Mr. Whitney J. Greenberg
[Born 07/08/1920]
Interviewed by Ali Raja
Recorded on 10/21/2005 by Ali Raja
Transcribed on 11/25/2005-00/00/2005 by Ali Raja
[Interview begins: 001]
Ali Raja: Today is the 21st of October 2005. [My name is Ali Raja], and I am interviewing Mr. Whitney Greenberg at 7525 Washington Boulevard, Indiana, 46240, and Mr. Greenberg is the grandparent of a student at my school. Mr. Greenberg is [how old] 85 years old, and was born on August 28, 1920 Akron Ohio. And he served in World War 2. [Whitney Greenberg: Correct]. Mr. Greenberg was in the Combat Cargo outfit and held the rank of Tech Sergeant and Airplane mechanic [WG: That’s right].
AR: Were you drafted or did you enlist?
WG: I enlisted… and I enlisted December the 8, day after Pearl Harbor, that would be why I joined.
[011]
AR: And, which service branch did you pick?
WG: I picked the Air Corps.
AR: Why?
WG: Cause I wanted to fly.
[chuckle]
WG: And they uh… want me to tell you the story?
AR: Yea.
WG: Ok, I wanted to fly, but uh, so I’m interested in the Air Corps. I went down to San Antonio, Texas and I was waiting to get into your preliminary training school, for pilot training… and they said, “If you go ahead and volunteer for navigation school, you go through halfway through navigation school, you ask for a transfer to pilot training you get to pilot training faster. So I said, “Well that’s what sounds like a good deal.” So, I volunteered for navigation school. When I got through halfway through, and I went to my Commanding Officer and requested that I be transferred to pilot training and he says, “You can’t do that.” And I said “What do you mean I can’t do that? They said they promised me that in San Antonio!” He says,”Well…” he says, “The regulation changed and you have to stay and be a navigator.” I said, “I’m not gonna be a navigator... you can wash me out.” And I said, “I refuse to fly.” I didn’t want to fly if somebody else flied but, eventually I ended up doing it anyway. So, he said, he washed me out with what they call prejudice, and he said, “You have to pick a technical school since you’re a college graduate.” And I have to pick a technical school either [armor man?] airplane mechanics, or radio. So I said I’ll take radio, [armor man?], and airplane mechanics last, and he told me, he said, “Oh we’re gonna give ya airplane mechanics.” I said, well, I said, “I have no mechanical skills whatsoever.” He says, “Can ya use a knife and a fork?” I said “Yes.” He said, “That’s good enough.”
AR: [laugh]
WG: He joked! So I went to the mechanical training school and ended up as an airplane mechanic. That’s how I got to k… How I became an airplane mechanic.”
[031]
AR: Do you recall the first days of service?
WG: First day of service was right here in Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis. My father drove me up [to fort?]
AR: What was it like?
WG: Sorta lonely.
AR: It was what?
WG: Lonely… It was a cold winter day in January… cold winterey and … I just wasn’t looking forward to anything. Was a little scared… young, little scared… and, that night, in the barracks. First night in the barracks, I’ll never forget that, little fella named Charlie Gully... [Indiscernible] He was sleeping right next to me… He was 19 years old, I was an old man in the [crew?] cause I was already 22 or 23… and he was [half asleep? Crying? Sniffling?]
[Recorder disturbed (surface underneath sliding out)]
And I said “What’s wrong Charlie?” he says, “I’m homesick, and I’m lonely, and I’m scared…” I said, “Well don’t be lonely and scared.” Then some guy popped up, “Hey ya big sissy!” and started yelling at him. I said, “Anybody want a piece of me, they can have it. If ya don’t leave him alone, your gonna get it.” I said, “Charlie come on outside. Let’s smoke a cigarette together.” So we went out and we smoked a cigarette and I calmed him down, I quieted him down, and he… we were together till… [oh?] about 6 months. When I went to San Antonio he got washed out and he went someplace else. But we were together for about… 3 to 4 months, not 6 months, bout 3 to 4 months… but he followed me around like a little puppy dog. He was a nice little fella, little short little [thing?] from… Kentucky… and… never did find… looked him up, tried to look him up on the internet… when I first got my computer but I couldn’t find him… and… but I imagine he would still. He was younger than I am by three years, so he could still be around… I’m not sure… but… that was my first night… and then the first morning, for breakfast, I’ll never forget, they had what they call S.O.S for breakfast. I’m not gonna tell you what it is, but it was cream chipped beef on toast, and we got a name for it, S.O.S. and you figure out from your father what it is cause I won’t tell ya… that’s what we had for breakfast….
AR: [laughs]
WG: [laugh] I didn’t like it, I didn’t eat it…
AR: [laughs]
WG: Cream chipped beef, chipped beef on toast… it was terrible… mm… That’s what I remember most about anything is that Charlie Gully and that chipped beef.
[059]
AR: [laugh] How was boot camp?
WG: Interesting for me because I wear size 13 AAA shoes… and, since they didn’t have that size shoe, I couldn’t march. So I didn’t have to do any drilling or marching or anything else…. and, couldn’t do, they wouldn’t put me on a KP, cause I didn’t have shoes… couldn’t be on, couldn’t be on guard duty cause I didn’t have, all I did was [lay around?] the barracks, and play poker, and enjoy myself, and get off on weekends… and it wasn’t till... three months that they finally found brought me two pairs of AAA shoes they had made for me. So, I didn’t really go through boot camp. So, I was very fortunate. I got lucky.
AR: [laugh] And, now is gonna be the larger amount of the interview time, will be the experience
AR: Where exactly did you go?
WG: I went from Indianapolis to… San Antonio… Indianapolis to San Antonio, San Antonio went to Hondo, Texas, this is all in Texas, and from Hondo, Texas I went to a… a tech training school, I cant think of the name of it right now, it’ll come to me. You know you have those senior moments when your 85 sometimes the names slip ya, and I went to a training, a mechanical, airplane mechanical training school, and then from there I went to Laurinburg-Maxton Army Air Base, and then up to California for further training to Los Angeles to Douglass Aircraft Factory for the training. Came back to Laurinburg-Maxton Army Air Base. Went to Walden, Missouri where I was hooked up with a crew, over flight training with a crew, and then from Walden, Missouri I went to… Karachi, and Karachi I, I went to Din Jan
AR: [I have a house there.] I know Karachi.
WG: Is that’s... that’s
AR: That’s where I’m from.
WG: That’s where, you’re from Karachi! Well I was in Karachi, and I went to Din Jan from there, and we flew through the pass from Din Jan into China, through Burma into China, and we dropped, you wanna ask me another question or should I?..
AR: No, no, continue.
WG: We dropped supplies into, I had a, by the way… I had a fly. My… My CO (Commanding Officer) was a pilot, and he flew. And he says, “When I fly, you fly, because your airplanes gonna be perfect.” So…
[Phone rings]
Let’s see if my wife will get that…
And… he says, “When I fly, you fly so I have a flying airplane mechanic.” So whenever he was up in the air, I was u in the air, and we flew from Din Jan Yu… Yes? Excuse me.
[Recorder Stopped for Phone 099]
[100]
We were flying, we flew in from… from Din Jan, I went from Karachi to Din Jan, India, and then to, we flew from there at the base to… to China to Cumming… we dropped off different spots during the Battle for Rangoon while we dropped supplies and ammunition to the… to our… to our forces there. The Australians basically [ended? in it?] for the Battle of Rangoon and… that’s where… we picked up… towards the end of the war, we picked up, I picked up some… It was in June; July in the last year of the war… June, we picked up ground fire. A bullet lodged in the cylinder and blew an engine, and we were high up in the mountains… and we had Chinese Para-troopers on board, and my pilot says, “We’re gonna [have a?] shut down engine. We gotta throw out all their equipment,” and I started to throw out their equipment and they threw a gun down there on me, they didn’t wanna lose their equipment. I said, “Ning-hau” which means fine… I went in the closet there and the officer who threw the [ven?] gun was sitting bout like here and the door to the cockpit was over there and I went in there, got my .45 put a shell in the chamber, and then when I came out I slammed the door into him. Broke the hinge, slammed the door into him. Put my .45 in his head and I said, “Now, gimme the [ven?] gun.” He understood, and I disarmed everybody, started throwing out every, all their equipment, because we wanted to lighten the plane. [We did it? We landed?] over an abandoned Japanese airstrip, [quite?] close by, and my pilot found it and he landed us safely there, and then we saw one of our planes flying over head, and he [called to?] them, they came down picked everybody up but me…
AR: [laugh]
WG: They took everybody up but me, because they said they were gonna fly a new engine into me, and I could change it. So, a day later, they came and I got the equipment, the [hoist?] and everything out of the abandoned hanger from the Japanese. Took my engine and hoisted it up and changed the engine, ran ‘em down and checked ‘em out, and then they dropped my pilot off, my CO, off again, to fly the plane out of there. He says, “I hope it’s good.” I said, “I wouldn’t be flying out here with you if it wasn’t any good.”
AR: [chuckle]
WG: It was good, we took off. We got back, and then I was stationed at Liu Liang, China, Liu Liang I went to Shanghai, from Shanghai I came home.
AR: Where did you spend the most time?
WG: I was spent between Din Jan and Liu Liang. It’s just hard for me… can’t remember just what… It wasn’t important to me [because?] the war was on. I was in Liu Liang, we’d just moved into Liu Liang, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, and that’ll give ya a point in time, I can’t remember the date, and from then on, I was in Liu Liang until I went to Shanghai, then I came home from Shanghai.
AR: You were always getting picked up and sent around a lot. How did you like, feel about like every time landing in a new area every time.
WG: Well it was interesting; I didn’t mind it at all. I, I enjoyed it. We landed in Burma, and I got fresh watermelon, and melons from Burma which were delicious, and we went to China, never saw a chicken but we had eggs. In India, when I was in India, we never had any eggs. We had those… you know… army rations where they make dried eggs and put water in ‘em and there you had scrambled, but in China we had fresh eggs every morning for breakfast, and so you know, different, all over, and when I was in Din Jan, the funniest thing I ever saw, well I really can’t tell ya this.. But I will…
[151]
AR: Aw, C’mon!
WG: [laugh] The... we had a little, there was a little monkey right in front of our [lot?] in Din Jan, ran up [and back and forth on], on wires, wires or rope that we had, we had our clothes on to dry, because it was always damp there, during the monsoon season I was there, and it was always damp so we had to hang our [em when the?] Sun did come out, we’d hang em up and dry em as quick as we could, and this monkey would always ran around when a stray dog came by, barked at him and chased him up a pole, and the dog turned around, and the monkey came down, and bit the dog on his testicles.
AR: [laughs]
WG: And that dog, that dog took off, and running like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and we were right near them [indiscernible] that was a sight to see, we loved that monkey, and we were only, there were 4 of us in a tent, and every now and then, why… twice it happened in my outfit, I cant remember their names its been too long they came and-
AR: Can you repeat that?
WG: Well every now and then the quarter-master would come, wrap up somebody’s belongings, pull em out of there, because that crew had crashed into the mountains while they were flying [indiscernible mountains] which is a very dangerous place to fly, because of the winds and the Himalayas, and it was very dangerous flying there, and you could see the, once in a while you got a clear day, you could see the plane crashes where they crashed into the mountain, and some spots where we landed, if you, if I remember correctly, I forget the name of the towns in China, you took off down the runway, you had to bank right, if you went straight or tried to bank left, you’d hit the mountain, and a pilot [who?] was brand new, didn’t know the procedure, went straight, couldn’t get over the mountain, one thing I remember, there was a crew of 4, and one extra, one extra man seated to the back, strapped in, and he was sailing down the mountain bout a 150 yards over the top of the mountain, and he lived. The rest of em were killed, the other 4 were killed. You know… when your [mind fades on ya], you can’t remember names as well as ya should. I remember incidents… I remember what happened, things like that. I also, I’ll tell ya this, I’m proud of it, for the number of flights that I had, I received the air medal and I received 2 of them, and one they called something on the top of it I forget. I also received the Distinguished Flying Cross. It’s the highest honor you can receive in the air corps outside the Medal of Honor, and I received that for changing that airplane motor by myself, and for taking care of the Chinese troops that were on board, keeping them from killing each other, and successfully changing the motor and getting us out of there, and that’s why I received the distinguished flying cross, for [exceptional?] [as?] of flying.
AR: Were you ever a Prisoner of War?
WG: No.
AR: And what were all the medals and citations?
WG: I said that, just told you that, and I got one from the French Government, and I don’t know what it was called. Cause we picked up, I was on the crew that picked up, a French man from near Saigon, and a French woman. And the French Government gave that… that [whole?] that my pilot my co-pilot, my radio operator and myself, Some sort of Ribbon of Honor I have it put away but I don’t know what the name of it is I cant [refurnish?] everything so…
AR: [laugh]
WG: and… that was about it.
AR: Did you see combat?
WG: Well that was the only comba- yes I saw combat, because you, we dropped Para-troopers, and we dropped supplies over battles. That’s where we… two of our [forces?] were… the Battle of Rangoon… which, we dropped supplies there. Why, that’s where we picked up… ground fire that shot out one of our engines. We didn’t know that a bullet lodged that fell into the cylinder and froze the cylinder, that’s where we change… had to change the engine. So, yea that was combat. Anytime your in a combat area your in combat, you know your flying, over enemy territory, your in combat. We flew over enemy territory all the time.
AR: Alright so now tell me… how did you like… how did you throw out the cargo?
WG: Very simply, the door we… the doors off on our air plane... we stood there… and we threw it out. Also, when we dropped Paratroopers, the Paratroopers did not want to leave the airplane. You see em jumping… they didn’t always jump out the door… you know, holding, you see em hold on like that yea. I, there was a rack, a bar, and I held onto the bar as they came to the door, I swung both feet out and pushed em.
AR: [laugh]
WG: I got em out of the airplane, every one of em… did that… quite a few times… Chinese Para-troopers. I didn’t... we had… we dropped American Para-troopers once and I didn’t have to do it for the American Para-troopers but I had to do it for the [Japanese? Chinese?]
AR: How did you stay in touch with your family?
WG: Letters only… of course that’s all there was.
AR: Was there like a long lapse between sending a letter and then receiving a letter?
WG: Well I received more than I sent.
AR: [laughs]
WG: I received a letter… [unintelligible] which she wasn’t married of course at the time. From my mother, and my father and my sister at least once or twice a week… all the time…
AR: On an average day… lets say… around the area that the Battle of Rangoon happened, what would you say the food was like
WG: Mostly rations, and in Shanghai we had good food, course the war was over but… in Liu Liang I ate mostly eggs and pancakes, cause that was the best food we got there. I drank a lot of milk and eggs and pancakes, and not too much meat, and we didn’t have never had chicken although we had eggs… I couldn’t understand we never had chicken but we had eggs, and that we flew from Liu Liang back into Din Jan and they never had fresh eggs in Din Jan, so I took a carton of fresh eggs I mean… like this a big carton maybe 144 eggs 12 dozen and I traded it for beer [chuckles] to the [creek?] where we landed there in Din Jan the air base there… So I got a lot of beer
AR: [laugh]
WG: for my eggs. If you, if you got a crate like that. I’ll tell you another cute thing that I used to do… We had [candle ice?] in Din Jan, why as you know Karachi, Din Jan’s not very far from Karachi, its warm, especially in the summer time and there’s no ice to cool our beer… cost Uncle Sam about 145 dollars to cool my beer. What I did, I took safety wire, put it around each can of beer 2 cans of beer, and let open I tied it to the [sumps?] which we drained every morning, make sure there was no water in your gas. So you open the [sumps?] and let the water out so your, you know your plane will fly properly, and I’d open up the sumps and let a couple of drips of water drop on my beer and I’d rev up the engines, fan that gasoline, evaporate the gasoline and that way the gasoline of cans of beer, could cool my beer down, so I had cool beer at night.
AR: [laugh]
WG: So you know… we do things just to not only entertain ourselves but to enjoy ourselves and enjoy what we had. Every night why… I don’t drink hard whiskey… I drink beer and they had a chocolate drink. Every time we came off the flight, we got what they call war rations or plane, flight rations and they gave you 2 ounces of whiskey. I wouldn’t drink mine, I’d save it, and I traded it for the chocolate drink. So, I liked the chocolate drink better than I did the whiskey, I whiskey never… well beer I traded for beer and the chocolate drink but not whiskey didn’t like whiskey, don’t even like it to this day. Tell you another interesting fact… just before the war…
[Recorder disturbed stopped to fix position 281]
[282]
Just before the war was over [our outfit] was called upon to take doctors and medicine into Peking or Pei Ping or Beijing, China, whatever you want to call it, The CO, who was my pilot, volunteered his aircraft to do that and he says, “Your volunteering.” I go, “I [did/didn’t] volunteer.” I had to go, cause he said I had to. So, we went we had a cover of aircraft fighters going into Peking cause the war was not over. It was not officially over, just before it was signed. So we were officially at war with the Japanese, and we were gonna land in Peking, China or Beijing, and we came in, they had [half tracks?], machine gun mounted. Everything, all aimed at that runway. We land at that runway and we had bombers above us, if they attacked us, the bombers were instructed to drop bombs and kill everybody including us.
AR: Hoh!
WG: But they did not, and a crew chief is the first one out of the airplane. He jumps out of the airplane, puts the steps in, and puts the hooks on the landing gear to keep em from collapsing, make sure they don’t collapse. I was so nervous, when I jumped out of that airplane to put the stairs in, I fell and hurt my back, and a Japanese, who spoke perfect English to me he said, “I’m a doctor” he says, “I went to school in Detroit.”, and he says, “C’mon in I’ll manipulate your back.” He took me in while everybody else was coming out of the aircraft so they were unloading it, I didn’t have to do that, and he, he unloaded everything, and he put me in the car with the rest of em, and they had all the blinds drawn…
AR: Why were the blinds drawn?
WG: They didn’t want the Chinese people to see the Americans coming into Beijing or Peking. We went through The Great Wall, I remember seeing that, we went through the gate of the great wall. There… an airfield was outside of the city, and we went into the hotel called the Wagon Lee hotel, and we were guests, of the Imperial Japanese Army. For 3 days they held us in the hotel, and secretly at night they took the doctors to Prisoner of War camps where they had the medicines to take care of the people who were sick. The end of 3 days, the Japanese said we could go through the city. They were getting ready to sign the peace treaty so they let us out. The peace treaty had still not been signed, and when we came out there were… there were 2 crews of airplanes plus the doctors. There were 12 rickshaws lined up in front of the Wagon Lee hotel. Now you got to understand the Chinese had passive resistance to the Japanese during the war. They hid all the rickshaws, took em apart and hid em, they would not carry them. You know it’s a major means of transportation that point of time in China, they didn’t have [taxis] they had rickshaws, and, they [pulled us?] around the city. The rickshaws were dismantled and hidden from the Japanese, they would not pull them. We came out of the hotel there were 12 rickshaws and 12 rickshaw men to pull them. All the Americans in the city of Peking, and when we went through there, thousands, not 1 or 2, thousands of the Chinese people lined the streets waved flags at us.
AR: [chuckle]
WG: “Ding-hau megua”… that means “very good Americans,” remember that… my dieing day I’ll remember that… its how they greeted us… so, and treated us with a great deal of honor, and that was interesting… that was one of the most interesting facets of my time in the army. Just that ride around Shanghai. I mean not Shanghai, Peking, Beijing.
AR: How was like the pressure, the stress? Were you like under a lot of pressure to perform? Under, stress from your officers?
WG: Only on your self… I had to fly with my aircraft… I want to make sure it was flyable. If we, if we had an accident it wasn’t due to the airplanes failure, it was due to pilot failure or weather or some other outside force or enemy fire, it wasn’t due to my fact that I wasn’t a good airplane mechanic… I’m not a good mechanic… but I was flying in that dude, and I made sure that it was flyable.
AR: [laughs]
WG: that’s what I wanted to do.
AR: Did you have anything like a good luck charm or something you said every morning.
WG: No… Nope.
AR: How did, What did you guys entertain yourself like… on long days when there’s nothing to do besides just stay…
WG: Play cards and poker…
AR: Would you like bet stuff?
WG: Oh yea we’d bet, do you know what poker is?
AR: Yea.
WG: Well five star shud or Texas draw or old Texas hold em we’d play poker. In fact, when I left Shanghai on a ship. I was… I had about 102 temperatures. I had the flu, and I got down to the hull where I was… where my [pole?] was, and I was holding onto it like that and I passed out, I just, I was sick, but I didn’t want to take a chance on not getting home, so I carried my bag and everything and I got on a ship and passed out, and a great big sailor, I mean he musta been six-four, six-five, 250 pounds, picked me up threw me over his shoulder… and I came to and I said, “What’s your name?” and he told me and I said, “Where do you live?” and he told me, in Des Moines, I said, “If they kick me off this ship, I’m coming back to Des Moines and I’m gonna kill ya.”
AR: [laugh]
WG: I go, “I wanna go home.” He says, “Don’t worry your just going to sick bay.”
AR + WG: [laugh]
WG: So I went to sick bay, We were on board the ship for 18 days, before we… landed.. yea it was 18 days, and we got into Seattle, the day after Christmas… 2 days after Christmas cause we celebrated Christmas on the sea and I had New Years Eve in Seattle. But, so when I got out... all the big winners of the poker games were there. Just 3 or 4 games… I joined one of the games, won a lot of money, and spent it all in Seattle. When I came home from Seattle… spent about 1800 dollars which in those days was a lot of money, I was just there for 10 days,
AR: [laugh]
WG: And… I was broke! Absolutely broke, spent all my money, I’m walking down Seattle streets and I see a store sign Silen S-I-L-E-N, Shoe store, and I went in there and I asked for Mr. Silen, and I say, “You don’t know me but let me tell you who I am,” I said, “You have an uncle named Louis,” and he says "That’s right,” I say, “Louis had 3 daughters, Ethel, [Mabel?], and May,” he says “That’s correct,” I said, “Ethel had a son with a peculiar name,” He says, “Yes I can’t think of it,” “It was Whitney,” he says, “That’s correct,” I say, “Well I’m Whitney, now cash this check for 300 dollars,” He turned pale but he cashed it.
AR+WG: [laughs]
WG: He turned pale but he cashed it, so I had money on me on the train going home, and I was lucky… so I played poker, I won some more money on the train coming home, I had a thousand dollars when I got back there.
AR: [Whoa] that 300 dollars went a long way.
WG: Yea.
AR: And, did you guys pull any pranks on each other… any jokes?
[408]
WG: No, not really, you know, war’s a serious thing and, we lost a crew… bout every 2 weeks... 3 weeks. So we weren’t playing tricks on each other, all we did was play poker… that’s bout all we did you know, play poker… talk about you know home… about our girlfriends, our friends, or our family, each other… communicate with each other that way, but play tricks or anything no… no we didn’t do that, we just… just… just became friendly and warm and considerate of each other. Well you had to be because you didn’t know if you were gonna see the guy the next week or not. Worse thing about it was Liu Liang, where, it was cold, during the winter… and it was up in the mountains, and get up in the morning, and we got to take our helmet, put some water in it, heat the water, and wash your hands and face, couldn’t take a shower, didn’t take a shower for a week at a time, because it was so damn cold and you couldn’t get enough warm water, so you finally felt like you were smelling your self to death, and you’d fill… borrow each others helmets and fill them up with water and one with soap, and wash yourself down and dry yourself off, and rinse your self off with the other water that you heated up, in the meantime you were freezing to death cause you had no showers, [just?] freezing to death out there, So… It was… very bare, very barren, just… didn’t feel like doing much.
AR: How were all the living accommodations in all the places?
WG: Well Liu Lang was terrible, Din Jan was not too bad I mean tent… [Yun An Yee?] was another place in China, It was… Liu Lang with just a better tent… Lived in tents most of the time… and in China and in Shanghai we lived in cement block barracks. Which wasn’t too bad, step up over a tent, it had showers and every thing else. You could shower everyday. It was nice as a comparison…. And I had a very interesting experience in Shanghai there was a.. I think it was the [Senhuksan parking school]… o think that was the name of it… in Shanghai… and I went there for lunch and they had restroom there…. And it was… you know first time I ever had a steak with an egg served on top of it, that’s how they serve it in china, if you have meat they served an egg on top of it, a fried egg, did you know that?
AR: No!
WG: Yea, that’s how they serve it in China. I never had any meat in Karachi so I don’t know if they … I don’t think they did that.
AR: Naw,
WG: Any way, that’s how they served that, and they had these little tiny bay shrimp, little tiny ones… so I got a bowl full of bay shrimp and I asked for some chili sauce which they had, and some horse radish, which they had, and I mixed it up and I made myself a shrimp cocktail
AR: [laugh]
WG: And I was eating it. Right across the room from me was a man, 2 china men, Chinese, one came over and introduced himself, perfect English, and he said, “My friend, who owns the Park hotel, wants to know what you did, and I said, I told him you were making some sort of sauce for your shrimp,” and I said, “Does he have shrimp at his table?” he said ,”Yes” I said, then I poured some sauce off and I said, “Let him try it,” and he liked it. This man also said when he introduced himself that he worked for a firm that had a here in Indianapolis, they made... they made tanks,
AR: [sneeze]
WG: here on West Washington street, and I cant think of their name God bless you son, and… so he introduced himself, he talked to the man, the man appreciated the fact that I gave him the shrimp sauce. He owned the [Park Pusei?] Chinese Park, the Englishman who owned the Park hotel, which was the finest hotel in Shanghai, and you could look down from the top, where I had, I had a room… and see the race track that they had there in Shanghai. Shanghai’s changed of course, I imagine, since I’ve been there, cause its been almost 60 years since I’ve been there, but has been 60 years since I’ve been there… 59, cause I gave him he offered me a room, course I had to pay for it but I was glad to take the room because to get a nice hotel room was almost impossible for a G.I. who’s just a Tech Sergeant, [you ought to know?] when I went in there well there were nothing but Officers and Colonels and Admirals and [everything?] staying in there, and here’s this Tech Sergeant coming in there and he had a room and they wanted to get my room, and they said, “No” he’s a friend of the owners. So they couldn’t have my room.
[512]
AR: [laughs]
WG: So I, I had a room in there I got lucky, and you know you have little things like that, that happen that you enjoy… and you learn how to make money…. I learned how to make money, I was an entrepreneur. When I got to Shanghai…
AR: Wait, hold on a sec…
[Tape stopped to be checked]
WG: American Dollars, buy gold, take the gold
[Phone Rings]
Shanghai, to Quailin and buy gold, take the gold, and buy Chinese dollars in Cumming, take the Chinese dollars and change em into American dollars in Shanghai… tripled my money…
AR: Hoh! Amazing!
WG: Oh no… [chuckle] the difference in the rate of exchange. They didn’t know, the Chinese didn’t know, didn’t have communication didn’t know how much the dollar was worth, how much gold was worth, and because of their ignorance I…
AR: [laugh]
WG: I kept a base of about 500 dollars and I come back to Shanghai and I’d end u with 1500 dollars for my money, when I got down to 500 dollars again, I’d go take the flight again cause I was crew chief and I could take the flight any time I wanted to, and I’d go change it for Chinese gold, I mean into gold, and the gold was little bars, [china?] and turn it into Chinese dollars Chinese… well I forget what they call em
AR: Yen?
WG: Oh no, no the Yen was Japanese.
AR: Oh, oh
WG: And I’d change it from Chinese dollars to American dollars in Shanghai. So by difference of the rate of exchange, Well people do that today, you know, people make money by exploiting rates of exchange in different countries, I was just exploiting their rate of exchange, [indiscernible] but I just made considerably more money that way, because, and I bought a lot of things for my mother… I bought my father some opals… bought my, he made cuff lings out of em. Bought my mother some [aid?], bought my mother a Chinese outfit, and, bought em a lot of stuff.
AR: How’d you make money in other places besides China.
WG: Here in Indianapolis, when I got out of the army, my father had a furniture store, and I went to work for him, and eventually took it over and ran it till 1981 and I sold out and retired. My wife told me she’d married me for better or for worst but not for lunch… So I found a little store in Lebanon, Indiana and bought it. Ran that till I had an aneurysm dissected on me when I was 70, and 72 I sold the store and retired for good.
AR: [unintelligible]
WG: Yea I was 70 so it was 90… 90 70,, and when I first retired 92 when I retired permanently.
AR: [When you were out on leave in the army] like what did you do? Like on leave… on vacation basically.
[582]
WG: Well… we didn’t; get any leave over seas. Here in the country, we’d go in the city and drink, find girls, dance, have fun.
AR: Act Manly!
WG: Oh yea! Its… I drank beer but I didn’t drink alcohol, I mean whiskey, I had a few beers, I loved to dance, I’d find girls who’d like to dance, and dance [with each other?]
AR: Do you have any photographs?
WG: I don’t really I’m sorry.. I have em put away, and they’ve been put away and my kids have em, cause they want em, I have no use for photographs [indiscernible]
AR: Please speak up.
WG: I have a photograph of my self when I was in the army, you know, I think its upstairs in my office, or my nightstand or something… that’s the only thing I have.
AR: What did you think of your fellow soldiers and officers.
WG: I have no objection to any of my soldiers, we treated each other with respect and dignity. As long as they did that to me, I was fine, long as I did that to them, I was fine. Don’t want an argument, don’t want to fight, all the years I was in the army.. that’s all… I think Din Jan is not very far from [Agra], where we used to fly over the Taj Mahal every time I could see it from the, never got down to see it, but we flew low over it, kind of flew over a couple of times so we could all see it, and, beautiful, beautiful building and… it was very interesting… and that was when I first got there.
AR: How was your experience with India?
WG: Well…
AR: We’ve concentrated mostly right now on China? Like, explain to me how was India like.
[625]
WG: Well… when we were there the monsoon season came, and it… was hot, moist, and wasn’t too pleasant… we were out near the jungle because… when I went across the tarmac at the… where the airplanes were… why… a black leopard ran across the tarmac, and we tried to run it down and shoot it but we… it got into the jungle before I got to it, and we were told on the road to Burma that, while they were building the road to Burma, I was told these stories how true they are I don’t know, but they had… they were building trenches along there, where they… I guess lined their pipes or something, at one time a worker got jumped down in there, a tiger’d fallen in there and it mauled him.
AR: Woah!
WG: That’s what I was told though, how true it was, you know… you hear all sorts of stories when your in the army, but they said it was rather dangerous during the Burma road, building that Burma road like that. So, you know… it was… India was alright, I got leave and got into Karachi a couple times and enjoyed that... very much… I don’t know what restraints there were… is there a Dempsey's there?
AR: Dempsey's?
WG: A Dempsey's restaurant, named after Jack Dempsey, the fighter.
AR: There might be…
WG: Was it Dempsey's… or Furripple…
AR: I’ll have to ask my dad.
WG: Ask your dad that. That’s… that is.. it was one of the nicest restaurants in town. I enjoyed it… [indiscernible]… I got a couple days leave.
[Recorder disturbed 646]
[647]
AR: Do you recall the day your service ended? When you got out the…
WG: Oh when I got out?
AR: Yea.
WG: Sure do! I got let out in Indiana, Camp Atterbury, where I got discharged… interesting story there… last day out we had to turn in our weapons, and wrist watches the army had issued to us, and all they left us with was a one uniform… and our overcoat it’s winter time. And we get out to where you check out at the gate., and I signed my name, just about that time, an officer came up and he says, “Everybody standstill and these men fall out,” 8 names… mine among them… I said “Oh no! they’re gonna keep me in the army another week!”
AR: [chuckle]
WG: I’m just ready to go out of the gate and out the army. I was that close! And he says I had to fall out. And he said, ”Sergeant, march em and I’ll tell you where to go,” So he walks out of there and I put em through paces, we march to the building and he says, “Now, everybody fall out and go up the steps.” Went up the steps and stood in the building. Since I was the ranking on commission officer there, they give me a masters, but I still call my self a tech because that’s what I was most of the time, all the time I was in the army. This was just when I got out they gave me a masters, and they called my name. He said, “When we call you relieve your coat, and your hat, and report in a military fashion.” So I… he called my name, got so nervous pulled the buttons off my coat getting out of it and went up there and reported in a military fashion, and all they were doing was they were giving us our citations, and he read off my citations, the distinguished flying cross, the air medal twice… and.. what do you call it… when you get em twice… I forget, anyway he read off which theatre of war we were in and so forth, good marksmanship, all the crap that you get when your in the army, and so I sat down I was relieved because I [got worried] they were gonna keep me here for another 6 months what’d I do? And all it was, was those lousy medals. So right after that why we marched to the front gate, I found a taxi cab into Indianapolis and went home. Took a taxi cab in, I wasn’t gonna wait for a bus.. there was a taxi cab there I took the taxi cab to [Camp Atterbury?] to my mothers house,
AR: How was it like? The reunion with your family?
WG: Oh they were surprised, I didn’t tell em I was coming… and they were surprised, my mother nearly passed out. She fainted almost, she was happy to see me. I was too… I was, extremely close to my father, very close to my mother and loved her dearly but I was very close to my father, and I went to work for him when I was 13 or 14 years old… worked every day after school in his furniture store, and went away to college, the university… and I worked for him in the summer time… and I worked for him till.. I went in the Air Corps… and out of the Air Corps I went to work for him again, and we stayed together until he died in 1982, and first of all he was my father… he was my friend… he was my boss… then I became his boss, when he was older, and I took care of him like he took care of me when I was younger. So it was a very close relationship, and he’s been gone since 1970… 1978 and I miss him till this day… and no matter how long he’ll be gone, till the day I die and you throw the dirt on me… I’ll miss him. I loved the man dearly… he taught me, he was my mentor, he taught me everything I knew, and I was successful cause he taught me… I was successful because he taught me well… he was a father and he was a good role model. And a mentor to me… we were very very close… very very close… that way with you Ali?... just… thank God… That really I think that about winds it up for me with you Ali.
AR: Agh! No! Um... What did you do in the weeks right after service?
[705]
WG: Went to work.
AR: At the furniture?
WG: Absolutely I… went home… visited a couple friends… spent three or four days went to Akron, Ohio to see my Grandparents… which I was raised and born in Akron, Ohio and saw my Grandparents… saw an Uncle in Toledo, Ohio… and then I came home, and I went to work, it took a week, I came home and went to work… didn’t take a vacation till about… till I went on my honey moon… got married and went on my honeymoon. Now I’ve been a workaholic all my life, till I retired.
AR: You finished College right before the Army.
WG: Yes.
AR: Correct?
WG: Yes I did. I…
[Doorbell interruption, pleasantries about height 713]
AR: Did you join any Veteran Organizations?
WG: No, never did… I go out to the Veterans hospital, to pick up my medicines.
AR: [laughs]
WG: Cause I get those cheap, but outside of that, that’s the only veteran action I’ve ever had.
AR: and… what did you do as a career after the war? Like long term career? The restaurant? Never mind. What did you do as a long term career after the war?
WG: After the war was the furniture, retail furniture,
AR: Did Military experience influence your feeling about war? About military in general?
WG: All I know is that I’m not proud of where wee are right now in Iraq… I support the troops, I support the men… I don’t support the war.. there’s a difference… support the men… you want them to be well, you don’t want them to get hurt… but… I hate the thought that we’re there…We had no reason to go there… shouldn’t be there, but we are… so I want my men.. my country men to be safe… and objection to not the first time we were in Saudi Arabia [not?] under Bush 2... Hussein attacked them and jeopardized our oil supply… which we should protect… but we had no reason to go after him this time… except because… the [Nekahns?] wanted a war… to me that’s wrong… I say a prayer every day… my life and have… I’ve always asked god to protect all the innocent people who’re ravaged by natural disasters… or by war… or by mans [greed? into war?]
AR: Could you say that again?
WG: I want the Lord to protect them and give them a reason to smile today, everyday, give them a reason to smile everyday, because when a man smiles… his heart is full… its good… that’s because a man should smile and be happy, that’s what man was made for… not war… not for the natural disasters... I mean what’s happened in Pakistan is… devastating.. and my heart goes out there… my heart and my pocketbook… [it’s a bad thing that happened?] but it did… God’s will… no body can do anything about that. Or man can do something about that…
AR: Did you attend any WW2 reunions… or keep track of any old friends?
WG: I tried but I couldn’t find one… this little Charlie Gully is the only one I tried o find… the rest of em… I …. No… I just… so glad to get back home… and start my old life all over again… and renew my old friends… and relationships… just transit as far as I’m concerned… not important… I met no civilians in China Burma or India. [Necessary?] to keep in contact with. and there’s nobody I met in the Army necessary… not even my CO… you know… that was a part of my life I wanted to forget… who I am…
AR: did your service… did your like experience in CBI alter your life in any way? Change the way you thought about things?
WG: Well ya realize life was tentative,,, realize that life is fragile…and outside of that no… didn’t make me wanna fly didn’t make me wanna do anything… didn’t make me wanna go travel…. I saw [rocky?] I saw India I saw China, Shanghai, Beijing… Been to other parts of the world since I’ve retired… [countries indiscernible] you know on vacation.
AR: Anything else you’d like to add?
WG: No… just that it was interesting meeting you… and good luck on your thing I hope you get a good grade…
[Exchange of Pleasantries 786]
[end]
