Veteran Interview with
Frank Cooney
[b. / / ]
Date of interview: February 23, 2002
Melissa Cooney: Date of birth.?
[FC: date not given]
MC: Current address?
Frank Cooney: 23 Holly Lane, Latham, New York 12110
MC: Do you remember the branch of service you were in?
[012]
FC: It was the infantry, the army.
MC: What was your highest rank?
[017 ]
FC: The lowest there is: a private.
[020]
MC: Do you remember the number of your unit?
FC: It was the 90th infantry, the 359th regiment, and A company.
[029]
MC: Do remember any of your commander's names?
FC: No, I was going to say [that] one thing I don't remember are people's names. Because I was always moving about, I didn't stay in one unit very long, so I don't remember people's names.
MC: What was the date and place of your enlistment?
[039]
FC: I went in in October 25, 1943.
MC: Where did you enlist?
[046]
FC: I got drafted in Troy, New York.
MC: Do you remember how long you were in service?
[050]
FC: A little over two years. I got out in December 16th of 1945, which would be a little over two years.
MC: What was your address or hometown at the time?
[058]
FC: It was in Troy, South Troy. 562 Second Street.
MC: What was your previous occupation or name of school, like if you were a student?
[065]
FC: I had gotten out of high school by a little over a year before, in Catholic High in Troy, and in the meantime I was working for Bear Manning Company. They made abrasives or sandpaper. And that's where I worked until I went in the army.
MC: Did you have any previous military experience, or ... ?
[079]
FC: No.
MC: Why did you join the service?
[082]
FC: I really didn't have any choice joining the army. When I got out of high school, everybody knew they were going into the service. There was a war on, and we were draft age, so it was just a question of when. But I got out of high school at 17, and I could get in the navy. I wanted to get in the navy very badly. So when I got out of high school and I tried to get in the navy, I couldn't, because I'm colorblind. I tried that a couple of times, and I used to eat raw carrots to try to improve my eyesight. I almost got in the navy once; I went down and took a physical. And they were ready to go, but I still couldn't pass that colorblind test. So they said, "Well, when you get drafted, ask to get in the navy," because when I did get drafted, which was later. I was 18 then; they were drafting into the navy. I tried, but I'm colorblind; there was nothing I could do, so I accepted the army. That's all there was to it.
MC: But why does it matter if you're colorblind?
[120]
FC: Well, it does in the navy, apparently. And I can see, if you're on watch at sea. I can see where it could be important. They apparently think so, because they were very particular about it. And I can see where it might be, but it was a, big disappointment. But, as I look upon it now, I survived the war being in the army, and I might not have if I had been in the navy. So, you can never tell about things. I'm just thankful I survived.
MC: What did you feel about being drafted?
[142]
FC: I didn't mind, and everybody was. The times were so different then that it's hard for you to imagine probably, but everyone was going in service; everybody, unless there was something wrong with them. And because we were in the middle of the war, and we just expected to go.
MC: So, you just kind of accepted it ... ?
[149]
FC: Oh, yeah, I accepted it. Everybody I knew was going, as I say. I didn't care to go in the army; but once I knew I was going in, I accepted it. I said I'd make the best of it, and that's what I did. The infantry is about the worst thing you can get into. But I got in in October of '43, and the invasion of Europe was planned apparently for June of '44, which was ... about a month or so later, so they were getting a lot of "cannon fodder" for the invasion. So when I got into the army, I and just about everybody else went right into the infantry as a replacement. And a replacement is somebody who replaces a casualty. So I went down to South Carolina into a replacement training center, and I got 17 weeks of training and then got shipped over and awaited the invasion. So it was somehow sort of scheduled. Not my schedule, though.
MC: Where were you and what were you doing when you heard about Pearl Harbor?
[190]
FC: I was a junior in high school, and that would have been 1941. And I was waiting outside a gym, waiting to go in and play basketball on a Sunday afternoon. And we heard about it, and we knew we were going to war. And the next day, December 8th, is a holy day in the Catholic Church. So I didn't have to go to school. Since I was at a Catholic school, but I worked in the central market that day, and there was a lot of hubbub about it, a lot of talk. That's about the way it was. And the country had been, I won't say expecting war, but in 1940, which was before Pearl Harbor there was an activation of a lot of National Guard in Troy. And I remember there was a parade there through the city of Troy. These were Army National Guards and that was 1940, before Pearl Harbor. And there was a lot of war talk, so it wasn't completely unexpected, but it was the way that it happened. All of a sudden we were attacked.
MC: How did the people around you, and how did you feel about it, and how did you react to it?
[229]
FC: It's a little bit hard to say. It wasn't completely unexpected, it was just, "well, now we're in it." Because the war had been going on, this was 1941—it started in 1939 in Europe. I guess, eventually we thought we'd probably get into it. So, when we did, it wasn't a complete surprise. Nobody expected that. The way they did it was like last September [9/11/01], but it wasn't a complete surprise to the people, you see, because the war had been going on. And most of us thought, well it's a question of how long; when are we going to get into it? So, it's like, "here we are at last....” It was very much different then, because it was a big mobilization. By that I mean well, the drafts for example. Everybody was going in service ... [and] all the factories and arsenals were very busy working building war materials, so it was quite different ....
MC: Did the war make an immediate change in your life and your family's life?
[283]
FC: Well, yeah. I was away from home for a couple years.
MC: Well, how was your family affected by it, like did you do certain things that they depended on ... ?
[289]
FC: Well, at the time I lived with an aunt who was quite elderly. In fact she was probably close to 80. And I had arranged for a lot of my pay to be sent home. You could do that, the army provided that. And your pay went a long ways then, in fact, my pay was $50 a month when I went in the army, that's what the army pay was. I think probably got $20 of it, the rest was sent home to my aunt. But she was kind of expecting this, we all were, but it did make that change, and that's a big change. You know, you're working in a factory, living [at] home, and all of a sudden you're in the army training.
MC: Do you recall your first days in service?
[314]
FC: Yes, the very first days I went down to New York to an induction center, which is where they get your uniforms and your shots, and go through a lot of paperwork, and then they figure out what to do with you. And after a week or so, then I was sent down to South Carolina where I was in the infantry; I started infantry training. So, those were the first days. Those were probably the first weeks, and months.
MC: How long did it take to get all your shots and stuff?
[329]
FC: About a week. I mean to go through the processing, which was getting uniforms, shots, and going through a lot of paperwork. It was down at Camp Upton, in Long Island. And it was a big camp, and draftees were coming in from all over, and we were getting "processed." When they figured out where to send us, we went.
MC: When and where was your training?
[342]
FC: My training was in Camp Croft, and it was at Spartanburg, South Carolina. I was there. I think it was about 17 weeks. And I got home in the spring, for a 10-day leave before I went overseas.
MC: In what specialty were you trained ... like were you just kind of ... ?
[353]
FC: The official name was "rifleman" in the infantry. And that, essentially is, if you want to liken it to a civilian occupation, it would be hunting.
MC: So, do you think your training prepared you for your service?
[360]
FC: Yeah. It did. I had never fired a gun before, for example. And yet, by the way they trained—you qualified as a sharpshooter by the time my training was finished. I got pretty good at hitting targets, and I had never done it before. And that's an example of the training. And it worked. The army is quite skilled In training people like me, who know nothing about what they're going to do. Because they get low quality people (like me) and yet they can develop them and train them into useful products.
MC: Could you describe your weapons and equipment?
[383]
FC: My primary weapon was a rifle, but they trained us in machine guns and mortars, and all the infantry grenades—all of the infantry weapons. But they did that more to acquaint us with what they were and how to use them. But the real training was with the rifle, because that was our primary tool. . ,'"
MC: What kind of clothing and rations did you receive?
[394]
FC: You've seen army uniforms. They were brown in those days. They're kind of heavy, woolen. And then we had fatigues, which now, if you see army guys, they have these camouflage suits. Well, we didn't have camouflage suits, but they were the same material and the same purpose. They were your work clothes. Ours were green. Your dress clothes ... they were brown in our day. We had the khakis in the summer, they were light, cotton clothes, I guess.
MC: So, do you think the clothing was appropriate for the weather?
[410]
FC: Yes, it was good.
MC: The rations ... ?
[412]
FC: I got fed very well in the States. We led a very healthy life; we were outdoors all the time, training. You're always hungry, but they gave us good food. And I think I went from 120 pounds up to around 155 or 160 during my training. They put weight on me, and it was a healthy weight. And we were out in all kinds of weather. South Carolina does get some snow. It's. a wet, soggy, slushy, snow, and we'd be laying in it, sleeping in it. And yet I ever got a cold. And I think that's probably a result of the life and the shots. So the army knew what they were doing ... They turned some very crude material into some very useful products:
MC: Do you have any particular memories regarding clothes, weapons, equipment, or rations, or ... ?
[438]
FC: When we got overseas in combat we had different rations. But they were adequate. We had k-rations) and c-rations. K-rations, a box of crackerjacks was like our k-rations. It was about that size, it was cardboard, and you got a little can of beef in it and cheese and you got a little packet of powdered coffee, and a candy bar. And this is all in that little box, and that would be one meal. You'd get three of those boxes a day, and you'd carry them with you. They'd issue them once a day and you'd eat them at meal times. It doesn't sound like much, but they were very potent: they had a lot of vitamins, and the good stuff they're supposed to have in them. I didn't complain about them; they were all right. That's what we ate while we were overseas, and it was in combat.
MC: How adequate was medical care?
[468]
FC: It was adequate, although I had no occasion to need it. Fortunately, we were pretty healthy, apparently. They ensured that we were healthy, with the food and the exercise and the shots. But I never had the occasion to need the medical care, So, I was very fortunate back then; I can't judge it. I don't remember hearing too many complaints about it though.
MC: Do you have any specific memories of good or bad leadership, or heroism, or anything?
[480]
FC: Our sergeant in basic training was good. There was a sergeant in the platoon next to us that wasn't so good. I lucked out there. The leadership overseas, I don't feel in too much of a position to judge them, because where I was in the organization. All I knew was what was going on right around me. In fact people, my folks at home knew more about the war than I did, because they get the newspapers. We just didn't see the big picture that much . . . the day-to-day stuff. You're told what to do and where to go; you do it, and that's about all you know.
MC: What was discipline like?
[504]
FC: It wasn't bad. It was what was necessary, I guess. I didn't find it inconvenient. I was only a young teenager then, and I was down there in South Carolina, and I pretty much stayed on the base on Sunday, or my day off, because I didn't know the town, and I found enough to do at the base. It was sort of like a job. I don't think it was much more disciplined than you might find like when I worked in the factory before I went in the army. You got a job . . . in the mill and you have to do it, you got a boss, and that's pretty much the way it was in the army. You got a boss and a job to do, and as long as you do it, you can stay out of trouble.
MC: Did you have any experience with military courts and justice?
[529]
FC: No, I avoided that. No, I didn't go AWOL and do anything that would get me involved in that.
MC: Did you have any experiences with desertion in your unit?
[535]
FC: No, we didn't. We were good boys.
MC: What did soldiers do when they were off duty?
[539]
FC: They older guys would go into town, and maybe drink beer. I didn't see much gambling, because we didn't have much money. There was movie theatres on the coast; I'd hit those. There was a service club, it was a nice club; they had a band there. And some girls would come in from the town, but you didn't have a chance with a girl, because there were so many guys. The town wasn't that big—probably as big as Troy.
MC: So, what did you buy with your extra pay that you didn't send home?
[556]
FC: My treats were ice cream I’d buy a pint of it at the PX. The PX was a store where you buy all your supplies that you want, ice cream, stuff like that. I'd go in the evening maybe and get a pint of ice cream, and bring it back to the bar/barn and eat it. That was my real treat. I was naïve then.
MC: Were drinking or drugs a problem in your unit?
[565]
FC: No, there was no such thing as drugs in those days. And, no drinking wasn't a problem; I didn't drink at all. I never drank till I got out of the army. But some of the older guy?, they’d ,go into town and drink, but I don't remember any drunks. That was not a problem. I never heard of a drunk then. It was a different world, Melissa. A better world, I think.
MC: What songs were popular?
[575]
FC: “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”, “I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo”, if you'll listen to any big bands and that kind of music. Glen Miller probably the most popular band, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman. Those were the songs we listened to, and I still listen to them now. It was a great era for music. It was called the "big band era" and it was probably the mid ‘30s to mid ‘40s. And at the end of the war, I think the bands were—hard to get them organized and pay them. And that’s why we don’t have big bands today now, because it costs a lot to get 20-25 musicians. And that's what big bands were; they were 20-25 musicians.
MC: Did you notice discrimination of any kind against people?
[600]
FC: No, because I don't remember seeing any blacks in the army. We were right down there in the South, so in our hikes we'd hike through the countryside of the towns around the camp. And you would see blacks there in their houses. And I didn't get out in the city very much. I stayed in camp on my off time, so I didn't see much, because I just didn't run into any blacks
MC: What were some of the pranks that you or some of your friends would pull?
[614]
FC: The one that comes immediately to mind is what we call "short-sheeting." And what that was when a guy was away from his bunk, you took his bed apart and you would take his sheet; the sheet that he slept on; and fold it in half, then remake the bed. So that when he climbed into it, his feet only went halfway down; they'd hit the fold. And he might come in in the dark and get into bed, and then you'd hear him swearing. That was kind of a comic prank, very easy to do, and it wasn't serious, just inconvenient.
MC: When and where were you stationed overseas?
[636]
FC: First I landed in Scotland. And then we were trained down to the southwest part of England to Somersetshire in England is a county, so it'd be the Somerset county. It was on the border between Somerset and Devon. It's kind of the southwestern toe of England there and I got there in April, and we waited there till June, waiting for the invasion. And we did our hiking and kept busy. We kept busy by hiking, mostly. That's the infantryman's job; to walk. I went there and then we waited for the invasion of Normandy. And I went to a port called Falmouth, that's way down on the corner of England. I sailed from there over to Normandy— Utah beach. And I went in, and we were in the war then. I went across up from Normandy into Northern France. And then I got caught by the enemy. And then I went from there and trucked until I got over to eastern France to a place called Chalons. Then we boarded a train, and we went from there to near Frankfurt, Germany—to a town called Lindbergh. And that was a PW camp that as like Upton, New York; it was a big one where all the PW's were coming in from the Western Front. And I stayed there a couple of weeks and you stayed there until they figured out where to put you. And I went down near Munich, to a town called Moosberg; it was about 35 miles from Munich. And I stayed there until the end of the war. And at the end of the war I got on an airplane and we went to Reims, France and we got cleaned up and fed. And then we went up to La Harve, which was a port on the coast of France to a camp called Lucky Strike. We waited there for the boat and got a boat home. We returned to New York and I got a 72-day leave which was all summer long. That was 1945.
MC: Did American soldiers get along with civilians in overseas areas?
[938]
FC: I didn’t have that much experience with civilians; I wasn't near them very much in England. We were in a very remote camp on a high hill and I didn't get into the town. The town was very small in Somerset and I didn't get down there, so I didn't have any contact with civilians. In France some of them were very glad to see us. In Germany I didn't see many people. I usually get into Munich to work and the civilians would stare at us; we were different. You know how you'd stare now at soldiers from another country. But that was my only contact with those civilians.
MC: Were there friendships that developed between soldiers and civilians, or did they usually just not talk?
[964]
FC: In Germany and France, there was a language barrier. I didn't speak German. I spoke a little bit of French which I had picked up in high school; I had two years of French in high school. And it came in handy/ because I could ask for things like bread, eggs, things like that. I never thought I'd use the language/ but I was able to use a little bit of it. In Germany, I couldn't speak it at all; I probably didn't need to.
MC: How was morale in your unit?
[978]
FC: It was all right. People wanted to get home; they didn't like being in the war, [and] they didn't like being away from home, but you couldn't do anything about it: there you were. We used to write and we used to have V-mail. You'd get a form/ and you'd have a space on it where you could write and then they would photograph that and put it on something like microfilm.
MC: They'd photograph your writing?
[997]
FC: Yeah, they'd photograph this form on which you wrote. Of course it was all censored too. You could write regular mail; you could write airmail; you could get a piece of paper and write a nice long letter. But I didn't/ because I didn't have that much to say. My folks at home here they could have killed me because I used this V-mail. I liked the V-mail because I didn't have to write very much. I would just fill in the space. They used it, because they could transmit a lot of mail that way. And I had an aunt here not the one I lived with but another one, and she used to receive most of my mail. And she told me she'd be mad when she'd get it, because she used to write nice long letters to me, and I always loved to get them. Mail call in the army is a very happy moment. Once a day, the sergeant or somebody would come down, and he'd have all the mail for his group, yell out the names, and hand out the mail. It was as good as meal time. That would boost morale.
MC: Was there something special you did for good luck, like a habit you had?
Tape Side 2 [031]
FC: I can't think of anything. As I say, you just kind of do what you have to do. I was very lucky, EXTREMELY lucky that I never got hurt and that I survived. You can't ask for more than that. I didn't have a girl. A lot of guys did. I think about that now, and sometimes I wish I knew Eileen [my wife]; I didn't even know Eileen, and I often wish that I did. But on second thought, I think it was just as well as it was, because I think that if I had a gal like Eileen waiting for me [at home], it would have been terrible. I think my morale would have been very much lower; it would have been terrible. In fact, I was a bit of a fatalist; I didn't expect to survive. [But] I did, and I'm very blessed and glad that I did, but I didn't expect to, because the infantry has a very high mortality rate. When I saw I was in the infantry, I thought, well, this is it, and if I had a gal like Eileen waiting for me, it would have just torn me apart, but I didn't, so I think I was lucky that way.
MC: What did you think of officers or fellow soldiers?
[068]
FC: I didn't see much of them. I was lucky to have good noncoms; the noncoms are noncommissioned officers: these are the sergeants, corporals, things like that.
MC: Did you keep a personal diary, or did you not have time, or ... ?
[076]
FC: I wish I had sometimes, but I didn't.
MC: Did most soldiers?
[079]
FC: No.
[questions expanded from earlier; tape flipped over]
MC: Did you see combat?
[011]
FC: Yeah.
MC: Could you describe your combat experiences like in terms of date, place ... ?
[017]
FC: It was in France. It's hard to describe. It's a short time of terror and a lot of time of boredom. You're not fighting constantly. A lot of times you're just walking and just waiting. The army is great for "hurry up and wait," they used to say. Running to do something, and then you'd wait. But that's what I mean about combat. A lot of the time would be preparing, getting ready, walking to get there. And then you'd start fighting. But you're too busy to be scared at the moment, although you are scared; I was scared plenty. But you're awfully busy too, you're trying to survive.
MC: What about date, place, and who were you fighting against?
[072]
FC: Well, we were fighting against the Germans in France; we were trying to push them back [out of France] into Germany. When I landed, we were on the coast, so we were just pushing our way inland. And some of it was very slow going. In the early part the terrain was very hard to fight in. There were these hedgerows. It was all country; farmland, there wasn't that much city. I didn't fight that much in cities. It was open country, so you could move a little; you could go further.
MC: What were your main thoughts and feelings, were you pretty calm, or ... ?
[120]
FC: No. When somebody starts shooting at you, you're not too calm. And you start shooting back and trying to keep from getting hit. You're kind of busy; you're not calm.
MC: Too busy to think about what you're doing?
FC: Yeah. I remember crawling through a ditch full of thorns, and I didn't even feel them, and that's just the way it is. And one night, I was in a foxhole. And I was in artillery for about 2 weeks; I was reassigned to artillery. Apparently they were short, so they stuck me there. So, I was in a foxhole, and there was some powder up on the ground. Foxholes, by the way, are extremely useful, if you can get into one when you need it. So, I was in there, and this shell came over, and it hit the ammunition, which was just above my hole. And that went up in a huge flame. And I was laying in the hole, I couldn't get out of it; I was looking up. Of course, there was a flash. There was this big flame, and then it went out, fortunately. And that killed a couple of guys, one guy anyway. But if I had been out of my hole, it would have been me. But those holes, and any little fold above the ground, and anything you can get into is very much appreciated.
MC: Well, how big are foxholes, how do you make them?
[193]
FC: This particular one that I was in was like a grave. And I say that, because in the artillery, you have these big shovels, so you could dig the hole. And you had time to dig them deep. So it was about as big as a grave. It would be about as long as yourself, because you would sleep in it, and that was it. Now, when I was in the infantry, which was most of the time, we didn't dig big foxholes. We didn't have time; we weren't ever in a spot that long, we were always moving. And we had a little shovel that we could carry, like a camping shovel. So we didn't really dig foxholes then. But the day I got caught by the Germans, I was in one of their holes. It was one that they had abandoned. And they had nice deep holes, because they were in position for a long time. If you're going to stay in one place for a long time, you dig a good hole; a comfortable one, and that's what they did. Well, they had to abandon them, and we came upon them, so I found that. Not that it did me any good, but I was in it at the time. But you use any little fold or little extra [protection] that the earth can give you. I used to sleep in ditches. There could be natural ditches alongside the road that you could sleep in, because they give you protection. You just want to get below the surface.
MC: How would you describe your unit's combat performance, like were you really skilled, or ... ?
[265]
FC: No, I'd say we were average. I think we beat the Germans because there was more of us. We had better equipment, which they just didn't have. After I got caught by them, I traveled with them for a while. But I could see that they just didn't have the equipment. Their trucks were broken down, and they were in a bad way. Of course, they'd been fighting for 4 or 5 years. Then another thing: when we got freed from the camp at the end of the war, The American soldiers came in see and we were immediately they ran water to us. It was amazing how they could work. See, the Germans didn't have it. They had deplorable conditions and we could see the contrast between what the Americans had and what they had. It was very noticeable.
MC: Did you know well anybody who was killed?
[322]
FC: Yeah, I had a sergeant killed.
MC: Do you know anybody who experienced "shell shock"?
[332]
FC: No, I don't. I think shellshock was a problem in the First World War. It was a different kind of war. Those people were in trenches, and they were under constant bombardment. That would get you. The war we were in, it was not that kind of a war; we were moving all the time.
MC: How effective was medical care at the front and behind the lines?
[350]
FC: I guess it was good. The wounded didn't survive as much as in Vietnam, because they couldn't get the care; the facilities weren't there. It was as good as they could provide.
MC: How did you and your fellow soldiers regard enemy troops as fighters?
[386]
FC: I don't think we thought that much about them. They were sort of like when you're hunting deer; they're more prey. When they're out there, you try to shoot them.
MC: Well, do you think they were well-trained, well-led, and well armed?
[401]
FC: The enemy soldiers were very good. They weren't as well armed as we were, but they were very good, because they had a lot more experience. The rifle I told you about, it was a very good weapon, which not all the Germans had. But they were very good soldiers. And a lot of it was that I think they had a lot of practice.
MC: Were their weapons effective?
[418]
FC: They had some good ones. They had an automatic—we call it a tommy gun. The gangsters used to use it in Chicago. Except what the Germans had, we called it a burp gun. Because it would go "brruuup," and it fired much faster, and it made a different noise.
MC: Burp gun?
FC: Burp. BURP, because it went "bbuuuuUUURRPP." It could fire very much faster, so it made that sound. But we didn't have anything like that. And some of their artillery, they had what was called the 88mm. And it was very effective. They used a lot of stuff that we used to call the 88, but it was very effective artillery. So what they had was good, they just didn't have enough.
MC: How did you view the enemy as individual people?
[454]
FC: I really didn't think about them. I used to think of them more like prey. You keep looking for it, and when you see it, you shoot at it. And that was sort of the way it was with them; when you see them, you shoot at them, because they're going to shoot back at you.
MC: Right, 'cause it's either them or you?
[468]
FC: Yeah, right. They probably think the same way of us. See, they're infantry too. After I got caught by them, then I realized that, "gee, these guys are just like us." You see the similarity is there.
MC: You were a prisoner of war, right?
[481]
FC: Yeah.
MC: When and where exactly were you captured?
[484]
FC: I was captured in Northern France, and it was on the 16th of August in 1944.
MC: How were you treated?
[491]
FC: Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. It depends. As I say, when I first got caught, one guy was going to shoot me and he didn't because another guy stopped him. So, you see, it's an 'individual case: If it weren't for this German sergeant, I would have been dead. He was ready to shoot me and another time, we were walking along the road; they had a bunch of us—a bunch of prisoners, not too far behind the front/.tai And the Americans and Brits, we had air superiority; we had airplanes in the sky all the time, which meant that if you were a German, you had to watch for it. So, we were walking along the road, and there was a British plane. He went by and he started to make his turn, and he did, and he started heading for us. And he was going to strafe us. He did strafe us. Normally, you don't stay on the road when you see something like that coming at you. But the German sergeant, he made us stay on the road and sure enough at the last minute, I dove for the side of the road. I didn't care what he was going to do or say and we all did. The machine gun bullets, they went right by me, and they hit the sergeant; the guy who made us stay on the road, they got him. But the rest of us, we were shocked to death; we got up, that was a scary experience, because they got some of the guys, and as I say, that was close. Now, that was a guy who didn't treat us very well. But some of them do. Say it's an individual case.
MC: Wouldn't the British, though ... wouldn't they recognize you?
[550]
FC: Oh no. They couldn't tell; we looked like Germans to them. He's up in an airplane, we were with the Germans. We were prisoners of the Germans, but with the German army. And we're walking alongside the road, but the guy in the plane doesn't know that. Now, when we were being transported from camp to camp, we'd be in boxcars. They’d put about fifty guys in the boxcars. And you might be in there for days. And planes would come over and some of them would strafe the railroad yards. And we didn't it at the time, but the air force had been warned about strafing boxcars, because POW's were in them. Of course, at the time we didn't know that, and here we are locked in a car, and you hear all this shooting going on outside. We were scared then. But that’s an example of the experiences—they were varied.
MC: Where were you held as a POW?
[584]
FC: The first camp was up around Frankfurt, in a town called Lindbergh. And then we went down to Moosberg, which is near Munich, and those are the two camps that I was in. They're big camps; they had a lot of barbed wire around them—couple of double fences and all that. They've got guards and dogs, everything to keep us under control. And then we had some barracks. In fact, I had never slept in a building from the time I left the States here I think until I got captured. Because all the time I was in England and France, we were living outside in tents, or less. But after I got caught, sometimes I'd be in a building, which was funny when you think of it. The weather wasn't bad until I was down around Munich. Then it started to get wintry, but we had barracks then. Although there the clothing wasn't so hot. Because I got caught in the summertime, and I just had summer clothes on. So I didn't get any more and I lived in those clothes. And later in the wintertime, the Red Cross helped us some. They got us some clothes. And I had a little French coat. And it wasn't too warm, and it looked funny. It looked like a dress; it had a red skirt, but it always gave some warmth.
MC: What was morale like in the camp?
[661]
FC: It's hard to say. We were hungry all the time. That's why I would look forward to one of those k-rations. We didn't have any rations. Our main ration was a piece of black bread. The German soldiers used to carry that too. That was their ration. It's bread that's very dense. They’d issue it by the kilogram. They would issue loaf of bread to the barracks or so many loaves of bread to the barracks, and it would be cut up and divided amongst us, So we’d get a piece of bread, and we'd get some potatoes, mostly white potatoes, but we were always hungry in camp, so morale wasn’t too good. Again, I was thankful to be alive. "And you didn't know how long you were going to stay alive, because the country was being bombed all the time, especially if we went into Munich. We went into Munich a lot, and we were always subject to being bombed.
MC: Did you ever try to escape?
[701]
FC: No, because I didn't have anywhere to go. It was almost impossible for somebody like me, or most of us, because we didn't speak the language. We were deep into Germany—we were the last ones to be freed. Germany was being squeezed from both sides; the East and the West. But we were down in the south, and we were about the last to fall. So there was nowhere for me to go, and if you don't speak the language, you're in trouble.
MC: When and how were you liberated?
[717]
FC: The country just got so small that eventually the armies reached us. And we were reached by I think it was an American armored division. By that time, there were fighter planes in our area. The country was so small and it was a Sunday morning. And an American fighter plane came over, and he started barrel rolls and maneuvers, trying to indicate, that our liberation was near. Then a fight started. We had some SS troops guarding the camp, and they put up a fight and it went on for a couple of hours. But we were pretty safe; we were inside the camp, and then when the fight stopped, it was over; the Americans came in.
MC: What was your first reaction, were you just REALLY happy, or ... ?
[745]
FC: Oh, yeah. I made it. You think, "I made it this far; I think I'm going to survive this war." Because you really didn't know until that I time, because anything could happen. , But by thi1t time, you figure, "well, I've got a good chance of getting home now,” which we did. And the camp was open. You could take off to Moosberg, and you're just free. It's amazing, the difference between being free and not free.
MC: What about after or before, did you help liberate enemy prison camps or concentration camps?
[763]
FC: When I got liberated, the war was just about over. I was free the 29th of April, and the war was over I think the first week in May. In fact I didn't get out of the camp for a couple of weeks; they had at least 10,000 prisoners in that camp, because they brought prisoners from all over Germany down to that camp, because it was the last one to fall. So they kept bringing the other prisoners down. So there were an awful lot of us.
MC: What was your reaction, and your unit's reaction to V-E and V-J Days?
[784]
FC: Well, our V-Day was when we got liberated. That's when the war was over to us. Of course I was home when V-J Day occurred. That was in August and I was home all summer, and l was very glad", otherwise I would have ended up going over to the Pacific. But I got liberated in the last days of April, and l got home in June and I was home all summer.
MC: What were, and are, your feelings about the use of the atomic bomb?
[802]
FC: Well, at the time I was very pleased and happy, because otherwise I would have ended up going over to the Pacific. And I didn't know anything about the atomic bomb. I didn't know what it was or anything else. All the news was that we had some super bomb, and it ended the war within a week from the time it was used. So naturally I was very happy then.
MC: Has your opinion changed since then?
[816]
FC: I don't know how to answer that. Mainly because I had read that the Japanese were trying to quit before that. I don't want to answer that, because I really don't know. I have mixed emotions about it. If we didn't need to use it, we shouldn't have. But I just don't know.
MC: What awards and decorations did you receive?
[831]
FC: Not much. Just the{c(j:Fl~l was in, and for being a prisoner, things like that. I wasn't a big hero. I wasn't even a small hero.
MC: What was your welcome like when you returned to the United States?
[840]
FC: Oh, we were welcomed. When we got into New York, they had these fireboats with the hoses, spraying them all over, and there were ferry boats with people waving and all that. It was a good welcome. We didn't have any parade or anything, because we weren't the first, but we were welcomed. And that wasn't what we were looking for; we just wanted to get home. And I was home probably within a week after I got to New York.
MC: How long did you remain in the service?
[855]
FC: I remained in the service until the middle of December, December 16th which was a couple of weeks before Christmas. I was home all summer until September, and then I went up to Lake Placid. "The army was treating us pretty well, the POW's. So we went to this club up in Lake Placid. We were treated well, and again they started d processing us. And by that I mean doing a lot of paperwork and physical exams and all that. And after that, they sent me right back down to where I started; down to Camp Croft in South Carolina. There, I took part in training some other guys that were infantry, like the ones I used to be. And I hung around there until they discharged me. And that was just a question of waiting for the processing and I got out in December, a couple of weeks before Christmas, which was great.
MC: What was your welcome like when you returned to your hometown and family?
[880]
FC: Oh! Family were happy; some of them, anyway. Maybe some of them weren't, but anyway ... Yeah, they were happy. They were expecting me by then. I took the train up to Albany, took the bus home, and that was it.
MC: What did you do following the war?
[893]
FC: After Thanksgiving, I went back to the same factory I was working in before—the sandpaper plant. And I stayed there for a year and a half and we had the GI bill, which was a law that gave us there were several things. Well, one thing I took advantage of was that I got my college education from it.
MC: So you went back to school?
[905]
FC: After a year and a half. I went back to work for a year and a half, and then I decided I’d go back to school, because I still had the [GI] bill [that I could use.] So, again I was very lucky; they provided me with a college education, which is why I am where I am here.
MC: Did your service experience affect your choice of occupation?
[915]
FC: No, it didn't, because it was' so unrelated. My choice of occupation was made more by my associates. It wasn't made by them, but the guys I hung around were going to engineering school here in Troy':(}I think I have an inclination towards science and math anyway, rather than reading and history, so I think I may have been inclined that way. Of course, since my buddies went there, and I had a chance to go, I did the same thing. Maybe if they were going to medical school, I would have done that, I don't know. But anyway, it worked out well.
MC: Was it easy or difficult to adapt to civilian life?
[935]
FC: It was easy. It was for me, anyway; maybe it wasn't for others.
MC: Have your goals that you planned after leaving the service gone as you've planned?
[941]
FC: I really didn't have any. If I did, I probably would have gone to school right after I got out of the service, but I was drifting. That's probably why it took me a year and a half to figure out I ought to do something more than what I was doing. So I just didn't have goals then, whereas I should have, but I didn't.
MC: What people influenced you, or what people do you remember from that period?
[956]
FC: My buddies. And there's a couple of them still alive here that I still see. And it was them. I used to be an advocate of universal military training, especially during the cold war. I used to think that all the guys should spend a year or two in the army after high school. I think it gives you a chance to figure out what you want to be.wef course, when I got out of high school, I knew I was going to be a soldier, but otherwise, I didn't have any plans; I didn't know what I wanted to be. A lot of people are like that.
MC: So, what do you want people today to know and remember about World War II?
[987]
FC: That's a tough one, too.
MC: Like, do you think there's a lesson people could learn from it?
[995]
FC: I think they're beginning to learn the patriotism that's needed. When a country's at war, there ought to be that. It teaches people what the important things In life are before last 11th. Now, I think people are beginning to realize that there are some things that are more important than others, and that was very true in WWII. See, in WWII, everybody was behind it—the war. EVERYBODY. Before the war, there were people who thought they didn't want to get into the war, it wasn't our business, and all that. But once it started, that all disappeared everybody was 'gungho' for the war and that’s the way it ought to be. If you get into war, you get into it wholeheartedly, and to win! In WWII, you've got the whole support of the people.
MC: If you were to summarize your major, major experiences in 2 or 3 sentences, how would you do that?
[1034]
FC: Well, there's nothing like combat to teach you the important things. Survival—your main job, an important job was to survive, and that I did. The same way in Germany, unless you get into a situation like that, survival really doesn't concern people, unless they get awfully sick, then they're worried about surviving. But in your real life, you're worried about making money, and what your best girl thinks of you, and all of that. But once you get in these life-and-death situations such a war will teach you, it really focuses your attention—teaches you what’s really important.
MC: Is there anything you would like to add that we haven’t?
[1065]
FC: No, I can’t think of anything. How about you, you have enough?
[end of interview]
