just finishing up when I heard the jerk of the train as it started up, and of course, I had no idea where we were going and I certainly did not want to be left behind. So, I just had time enough to get one suspender on; I couldn’t fasten up my trousers (they were buttons in those days) and I grabbed—I carried my jump jacket in one hand, and my toilet tissue in the other—that was a very precious commodity. I took off running and I suspect it was probably the fastest any Germans had ever seen an American run since Jessie Owen in the 1936 Olympics. But at any rate, I just barely caught the train that was probably going about five miles an hour. Some other troopers helped me and I got on at about the next to last car and I often wondered what those German civilians thought when they saw that American running.
[116]
MN: Could you describe you uniform?
DG: Well, a paratrooper’s uniform was—they called us the devils in baggy pants because we had pockets in our trousers—similar to like cargo pants today, except they were probably maybe larger, but we—the rifleman had to carry their ammunition, and their grenades in their pocket, and also we always were given a couple day’s rations. They were in boxes about the size of an over-sized Cracker Jack box. The jump jacket was separate and it had four pockets in it. It was sort of a tan I would call it kind of color. That was our combat outfit.
[128]
MN: Did you keep any personal diaries?
DG: No, I did not. There was not that much time.
MN: Well I assume you met lots of friends during your service, but did any of them pass away during combat?
DG: Well, I had one man that probably saved my life in Italy when he pushed me down, because I was leading our 2nd battalion aid station—and he pushed me to the ground and I hadn’t heard it yet, and a German plane had come over and strafed us and kicked up some pebbles. We were walking in a dry creek bed and I always thought because I am six feet tall and special [?] bullets came in at an angle—and there is a lot of difference from lying prone on the ground and standing up, but later I found out that he was killed in Normandy.
[142]
MN: Do you recall when your service ended?
DG: Yes, it was September the 25th, 1945, when I was discharged from Camp Atterbury, Indiana. I happened to meet a fellow there that was from my hometown that was getting discharged that I had known (he was considerably older than I was), but he had his automobile there, so I rode home with him from Camp Atterbury. I got home at about one o’clock in the morning and my whole family—of course, I had already called them. They knew I was coming, but they were almost ready to give up on me, but they were still waiting for me.
[150]
MN: Where were you at the time your service ended? Did you go to work or back to school after your services?
DG: Well, I took off for about maybe three or four weeks just to rest and get acclimated. It was quite a shock after three and a half years in the army to all of a sudden be a civilian again. I could have had four years of free college education, but at that time unless you're going to be a professional, a college education wasn’t nearly as important as it is today. So, then I went and got a job then in Fort Wayne, working at International Harvester in the office.
MN: Did you join a veteran’s organization?
DG: Yes, I joined the American Legion and also the VFW. After I moved to Indianapolis in 1955, I joined—I was already a member of it, but they had an active 82nd Airborne Association, which I had joined.
MN: What kind of activities does the association have?
DG: Well, after the meeting, most of the fellows played cards; some of them played euchre, and I played poker.
MN: Did you play poker during the war?
DG: Oh yes, well, when you were not in combat, you played poker and rolled dice. Some—a lot of people did.
MN: Did you guys ever bet?
DG: No.
MN: Do you attend reunions?
[174]
DG: I have attended the 82nd Airborne. The Association has every year— has a national convention in a different city, but the only time I have ever attended is when they were relatively close by. I’ve been—there were two here in Indianapolis and in Detroit, Chicago, and Omaha, Nebraska. I was only there because I have a daughter who lives there.
MN: While you were at the reunions did you recognize anyone?
DG: No, there really wasn’t with the exception of when I went to Chicago. I knew four or five fellows in Chicago that I looked up from the phone directory and called them, and two of them came down and we got together.
MN: During the war did you have a girlfriend or a relationship with anyone?
DG: Well, yes. I wasn’t married and I didn’t even know my wife at that time. I had a girlfriend in Northern Ireland when I was in Ireland, and then I had an English girlfriend when we were stationed in England.
MN: How did the overall experience affect your life?
[193-585] Taped section ends. Flip over to next side
Side 2
[586]
MN: Go ahead and tell me some more information about combat you were in.
DG: Well, like I said before, I didn’t particularly like gliders because, well, I don’t know if any of you have ever seen one in a museum or not, but they have no engine, of course. The riders in a glider get no parachute. They are made of canvas stretched over a wood and aluminum frame and you could take your fist and ram through the canvas. So, we went overseas, like I said previously, and landed in North Africa and made a tent, and shortly thereafter, they were short of medics (combat medics)—they were evidently getting prepared for their first combat mission, which we didn’t know about. But, at any rate, they started a jump school in North Africa, so I had never even been up in an airplane before, but I—and one other man from the 325 Medics volunteered for it and we went through the jump school. You had to make six parachute jumps to qualify and we qualified on June the 24th, 1943, and we were assigned then to the Second Battalion in the 504th Second Parachute Infantry Regiment. Our sister regiment (the 505), made the initial jump into Sicily on July the 9th, 1943, and then ground troops hit the beaches on July the 10th. We came in the second night (the 504)—we were to come in and capture an airfield further inland near Gela. Then, after we captured that, our other regiment, the 325 Glider Regiment, was going just to come in on C-47s and land for reinforcement, but unfortunately the United States Navy had been bombed by some German bombers about an hour previously. And of course, in those days, you did not have communication like you would have today. They had not evidently been forewarned that we were going to be flying overhead on our path to Gela, and so they thought we were German bombers—they were green and nervous—and of course we were flying at only about 600 feet because a combat jump is made at about 500-600 feet, because the object is to get down to the ground as quickly as possible. And, of course, if any of you wonder about—that do not know—have a static line, it’s not a free-fall—you have a static line on a cable that opens up your parachute and you actually only fall about 60’ before it deploys. But at any rate, I didn’t know anything was even happening till I went out the door and of course the sky was just lit up like the Fourth of July; tracer bullets were—seemed like everyone of them were coming up right at you—and actually you can only see one—every fourth tracer bullet is the one that is visible. But at any rate, I landed in an olive orchard and my parachute draped over an olive tree, which is only about 12-15 feet high and I could hear firing in the next fields and of course I—we just thought they were Germans or Italians shooting. I can remember we started out—but one paratrooper had landed on a stone wall and broken his ankle. He wanted us to just leave him there, but I said, ‘no way,’ and I put him on my back and carried him and it seemed like about two miles, but I am sure it was probably only perhaps 300 yards, but I was pretty slender in those days, and I only weighted 155 pounds on my six-foot frame, but then when I got him there, why I realized I saw an American ambulance on a dirt road and we realized we were in friendly territory then, so I—we put him on the ambulance. I never saw the fellow again in Sicily at that time, but the funny thing of it is that after the Sicilian campaign was over and then we went back to North Africa and we also—the whole division went back to Sicily again, getting ready for another invasion of Italy, he came up to me—and this was probably about a month later or so, and even though I hadn’t given him my name, but for some reason he came up and I looked at him and he was only probably about 5’7” and weighed 150 pounds, and I asked him, I said, “I thought you were a lot larger than that. You seemed so heavy.” And he kind of laughed, and he said with a sheepish grin, he said, “Well,” he said (what neither one of us had thought about), he said, “I had my pockets full of my ammunition and grenades and other equipment. You were probably carrying an extra 20 or 30 pounds. So, you know, I thought that was kind of funny in a way, because neither one of us thought about emptying pockets.
[642]
DG: We almost had a parachute jump into Rome. We were all in the planes. A matter of fact, a few of them had already taken off, but luckily, our second assistant division commander at that time was Maxwell Taylor, who later became the commanding general of the 101st Airborne, he went on a mission disguised as a P.O.W by motor boat to Rome and met with high ranking generals there. The Italians were about ready to surrender, but of course the Germans didn’t know it. This was in early September, but he couldn’t guarantee they were supposed to be going to fight with us, and have trucks waiting at an airfield, and everything. They were not too positive about that. Then General Taylor found out that there were two divisions of German tanks right near the airport, so he came back and got into a small plane and he just barely got there in time before we took off, because the object was that they were going to hit the beaches at Salerno and then they were going to join up with us at Rome, which was probably maybe 100 miles north of there. The thing of it is, Rome did not fall until—in early June 1944, almost a year later. And we were rather glad that we didn’t make that jump. But we did then, finally after the ground troops had made the invasion of Italy on September—I believe it was September the 9th, 1943, and the Germans had started pushing them back and some of the German tanks had got within a mile from the beach, so General Mark Clark, who was the commanding general of the 5th Army needed reinforcements immediately. So, they talked to our general (in 504)—I had been assigned to then a second battalion—the first and second battalion of the 504—approximately 1600 men. We were the very next morning—the very next night we were put on airplanes and we jumped at night onto the beach head. I remember they had barrels of oil burning, so that the planes could see where the beach was, because it was a very narrow area, and we jumped into Italy then, and of course we eventually we got into the interior. Our division Altavilla in Italy. When we were in Italy our 82nd Airborne took Naples in Italy on October the 1st, 1943.
[677]
MN: So you said you served in Italy and Northern Africa, Morocco?
DG: Yes, I started in Sicily. Then after Italy, then of course we didn’t know where we were going—the enlisted men didn’t—but they took the 82nd [?]Airborne and they kept one of our regiments—stayed in Italy and made Anzio later. But the 82nd Airborne went to Northern Ireland and we were only there for about two and a half months, but Northern Ireland in the winter time—this was in early December 1943 and it was miserable there. It was cold and there was snow on the ground most of the time. Being an island, everything—the temperature wasn’t so low—but it’s very damp. I remember we were in Quonset huts and our bed was made of little wooden horses [?] with big wooden boards over it, and then we took the mattress covers that we had and we stuffed them with straw and that was our mattress. It got so cold at night—we had this one pot belly stove and not enough coal ration to last the entire night—we covered with the blankets and put our heavy winter over coats, and all of us wore long johns. The younger people probably don’t know what they are. At any rate, it was very cold and miserable there. So we didn’t really get around much in Northern Ireland. Then about the latter part of February, then we—the 82nd Airborne Division was moved to England. I was stationed near Leicester, England right in a park, right near the—with houses surrounding it; and other part of our division were at Nottingham and some other cities. We were stationed there and we enjoyed that quite a bit, because they had pubs and [?] until we left for [?] Normandy.
[703]
MN: How long did you stay in Ireland?
DG: In Ireland, we were there only two and a half months. Then in England, we were there from the latter part of February until of course D-Day when we left. We had camps back there. We had a few men who stayed behind taking care of your barracks bags, clothing and so on and so forth. But then, the 82nd Airborne Division—along with the 101st Airborne Division—6,500 paratroopers in each one, 15,000 paratroopers spearheaded the Normandy invasion. We parachuted in probably about 1:30 in the morning and it was quite an ordeal. The reason we got scattered so much was that—we—to start with, we were in the air for about three hours. Most people don’t realize that when you take off from various air fields then they keep circling around until the airplanes make like a real long train serial, and instead of going directly—we didn’t want to go overhead, because there had been a lot of anti-aircraft fire—so, we went around the Normandy peninsula and came in the back way over land which was probably around fifty miles from our objective and unfortunately, there was no communication—we couldn’t for fear that the Germans would hear any radio communication. There was a real heavy fog came and I guess the pilots could not even see and so some of them when up in the air to try to get above the fog and some of them went lower—plus the fact that our Pathfinders, which had jumped in a couple of hours before we did, were supposed to have beacon lights for the various drop zones. A lot of those had gotten captured or killed before hand and I think it was only about one battalion that dropped where they were really supposed to be, plus the fact that what we also didn’t know at the time was that the Germans had flooded a small river—the Merderet River. They had dammed it up and flooded it a couple years before and algae had grown over the water and what became a relatively small river was probably at least a half a mile wide. Of course, from the air when our Air Corps took their aerial photographers from maybe 5,000 feet, or maybe five miles probably—they don’t like to get down too low—and it just appeared green. So they just assumed that it was grass and the hedgerows—you have probably heard of the hedgerows of Normandy—and most people think of those of being like the hedges around here and of course, your hedgerows of Normandy were actually mounds of earth about six to eight feet high with trees growing out of them. Some of those trees were thirty to forty feet high. Your average field in Normandy was not much larger than a football field. They were relatively small and they were all various sizes, triangles, rectangles, squares and the farmers usually had a little grove or something where they could get into their various fields with their animals. So the Germans had put a lot of stakes out–they called them “Rommel’s Asparagus” and had the wires between them with explosives so that if any paratrooper or gliders landed in there, they would go off. But I know—I can remember my pilot must have went pretty high—because I think I was at least a minimum of 1500 feet, because it took me quite a while to get to the ground and I could see something burning a long way off and I was probably—and I landed at the edge of where it had been flooded—I landed in water about half way up to my knees and it was probably at least two to three miles from where we were supposed to have landed. Of course, each—even though we were scattered—each little group got together and fought their own little wars in the hedgerows and that’s the reason that the 4th Division at Utah Beach—because both 101st Airborne and 82nd Airborne were both behind Utah Beach and there were no German reinforcements or tanks to come through us, because we had the enemy engaged. We actually—we jumped probably about five hours before they hit the beaches and another thing that most people do not know, is that the two airborne divisions together had more casualties than Omaha and Utah Beach combined—not as many killed because so many at Omaha Beach were killed because they—I guess we didn’t have enough planes evidently to land any paratroopers behind Omaha Beach and so they got it, but it was bad in Normandy. I mean we had—eventually then we had other troops came in by glider and some of course heavy equipment, artillery people and that came in by boat two or three days later. All together we had about 10,000 men in Normandy and we were in combat for thirty-three straight days. When we went back to England we had 5,000 men and some of the rifle companies—if I would have been a medic, I wouldn’t be here today, but some of your rifle companies only had twelve to fifteen men left out of 150. Of course they weren’t all killed, but I mean, you know, a lot of them in a month’s time they get wounded and also some of them get—what you call it—pneumonia and so on and so forth.
[782]
MN: Of all the places you traveled, what was your . . . .
DG: Well, of those that I traveled, I will say this, I think Holland was the probably the cleanest country. In Holland we parachuted into there September the 17th, 1944. Now this was our only daytime jump—it was Sunday afternoon about 1:00 in the afternoon and I was very fortunate there, I landed in a plowed field—it was either—had been probably beets or turnips—I’m not sure which, but it was a very soft landing and we were fifty-three miles behind the enemy lines at that time. The object—I don’t know if any of you have ever seen that movie—“A Bridge Too Far,” but the British Airborne parachuted near Arnhem, which was north—about ten miles north of us—and the 82nd was then taking Neimagen and the bridges were over there and the 101st Airborne were south of us near Einhoven, but later when things quieted down, and you got a chance to see a little bit of the countryside, I seen women out scrubbing the streets, actually with water and soap, and their homes (if you ever got a chance to get in one), was always very clean. In Italy, for instance—Italy—the countryside that we were in, near there most of it was pretty squalid and so was France—now, as far as the countryside mind you—we weren’t in Paris or big cities, but it was a---[?] And then we were in Holland until November 1944. We were there for two months and we eventually went back to northern France to a rest area [Laon/Sissone?]. Then of course, the Germans broke through in what was called the “Bulge” which was in Belgium and they needed reinforcements, so two airborne divisions were the only reserves they had and we got called up. It was probably about a few days after the first break through and the 82nd Airborne was the first one to get ready for it and we went—road up in trucks and we went through Bastogne, but we kept on going because we were the first ones and they needed somebody on the northern flank, so we went up to a little town near Werbomont, Belgium and later the 101st Airborne then went to Bastogne, and of course the rest is history. They made at Bastogne, if you will excuse the expression, the “battered bastards of Bastogne”. In January 1945 then we were brought back to our base camp in France and a 1,000 casualties in our division in the Bulge. As a matter of fact, all together, the 82nd Airborne had a little over 16,000 casualties and when the war ended we only had 12,000 men was our strength—but of course you had a lot of replacements kept coming in and a lot of your wounded people came back. We had some men who got wounded two or three times. Then, back up again in I think it was March, and the 82nd Airborne was the first one that went through the Siegfried line and then we were near Cologne and then we got in trucks, because at that time the Germans were pouring—surrendering—they didn’t want to have to fight the Russians because they knew what would happen to them—and for all the atrocities that they had done against the Russians when they were in Russia.
[At] the Elbe River, I think it was the latter part of April 1945, and that was the last casualty our company had. A young man that was married–he was in his early twenties. I remember, he was a jeep driver, and I remember he always smoked cigars and he ran over a land mine when he crossed the Elbe River and was killed. Then the war ended about a week later officially. The war was over and when it was, we were stationed in Ludwigslust, which was about 60 to 70 miles north of Berlin and there was a concentration camp five miles from there, which our division liberated. Now, it was not one of those with the ovens, but believe me, there were stacks of people that had died from malnutrition and diseases that they would have and they also had large holes dug, but they had not got all of them buried yet and pushed into there. Our commanding general made them give them individual graves in a park in the city of Ludwigslust and all the population of Ludwigslust had to march by and take a look at the people that had died there in the concentration camp. It ended and I was one of those—I was very fortunate—survived the war without a scratch and I had a one [friend] who was killed and two or three that were wounded, three of them [?], but at any rate, I had enough points—they had the point system and we knew we were not going to have to go to the Pacific. So, as you know, the 82nd Airborne was mostly just replacements at that time—low point men, they went to Berlin to become the honor guard of Berlin. They were the first division to be in Berlin and I got discharged.
[868]
MN: So after your services were you awarded any medals or citations?
DG: Well, I had a few. I had an ETO ribbon, six battle stars, of course I had my glider wings, my paratrooper wings, and my combat medical badge. In order to get a combat medical badge, you had to serve either as a company aid man with the infantry or battalion aid station, which I was in Sicily and Italy. I also got a Bronze Star, and the awards that our unit got—the Presidential Unit Citation, and we got a Meritorious Service Award, and a Spearhead, which was for making the initial invasion, and foreign awards that the whole division units got from France and Belgium and Holland. Of course, they stay with the division. Even the 82nd Airborne today anybody in there are allowed to wear them.
Then, I should have probably went to college. I could have had four years of free college education. But in those days unless you were going to be a professional and I wanted to settle down. I thought I would have been too old—because I would have been twenty-seven years old by the time I graduated. I was only twenty-one when I was discharged after three and a half years combat—no, no, excuse me, two and a half years overseas and three and a half years in the army. I just wanted to get on with my life. So, I got a call from my editor—I used to pass papers in my home town and he offered me a job as advertising manager. Sold advertising for the newspaper for eight years in Columbia City. Then I got a call from Indianapolis—from people that had met me during the Hoosier Press Association meetings. They were looking for an experienced man at that time and they offered me a job at the Indianapolis Star and News—at that time there was two daily papers and as far as advertising—they sold advertising for both papers. The editorial people were completely separate. So I accepted a job, and brought my family down here in 1955. At that time, I had three children, then I had two more children later. But I worked then for the Indianapolis Star News selling retail advertising for 36 years and retired in 1991.
[909]
MN: Well, if there is anything that I haven’t covered feel free to talk about whatever you want.
DG: Well, like I say at one time our 82nd Airborne Association in Indianapolis had eighteen men that had parachuted either into Normandy or came in by glider on D-day and to my knowledge, at this present time, I’m the only one still alive. But most of them were older and most of the glider troops especially were anywhere from eight [?] to twelve years older than I am. Even the original paratroopers—most of them were about twenty-two, and so I was a replacement who came in later. However, of course, who knows this year in 2006, I had stomach cancer and they removed half of my stomach, and I found out—I had prostate cancer in 1992, but I felt perfect—it seemed to be in good control, but now they have discovered it into my bones, so I have bone cancer. So between the two of them, I am now taking what is supposed to help you a little bit. So of course, at my age I don’t even buy green bananas.
[932] end of interview.
