OK, the next post is not a "fun" post. Why? Because it deals with what most people would "sweep under the rug."

As I mentioned earlier my dad enlisted as a doc in the Medical Corps when he was 'over the hill' .. 40+ years old. Part of his motivation was obviously patriotism (and he was Jewish and Hitler was out to get every last one of us). But there was more to it as I mentioned in an earlier post -- it gave him another chance to get away from the responsibilities of family.

There's another aspect of Dad's personality that played out in his military tour of duty. He was quite bright and talented. He and his brother, Sam, helped design the Pratt Whitney radial engine of the '20s. He also was inventor of the gas stove safety pilot light. He also invented the jig to set fractured long bones -- pinned both halves in the jig and then wrapped it all in plaster of Paris. Prior to that the ortho surgeons would align the two fracture segment by xray and then apply the plaster. Of course within a short period the fragments would go out of alignment and the patient would spend the rest of his life with a 'bowed' arm or leg.
He also invented the inflatable cuff that 'milked' the venous blood out of peoples legs post-operatively -- saved many a patient from a fatal lung clot.

The other side of his personality was that he couldn't get along with anybody he worked for or with. (During the '20s he had his own successful machine/engineering company. That worked.) So what happened when he joined the Med Corps? He promptly got in trouble with his C.O.'s, no matter what outfit he was in. He was first stationed Camp Atterbury, IN, then Ft. Knox, KY. Always a discontent. Ended up only as a Captain, when the rest of his outfit all made Major or higher.

When I was a kid I wanted two careers: music, and (snow) ski racer. He said no way -- had my piano broken up for scrap, and when I wanted to apply to Dartmouth College (in the '40s their ski team meant an automatic Olympic team birth). "No way ... you're going to be a doctor, not a ski bum."

Keep all the above in mind when I post one of the two most important events in my tour of duty, later in this thread.

Here's a pic of Dad:


Dad'sOutfit (Medium).jpg

Bill

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True knowledge leads some from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

I shall certainly keep these details in mind. Nothing to sweep under the rug. On the contrary: something you could be proud of. As to the strong personnality: well boys will be boys. Nothing to judge here if yo ask me.

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Some "fun" mini-stories:

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One of the guys in the 436 I'll never forget was a fellow from Lincoln, NE. He didn't have much of a personality, but boy, could he play "partner hearts." In the entire year I watched him play he never lost a game (a hand, yes, a game, no.) I'd never been a cardplayer -- couldn't remember the cards or the strategies. But watching over his shoulder I finally learned the game. In later years wherever I went I was usually the winner.
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One of my pet peeves in the 436 was having to listen to the barracks radio blaring out all day long, month after month: Ernie Tubb's "I'm Walkin' The Floor Over You," and other such country hits. My ears, attuned to Yankee tastes longed for Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller. And for my love of classical music I'd have to go down to the USO and play the Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms records. So I could never have predicted that: starting in 1948 I developed a sudden love of any music that came from the South -- black blues, backwoods folk, country-western, Bluegrass. I ended up, in 2000 in Alabama, in a pickup band playing and singing, among other pieces: "I'm Walkin' The Floor Over You." Loved every minute of it!
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The guys in the 436 knew I was a Yankee from NYC, who preferred rum-and-coke to beer. So one night they set out to "educate" me. They took me, arm-in-arm down to the PX and set me down at a table, with 13 bottles of beer lined up in a row. "OK, Schenker, start drinking." I got through maybe 6-7 bottles and said that was enough. "Nothin' doin,' Schenker ... you've got to finish them all." I don't know how I did it but by closing time I had accomplished their mission -- I was soused. So they jostled me back to the barracks and I hit the sack.

About 3AM I suddenly awoke and had that awful urge to throw up. But I never could stand vomiting -- I'd do anything to avoid it. So I jumped up, ran out to the upper floor balcony, and started pacing back and forth. As long as I could keep pacing I felt cool enough to hold it all back. (It was a hot July night, and I was out there naked as a jaybird.) I kept doing that, by a full moon, for the entire night. And by 5AM the weather had cooled off enough, and I was sober enough to climb back in bed for the next hour before Reveille.
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Here's a not-so-fun story:
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When we switched to 8" howitzers, our officers told us it's OK sleep right next to our cannons when the nighttime replacement team came on duty -- we'd get used to the noise and it wouldn't damage our hearing. WRONG. Ever since, all we guys who'd slept night-after-night near the guns ended up with "discrimination loss" -- wasn't picked up by ordinary hearing tests .. but in a crowd I can't understand anything -- have to hear solo voices only. Didn't find that out till after discharge in '46.
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True knowledge leads some from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

oops so long for the discrimination loss, you could have applied for more than 16% otherwise

The 13 beers story is great. When Yanks come to Europe, they have a hard time with our beer that is usually stronger

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SKIP

Oh yeah, that 13-beer episode well prepared me for "es Glas Dunkel Bier, bitte!" at the "Stube"s and "Keller"s in Bern, Schwyz.

Bill

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True knowledge leads some from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

oh I see, I'm dealing with a fine connaisseur . My favourites are the Belgian Abbey beers. I remember one Abbey that would sell only beer from 5am to 6am, so we poor sinners had to repent before we got our reward

Also it's amazing that you got into Southern Music decades before you moved there. In a way it attracted you there before you even thought about moving.

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OK, here's a story from back in Basic I want to slip in before I forget (the first part a bit redundant.)

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Our battalion was composed of 98% Southerners. They couldn’t march worth s**t. Didn’t know their right from their left foot. (You didn’t have to march growing up in the South – all you needed was to do your farm chores properly.)
I on the other hand, from age 9 to 17 had been a Cub Scout and Boy Scout, learned to march at every opportunity, and was in the Drum and Bugle Corps every summer at scout camp.,,,, Late every afternoon each troop marched in formation into the parade grounds for the Call To Colors ritual. It required precision movements when maybe a 1000 bodies had to coordinate as we marched: forward, by-the-left-flank-march, by-the-right-flank-march, by-the-oblique-march, to-the-rear-march, mark time (march-in-place), double-time-march, half-step-march, and other such intracacies. So I appreciated good marching.

It was a hot July day in Ft. Sill – 106 degrees before the sun had arisen. We had been out on maneuvers all morning. So we welcomed the ½ break after lunch, lying around on our bunks on the 2nd floor of the barracks ------ when at some point I heard a distant set of sounds – couldn’t recognize what it was. It came closer until finally I realized it was a bunch of men chanting in unison. I jumped out of my bunk and went to a window overlooking the adjoining street. There in the distance I saw this entire regiment, probably 8 to 12 men abreast, dressed in spiffy ceremonial uniforms, carrying "dress" rifles – marching down the street towards us in lockstep.

They were all Black, led by a white Lieutenant. As they marched the Lt. was barking out "hut, two, three, four" at times interspersed with various other orders. With each of the orders they responded by stepping through the most intricately choreagraphed maneuvers I had ever seen (outside of a ballet recital). It included running the standard "Manual of Arms." This was basically a protocol for handling a rifle. It was commonly done while standing in formation. However, these Blacks were performing the Manual while marching in various formations (as ordered by the Lt). The maneuvers included: right-shoulder-arms, left-shoulder-arms, port-arms, present-arms, among others. In addition the soldiers were barking out some kind of repetitive sing-song pattern (similar to a highschool football cheer).

All of this SIMULTANEOUSLY. Talk about coordination!

I mused on this for some time, but didn’t realize the significance until later years I saw little Black kids dancing in the streets of the Brooklyn ghettos playing street games. Later I saw them dancing in the movies. Still later I discovered Black folk music from the South, and New Orleans Blues. I finally saw the connection: "White Men Can’t Jump" …. And Blacks have a high "body" IQ.
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__________________
True knowledge leads some from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

such a performance must have been very impressive. They must have highly trained soldiers too. Did these guys belong to the units that were sent to Normandy in 1944?

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SKIP

Yeah, here's the skinny on that story:

A pipe-smoking, quiet-speaking Englishman, Robin McCarthy, had the dorm room above me, during my last year of college in '48. So I was unable to avoid the constant blare of of what he called "New Orleans Jazz." I thought it was pretty crude and primitive, compared to my recent infatuation with "bebop" and progressive jazz. In pursuit of the latter I made many trips down to 52d Street in NYC to catch the likes of such greats as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker – live.

But Robin was an evangelist, constantly pursuading me to listen to this and that recording of Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, King Oliver, Kid Ory, and others who had been in their prime in the 1910s and '20s. Well it finally worked. By the time graduation came around in June I had become a convert. All I would listen to was N.O. Jazz. Bought all the albums,books and magazines I could find. Became a connoisseur of the best that ever came out of N.O. But more important N.O. Jazz became a lifelong love, and it led to my interest in Black folk music (basically the Blues), and also the greatest folk musician that America ever produced, Huddie Ledbetter. (More on him in another story, right after the end of WW2.)

Bill

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True knowledge leads some from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

SKIP

No, I rather think that that's all they did -- as a "display" outfit -- good PR for the military. I think the doughboys in Normandy were all business and no show.

Bill

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True knowledge leads some from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

OK, here we go with what I consider the most significant story of my entire tour of duty:

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This is easily the most significant story in my WWII experiences. I start out by mentioning that in 1942, my dad, who was in his late ‘40s, way past the draft age, enlisted in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, as a Captain. At the time we all thought it was the height of patriotism. (Actually in years later I realized it was a pattern lasting decades: anything to get away from family responsibility.) But there he was in uniform, doing doctor duties at Fort Knox, and then Camp Atterbury. However, by the time D-Day had rolled around it was obvious that he was not made for the regimentation of military organization. He was constantly in conflict with his senior officers. It became apparent when all the officers around him increased in rank, at least to Major. Dad remained a Captain till the end of the war.

Then in June 1944, just after D-Day, the casualties began mounting. The Army was desperate for replacements. So even though I was in a Pre-Med program in college, and pre-meds were typically deferred from the draft, I was drafted and ended up in the Field Artillery at Fort Sill. Finished Basic in mid-November, and then sent to a line outfit, the 436th, in January 1945, at Gruber, preparing for activation to go overseas. That’s when things got interesting.

First, in early Spring there was a visit from my dad, who had gotten a couple weeks leave from Atterbury. It was a great thing to have your dad, in uniform, visit you while in uniform yourself. However, it wasn’t but a day or so when the real motive for his visit became apparent. He kept saying over and over it was unfair of the military to cut off my chance to go to med school. (Crucial here was the mantra of every parent of every little Jewboy from NYC: to be able to proudly say, "My son, THE DOCTOR.")

So shortly the other shoe dropped. Dad began tutoring me in how to fake a leg injury, calling on his expertise as an Army doc to be able to describe just what it would take to fool them into placing me in the ‘Class D’ category: disabled for combat duty. What made it easier for him was that I had 3d degree flat feet bilaterally. Also the fact that I had been plagued with left foot (arch) pain since I was an early teenager – and marching for miles was always a nightmare.

Anyway, he talked me into it, and I began reporting regularly to Sick Call every morning complaining about left leg pain. Finally the Battalion medical officer had me hospitalized so they could examine me more carefully, but mainly so they could put me under 24-hour surveillance. There I was, in a ward mostly filled with "goldbricks" – guys trying to get out of the service, or at least out of combat.

(BTW, most of these guys were Jewish or Italian NewYorkers. Of course, by contrast, the overwhelming majority of NYC Jews and Italians were 100% straight shooters. E.g., my favorite cousin Sally lost her husband, Carl, in Adak in '42; my close friend Lee Hammer was a navigator in the 8th on a B-17 -- went thru some pretty bad stuff.)

Well, after several weeks of surveillance I was discharged from the hospital and placed on the "D list." I was transferred from a ‘line’ battery to Headquarters Battery, where all I did was type reports and shuffle and file paperwork.

Now it just so happened that my immediate superior, Hart Nance, from Tyrell, TX, was a neat guy – a pre-law student in civilian life. We got to be pretty good friends. Then little by little he began working on me, with all kinds of reasonable arguments as to why in the long term my decision would not go well with me during the rest of my life. In particular I was impressed by his once saying, "You know, Bill, you never know what the future might hold for you – for example, you might someday want to go into politics. If you did your record would haunt you for whatever office you would seek. Somebody would dig that up and publicize it – and that would be the end of your campaign." That made sense to me.

However, my biggest concern was the guilt that was building up inside me.

Then in July ’45 our outfit was finally activated, and we prepared to go in on the Invasion Of Japan. We all knew it would be tantamount to a death sentence. We’d be battling an army on its home territory, with the subtle protection that would provide – the native support via language, custom, and knowledge of geography. To say nothing of fighting against someone whose back was up against the wall. By comparison It would have made the invasion of Normandy a Sunday picnic. There were various unofficial estimates of our expected casualty and/or death rate: somewhere around one million.

I brooded.

Then shortly after I went up to the First Seargent and told him to take me off the D list – I was going over with the outfit.

I’ve since known several professional people: lawyers, engineers, doctors – who pulled off the medical discharge deal. All of them happened to be Jewish. And they got discharged while we were still fighting Hitler.

That's something I chew on till this day.
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__________________
True knowledge leads some from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

You did the right thing and I wouldn't be surprised if you told me this is the best decision you made in your life. Not only for yourself and your country , but also to build up your own personnality and independence as opposed to your dad's wish.

Another detail I notice really arose my curiosity: could you tell more about your friend Lee Hammer? Was he shot down over Europe?

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My Alabama grandmother was a big fan of the bands you mentions (and I am too). Did you ever get to see any of them?

Are you still in the band and do you ever play outside of the Cullman area?

I like Jazz from Nawlins. Do you ever get to hear the Preservation Hall Jazz Band?

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Best Regards,
JW

Here's the other big story from my tour:

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It was late summer 1945. The 436 had been alerted, finally, to go overseas (in the upcoming invasion of the Japan mainland), and we finally got our shipping orders in the early part of August.

Our troop train was typical: '40and8' troop cars: no air conditioning, dark-painted (I think it was black paint, but it might have been dark olive drab -- can't remember), the only ventilation coming from the windows along the sides and the open doors between cars. Along with the outside air came heavy black soot, from the engine stacks. The daily ambient temperatures outdoors during the trip peaked somewhere around 100. It was suffocatingly hot inside all our cars.

We were fed 3x a day, from giant soup buckets (2 feet or so in diameter & maybe 2 feet deep), placed on the inter-car platforms of the cars. We'd line up with our messkits and pass by the dispensing point. Often enough just as the cook or cook's helper would ladle out your portion of stew the car would take a sideways lurch and half your meal would miss and end on the platform or right past it to the tracks below.

Our train made its slow trip from Gruber (near Muskogee, OK) to Union Station at Salt Lake City. Any passenger AND ANY FREIGHT train got priority over us, diverting us to a siding for maybe hours until the other train passed. Then at SLC, our train stood out in the freight yard for 3 days, in the hot sun, for some reason or other.

The next leg was from SLC to Needles, AZ, (known as part of the 'southern route' in the railroad business) and then up through California to Pittsburgh, CA --- Camp Stoneman, POE (Port of Embarkation.)

Then, one afternoon, on that second leg, the train stopped for some reason or other. While we were waiting for it start up again, a RUMOR RACED THROUGH FROM ONE CAR TO THE OTHER: WE HAD DROPPED SOME KIND OF HIGH-POWERED MYSTERY BOMB ON NAGASAKI, WIPING OUT THE ENTIRE CITY IN AN EYEBLINK! There must have been some officer with a radio in the headquarters car who picked up the report initially.

When we heard the news we started cheering, as we immediately realized the import of this event: this would bring Hirohito to his knees -- he wouldn't risk having another of his major cities vaporized in a second, if we dropped another such bomb. We would never have to go in on the Invasion!

Well, the troop train continued on its meandering way for another day or two -- and NO news of an imminent surrender. So once again we resigned ourselves to the dreaded invasion of Japan -- the casualty rate would make Omaha Beach in the Invasion of Normandy on D-day, June 6th, 1944 - seem like a Sunday picnic in comparison. For we would be invading the enemy's HOMELAND. (Invading France, on the other hand, was for the Germans merely one of their occupied foreign lands -- not their home territory.

Then on the third day, [this 3-day lapse of time is signifcant -- I will be commenting on it in one of my "post-war" posts in this thread, in response to a critic of our dropping the bombs] another news report raced through the train! President Truman had ordered another similar bomb (and we heard that it was an ATOMIC bomb) on Hiroshima, wiping that city off the map!

But STILL - 3 days later - no surrender from the Emperor's headquarters in Tokyo. We were despondent again, this time more so, because of dashed hopes twice.

Our train finally made it to Camp Stoneman. By the next night half of our outfit had boarded the troop ship, and the rest of us the next afternoon at 1PM were lined up in the battalion square waiting to board, with our gangplank numbers painted in white on our helmets (mine was #91, or 191), new issue combat boots on our feet, jungle mosquito netting in our backpacks along with salt tablets as part of our rations. Finally our Battery Commander came out to give us our farewell pep talk.

He shortly arrived, with an appropriately serious look on his face as he pulled out a piece of yellow paper from his shirt pocket. He said, "Let me read you this TWX (telegram) I just got from Washington a few minutes ago. Here's what it says..... 'Emporer Hirohito has offered to surrender .... the war is over .... everybody's got a 3-day pass to San Francisco' .... SEE YA LATER, GANG!!" -- and he was GONE!!

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A deafening silence. For maybe several seconds we stood there speechless .... we had spent several months processing all the necessary psychological operations on our minds to make it OK to go into battle, against an army fighting on its own land, a battle many of us would never survive (the estimates were 1 million of us dead) ----------------

----------- we had transmuted the Unavoidable Life Threat into Willing Participation -- because that maintained the integrity of our ego: by CHOOSING to climb the gangplank we maintained Control Over Our Destiny.

And then somone knocked the pins right out from under our months of self-imposed Mind Control.

Then we came back to earth .... with a roar and cheering we broke ranks, hugged each other, then hurried back to barracks to change into Class A uniforms, and boarded the waiting ferry boat that would carry us to the docks at San Francisco that afternoon.

That ride in to the S.F. harbor was the most glorious ship passage any of us had ever been on (and any thereafter, in my life anyway.) When we got to the City, everyone in a military uniform was a hero to the local citizens. And that's the way it went for three days.

By the way, our BC, Captain Unterzuber, with a wife and kids at home, went AWOL (Absent Without Leave -- a serious crime during wartime) for FIVE days. We later heard he came back stinking drunk, but his superiors appropriately looked the other way and he was never prosecuted.
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True knowledge leads some from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.

Wow , you were pretty close from invading Japan , weren't you ? and your captain was lucky not to get court martialed for getting drunk and go astray fro 5 days, he has very understanding superiors.

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