Oral history interview of James Carr Grizzard, Jr.

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of James Carr Grizzard, Jr.
Creator:: Bruckner, William Joseph
Grizzard, James Carr, 1941-2012
Date of Original:: 2004-09-01
Subject:: Atomic bomb
Rationing
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Europe
Grizzard, James Carr, 1910-2001
LeCraw, Roy, 1895-1985
Finch, George G., 1902-1986
Standard Candy Company (Tenn.)
Grizzard Advertising Company (Atlanta, Ga.)
Emory University. Lamar School of Law
Georgia. National Guard
Georgia. Air National Guard
Great Britain. Army. Army, Eighth
Location:: Italy, Reggio di Calabria, 38.1035389, 15.6397556
Republic of Albania, 41.0, 20.0
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Cobb County, Dobbins Air Reserve Base, 33.919538, -84.51632
United States, Tennessee, Davidson County, Nashville, 36.16589, -86.78444
United States, Virginia, City of Charlottesville, Charlottesville, 38.02931, -78.47668
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Jimmy Grizzard recalls the World War II experiences of his late father, James Carr Grizzard. His father was an Army officer in Europe during World War II. Both of his grandfathers served in the Confederate Army, so service was considered a duty. His father had earned a law degree and was urged to join the Army by a friend who had been commissioned to establish the Georgia Air National Guard. His first duty was flying combat missions out of Louisiana, patrolling for enemy submarines in the Gulf of Mexico. He was an observer in a single-engine, single-wing aircraft that carried three people; a pilot, radio officer and observer. He was then ordered to a military government school. His next post was North Africa, where he worked with a British Army unit and he describes the difficulties experienced there. As part of the invasion of Sicily, he was placed in charge of a town and tasked to "bury the dead, feed the living and keep the civilians out of the way of the military." He planted the first American flag on European soil during the war and describes moving up the boot of Italy from Ravenna to Naples and Rome. His father was appointed the military governor of Sicily and describes many experiences he had in carrying out those duties. His father became commanding officer of the Georgia Air National Guard.
James Carr Grizzard, Jr.'s father, James Carr Grizzard, was an Army officer in Europe during World War II.
INTERVIEW OF JIMMY GRIZZARD, JR. AT THE ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER BRUCKNER: My name is Joe Bruckner. It's September 1, 2004. We are at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia and I'm interviewing Mr. Jimmy Grizzard about the experiences of his father in World War II and his military service. Mr. Grizzard's father is deceased and Mr. Grizzard has kindly agreed to come and talk to us so that we can put this information on file with The Atlanta History Center and The Library of Congress. Would you state your name please sir? GRIZZARD My name is Jimmy Grizzard, Jr. BRUCKNER: And Mr. Grizzard could you give us your address and date of birth? GRIZZARD: 3027 Leesburg Trail, Woodstock, GA and my date of birth is 8/21/41. BRUCKNER: We really appreciate you coming in here today and discussing your father's experiences and I'll be asking you about his up bringing, his military training, his military service and his life in general. Would you tell us a little bit about your dad's upbringing—where he was born and his family? GRIZZARD: Yeah, he was born in Nashville, Tennessee on November 2, 1910. His father at the time, my Grandpa, worked for the Standard Candy Company in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a traveling candy salesman. They lived there until my father was in his mid-teens and my Grandfather bought a letter service in Atlanta, Georgia and they moved from Nashville to Atlanta at that time. It became The Grizzard Advertising Company which is still in business today. They had lived in Atlanta from that time on and he attended Boys' High which is now Grady School. It was Boys' High at the time and he graduated high school there. Then he went to Emory University for his under graduate degree and in 1935 or 1936 he graduated from the L. Q. Lamar School of Law at Emory University. At that time he started practicing law in Atlanta and he subsequently went to work for the Mayor of Atlanta as his Executive Secretary that was Mayor Roy McCraw, before World War II. During his tenure as Executive Secretary to Mayor McCraw, he joined the Georgia National Guard as a private; he was encouraged to do this by a man named George Finch who was a lawyer in Atlanta. He told dad that the war was coming, this was in the late 30's, that the war was coming and that it would be a good idea if he joined the National Guard at that time. Which he did. BRUCKNER: What year was this? GRIZZARD: It was in the late 30's, I think about 37 or 38. Time marches on and Major Finch goes to Washington and gets a commission from the United States Government to form the Georgia Air National Guard and he came back and of course all of his lawyers friends in Atlanta, Atlanta at that time was an overgrown small town—everybody knew everybody else and it was no part of the vast metropolis that it is now. But Major Finch got together with all of his lawyer friends and he sat down and said, “All right, I'm going to be the Commander of the Georgia Air National Guard and you are going to be a Lieutenant and you're going to be a Captain and you're going to be a Lieutenant—and so forth and so on—and so he literally out of his own head organized the Georgia Air National Guard. Dad was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and very shortly after that he was called in 1940 to active duty. He's job at the time was as an observer in an 3-seat airplane—I say 3-seats, it had 2 seats and a compartment. This was a single engine, single wing airplane that had a pilot and a radio operator and a observer. The observer laid in a____ buckle underneath the airplane and he laid on his belly and looked down out of the airplane to observe what was going on. They sent him to Louisiana and he flew 30 combat missions in 1940 and 1941 over the Gulf of Mexico looking for German submarines. Well, luckily he never found any—but he got 30 combat missions for that tour of duty. BRUCKNER: Going back to when he went into the service—how did his family fell about that or his parents—were they redundant? GRIZZARD: Oh no, no, no! No! My family has always been very, very patriotic and service has been a hallmark of the Grizzards. Both of this Grandfathers' served in the Confederate Army. One of them as a Cavalry Officers under Major ____. So it was no—I suppose it wasn't even any question that he would—if he was needed—that he would volunteer for that. BRUCKNER: Okay, so now he's gotten his 30 mission ins…what happened then? GRIZZARD: And he's a Captain now—he's been promoted twice to Captain and being an Attorney he's decided that he didn't want to spend the rest of World War II however long that was going to be—flying around on his belly in an airplane looking for German submarines. So he applied to the—there was a call for people to volunteer for the Military Government School at Charlottesville, Virginia. He was accepted; it was an honor because it was one of those things where several hundreds applied any only 1 out of 10 or 2 out of 10 or whatever it was got selected. He was actually the youngest and the one lowest ranked in the school. He was in the second class at Charlottesville. He took his military government training there and sometime during that time I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. This is 1941. Before the war in American had started. Well, of course, in December when the war started; he was already on active duty. He had been on active duty since the 40's. He was assigned to the Military Government Core. Well his job was going to be to administer occupied territories after the combat troops got through taken enemy territory. Well, of course, in 1941 we hadn't taken any enemy territory—we were being pushed back on all fronts at that time; so he was sent to the Pentagon for duty. And I think maybe he was in military intelligence because he never would talk about it. It was one of those things he would say, “I can't tell you and don't ask”. So, after that he was assigned to the Military Government Core and was shipped to North Africa. While he was in North Africa the allies were just bringing to nations armies together in the case, the British in this case, the British 8th Army and in the American case, the American 2nd Core. And there were a lot of problems involved in melding these two armies into a fighting force that could be commanded centrally. One of the things they did is they took accessory personnel—people who were not in combat units—and they tried to move them from the American Army to the British Army and the British Army to the American Army to sort of meld the idea that we were all one outfit/one unit. In North Africa he was second to the British 8th Army as a Liaison Officer and his job in North Africa—he didn't have a job—because North Africa was not a enemy territory; so he was waiting on an invasion to somewhere. He got to the British Army and of course it was a change, a drastic change. One of the changes was that the British Officers, all of them, got _____. That was sort of ____. Even Second Lieutenants' in the British Army get an ___. That was a new wrinkle ____ get anything close to that. And, then the British Army issued every officer an emperor quart of scotch whiskey every month. Well dad said in the American Army, in his experience, the offices got a quart, just a regular quart of bourbon and the minute they got it they drank it all. But in the British Army you took your quart of Whiskey, your emperor quart, which is more than a regular quart and you took it to the officer's mess and they took possession of it and put your name on it and if you wanted to take a friend to the Officer's Club for a drink; then you could draw off of your own issued supplies there. And that appealed to him so he took a good look around and decided that he liked the British Army real well. Subsequently of course, history will tell that the allies moved from North Africa to Sicily and there they ___ first job; he was in charge of a small town that had been of course devastated by the Germans and in his book that The Atlanta History Center has a copy of, he describes in great detail his job… BRUCKNER: Would you give the name of the book? GRIZZARD: Oh yes, the book is The War Was More Than Roar of the Cannon, a story of allied occupation of Italy. Dad's job as a military government officer was this, when the combat troops moved through an area and drove the Germans, in this case, back the Italian Army has pretty much designated in North Africa and by the time the invasion of Sicily came along, the Italian Army was almost not a consideration. It was all the Germans that the allies were fighting. BRUCKNER: And what was the time period of this? GRIZZARD: This was in late 1942-1943. Late 1942. Early 1943. Late 1942. Late 1942. So he went along on the invasion of Sicily and was given his first town to administer… BRUCKNER: I'd like to ask you a question. Did he ever talk about how he felt when he was first told he was getting ready to go, in fact to invade Italy, he was still in Africa and he got the orders to head out. Did he ever talk about his feelings; either fear or excitement? GRIZZARD: It was trepidation more than anything else. Not for fear that he would get hurt or anything like that, because his job was not normally to be in the first wave assault, he was suppose to follow-on after the territory had been taken. But, as he says in his book, the job that he had to do was no part of the training that he had gotten in Charlottesport. And he looked at these people, he didn't speak the language, he didn't know anything about their culture ____, and he was, before it happened he was very concerned that he would be equal to doing this job particularly since this outfit that he was in which was called “AMGOT” that is the Allied Military Government Occupation Territory. It was sort of a well we need these but we don't know exactly how to do it. They put him ashore in Sicily, he didn't have any transportation, he didn't have any troops under him, he didn't have anything, he showed up in this town alone! In fact, he was dropped off in a truck and then the truck left him. So, here he was alone in this town full of dead bodies and dead animals and destroyed buildings. And people that had fled the scene in the beginning were infiltrating back into the town and his job his primarily job was actually, well he said in his book, “to bury the dead, feed the living but his job was to keep the civilian population from interrupting the military activities of the army. The allied didn't want a bunch of refuges in the road where they had to move tanks and supplies and all that stuff. So his job was to see to it that these civilians were taken care of, they were feed and housed as best as possible, and received medical attention and that sort of thing and stayed out of the way of the fighting. Well he arrived in this town alone, and he didn't have any idea about how to go about doing what his job was to do or with what means he was to do it. Because he literally had to beg if he needed assistance from a solder or a troops or anything. He had to go ask them. He couldn't order them to do anything. He had to go make a request of them and they would either come do it or not. BRUCKNER: Do you know what town it was? GRIZZARD: It's in the book, I don't remember the towns there were so many of them, because over the next two and half years he moved from Sicily—the assault in Sicily all the way up through the boot of Italy and he wound up at the end of the war in Albania, which is an interesting story. But his –Dad was never one to jerk anyone any responsibility and he decided he was there, he was going to do what he could do and one of the stories and I don't remember if it was in this town or another one, but the people were evacuated – they evacuated themselves when the Germans pulled out because the Germans in order to cause the Allies as much problems as possible, wanted to destroy ever bit of infrastructure that was there so that the Allies couldn't use it once they got there. All the buildings were blown up all over -- ____ the sewage systems were destroyed and the most important thing is that the Italians, living off of pasta, that's wheat—had to have the wheat ground and they were invariably destroying all of the mills the flour mills. There was plenty of grain but if the flour mills were destroyed there was no way to ground it into flour. So that was his job was to set all that back up as best as he could and to take care of these people who were starving, hurt and refuges and all this stuff. I'm leaving something—I'm not sure exactly sure where I was going. Oh—the people ____ back into this town after this the Germans moved out and the Americans moved out or the Allies moved out, and he found the priest who was the highest ranked Italian in that little town and he told him he said that these people in this town that are all dead have got to be buried and of course, the majority of them were Catholic, and he said you need to go around here and gather up some people and bury these people now because if you don't there is going to be an epidemic disease here. We've got to get these dead bodies—not only humans, but animals, because the Germans destroyed everything in their wake to keep the Allies from having anything to use. Well the priest went out—everybody was in such bad shape the Italians were in such bad shape—the Sicilians and they were in such a state of shock, that the priest couldn't do anything, he couldn't get anybody to do anything. So he came back to Dad and told him he couldn't – there wasn't anyway that these people could do anything that they would just absolutely in a state of shock. He said, “Well, let me tell you what I have to do”. He said, I know that the Catholic Church doesn't hold with cremation, but these bodies have got to be disposed of right now—and what I'm going do is take a 5-galloon can of petro-that what the British call gasoline. And I'm going to burn each one of these bodies in place—that's the quickest, safest way to do this. And of course some of these bodies were in buildings that had been destroyed and the buildings were about to collapse and there wasn't anyway you could go in and rescue even the bodies because the buildings would fall on you. So he did, and the priest said well I understand your situation but I can't condome it because my faith doesn't allow that. Well Dad says well, it's either a matter of your faith or thousands dead from typhoid or __ or something. So he did and he says that the process of burning all of these dead bodies that were just, and they laid them in place, they burned the buildings down around them—course all of the buildings were destroyed, but you burned the buildings down around them and he said that the smell from the burning flesh stayed with him the rest of his life. He never forgot it. But that was essentially his job and of course in the beginning, it was extremely difficult for him particularly because nobody knew what was needed. Nobody knew – you're going to send this man in to administer the civilian population well what is he going to have to do. As time went on, they figured it out and when the Allies got to Italy they got better organized and better equipped to do this job. But in Sicily it was just a real situation of man over matter. BRUCKNER: How did the people treat him once he was in there and settled—did they welcome him with open arms or were they scared of him? GRIZZARD: Well aside from being in shock and of course having lived for 20 years under an Italian dictatorship and then for several months under a German occupation, as long as there wasn't somebody literally walking the streets to sack them up and send them 500 miles off to slave labor camps or shoot them on the spot they were ecstatic and there was one of the concerns that Dad had was exactly how is this administrative duty of mine going to be accepted by the Italian people and he says that there was no problem with that at all. That once the Italians found out that they were literally there to help them and to help them man to rebuild their infra structure, to feed them, to house them and clothe them, and tend to their medical care. They responded the way you would expect someone to respond to that. So, the war in Sicily finally was won by the Allies Patton went to Massena and Montgomery got there shortly after that and there is a 5 mile straights between the island of Sicily and the European continent the tip of the Italy boot and right on the very toe of that boot is a little town called _____. And its is 5 miles across the straights of Massena. They stayed there until the next Spring and then the Allies decided after much – you've got some part of this – but during that period of time the Allies were involved in mass deception about where the Allies were going. The man whom never was—was a story of a man that they – a dead man—that they dressed in a major Marine's uniform and dumped him over the side of a submarine and he floated onto the beaches in Spain and he had bogus documents on him and the German thought by that that the Allies were going to invade ____ and _______ and all of this stuff. When actually there were going go right across the straight of Massena in the toe of the boot of Italy and that was where the invasion was going to start. Well this is in April of 1943 and the Germans had moved out of Southern Italy—they had essentially evacuated Southern Italy because of it's a little complication the geography is such that it is extremely difficult in that part of the world to have a defense because of the ____ sticking out all over the place. So they retired behind a defensive line further up the boot of Italy. Dad was called into his commanding officer's office one day and he says, “You're going on the first wave of the assault a ___ at 4 o'clock in the morning”. He says, “Yes, sir!” So, he got on a landing craft in Massena and it went across the straights of Massena and he got off just north of a little town ____. ____ was a provincial capital and the municipal of the city hall there always had flagpoles sticking out everywhere because ____ were real interested in flying a lot of different flags. So he and his British counterparts got off the landing craft—they were not under fire—and they walked up the hill to the municipal and Dad had been issued an American -48-star American Flag and when they got to the municipal he and his British counterparts went up the 2nd floor of the municipal and took the two main flagpoles and ran the British out on one flagpole and the stars and stripes out on the other. One of Dad's colleagues and he said, “Jimmy, do you realize what you've just done?” And he says, “Well, I know it's been a pretty site morning!” He says, “You have just raised the first American flag on the Continent of Europe during the Second World War. It wasn't until two weeks later that the 7th U.S. Army landed further up the boot of Italy. So Dad's flag is the first one to ever have been raised in World War II in Europe. BRUCKNER: What ever happened to that flag? GRIZZARD: Well, he brought it back, in fact, in his book he tells the stories of his commanding officer wanted it. And he said, “Well sir, I can give you a legalistic argument and that is that it was issued to me and I'll have to have a receipt for it before I will surrender it. But really, this is a historical thing and I want to keep it and take it back to America with me. Which he did and the ship that he rode back on when they entered New York Harbor they flew that flag from the ___ staff. But, BRUCKNER: Is that flag still around today? GRIZZARD: Somewhere. Well, maybe not. He gave it—when he got back—he gave it to the Military Department of Georgia and several years ago I ask him where it was that I'd like to see it and he—of course, had not thought about it for years—and he went back and of course administrations had changed and nobody knew anything. Well, after I don't know what kind of search, I don't know what kind of search—he says a comprehensive search, they declared that it was lost, that they couldn't find it and they don't know where it is. So, maybe one day it will turn up maybe not. But that's what happened to that. BRUCKNER: So he's on Continent of Europe now – in Italy… GRIZZARD: He's on the Continent of Italy and he is now the Military Governor of Sicily. Of course, to a greater or lessor degree—the duties of when they got to Italy they finally got some transportation and finally got a lease force attached to them associated with them that they could use to pacify the civilian population. And one of Dad's jobs was as judge—administrative judge. The police of Allied Police or the ___ for that matter the Italian Police. Of course there was no civilian authority where he was because he was the first on the scene after the ____ pulled out. They would arrest somebody for some ___ and they would bring before him to—for judgment—and he had the—I don't know exactly what his authority extended to but I suspect that he had the authority of live or death over these people. Not that he ever used anything as drastic as that. He had one case that was fairly interesting of course with all the people that were screwing up and messing around. He had one guy that was running a restaurant and the G.I.'s and the British Army—the things that Dad did not like about the British Army is their combat rations which is primarily what you got to eat was a can of bully-beef. Bully-beef is what we would call corn beef. And it was about 50% fat and 50% of the toughest, stringiest meat that ever was and hard-packed which is a biscuit that they used in the War between the States. It is just a plain unleaven cracker; it has no leaven in it—it is sort of like a compressed saltine cracker with no salt on it. And that was what they existed off of in the British Army, that was what they had to eat. And of course the liquid was tea. There was a rule against the Allies craving food, or it was against the rules for a ___ personnel or Italian to have any of these military supplies. Because they would ___ on the black market. This fellow running the restaurant had access to fresh vegetables and fresh meats, chickens, pork and stuff like that and these soldiers were just absolutely adamant about getting rid of some of these rations that they were issued and because they didn't have any refrigeration and they didn't have any canning facilities this bully-beef and cracker would last forever. These people, the Italians would take them and store them against the time when they didn't have anything to eat because it would keep it was non-perishable. This fellow was in a business busy trading his fresh stuff for the cans of corn beef and crackers and he got caught with all of this stuff. And they brought him in front of Dad and Dad found out that this fellow as not in the black market, that he was running a restaurant that he actually was doing the Army—the troops-- a service by giving them something to eat besides this awful stuff and so he acquitted him. Well of course, the word got around in the little town that this captain over here—boy he's real soft—he really doesn't know what he's doing! And, says the black market is wide open well of course, Dad subsequently had to put the ___ show him different. But in this one fellows case; he let him off. It was very much like someone moving into a small town in Georgia and absolutely taking over whatever he said went! And, of course, the people weren't ___ toward him which made it a whole lot easier. But he had the force of the Allied Forces behind him and they knew it. So, there was very little problem with his administering his duties. As he moved up the boot of Italy it was the same story time and time and time again. So that essentially is what Dad did in the 2nd World War. In your questionnaire you asked if he was ever wounded? The answer is yes, in Italy he was called a spearhead government officer which means that just as quick as the rifle fire subsided he would go in and sometimes even before that—artillery and air attacks were still going on when he was trying to administer these towns. He, of course they had bunkers and slip-trenches and stuff like that to dive into when the ___. But it was in the middle of the night one night and he had taken off his 45 that he had been issued and he put it on the night stand there. In Sicily he pretty much had to stay in a pup tent, in Italy of course he was able to requisition a village for himself and his men pretty much. This was in Italy and he was lying in bed and the air raid siren ___ started coming and of course he got up and jumped out and went and got in his bunker—his dugout. And as he was diving into the dugout a piece of scrap metal came and cut him on the leg. Well it was a severe enough cut that he was bleeding pretty good but it didn't incapacity him at all. And so he went to the aids station and they bandaged him up and of course being with a British Unit, there wasn't anything such think like a Purple Heart for him or anything like that and he wasn't interested in that anyway. He never applied for one and never got one but he said that the worst thing about that particular occasion was that when he got back to his village his village had taken a direct hit it had completely destroyed it along with his 45 automatic. Well he had been issued that and there was a receipt somewhere for it and he was going to be held responsible for it and he wasn't any where near the American Army. He said it took him forever to get that pistol off of his record. So that he didn't get charged with it. Said that it was the worst thing about that attach. During his stay in Italy he was not combat soldier, he said he only fired one gun in his life in anger at anybody and the situation was he was riding along the rode in a jeep and was the driver and they passed by this battery of British 105 ___ which is a cannon and he said stop the jeep—stop the jeep. And so the fellow stopped the jeep. And he got out and he walked up to this captain who was in charge of this battery; and he said, “How's everything going?” Said “Right-O Chappy, everything's going just fine!” And they were apparently logging shells onto a crossroad up the ways. And he said, you know I've been here for a year and a half and I've never fired a gun at anybody. Said let me shoot one of your cannons. “Right-O, sir”. And he says, “Line them up boys” and everybody got out their rings ___ with the things. Right, Right – says everything's right, says “Just walk over there to Number One and pull—yank off the ___. And he walks over there and pulls __ and bang the gun goes__. He gets back in the jeep and drives on down the road. Well, that was sort of a lark at the time but later on although he never really said so, I think that when he told that story it got less and less funny to him. And that years on down the road, he wished that he could have maintained his absolute non-combat status. Where if he had of been on the receiving end of those shells, instead of the delivering end. But that's the only time he had the occasion to shoot at anybody. BRUCKNER: What were the towns that he went through as he proceed GRIZZARD: All of them. All of them in the British sector. He went through ___, Naples, Rome, just all of them. Of course as he—he came back a major as the war progress, his area of responsibility got bigger and bigger. I asked him one time—he got back in 1945, I asked him what was he doing in Italy at the end. What happened was, if I can back up a little bit—he had been a liaison officer with the British 8th Army—of course he was still an American Officer and the system was to rotate these officers back and forth so that they got a sense of what the other army was doing and visa versa. Well when it became his time to rotate back to the American Army, he liked the British Army so good he said, “Naw, if it's alright with you I'll just stay where I am”. And his commanding officer, a fellow named Captain Benson said, “Oh, If you would just stay it would just be wonderful—we've really taken a shine to you”. So they wanted him to stay and he wanted to stay and he stayed with the British all the way up the boot of Italy. At the end of, he was literally controlling vast areas of Italy just by himself. There wasn't anybody but his chain of command to, of course, by that time the Italians were Allies. But still when the Allies moved out, and the military government moved in they had to sort out the sheep from the goats. They had to determine who was ___ and set the civilian government back up they had to get these people who __ out of the way. They couldn't turn that over to them. George Patton in Germany under the same circumstances got into a world of trouble because he wanted to put the Nazi's back in charge of the civilian population. He said they knew how to make the war works and the railroads run. But the Allies didn't look very kindly toward that kind of behavior so that was pretty much his job was in preparation to set up the reestablish the civilian control of the areas. He was ___ engineers, ___. So it was a pretty, at the end, it was a pretty responsible job. And, I said to him, you know, I said that must have been a awful letdown for you to be in absolutely in control of all of these people and all of this stuff and then to come back to Atlanta Georgia and start practicing law on the third floor of the Grant Building. Of course, I suspect that at that time he had had enough. The war was winding down, but he wound up in Albania. BRUCKNER: Tell us about that experience. GRIZZARD: Yeah. Well, he was out of the British Army by that time and the Americans were trying to see to it that the communist didn't get Albania. I think, I think because of his, I believe, although I have no way to know it, the records don't say so, that he was involved in military intelligence. Which is a real grey sort of issue. I believe he was in Albania in an intelligence capacity. Like he never would talk about it—In fact, I asked him one time and he said, “I can't tell you, don't ask”. And that was the end of that. He was in Albania to try I think to try to keep the communist from taking Albania. Of course, it was not successful. Although I guess ___ was better than ___. But the … BRUCKNER: So he really couldn't share his experiences in Albania GRIZZARD: No, no, but he said that the Albanians were something else. He said that they were, said that, of course, they invaded ___ for centuries. They had been right in the midst of competing world forces and he said those people up there ___ and just look at you when he was there. There wasn't a whole lot he could say. At the end of the war and I'm going, with your permission, I'm going to insert this. At the end of the war in Europe, of course, he was there after the war, after the artists with Germany was signed ___ Italians had given up a long time ago. He had orders delivered to him that transferred him to the Pacific. He was going to be transferred across America he was given 30 days leave in Atlanta to visit my mother and me and he was headed for Japan. Okinawa, or who knows. And of course, on August 8th the U.S. dropped the bomb and that ended the war in Japan. He had orders he was headed to the Pacific and I have done quite a bit of study on the U.S. atomic bomb ___ whole Manhattan project and the operation of dropping those weapons. And several years ago I read in the newspaper or saw on television that the Smithsonian Institution has taken the front half of the fusel lodge of the B-27 bomber that dropped the bomb __ commanded by Commander Paul .___ and they had stuck it in the building there without the wings, backhalf. There was some legend on the display that on August 8th at a quarter of 8 in the morning that the peace loving people of Japan had this terrible thing dropped on them. It just really got to the middle of me because if that bomb hadn't of been dropped, if we had not developed that weapon and of course, by that time 50 million people through out this world had died because of this horrible conflict, and 80 thousand died in __ and another 70 thousand died in ___ and then some more after that. But 50 million people had been killed by that time. By August of 1945. Whoever the idiot was that put this sign up on this airplane that the peace loving people of Japan had suffered this terrible weapon. I though to myself, “Yeah, and for thirty days I might have had a Dad and if that weapon not been dropped, I might not of had one from then on. So it got real personal to me so I called up the Smithsonian and tried to get hold of the fellow who wrote that and let wouldn't let me talk to him. They said they had had enough of BRUCKNER: ____ GRIZZARD: No. BRUCKNER: When your father heard that the bomb had been dropped or his comrades heard that, what was their reaction? Did they say GRIZZARD: I don't think that my Dad ever considered that his life was in danger. During the whole time whether he was under shelling or whatever, I don't think it ever occurred to him that anything was ever going to happen to him. He was a whole lot more worried about the cold in the wintertime in Italy because there wasn't any coal or wood or anything to burn to keep warm. I think he was a whole lot more worried about that than he was about anything happening to him. Of course, once the war was over, he was ready to get out of there, he had had all of that he wanted. He came back, he came back in 1945 I think he got here about August. We lived on Longwood Drive in Atlanta right across from the golf course—right next to the golf course. I was outside playing in a Mimosa tree that lined the street and of course he got to Atlanta and called the house 4 or 5 times before he ever got us. “I'm here—I'm at the station”. He called the house 4 or 5 times. When he got there of course I didn't remember ever seeing him. I knew who he was I knew he was coming but I hadn't remember anything about him at all because he was gone by the time before I was real conscious although I remember a lot about World War II. And so he came in the house and I ran and greeted him and there was a great hoop-la and everything 5 minutes later I was back out in the Mimosa tree. He knew who he was but he wasn't a real big part of my live. BRUCKNER: He was later though! GRIZZARD: Oh yeah! Talking about the war, I remember quite a bit about the war. I remember towing cars, gas rationing and if you needed two cars in one place it was cheaper to tow one. If you were going on a trip to tow one where you were going, than it was to drive them both. One thing I remember was the coupons the ration stamps and they looked like little bitty postage stamps. I got those out one day and of course this was the sugar for the month and the meat for the month and the cloths for the month, and the gasoline for the month. And my mother, my mother nearly had a heart attack. BRUCKNER: That was the sugar for the month. Did your Father ever say whether he realized how sufficient World War II was while he was in it. GRIZZARD: No doubt! BRUCKNER: He realized all of the significant events GRIZZARD: No doubt that he understood that this was a fight against freedom and a republic form of government. You didn't have any doubt at all that if the Germans got control of Europe that the world would be plunged into a dark age. I mean that there was a questions and he was there until the end. And of course if he had of been shipped to Japan he would of gone. But, what a waste that would have been. BRUCKNER: We have a few more minutes. Let me ask you something else since you mentioned him coming back from the service. Either from what he said or from what you observe—how hard was it for him to adjust to being back home after being through a war for four years? GRIZZARD: Not at all! Not at all! My Dad was extremely compartmentalized, he lived several lives similarly. He was an attorney and when he was an attorney that was all he was. When he was home he was father and husband and that was all that he was. I had to really try to talk about his other parts of his life because once he was engaged in one facet of it the others were just completely put out of mind. And he was an officer in the military and when he was that was all that he was. No, once he got back he just jumped right back into it. It didn't take him—I guarantee you not only did he not lose any sleep about it it didn't take him 5 seconds when he sat down in his chair behind his desk it was just like he had never left. BRUCKNER: Well, he sounds like quite a man and I know you are proud of him. GRIZZARD: Oh, yeah! BRUCKNER: Is there anything else you like to tell us about your father GRIZZARD: Well, the postscript about all of this is that he stayed in the Georgia Air National Guard. He was the commanding officer of Dobbins Air Force Base the air guard part of it. He was president of the National Guard Association of America which is a nationwide organization. And he rose to the rank of Brigidere General and the highest post that he ever obtain was as ___ of the State of Georgia which is a political post but it is also in the military. He practiced law all of his life. When I was growing up in Atlanta, like I said Atlanta was nothing but a large small town and Dad knew everybody in town, not only that but everybody in the State of Georgia, I would be, after I turned 16 and started driving, I would be out in some .little po-dunk town in South Georgia or something and run out of gas or have a flat tire or something and I'd call him and tell him what my problem was and he say, “Oh, just go around the corner—where are you”. And I'd tell him and he'd say, “just go around the corner there and ol' so-in-so in the drug store. Just tell him who you are and he'll help you. And he didn't call the man up and tell him I was coming but by the time I got around there and told him who I was. Oh, listen, it was just like the ___ had returned. And that happened way more than once. BRUCKNER: What was your Dad's complete name? I want to be sure we get that. GRIZZARD: His name was James Carl Grizzard, he didn't use Senior. BRUCKNER: Well I can't tell you how much we appreciate you taking your time and sharing the experiences of your father and of yourself and this will mean a lot to this project—this story. GRIZZARD: Well, thank you very much. BRUCKNER: That was great, that was very interesting! GRIZZARD: Yeah, I've heard that from almost everybody I've interviewed about the bomb being dropped. That he was getting ready to be shipped over. BRUCKNER: Oh yeah—In fact my father was one. He was here in the Army and he thought he was going to ship over. I've heard that from almost everybody I've interviewed. The elation that that bomb was dropped because they knew they were going to head over ___. Do you really anticipate a million lives lost? GRIZZARD: The estimate was between 1 and…now this was taken from the Operations in Okinawa where the U.S. Troops took and ___ licking there…but they estimated… End of tape.
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/190
Language:: eng
Additional Rights Information:: This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required.
Extent:: 56:25
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Holding Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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