WELCOME HOME 148TH

A Salute to the Men and Women of the 148th

Cars pass by. The usual flags fly. No one knows their name. Though their families love them just the same. Copeland, Horne, Ashley, Rivera, some new guys, old ones been there before and done that. St. Patrick and Santa Claus watchers were gone to the beach. The faithful with flags in hand and in their hearts, stood by, waived and cheered, while too many others found too many better things to do on a hot Saturday morn. Politicians praised. Patriots applauded. Wives, mothers and children smiled.

Hotdogs, hamburgers cooking on the grill. Little boys, little girls, on the jumpers for a thrill.

Maybe it will be the last time to welcome them home. And, maybe many more will be there the next time.
But for now, let us pray that when they leave again, there will many more of those they fight for
there, waving a flag, cheering out loud, and saying a prayer.

VIVIAN QUINN DANIELL

My Recollections of World War II




Vivian Quinn Daniell



In December 1941, I was in my final month of nursing school in Orlando, Florida at Orange Memorial Hospital. I can still vividly remember the details of Sunday afternoon, December 7, 1941. While visiting a neighbor, who had recently had a baby, the news came on the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. The attack on Pearl Harbor was the deciding factor in my enlistment in military service several months later.



I successfully completed the Florida Registered Nurse's Examination in March 1942. In September 1942 I enlisted in the United States Air Force at the rank of Second Lieutentant and was assigned to McDill Field at Tampa Florida. I worked on the wards for military personnel for a few months before being assigned to a clinic for the enlisted men's dependents. Doctor Carl Hoffman, obstetrician from Orange Memorial Hospital and Doctor Denton Kerr from Houston, Texas were the doctors in charge. I came to know many of the families and believe I was a source of encouragement to those whose husbands were being shipped overseas.



Two registered nurse (RN) friends and I signed up for Foreign Service in October 1943. Because the Air Force had a policy against women going oversees, I transferred to the Army. We were initially sent to Camp McCall, North Carolina where we met a number of 501st Paratroopers who were training for the war in Europe. We were privileged to be stationed near them again in England the following year. Tragically, some of these same paratroopers were later killed when they entered into France. Within a couple of months, we were sent to Memphis, Tennessee for assignment to the 48th General Hospital. Doctor John Bell of Dublin was in the unit, but was transferred to The Air Force after our arrival in England.



In December 1943 we were sent to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey for deployment to the Europe Theater of Operations (ETO). Eighteen thousand passengers, including the three hospital units and 48th General Hospital were set to sail from New York harbor on the ship, IL De France on Christmas Eve night. The ship's engine developed problems and we were stranded on the ice-covered Hudson River without heat or lights. The order to disembark was given at 8:00 PM. We returned to Camp Kilmer for an unforgettable Christmas meal, followed by a week with passes in New York City.



On New Year's Eve, 1943 we boarded the Queen Elizabeth and the following day, set sail for the ETO. We landed in Scotland and then traveled by train to Petsworth, England. I recall seeing countless Scots and Englishmen, all along the way, giving "V" for Victory signs.

My memories of England are especially vivid. The Canadian Air Force had camped at Petsworth before us. The Germans had bombed this area leaving mass destruction. Tragically, the Germans had bombed a school in Petworth, killing forty children. We left Petsworth after a few weeks and moved on to Swindon, England. The nurses were billeted in English homes. Although March, England was bitterly cold, the homes were inadequately heated, and the nurses had to walk two miles each day for meals in the mess hall. I have memories of the covered windows and blackouts at night to avoid air raids by the Germans. I worked in a surgical ward at an English hospital for a brief time before being assigned to the hospital in Stockbridge, England, near Winchester. Preparations for the invasion into France were intensifying. We were there on June 6, 1944, known in history as D-Day of the invasion into France. This was a critical first step in liberating France and overthrowing Hitler's Germany



The 48th General was then sent to France and landed by landing service transports (LST'S) on the beach. We set up camp near Saint Lo, France, living in "pup tents" and later, squad tents. In France, I was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant. Conditions were crude at best. Imagine one hundred nurses being transported by big trucks for several miles for a group shower. It was not a time for modesty. We then moved into Paris and operated a hospital there for a few months. We acted as an evacuation hospital, sending patients back to America.



I recall many sad stories involving my patients. While still in England, hundreds of wounded GI's were brought to the 48th General Hospital. I was assigned to the officer's ward where I had a severely wounded captain as a patient. Just before his death, the Captain repeatedly said, in his delirium, "One Hour For Glory". My first patient at the Hospital Larboisser or Charity Hospital of Paris was a young officer. Although not seriously injured, he later died as a result of complications from an emergency tracheotomy. I had another young soldier as a patient. He had a chest injury and shrapnel in his heart. He begged to be sent home for surgery but was forced to have surgery there and he died. I had to prepare his effects to return to his wife, which contained a notice of his baby's birth. If he had been allowed to have surgery in the USA, perhaps he would have seen his baby. I sat and cried. This was the tragedy of war.



The nurses became very close through the experiences of war. One very personal story stands out in my memory. While in Paris, two of my roommates were sisters. Marty and Janie Taylor were from Tuscaloosa, Alabama and were devout Christian girls. During the time of the "bulge" we had a strict curfew of 11:00PM. One Sunday night, Marty and another nurse went on a date and failed to return home by curfew. Janie called down the stairs to her sister through out the night. We knew something was very wrong. I remember Chief Nurse Widmer coming into our room at 4:00 A.M. to inform us the girls had been in an automobile accident and drowned in the Seine River near the Notre Dame Cathedral.



V. E. day (Victory in Europe), announcing the end of war in Europe, was declared by Winston Churchill on May 8, 1945. That was an exciting time. A friend from the 501st Paratrooper unit was in Paris on leave. We went into downtown Paris where the streets were crowded with people celebrating the end of war.



Afterwards, with the war still active with the Japanese, several of our nurses signed up to go to the Pacific. The nurses were assigned to the 329th General Hospital . We journeyed through Marseille, France where the highlight was seeing Bob Hope perform. We embarked on the General Altman on its maiden voyage to the Pacific. As we traveled through the Panama Canal, the ship ran aground, damaging the rudder. We were two days into the Pacific Ocean when we learned Japan had surrendered to the Allied Forces.



We landed in Manila and traveled through Northern Luzon, where the ravages of war were evident, especially in the town of Baguio in the mountains. We finally reached our destination- Nagoya, Japan, where the 329th General hospital opened its hospital close to the Nagoya Palace. The peace treaty had been signed and military personnel were being sent home to the USA. In spite of the recent bombings on Japan by the Allied Forces, The Japanese people treated the nurses in a courteous manner. They invited us to share a special meal and then allowed us to visit and make purchases at a bone china factory. I was so proud of a fine china vase that I handled with care all the way back to the USA and then proceeded to break while letting down a venetian blind.



I left Tokyo and returned to the states in November 1944. The airplane, a troop transport plane with bucket seats, made stops in Guam, Marshall Island, Wake and Hawaii before arriving in San Francisco. We rode open train across the United States to Chicago and were then given Pullman accommodations to Fort Bragg, N.C. I spent my last few days as an enlisted officer at Fort Bragg being processed for discharge. I returned home in time for Christmas.



It was the realities of war that eventually led me to the Veterans Hospital in Dublin, where I spent the next 31 years working as an operating room nurse. I fulfilled my life's mission to care for the men and women that had served in active duty.



Did I have any regrets? Absolutely not. It was an honor to have served my country in time of war. God Bless America!

WILLIAM E. BUDDY CARTER

World War II Interview


By: Kimsey M. "Mac" Fowler

Typed By: Jimmie B. Fowler

17 October 2000



William E. "Buddy" Carter

106 Poplar Street

East Dublin, GA 31021



On December 7, 1941, I was only sixteen years old and my friends and I was out playing football in the field nearby. We went inside to get a drink of water and heard the news about the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio. We continued to play football and then we stopped and started talking about it and we were too young to go into service. I waited on the draft.



They drafted me when I was eighteen. I was working in Florida building air bases for the allied pilots of Europe to learn to fly those P51 Mustangs. I lived in Bartow, Florida at this time. I came back home to tell my family and went to the courthouse in Camilla and they shipped us to Atlanta.



I was inducted November 11, 1943 and went to Fort Belvoir, Virginia for about five months of training in Combat Engineering. This was the first war that had combat engineers in it. We were well trained to do our job on bridges, mine fields, booby traps, you name it, we could fix it. Every soldier was trained to fight so they could protect themselves and then we had engineer training after the basic training.



We would go out in boats in the Chesapeake Bay and practiced landings. We had a week furlough and then we were shipped out to Camp Penn, Pennsylvania for three or four days and then they sent me to Embarkation Center in Fort Reynolds, New York. We left New York on the Susan B. Anthony Boat. It was a big boat about the size of the Queen Mary. It took two or three weeks to cross the ocean because we had to zigzag because of the submarines.



We landed at London and took a train and went all the way across to a little town, Codford, England. We stayed way back out in the cow pastures for several days and got a little extra training on the side.



They put us in a replacement outfit that was called Repel Depel and I was put in the 294th Engineering Combat Battalion. The 294th trained in mine fields while in England just like we would in Combat. They were getting ready for the invasion and someone put a mine that we had used in training on one of the trucks with a pressure type fuse in it. It blew up and killed forty of our men.



We were about five miles off the coast of France and we hit an underwater mine. It knocked the bottom out of the boat. We had to leave the ship without any gear or weapons. The only thing I kept was a trench knife. We had our float belts on; I wore mine all the time.



As I was going over to the invasion, we were talking and some of the guys didn't want to shoot anybody, but I had made up my mind that if someone pointed a gun at me, I was going to shoot back.



The British and American s Destroyers came by and picked us up.

We got to the beach and the first and second waves had already hit. The Higgins boats came back to the destroyers and picked up the people on it because we were scattered so bad.



When the Higgins Boat took us in, they dropped us off in about four-foot of water and we had to wade in. We picked up the dead men's guns, ammunition, knives, ammunition belts and bayonets. We got into some fighting on the beach over there but then they came by around before too long and put us with the 4th Infantry and 3rd Armored Division. We came in on Omaha Beach and after we got a Beachhead established we went to whoever needed us for engineers. We fought down to the Cotentin Peninsula to Cherbourg. That was a seaport, we had to have a seaport to bring supplies in on. And we went down with the tanks and took down the booby trap and the concrete roadblocks they had laid out.



We used TNT, dynamite and nitro-glycerin to make a super charge and blew the barriers out of the roads.



When we got into Cherbourg, they were pretty well armed down there and it got a little hotter. The orders they gave us that morning was to move any dead Americans that we found laying in the road so the tanks wouldn't run over them and mash them.



We took bobby traps out of buildings. One building we went into had a cash register that had a what looked like a $100.00 bill sticking out of the drawer. I told the men not to touch it. After careful examination, I found that the bill was only printed on one side and a trip wire attached to the cash register. I told the rest of them to go outside. I followed that trip wire and there were about two cases of dynamite under the cabinet. It would explode if you pulled on the cash register drawer to open it.



I ran into a flame-thrower down the street and it was even booby-trapped. I removed the fuse from it.



There was a big concrete bunker roadblock down the street that was ten to fifteen feet high; it was as wide as the street. We found weep holes in it for the water to run through. We packed all the weep holes full of TNT and the last one we put in; we put a fuse in it. We blew that thing "slap up in the air".



We noticed something coming out of the windows from a four-story building that we had to take. When we got close enough it was women in the top floor jumping out of the windows. They had been told the American soldiers would kill you. There was a lot of fire coming from the Fort. A Commanding Officer called and said we have something coming up there to stop that fire. He ordered us to get behind the biggest thing we could and sit on the ground. They turned two of the battleships out in the English Channel broadside and they had a great big German Swastika flag on top of that fort. After about three or four broadsides, they turned that flag into a bed sheet. They had as much as they could stand.



We turned around and started back up the other side of the Pensiula. We were up near St. Mere Eglise and they stopped us again. We all got up on high grounds and got situated. We were there about a week because it started raining.



They told us when we started there would be four thousand bombers that are coming over. At the break of daylight, right behind us (we were in the foxholes), they fired those snub noses 105's. They fired those into the enemy lines. After that they put the Long Tom's 105's up there for about thirty minutes. When they finished, they turned the 8" howitsers on them. They fired about thirty minutes followed by P-51's and P47's came in right over our heads strafing into the enemy lines. They strafed in and out but stopped before they got where we were. One of the P47's had a bomb lodged under its wing and the pilot was rocking the plane trying to shake it loose and he did. It fell right on top of us, a 2-« ton truckload of TNT. We lived through that and about this time, the B17's came through. They told us they were going to drop five hundred-pound bombs every five square yards and they did. Anyway, we had a jumping off point.



We were the leaders. We had to go up on those supply roads and get all the mines out of the road so the 3rd and 5th Armored could come through. We went up there and got to working getting the mines out of the roads and hedge rows and got pinned down with machine gun fire. We stayed there for a while and finally decided the best thing to do while they were reloading the machine gun to jump up on the high side of the road. We got up on the high side and we got pretty active, too. We would take on those snipers up in the treetops. We had a little shoot out with some American Infantry, they thought we were German soldiers and we thought they were Germans (it was so dusty). We could tell by the BAR and the Tommy guns, that they all sounded alike and that each of us was Americans. We found out that we had jumped off about thirty minutes too quick.



Some of the things we saw next were people burning and I saw one man off a German tank that looked like he had been turned inside out.



We went into Normandy then in some flat country, we followed the tanks. Anything that stopped the tanks, we had to go take care of it. Our job was to keep them moving.



When we arrived at the Martain Gap, on up in France a little piece, the Germans counter attacked. We had to furnish two companies to the 3rd Armored Division and the 30th Infantry Division another company to support them. They were getting beat up pretty bad.



The other two companies, we were doing engineer work plus fighting at the same time, too. We finally broke up the counter attack. Ernie Pyle was there. I was in the 7th Corps. He stayed there with us. He wrote for the newspaper about the Martain Gap where we had three hundred fifty thousand of Hitler's elite troops cut off. He quoted, "blood ran in the ditches like rainwater".



After that we went on to Malone, France, south of Paris. We were going to ride on tanks into Paris, but the Germans had blown out four bridges in Malone, France across the Seine River. Each bridge weighed two hundred thirty tons and we built them in two and half or three days.



We had to keep the main supply roads open. Those Bailey bridges are made out of steel and we put it together with pins. We had planes strafing and when we'd get started with a bridge, they'd blow it out and tear it up again.



If the German's counter attacked again we'd have to go back and blow up the bridges again after we had gotten across. We'd build one, one day and blow them up the next day sometimes.



The man who invented the Bailey Bridge was from England. The point on it sticks up and when you built a twenty-foot section behind it, you push the pointed part out further and do the same after each twenty-foot section. That's the way we built bridges across the river.

When you got the bridge across the river we put in a small boat and put the rollers down there that it drops down on.



It took six men to take one six-foot section of it. While you are building one of the bridges and fire got pretty hot and some of the men got hit, other men would step up and take their place. We also had to build footbridges. The Bailey bridges were for heavy equipment. Then we had pontoon bridges, also.







We went all the way across France and into Germany we went through where the World War I was fought. We got into the Hurtgen Forest, and then the 9th Division was trying to knock a hole in the German lines. Every time they'd try to break through that line, they'd get knocked back themselves. One morning, they jumped up and run through that line again and attacked and the German's were not there. They were captured. We were right behind them and filled the hole for them. There were 1,000 of us and each of us had five yards each to take care of. We did a good job on them. I don't like fighting in the woods, I'll tell you that! It gets pretty nasty. But it had to be done by somebody.



When we'd come to a barbed wire fence or something like that, we'd take a big stick of bangalore torpedo and put them together and put a fuse in the last piece and it would open up barbed wire so we could pass. Just like a cattle gap, it opened it up.



We were considered for taking the Rhine River Bridge that would have been a pretty long bridge. When we built bridges, we'd call back and tell them how long the bridge we were going to build and the Quartermaster would bring the material they'd back up and dump it on the ground. We'd take it from there and build it across the rivers.



We got up around the Battle of the Bulge area. We stopped around Aachen, Stolberg and Cologne.



When the German's broke through the lines and started the Battle of the Bulge they took our mailbox. Some of the men said they had put letters in it that day and they got delivered. So evidently someone down the line saw that it got delivered.



The weather got pretty ugly and dirty. It was raining, snowing, cold and sleet. It was below freezing all the time for about a month.



The "C" Company had to build one bridge back down through the Battle of the Bulge. The rest of us were active in the infantry. I think that's what won the Battle of the Bulge, the enemy had to go across the rivers and we'd blow the bridge up before the tanks got there to cross it. We'd go from one river to another and wore them out and they couldn't get to us. They'd run out of gas and the gas was on the other side of the river. Everytime they'd come to the river, we'd blow the bridge out. When they got to the last river, the fuel tank was on the other side. After that we got caught building a bridge across the Rhine River, there was a railroad bridge, which fell in after all the Infantry got across and killed lots of engineers who were trying to keep it up. We tried to capture it intact so we could use it to get supplies across. But when we got to the bridge itself somebody had already gotten ahead of us. The old bridge looked kind of shaky anyway. We got down there on the left side of that bridge and we built a pontoon bridge. The 291st built one on the right side and got shot up pretty bad with V2 bombs, planes and artillery.



Our bridge we built across the Rhine River was 1145 feet long in sixteen hours.



We went into some open country and they fired at us. Anytime we got into open country; they would tear us up. We called for some help from the Air Force and they dropped bombs on them but it didn't do any harm to it.



Some P47's came up and the Commander could talk with them on the radio and explain the situation. The Germans were shooting at us from a tunnel. The P47came over and dropped his 500 lb. bomb in the tunnel and the plane went straight up and it blew the tunnel apart.



Cologne was a nice, pretty town. It had lots of cathedrals in it and we didn't want to destroy them. But it was our job to clean it out. We went in there and got started on it. The German officers that were in charge of the town surrendered the town to us.



We heard later that they took him out and shot him. He said that he didn't want to see the Cathedrals destroyed. They were so pretty.



When we got up to Norohausen, Germany and it was our job to help capture it. Our Company Commander told us we were going to see something we had never seen before. He said whatever you do, you've got to live with it. We didn't know what he was talking about. We arrived and there was a concentration camp up there. There were thousands, thousands, thousands and thousands of people from all over Europe. If we could have looked hard enough there might have been some Americans in there, anyone that looked like a Jew. They had the biggest stack of people in the crematory that they were going to burn them. They had the live ones on the top of the dead ones just trying to find a place to lay down. They were nothing but skin and bones. That would make you so mad, you would want to just kill anybody. We kind of held ourselves. We let the captive people have two of the SS Guards and they beat them with sticks and limbs and anything they could get their hands on. We couldn't stop them.



We were in the Hurtz Mountain at that time and went into a cave where the Germans had prisoners, it was a labor camp. Some of them said they had not seen the sun in over a year. They worked people until they couldn't do anything. This is where they were manufacturing the B1 and B2 Buzz Bomber.



We didn't know who was who; there were men, women and children lying there dead. We went up on the side of a hill out there close to the concentration camp and took a bulldozer and put the children in the first line, the women in the second and the men in the third and buried them.



We had the SS men to bathe the bodies and wrap them in sheets and lay them in a grave and sent men in to town to pick up anything that looked like a flower and take it out to the cemetery. After we got that situated, the War was coming to a close at that time.



We then tried to get the displaced people back to the country in which they came from. We had trouble with the Russians, they didn't want to fool with those people and they didn't want anybody fooling with them.



I worked with the Military Government from there on after May when the war ended. I had enough points then to come home. I had 68 points. They started at 85 and worked down. It took several months to work down to me. I was sent to the Bremen Haven German Seaport and were there for about three weeks waiting for a boat. The first one took the war brides home to England, and another carried someone else home. We turned the drawbridge across the river and wouldn't let anyone come or go and stayed there until we got a boat.



We left out Christmas Day 1945 to come home. We came into New Jersey. They gave us all a steak supper that night at Camp Kilmer. The people that were serving us were German prisoners. We didn't eat much steak we'd had enough of the Germans. We got on the train and a lady came by with a bucket full of milk. I didn't have a glass but I took the liner out of my helmet and filled it full of milk and drank it. I had not had any milk since I left the USA. I was discharged on January 10, 1946 from Fort Gordon, GA.



I'm glad that I came along at the time that I did so that I could help put a man like Adolph Hitler away.



My parents were Lawrence Ezquel and Atha Lesley Carter from Pelham, Georgia.

My brothers and sisters are Eddie, Alton, Otis, Bill, Mary, Lillian and me (the youngest).





My wife of 52 yrs. is Evelyn Annette Kerns from Camilla, GA. We have two sons, Ronnie and Michael.



Ronnie is married to Lavona Powell Carter and they have three children Thomas Russell, Ryan, and Niki.



Michael is married to Wanda Moore Carter; they have four children Jeremy, Jamie, Jennifer Moore Davidson and Julie Moore.



We have five great-grandchildren, Sara Hynote, Harley Humphries, Shelby Carter, A. J. Davidson, and Jarred Davidson



We moved to Dublin in September 1957 when I was transferred from Albany with Carlton Caterpillar Company where I retired in 1988 after thirty years.



Note: Mr. Carter has an American flag that flew over the cemetery at Omaha Beach. Honorable J. Roy Rowland made arrangements for him to have this. He states that many of the men from his unit are buried there and he flies it every June 6 on D-Day in memory of them.



He has a shadow box with pictures of him at the age of 19 (in service) and another at the age of 65. He has his Campaign Ribbons displayed neatly, including an Arrowhead from the Invasion of Normandy, Five Bronze Stars for 5 Campaigns between Normandy and Berlin.



He shared that the closest he got to a Silver Star Medal was the officer that was going to turn in some of his men for a Silver Star the next morning, got killed that night.

JOHNNIE RALPH WILLIAMS, JR.

WORLD WAR II INTERVIEW


BY: Kimsey M. "Mac" Fowler

Typed By: Jimmie B. Fowler

October 10, 2000



Johnnie Ralph Williams, Jr.

109 East Mary Street

Dublin, GA 31021





On December 7, 1941, I was working on the farm and going to school. I was drafted into the Army on December 27, 1944.



I left Dublin and went to Atlanta and from there to Camp Shelby, Mississippi by bus. I was there about a month and from there to Fort Hood, Texas for seventeen weeks of Infantry Training. They were real tough on us! It was real hot, we did a lot of firing on the firing range, a lot of marching, we learned to throw hand grenades, and did a lot of obstacle course training.



We left Fort Hood and went to Fort Ord, California to be processed to be sent overseas. We boarded ship and sailed to the Hawaii area. We did not go ashore. We were anchored out waiting for other orders. We stayed there about three days and then sailed to the Philippines. We worked guard while on the Philippines. Some of the guys guarded Japanese Prisoners, but I did not. We guarded between the river and where we were living. The War ended while we were there.



American Prisoners of War began coming in from various Japanese Prisons. Most of them were just skin and bones and most of them were sick. Some of them told us that they had to bury the dead every morning before they got anything to eat.



We left the Philippines and went to some little island that had nothing but coconuts and monkeys on it. I have no idea what the name of it was but there was no fighting on it. We lived in pup tents.



We went to Japan to Tachakawa Air Force Base, which was located between Yokohama and Tokyo. We did mostly guard duty in Japan on blueprint and ammunition storage sites. The site that I guarded was Japanese. Anything that was important was guarded to keep the Japanese from getting to it.



Everything was pretty quite in Japan when we got there. We lived in barracks that could have been a Japanese hotel. When we were on guard duty we would walk in opposite directions so that all angles could be covered for intruders.



I also was assigned to an Amphibian Squadron and we would go out to the ships and bring in food supplies to shore. New troops were also coming in.



I went about twenty-five miles from where the Atomic Bomb was dropped and man it was just torn all down! It looked like tornadoes had gone through it.



When we first got to Japan, we could not go to the towns and shop but before I left, we could.



The Japanese people suffered during the War, too. They would come and stand in line hoping to get our leftover scrap food. If our scraps were put in the garbage can, they would get them out and eat them.



When I left Japan, I came back to the States and was discharged in Fort Sam Houston, Texas on November 11, 1946. I wanted to go back into the active service and go to Germany but my Mother begged me so hard not to go so I changed my mind. I then joined the Reserves for three years and was discharged on September 30, 1949.





The medals that I earned were:



ASIATIC Pacific Campaign Ribbon

Philippine Liberation Ribbon

Good Conduct Medal

Army Occupation Medal

Japan Victory Ribbon

Two Overseas Service Bars.



I continued farming after returning home.



My father was Johnnie Ralph Williams, Sr. and my Mother was Rosie Upshaw Williams. There were five children, Ray, Royce, Betty Jo, Willa Jean and myself.



I am married to Ernestine Evans, from Laurens County. Her father is Elijah Evans and Edna Walker.

DR. J.W. ZETTEROWER, DDS

WORLD WAR II INTERVIEW AUGUST 31, 2000


By: Kimsey M. "Mac" Fowler







Dr. John Walker "J. W." Zetterower

1704 Stonewall Street

Dublin, GA 31021



I was a freshman in Dental School in Atlanta, GA when Pearl Harbor was attacked. I entered Dental School in September of 1941. I don't remember where I was on Sunday, December 7, 1941. It wasn't a school day so I was probably in my apartment where I lived in Atlanta. I do remember the next day, on Monday when Roosevelt gave his speech, I was in the freshman lab in Dental School listening to the radio. I remember it very well. Of course, the war started then.



Dental School was just like school is now; you went to school nine months and off three months. They instituted the accelerated program so that we would graduate faster. We had two weeks between the freshman and sophomore years. Which I was glad of because we saved money and everything else.



In the summer of 1942 or 1943, I was inducted into the Army. I went through what the draftees went through. I stayed a week at Ft. McPherson, we were issued uniforms. This was a good thing; I liked that because I was receiving Buck Private's pay and it helped me get through school. I was a junior in Dental School. Upon graduation, we were expected to go right into the Army. They told us that the Army had their quotas filled and any of us that wanted to go into the Navy could. That's what I wanted to do. I became a Naval Officer in August 1944.



I was married at that time and my wife, Virginia was expecting our first child. The baby was due around the later part of September. I had received my orders to go to Farragut, Idaho, that was a Naval Training Station, a few miles from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I was supposed to report October 2nd. Fortunately, our baby was born September 29, I was glad to be there with Virginia at that time. She and Cheryl was still in the hospital when I left. That was NOT a very happy time to leave my wife and daughter. I had never been away from Dublin any further than Atlanta in my life! I thought going to Idaho was going to the other side of the world. But anyway, I went there and stayed in Farragut, Idaho from October 1944 until March 1945.



One little incident that happened and I sent this in to Readers Digest. You know they have a little section "Humor in Uniform". Being in the Navy, the Navy talk is different. They call the floor - a deck, the ceiling - overhead, and bathroom the head. When I first reported to Farragut and went through an orientation for about a week, I thought I would go into Couer d'Alene, Idaho and find a place to live to bring my wife and baby out. I walked out the main gate and there was a Shore Patrolman on duty. Of course, he saluted me and said, "Going ashore, Sir?" I replied, "No, I'm just going into town for a little while." When you leave the Base, they call it "going ashore". He looked at me and thought, "He's an officer and he doesn't know which end is up".



Virginia and Cheryl came out and we lived in Coeur d'Alene and we loved it out there.



In January, I received a message that my brother, Frank was missing in action. This was a very trying time. I wanted to come back home and be with Mother and Daddy. But being that far, it just wasn't practical.



In March (1945) they transferred me down to Camp Parks, California outside of San Francisco near Oakland. Camp Parks was a Seabees Station. They would come in from overseas and we would repair their teeth and in six or eight weeks they would ship them back out. I liked it there.



Virginia and Cheryl came down and found a place to live at Castro Valley (an area where chickens were raised). I bought my first car, a 1936 Chevrolet. It was a pea green; the ugliest color you ever put your eyes on! When Virginia first saw it, she said, "Oh, sugar, you didn't buy that car, did you?" About two weeks after I bought it, I got me a brush and a can of black paint and painted it. It looked pretty good! That's the car we came back in from California to Dublin. We put a mattress in the back seat; Cheryl was a year old then. It took eight days to drive home. I had to buy three new tires on this trip. You had to have permits to get tires during those days. You had to have a permit to get gasoline, meat, sugar, etc.



I think a lot of times when I hear the young people talking about inconveniences; they don't realize what people had gone through in those days. It really didn't bother us all that much. I've forgotten what my paycheck amounted to but I remember one day just before payday I ran out of money. I gathered up all the Coca Cola bottles and took them down to the grocery store and got a penny a piece for them and used that to buy a quart of milk for the baby. That sounds bad, but that's how close things were. We didn't complain. My wife didn't complain. We were living in a clean place, but it was very small. In those days, every Veteran felt the same way I did; everybody, even civilians we were going through a hard time doing without many things that today is expected, the main goal then was to "win the war". There hasn't been another nation, not even Russia that has threatened the world like they (Germans and Japanese) did. It was a great sacrifice. That generation of people that went through all those things like the Great Depression, they were hardened. People today have it good but I think they realize they have it good. This is a great generation today. They have high ideals. A lot of people today are going through hard times like we did, not in the same sense but they have their troubles. I admire the young people today because they have this Nation on their shoulders. Really times now are harder morally than they were then. It takes strong Christian people to keep this country straight today. Even though we had a hard time, this generation today is to be admired.



We had some good friends right across the street there in Castro Valley; a Naval Officer named Jim Stackhouse. He visited us two years ago and Jim died last year. He was a little older than I was. He had moved to North Carolina. I'm glad that he came to see us.



When the war was over, I requested duty in the Sixth Naval District. They transferred me to the V. A. Hospital in Dublin, GA in November 1945. I stayed there at the V. A. until May 1946. I was discharged while at the Naval Hospital.



But in May of 1945 while still at Camp Parks, I received word that my brother, Frank had been killed in action. This was a very trying time; I couldn't go all the way back to Dublin to be with my parents. I did, however, talk with them several times.



My brother, Frank was in the Army. Scott Thompson wrote a wonderful article in The Dublin Courier Herald in 1999 about my brother, Frank and he found out a lot about him that I didn't know. Frank was in the Old Rainbow Division in the Army. He was in France when the Battle of the Bulge came. His outfit had just arrived. Really, they were not prepared for combat. They had just captured a little town in France and the German's had recaptured it the following day, they were in retreat. Frank was a Staff Sgt. and one of his men had been wounded. Frank went to pull him back and a Sgt. that was close-by told Scott that he got shot with small arms fire in the forehead and was killed instantly. I don't know what happened to the young boy that he was trying to rescue. Scott did a wonderful job with this article. Frank was married at the time to Nona Thaxton from Statesboro. Frank was two years older than me. He went to Georgia Southern at Statesboro for two years and was working in Dublin with Dunlop Tires when he was drafted. If Frank had lived, he would have gotten the Dunlop franchise that Bill Duncan got and you know what success Bill has had with that business.



My father was Dr. Frank Zetterower, Sr. My mother was Sally Walker. Their children were my brother, Frank and my sister, Maudine and I.



My wife is Virginia Perryman from Cedartown, Georgia. Her parents were Virgil Perryman and Jeanette Knighton.



We have three children, Cheryl, Mary Laurel and Frank.

DUGGAN DUDLEY WEAVER

WORLD WAR II INTERVIEW SEPTEMBER 1, 2000


BY: KIMSEY M. "MAC" FOWLER

TYPED BY: JIMMIE B. FOWLER



DUGGAN DUDLEY WEAVER

1303 THIRD STREET

DUDLEY, GA 31022



I was working in Louisville, Kentucky living at the YMCA. I was across the street at Taylor's Drug Store drinking a cup of coffee; a boy came in and said the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. I thought he was kidding, but he said, "No". I thought some crazy nut had come by and dropped a bomb. I walked across the street to the Y and people were gathered all around listening to the radio. The news caused the hair on your arm to stand up! It was a day one will never forget.



The next day I went to work at Belknap Hardware Manufacturing Company. They distributed radios, which was very rare. Not many people had radios (especially in Dudley, Georgia. We didn't even have electricity in Laurens County). The company distributed radios all over to the place there were about 1500 employees. We listened to the news and everyone was afraid. That night I went to the Navy Recruiting office and signed up for the Navy. I had been turned down by the Army before leaving Laurens County and placed in 4F. The Navy took me. If you were warm, I think they would take you. I left Louisville on the 19th of December 1941. They put me on a train to Great Lakes, Illinois. The Naval Training Station at Great Lakes was running over. They issued us a few clothes, I was there two or three days and they sent some of us to the Naval Pier in Chicago, Illinois. The Naval Pier was built some fifty years before the war. It had nothing to do with the Navy. The Navy had taken it over about six months before the war. It was going to be converted to a school to handle about eight thousand men, but it was not ready and we had a solid mess. They did not have the equipment to issue dog tags and other identification. Three weeks from that day, most men had been inoculated and they were sent to sea. Sam Rundell, a fellow I had met there and I had the highest test grades and didn't go.



They sent us back to the Great Lakes and we slept in hammock in an Air Force hangar. Then they put us in a barracks and we went to school from 8:o'clock in the morning until 8 at night. I was in Quartermaster Signal School. The later part of June 1942, they sent us to Norfolk, Virginia to broad the Ship USS Merak, originally the flag ship of United Fruit Company. This was a very nice ship. They took us to Cuba. Most of the outfit stayed in Cuba, but after a few days, they put me on another ship, USS Pollux, a brand new ship on it's first run. We went to Puerto Rica, Virgin Islands and left there and went to Trinidad to a PC Base. Anybody as old as I am can remember "Drinking Rum and Coca Cola", a song that came from this base Chack Chi Carria (the name of the Naval Base). After about two weeks, they sent us to downtown Trinidad, about a block from our Naval Headquarters. They only had one barrack for the radiomen and the signalmen and we were there the first day that it opened. I was there two or three days and they put me on the nicest ship I had ever been on. It was a Norwegian Ship, MV (motor vessel) Talisman, which means "good luck". The Captain said it was suppose to go to New York but they pulled us into Key West.



Let me say this, I was in the Navy for four years and never had any dog tags nor ID card. I had no orders. I hitchhiked and thumbed just about all my tour. I was in an outfit called Convoy Control; they had a base in Key West, Panama, and Cuba.



I will never forget, we came into Key West and the Captain ordered and had me send a message "We need 150 bunches of bananas at least". We had about sixty monkeys plus some apes or whatever you call those bigger ones on board. (They were for a wildlife preserve owned by one of the Roosevelts)



The ship was loaded with we had smelted copper bars and palm oil out of Africa. It had been built to haul tung oil out of the orient. There was a fine crew on there. I loved everyone that I had anything to do with. They treated me like a King and they gave me my own room and bathroom. These Norwegians hated the Germans. This ship left Oslo, Norway, the day the Germans moved in.



I stayed at Key West two or three days and fussed with them and fussed them. I kept telling them that Carl Vinson was our Secretary of the Navy and he was from my District and that I was going to call him. I always tried to wear my hat square and be a good Navy man. I got into a lot of real situations that were real bad. One was that I couldn't even get on a Base and get any food. The Navy had a place there that I could sleep. After fussing, I got over the fence and got something to eat. I got a man to write me a note saying "Let this man in and out whenever he wants to," After about a few days, they put me on a ship, US Kansan and back to Trinidad. I stayed there two or three days. I had to carry my entire luggage plus a lot of signal equipment.



The US was not ready for this war. I left Trinidad and went back to Key West. After two or three days, they put me on a British ship, Cromarty sailing under the British flag. We came to New York, then back to Guantanamo Bay. I was the only American on board. We had a strange kind of thing to happen. I would flash the lights and hoist the flag and things that the Commodore would tell me to do. There was always one American signalman on every ship regardless of what country it was from to tell the Captain of the Ship how the Navy wanted him to do. I had two good buddies when I was in the Navy. The Captain went ashore and came back laughing and said "Some man over there asked me about you being on this ship and said he'd give me every map of this whole area if I'd get you ashore." He was working in the Hydro Graphics office and he was my friend. We went on to New York and up the Hudson River and stayed there one week. The British Captain went ashore (we had to buy our food). He came back and said that they had us down as being lost at sea for a week. The Captain and his ship were going to Nova Scotia, I told him, "Nobody's told me what to do, I don't know." The next morning, I was ready to go. We went up through the East River and there was a place there where we took on a new pilot. He said, "I expect you better get off. I don't know where we're going or what you're going to do." I got off and the Coast Guard got me and kept me all day under house arrest.







I didn't have any ID; I didn't have any orders. They wanted to know why an American sailor was on a British ship. I could talk all day about that day! I told them I had heard of the Armed Guard Center over in Brooklyn. I was not in the Armed Guard, but I thought that's where I need to be. I called the Armed Guard Center and decided that's where I should be. They sent me by boat to La Guardia Air Port. There was a Naval Intelligence Officer there. I was there an hour or so and a good looking lady came by in a Limousine and picked me up and took me to the Armed Guard Center in Brooklyn. I asked to see the Admiral. He said I'll take you to the Commander in charge in the morning, but don't talk ugly to him. I spent the night and the next morning, I did go see the Commander. I told him about not having any ID, orders, etc. and about a lot of the men who went to school with me that were washing dishes, etc. and were not doing what they were trained for. He said, "I've been in the Navy for forty-two years and I've never heard such a tale as the one you're telling me right now!" He told me that he would get in touch with the Bureau of Personnel this morning and he did. I told him I wanted to go back to Trinidad. Early the next morning they put me on a ship, the Jonathan Edwards, a Liberty Ship. This was the only liberty ship I ever served on. We were going to Trinidad but we got down south of Florida somewhere and got orders by blinker light to go to Panama. I told the Captain what the man said on the big ship. He said, "I'm not going to Panama, I'm going to Trinidad." Here's an old Captain who hadn't been to sea in fourteen years. I told him that was my orders and I called the Commodore on the big ship and asked him to repeat the message. It came back the same, "Go to Panama." We got down to Guantanamo, they shot a line with something like a syrup bucket on the end of it and again the written orders were for us to go to Panama. So we went to Panama. Again, I got off. I didn't know where to go and what to do. I still don't have a dog tag, ID card nor any orders. There was Ensign there and he gave me a fit for getting off in dungarees. I told him I was in the working part of this thing. Anyway, he took me out to the Navy Base and let me in and locked the gate. They fed me well that night though and the next morning I went to the canteen and some fellow was in there, I asked where the personnel office was and he told me to stay there a few minutes and he would take me. About fifteen minutes later, he put me in his jeep went about a mile to the personnel office. We got inside and he went around behind the desk and said, "You're speaking to the personnel officer of this Base." I explained my story to him and he said he had never heard of such a thing. He called a man downtown and talked ugly to him and said, "I want this man off this base". "Get him a way to go and get him off the base." I called a man, Dennard Collins living there in Panama from Dudley, Georgia. He had moved there when I was in the second grade. He came and picked me up and took me to a club and showed me a good time. I got back on that Base and stayed there about two days. The man from downtown called me up and said, "I've got you a way to go." He put me on the Gulf Disc, the largest tanker that Gulf Oil Corporation had. I went to Curiso Islands, a Dutch Island. I got off the ship and found someone who could speak English and asked them if they would call the Gulf Oil Company. I called the Gulf Oil Company and they sent a big limousine down and picked me up and took me to their office and talked with me. They told me they didn't have a Navy Base but that there was a Navy man down at Fort Willihemstad Guard, a Dutch Port. They took me down there and again; he gave me a fit about not having any ID or orders or the proper attire. He sent me out to the Army Base. They wore the World War I outfits and drank water out of lister bag and had the latrines. I didn't like that; I wasn't use to that in the Navy. There was man that came by everyday; I won't ever forget him. He had two years at Annapolis and probably got kicked out, I don't know. He had a Law Degree from University of Virginia and he was on my side. He was mad because he was on the Island and couldn't get off. But he got me a ride on the United States Transport Columbia. I went into Trinidad and got off that ship with all my gear and got on an ox cart looking thing and had them take me to the Base. When I got to the Base, they met me with two buckets that had a whole pie in each bucket. Every one of the men there including Duggan had got a promotion in rank. They were shouting, clapping hands and very happy! I was for a few days and they put me on the Empire Ballard, a British ship to New York.



I was born with a hernia; it was bad (the Army had turned me down with a 4F). The Navy took me but standing all day long on those decks I was having a fit. I went to see a Dr. in Brooklyn and he told me, "Man, yeah you need to get something done about this." He sent me to the Brooklyn Navy Hospital. I got to come home to Dudley from the hospital and went back. The weather was horrible when I went back to Brooklyn. It was January and it was freezing. I had pneumonia and almost died. Dr. Solly was the head Doctor there in Brooklyn but later came to Dublin I understand. Next, they sent me to Baltimore and put me on the SS George Washington, a big, big Passenger Liner to Trinidad. That was a tremendous amount of activity all up and down the East Coast involving German submarines.



They told us that the East Coast of the United States was completely closed in for three days, the Germans dropped demolition mines that was activated through magnetism. That war was horrible! I got back to Trinidad and they put me on the same ship, the Columbia. The United States Army Transport that they had named the Brigidare General Harry F. Rethers. I was in good shape there because they had an Army gun crew and we ran by ourselves. I wasn't really even needed. A few times, I put up a flag and answered airplanes or something like that. We went to British Guinea and Dutch Guinea. I was there for a few weeks and went back to Trinidad but I don't remember the name of the one I was on but it was a nice one. It was taken from Germany during World War I. They had cleaned it up and it was in A-1 shape. I got to New York and they told me I had plenty of time. I went over to the Signal Shack and I had plenty of points to go home, but we've got to have sailors, we have sent for sixty five today that had gone home. They assigned me to a tanker, the Axtel J. Byers. Our first trip was to Russia; British Isles, Scotland and we left there on my birthday, September 15, 1943. We lost nine ships, I didn't know if I would ever see Dudley again! Horrible! Horrible! I had seen ships blown up before but this was a terrible situation. We got back to New York and I thought they would let us go home. They sent us straight to Tampa, Florida for dry dock because this ship had been torpedoed before I had gotten on it. We had some Navy men on board, but I was responsible to the Merchant Captain.

My job was to keep him happy. We got along fine. So I got to come home for two or three days.



When I got back, we made two or three trips into the Mediterranean, three to the British Isles, five to Venezuela and eight or ten times to the Texas area.



A lot of things happened in between all this but these were the ships I was on and the places that I went. My last ship was an oil tanker and one thing about it, you see the sea. I was on this oil tanker the last two years of my tour of duty.



I was discharged September 14, 1945.



Note: I asked about my ID and dog tags many times, it was an unusual situation. I was actually in jail a time or two because of not having dog tags and ID. But they never did do anything about it. One time I was asleep over in Scotland and they came to my door and hollered, "Duggan". They were checking ID and I didn't have any so they took me straight on to jail.



The oil tankers were the more dangerous ships to be on.



Tetanus shots were recorded on your dog tags and since I didn't have one, I had to have extra tetanus shots.



My father was James Jackson Weaver. My mother was Nancy Pauline Duggan. There were eight children.



My wife is Beatrice "Bea" E. Bowles from Louisville, Kentucky. Her dad was Stanley M. Bowles and mother Iva E. Major, both from Bullock County, Kentucky.



Bea and I have two children, Jerry Duggan Weaver and Ellen Louise Weaver Ladue. We have four grandchildren.

W.T. VERNON SANDERS

Interview with W. T. Vernon Sanders


World War II Veteran

By Kimsey M. "Mac" Fowler

July 25, 2000



Mr. Vernon Sanders was born July 12, 1921 on Moore Street in Dublin, GA. He attended New Bethel Grammar School and graduated from Dublin High School in 1941. After graduation, he was employed by an Air Conditioning Company in Raleigh, North Carolina. His company was installing air conditioning in Durham Life Insurance Company building, located between the Post Office and the Sir Walter Hotel in Durham, N.C.



When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Mr. Sanders was off and heard the news on the radio. He was drafted December 18, 1942 and reported to Fort McPherson, GA. His Dad was farming in Laurens County and suffered a stroke. Vernon was reclassified to limited service, assigned to mail and office clerk. He obtained an early discharge March 16, 1944 at Ft. Baker, CA to come back and continue his Dad's farm operation.



He was sent to Ft. Ord, CA from Ft. McPherson for basic training. His outfit was rushed through basic training because they were needed overseas. During training, Vernon's outfit went to the Catalina Islands in the Pacific to practice engineering skills. Upon completion of basic training, he was assigned to the 50th Combat Engineering Company, which was part of the 6th Coastal Artillery Battery. As strange as it might sound, at this time, he was stationed under the Golden Gate Bridge. He remembers everyone having a Password to get in and out of the post



Vernon developed pneumonia and was hospitalized at Ft. Ord, when his outfit was shipped overseas. He missed that trip, making his discharge easier.



One thing that Vernon related was that while a target being pulled by boats was being shot at with 3" shells, the cable pulling the target was shot and severed during practice.



Vernon stated that he enjoyed being stationed in California and realizes it has changed now.



Vernon returned home by train after being discharged in 1944.



William Thomas Vernon Sanders parents were William Walter Sanders and Lillian Vasti Pope.



Vernon married Jacquelyn Lula Goodman, December 21, 1946, daughter of Walker Talmadge Goodman and Bessie Mae Davis Whittle Goodman.



Vernon and Jackie had four children:

Ernie Vernon Sanders

Darenda Joy Sanders

Kevin Walker Sanders

Keith Walter Sanders

(Kevin and Keith were twins)



He has six grandchildren.



Vernon Sanders related that his grandfather, Thomas Brown Sanders, fought and lost a leg in the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia during the Civil War.

LEE ROY ROZIER

World War II Interview


23 September, 2000

By: Kimsey M. "Mac" Fowler

Typed By: Jimmie B. Fowler



Lee Roy Rozier

1243 Carver Street

Dublin, GA 31021







I was December 6, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.



I was drafted into the Army when I lived in Newnan, Georgia. I was selling insurance there. I went to Fort Benning for my basic training.

I was sent to Casablanca in Northern Africa for several months. The fighting part of the war was over in Africa when I was there. All of our travels from one location to the other in Europe were by sea.



From there I was assigned to Leghorn (also called Livorno), Italy for about nineteen months. My job in the service was clerical and supply work. The ships would come in to the dock and my responsibility was to keep records of the supplies coming in and issued.



I was in France and stayed there until the war ended in Europe.



At this time we were being sent to the Far East to help with the war in the Pacific. On the way over we received word that the war was over and we went on to the Philippines anyway. We stayed there approximately three months before sailing back to the US through the Panama Canal to Texas. We made this trip on a Liberty Ship and fortunately it was not very crowded. I went to Atlanta from Texas by train and was discharged there.



I was twenty-seven years old when I was drafted.



My rank was Tech Sgt.4.



While I was in service my wife returned to Dublin and this is where I settled when I got discharged. This was home for both of us.



After being discharged, I started to work at Robins Air Force where I retired in 1976.



My father was Lee Rozier. My mother was Carrie Belle. My wife, Carrie Lawrence is deceased. We had no children, but we helped to take care of a lot of them.



PLEASE NOTE: Mr. Rozier is 85 years old and didn't remember too well. Therefore, his interview was rather short.

J. ROY ROWLAND, JR.

World War II Interview


September 20, 2000

By: Kimsey M. "Mac" Fowler

Typed By: Jimmie B. Fowler

Dr. James Roy Rowland, Jr.

103 Woodridge Rd.

Dublin, GA 31021







I remember very vividly what I was doing on Sunday afternoon, December 7, 1941. I was working on the high school newspaper in Wrightsville at the High School that I graduated from. I was coming out of the school building that afternoon. Mrs. J. C. Oliff, who was the wife of the Superintendent of the School, came running across the road and shouting to us, "The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor." I didn't really understand the full impact at that time. I knew the territory of Hawaii was under the control of the United States Government. I didn't realize at the time how that was going to affect my life. It certainly made a big difference. After high school I went off to college for a couple quarters and then I ended up in the Army.



I enlisted because so many of the guys my age were enlisting and thought it was something I should do also. I enlisted to go into the Army Specialized Training Program. But at that time there was a lot of casualties and there were a lot of young people enlisting in the Navy and Air Force. Actually the Army needed some additional people to replace those who were being killed and wounded in Europe and in the Pacific. The Army Specialty Training Program at that time was really a subterfuge to get young people into the Army. I shall always remember that I was processed at Ft. McPherson, GA. I was put on a troop train at night. The next morning at daylight, we got off the train, fell into formation beside the train and the officer got up on a platform and said, "I want all of you to know that you are in an IRTC Program (Infantry Replacement Training Center). You are to train for the next seventeen weeks to replace those casualties that are occurring in Europe and the Pacific."



So for seventeen weeks we were in Basic Training at Camp Blanding, Florida and then I was assigned to the 13th Armored Division in Camp Bowie, Texas. This was August 1944.



The Division was mobilized and in December we were loaded on a train and taken to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, a Port of embarkation.

It was a staging area.



We boarded the Liberty Ships in December and crossed the Atlantic in a convoy and landed in Le Havre, France early in January 1945. My ship was the "General Black" as I recall. We were down in the hole of the ship and there were ten bunks on top of each other with just enough room to squeeze into the bunk. You almost couldn't turn over, particularly if the one above you was heavy. You would almost have to get out to turn over.



We had a couple of submarine scares and were cautioned to keep absolutely quiet and not tap on the hull of the ship. It was pretty scary!



This was my first opportunity to see what the destruction of war was really like. Le Havre was absolutely destroyed. All the buildings were bombed down and it was a mass of twisted metal. It was really awesome to look at. And I had never seen so much snow! It was about six feet deep. That was a lot of snow for a small town boy from middle Georgia. It was really cold! I couldn't believe how cold it was.



I was a rifleman in Company A, 16th Armored Infantry Battallion, 13th Armored Division. We went to a staging area in Normandy not far from Rouen, France and spent about six weeks there getting all our equipment together.



Then we loaded up in our half-tracks and went south toward Zwiebrucken, Germany and Saarbrucken, France where the siegfried line was. That's where our artillery first got into combat on the German-French border. We went north in the half-tracks covering a lot of territory pretty fast and went into the Rhur Valley.



This was the industrial area of Germany and it had been bombed unbelievably. There were a lot of cleaning-up operations because the Germans still had a strong hold on that area and we spent a couple or three weeks in the Rhur Valley trying to secure those areas.



After that, we came south to Barvaria and General Patton's 3rd Army and were involved in combat for about a month in clean-up operations in Southern Germany.



We went to Austria. (This was May 8, 1945.) The war ended there for us. We were about fifteen or twenty miles from Salzsburg, Austria. This was a terrifying time! There was a lot of anxiety going on. We all knew pretty well that the war was coming to an end, but I guess what was going on in everybody's mind was "Am I going to be the last one to get killed in this war?" So there was a lot of apprehension as well as a lot of relief when it finally ended.



I have heard the life of an Infantrymen described as "Long periods of boredom interspersed by periods of sheer terror." That's exactly what it was. We would ride and ride and wait and wait and ride and then all of a sudden we'd be in contact with the enemy. It was unbelievable terror.

We were in the Army of Occupation for several months and then left Europe in early July 1945. We arrived back in the States around the 20th of July. We were in Germany from May until July. Our orders were that we'd get a thirty-day leave and then report to Camp Cook California for processing and cross the Pacific in LST's for the Invasion of Japan.



I've read a lot about the use of the Atomic bomb and read articles of opposition but I don't believe I would be sitting here talking to you, if it had not been for that Atomic bomb. It was an awful thing to happen, so many people were killed and the radiation problems that followed for years and years.



But there would have been thousands of military people from our country not to mention the countless number of Japanese military and civilians as well, if we had to invade that island.



We were in Camp Cook California for staging to cross the Pacific. I guess the military was trying to make arrangements as quickly as they could to discharge as many people as they could. I was just sitting there waiting. I was anxious to get out, I wanted to come back home and go to school. In the meantime, on my thirty-day furlough Luella and I got married on August 3, 1945. So I was anxious to get back home. I got transferred from Camp Cook to Ft. McPherson to the Military Police there. I spent the last couple or three months in the Military Police at Ft. McPherson. I was discharged there in May 1946.



When I was at Camp Cook, I got a couple of furloughs to come home by train. It took about five days to get to Macon. It was hot, no air conditioning, windows open, coal burning locomotive and no opportunity for a bath. The soot and grime were awful, but I did make a couple trips. We'd do anything to get home for a few days!



I couldn't get into the University of Georgia in Athens because of the many Veterans' coming back so I went a couple quarters at South Georgia College, Douglas. Then I went to the University of Georgia to do pre-med and then got into the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. When I first came back I knew what I wanted to do, but had difficulty getting into college (even South Georgia).



I was a city mail carrier for a little while. The regular mail carrier, my Scout Master when I was in the Scouts had to have surgery so I took his place for a few months before getting back in school.



After Medical School, I did a couple years of internship and residency in Macon and then went to Swainsboro for six months. In 1954, I came to Dublin to practice with Dr. John A. Bell and this is where we have been since then.

An opportunity came in 1976 to run for a State House seat while I was still practicing medicine. I made a run for it and was successful. I served three terms (six years) in the Georgia House of Representatives. I liked public service; my family has always been involved in politics.



There seemed to be an opportunity to run for a US House Seat. I did that and was successful and spent six terms (twelve years) as a U. S. Representative. It was a great experience!



I'd like to make a comment about the World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington. Recently it seems more attention has been given to World War II. It is not just the Veteran's of World War II. It was the civilian population also. It was a National unbelievable effort on the part of everybody in this country. We had rationing and everybody accepted that, and the fact is there was black market. Sugar, food, tires, gas, and clothes were rationed. A lot of people who didn't go into the military went off to work in the industrial complexes such as ship building, etc. The whole population, the military and everyone played a part. Anyone who was not a part of that doesn't understand. To talk about the World War II Memorial is really a memorial for everybody. Where they are talking about putting it on the Mall and the opposition against that is appalling to me. Because we may not even have a mall as we know it, if we had lost that war! So it is absurd when people talk about the memorial distracting from the appearance of the mall. We have a Vietnam Memorial, a Korean Memorial and all the wars we have been involved in has a memorial and I think the mall is the place where the World War II Memorial should be.



My father was James Roy Rowland, Sr., a lawyer and always involved in politics. He was District Attorney and a Superior Court Judge.



My mother, Jerradine Marilyn Brinson was from Wrightsville. She was Director of the Welfare Department (now DFACS). My grandfather on my mother's side was a pharmacist, his father was a physician, and he had a brother who was a physician and another brother who was a pharmacist. So I kind of leaned in that direction.



My father's family was in politics. My grandfather on my father's side was in the State Senate and State House.



So the medical and political field came natural.



My wife, Luella Price and her family lived in the country at New Home. Her father was Travis L. Price, Sr. and her mother, Zona. Luella came to Wrightsville for her last two years in high school and we were classmates. That's how we met.



We have three children, Mary Lou, Jane, and James Roy III. We have five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.



I have a brother, Joe, an attorney in Wrightsville who is also the Magistrate there.





Note: Dr. Rowland's memorabilia include a shadow box filled with the following:



A Bronze Star Medal awarded for Meritorious Achievement in Ground Combat against the armed enemy during World War II in the European-African-Middle Eastern Theater of Operations. (copy of Citation attached)



A second Bronze Star medal awarded for Military service in line of combat.



Campaign ribbon of the European Theater of Operations with two Campaign Stars, one for the Rhiland and the other for Central Europe.



"Ruptured Duck" lapel pin that was given at time of discharge.



Combat Infantryman badge



Medal for sharp shooter as Rifleman



American Theater Medal



Victory Medal



Good conduct Medal

RAYMOND PALEN

World War II Interview


By: Kimsey M. "Mac" Fowler

Typed By: Jimmie B. Fowler

October 5, 2000



Raymond "Ray" Nelson Palen

228 Ridge Circle

Dublin, GA 31021



On December 7, 1941 I was in Hagaman, New York painting the kitchen ceiling for my Mother. The radio was on and I heard about the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. I was in High School at the time. Graduation was in 1942 and I knew then the way things were going with the War that it wouldn't be long before I was drafted. I favored the Army and was going to request it at induction. The draft notice was received in February 1943.



I was called to serve in April 1943, shipped to Camp Upton, New York for induction. From there to Atlantic City for Basic Training, then to New York Trade School for a basic introduction to electricity.



The next stop was Jefferson Barracks, Missouri for Overseas Training. As an aside I wondered why we spent so much time training on cargo nets. I found out later at our final destination. I came to appreciate the training.



From Jefferson Barracks, we were shipped to Camp Stoneman, California. After being there for a month doing nothing, we inquired about our pay. They said, "Wow, are you guys still here? We need to move you out!"





We shipped out for Hawaii in December 1943 for Hawaii ending up at Hickam Field adjacent to Pearl Harbor, where more than half of the Navy in the Pacific was destroyed. We ended up on the second floor of a Barracks at Hickam, which had taken some hits from the Japanese bombers. The stairs were o.k. but the floor was full of craters, which we had to dodge to find a clearing to set up our cots. That was interesting because there were no lights and once it got dark flashlights were taboo.



I was assigned to a Signal Section of the Air Corps. Our duties consisted of keeping an inventory and filling orders for radio, radar tubes, parts, etc.



In December 1944 a group of us were shipped to a small airfield in central Oahu. There the 621st Air Material was being formed to later join up with a Headquarters Squadron and an Engineering Squadron which was designated the 363rd Service Group to be assigned to the VIIth Fighter Command. Among the personal items we were issued was an extra third blanket. This kept us guessing as to where we were going. In Hawaii one blanket was satisfactory. We joked that they were just loading us down.



January 1945 saw our group shipped out of Honolulu, destination unknown. We joined a convoy of other APA's (personnel assault ships) cargo ships, an aircraft carrier, cruisers, and destroyers. We were given a good tour of the Pacific zigzagging around for thirty plus days. We had one stop during that time at a small island for some R & R for one big day.



The speed of the convoy slowed down after those thirty plus days and didn't pick up speed. Our first indication we were there. We dropped anchor and were told we were off the coast of Iwo Jima, (big surprise to me because I had never heard of the place).



We were allowed to go out on deck some (could see the shoreline in the distance, a lot of smoke and could hear what sounded like blasting). We were informed that we would be going ashore as soon as the island was declared secure. During our waiting time, the air raid warning would sound indicating we were under attack. The Japanese had an air base a Chichi Jima and would send aircraft down to drop a few bombs. They were more of a nuisance than a threat. I never heard of any damage from them.



I don't recall the date but we were told that Admiral Nimentz had declared the island secure and we were going ashore early the next morning. I shall always recall that morning as we had all our personal belongings on our backs. As a squad leader I also had a submachine gun loaded and an additional ninety rounds of ammo in a bag around my neck. This is where I really appreciated the training on cargo nets, as we had to go over the side down to this landing craft bobbing in the ocean. I made it over and down the net with no problems. A number of our people threw their leg over and ended up in the landing craft. I was to learn later that what Admiral Nimitz declared secure was somewhat different than my definition.



As soon as we landed we were told to move up the beach as fast as we could and dig a good big foxhole and get in it. We were in and out of the foxhole for about a week while the Marines cleared the area where we were to set up camp at airstrip # 2. The Seabees were starting work on the strip. Once we moved up to our assigned area we had to dig new foxholes. Four people worked on each using steel mesh sheets for the top and sandbags on top of the mesh. (The steel mesh was left at the beach by the Marines who used them for footing in the volcanic ash.)



Since we had been there we were on K rations (dry) which we carried with us. About the time we were issued C ration (canned) some of the fellows found some bags of Japanese rice. We all turned in our cans of beef stew to the mess Sgt. He boiled up the rice mixed it with the beef stew and that was our first hot meal on Iwo. There was no fresh water on the island and all the water was brought in 55 gal. Drums. We had a canteen of fresh water a day. We drank it, washed with it and cleaned our teeth.



The Japanese would come out of the caves in the evening looking for food and water. Many mornings at sunrise we would climb out of our shelters and find them dead in our area. One night we heard more gun fire than normal and learned that a group of Japanese came out of their caves, got behind the guards on duty and killed a good number of our pilots. It was a real blow to our fighter group.

A Marine approached me, at one of the Iwo Jima Reunions I attend. Seeing I was with the Air Corps asked me how this could ever happen. I had no answer.



Meanwhile the Marines continued to dig the enemy out of the caves using the old fashioned steam shovels, flame throwers, and the P-51's'of our group using bombs. Another Marine whom I met at a convention told me that the P-51's'sure helped them out. The enemy was well fortified and the forty-five days of bombing and shelling prior to the invasion had not disturbed them. They were so well holed up in those caves there was no way we could break their moral, that and the love for the Emperor.



Eventually we started getting our supplies ashore and one of the jobs I was assigned to was getting the lumber for the tent platforms to our area, our permanent quarters until December.



Another interesting aspect of living on Iwo Jima was taking a shower.

A large tank was erected at approximately ten feet and filled with hot sulfur water from the volcano, which was under the island. The water was pumped early in the morning and by early evening it would be cool for a shower.



It was necessary that we take the island of Iwo Jima because the B-29's flying with bombs to Tokyo had to take a much longer route to get to the Japanese mainland to avoid the fighters on Iwo Jima. In addition the crippled bombers returning from the mainland needed a plane to land to avoid ditching at sea. There was a tremendous loss of life on Iwo including the Marines, the 147th Infantry, the Naval Coreman and many others.



I did nothing exciting on the island. No hand to hand combat and all that I was one of the fortunate ones.



I was on Iwo Jima for the full time and on the first of December 1945 I disembarked for home. We took a northern route to the States going up to the Aleutians and down the West Coast of Canada and the U.S. That was the roughest trip I had while touring the Pacific. We were in one storm after another. We spent most of the time below deck. That didn't make for many good friends because you get on each others nerves below deck in those close quarters for eighteen days.



We disembarked at San Perdo, California and were trucked over to Camp Hahn and waited for transportation to Fort Dix, New Jersey. Our transportation to Fort Dix was by train. With my luck, I was in a coach built in the late 1800's, hard leather seats and gas lights. The last night I gave my Buddy the seat and I lay down in front of the seat with my legs out in the isle.



Each year I attend a reunion with the Veterans of Iwo Jima. It's interesting being an Air Corps member. The Marines were a rowdy bunch and at one time they wanted nothing but Marine's to attend but as we have all gotten older and mellowed, there is no friction and everyone is a buddy.



The reunions are held in the Southeastern States, any State bordering the Gulf from Texas to Florida. It's interesting to hear them tell of what they went through and the sacrifices they made.



When I returned home, I elected not to go to College. In High School I took a four-year course on the art of dyeing textile material and was lucky to get a job with Mohawk Carpet. I first worked in the dye lab and worked my way up in management jobs retiring in 1986 as Vice President Product Development.



I was from Upstate New York. My father was Hector Palen, from around Palentown, New York. My father's people worked in the carpet industry downstate.



My mother was Lillian Fisher from near the Canadian Border. Her people were dairy farmers.



My wife is the former Joyce Seward. . We were married in 1948. Her parents were Donald and Elizabeth Seward. Some of her ancestors go back to the Seward that purchased Alaska.



Joyce and I have one son, Mark and two grandsons, Christopher and Brian.



I was transferred by Mohawk Carpet to Dublin in 1982. Therefore I am qualified as a World War II Veteran from Laurens County.

WILLIAM EDISON PADGETT

World War II Interview


By: Kimsey M. "Mac" Fowler

Typed By: Jimmie B. Fowler



William Edison Padgett

970 Marley-Cannon Road

Dublin, GA 31021

25 October 2000



On December 7, 1941, I was over here in a cow pasture playing baseball when I got the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course, that was a long way from home and I didn't give it a whole lot of thought. But it is a day that has stuck with me throughout my life. I had only a vague idea where Pearl Harbor was and it didn't have any significance to me.



I was working with my family on the farm. Pearl Harbor was the big news for a long time. The way things were going, I knew that I would be in line for the draft and probably have to go into service. When that time came, I went willingly. I didn't have any second thoughts about going.



Before I was drafted, I did volunteer for the Marines at the age of seventeen. I had to get my parents to sign for me to go in and they signed under the pretense that I would take training here close to home (Paris Island, S. C.). I was anxious to get in service because I was working in the peanut field. It was hot and dry and I wanted to do anything to get out of the peanut field.



A friend of mine and I went to volunteer for the Marines and I talked my parents into signing. I found out a day or so later that I would not be going to Paris Island, South Carolina but San Diego, California instead. I didn't volunteer that information to my mom and dad but my sister told them the night before I was to ship out the next day. My mother put a stop to that! There went my Marine career and back to the peanut field!



I knew it would be a matter of time but in the meantime I got married and then the draft got me when I was nineteen. I was like everyone else; I wanted a deferment and did get one for six months. When the six months was up, I was offered another six months but I turned that one down and said, "If I have got to go, I got to go!" I took off and was inducted at Fort McPherson, Georgia. They sent me to Camp Shelby, Mississippi for basic training. After basic training we did a period of maneuvers up in Tennessee for two or three months. I was assigned to the 2756th Combat Engineering Company. By November, I was in Camp Kilmer, New Jersey preparing to go overseas. I don't remember the date we shipped out but we arrived in England on November 11, 1944. I don't know why they sent us to England but they did. On Christmas Eve night we shipped out across the English Channel and Christmas Day, the ship that I was on went up the Seine River to unload the trucks and supplies. The rest of my BN got off at Le Havre, France. I had Christmas Day lunch out of a tin can aboard ship.



We began to move across France and went to Belgium. All the fighting was ahead of us. At this time, about half of my Company including me transferred to the 44th Combat Engineers. We were right behind the front line in Belgium. Our main task was to build bridges and keep roads open, etc. instead of combat. Everybody knows about the "Battle of the Bulge". We were in Bastogne, Belgium.



As we were approaching Bastogne, the ground was covered with snow. It looked like any other innocent place that you might be. You could see where a lot of damage was done to the trees, homes, and buildings. But as the snow melted, it appeared as though none of the casualties had been moved. Where they died they were still there. Part of our duty was if we saw a body anywhere to drag it to the edge of the road so it could be picked up. It is unbelievable how many it might have been. Actually in processing these casualties, I went to a point where they were collecting them. They came in by truckloads and were still frozen.



They had them stacked like cordwood. It was an unbelievable sight. Later on, I did see some first hand combat but I'm a lucky man that I am here today. I got back home without a scratch.



We left Belgium and went back into Germany and went to the Moselle River. We made an assault landing across the Moselle.

We put the infantry across that river in boats. The Germans were across on the other bank because we had to do all this under artillery fire trying to move them back so they could get off the boats and be safe. Then we moved to the Rhein River. According to my information, my outfit put the first bridge across the Rhein River and this took place during the time that Patton supposedly swam the Rhein River down at Cologne, Germany. We were up above where this was taking place. We got the word the next day or so about Patton's famous swim.



After we put this equipment across the river, this bridge was left intact.

A lot of troops and equipment used this bridge after us.

I saw my closest combat from then on for the next two or three weeks. This was in the area of Koblenz, Germany. I saw a lot of casualties, we lost some men. Apparently, the German soldier's moral was getting low; they were getting pretty disorganized. I was involved in unarming a BN of German soldiers that was right on our heels. They gave up and sent us word that they were willing to surrender. About fifteen men went out and disarmed the entire BN of German soldiers. They had their arms stacked when we got there waiting on us. They could have killed us all, but by this time, they realized they had lost the war.



I heard the reason our 3rd Army (Patton's Army) took such a beating they got low on fuel and they were pinned down. As soon as they got fuel they were on the move again. Patton was known for moving real fast. A little story that I heard was that one day someone walked up to General Eisenhower and asked "where's Patton?" Ike's reply was "I don't know, I haven't heard from him in thirty minutes." They called Patton "Blood and guts".



I was not involved in liberating any consecration camps. After the war, we traveled around Germany a good bit. I went through Nurnberg and into Czechoslovakia in a convoy. We moved pretty fast, too.



We had heard rumors that the war was over but it took two or three days to get the official word. We remained hopeful but in doubt that it was so. I had kept a diary all through my service time and as soon as the war was over, I was unfortunate to have to go to the hospital because my feet had gotten frozen. They sent me to Oldenburg, Germany and flew me to Paris, France to the hospital for thirty days.

It took about two or three weeks to get back to my outfit. They had moved to Marseille, France (a sea port town). We traveled all over Germany and France trying to catch up with them. I finally got back with my outfit. I had left all my personal belongings with my Company when I went to the hospital and it got lost. All I had was what I had on. I never did see them again. So my diary was gone! That was disappointing.



I came back through Camp Kilmer, New Jersey to Fort Bragg, North Carolina to be discharged.



I left North Carolina one afternoon and got to Augusta, Georgia about nine o'clock. I checked the bus schedules and the next buses heading toward Dublin was the next day, so I negotiated with a taxi driver to bring me to Dublin. I didn't stay in Augusta long, the taxi driver and I came to Dublin!



All this time, I made up my mind that I didn't know what my career might be but I knew what it wasn't going to be. It would not be farming! I let that be known. I stayed around here about twelve months and then got a job in Macon at Georgia Kraft Company and retired in 1986 after thirty-eight years.



I bought my parent's farm in 1970 and in 1986, I moved back on the farm. I have cattle but no row cropping.

My parents were Lucian McNatt Padgett and Anna Mae Couey Padgett. I have one son, Mark T. Padgett. I lost a daughter, Vickie Lynn in 1972 when she was six and one half years old.



I have no grandchildren.



Note: Mr. Padgett was able to ship back two rifles at the end of the war. One was an Italian Rifle with a bayonet on it and the other was a 22 caliber German Rifle. Mr. Padgett understood that the 22 is what the German youth were trained with.