Oral history interview of Joseph Elmo McKeone

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Joseph Elmo McKeone
Creator:: Gardner, Robert D.
McKeone, Joseph Elmo, 1919-
Date of Original:: 2003-12-11
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Merchant marine--United States
Garland, Judy
University of Pennsylvania
Johns Hopkins University
Location:: Greece, Piraeus, 37.9431594, 23.6470593
Italy, Brindisi, 40.6362271, 17.6885007236987
Italy, Trieste, 45.6500335, 13.7706559
Italy, Veneto, Venice, 45.43713, 12.33265
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Illinois, Winnebago County, Rockford, Camp Grant Station (historical), 42.20836, -89.08233
United States, Maryland, City of Baltimore, 39.29038, -76.61219
United States, New York, Kings County, Sheepshead Bay, 40.59122, -73.94458
United States, Pennsylvania, Chester County, Valley Forge, 40.09705, -75.46964
United States, Pennsylvania, Cumberland County, New Cumberland, 40.23231, -76.8847
United States, Pennsylvania, Lehigh County, Allentown, 40.60843, -75.49018
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
hi-8
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Joseph McKeone recalls his service in the Army and Merchant Marine during World War II. He was underweight at the time of his physical and told to come back. He later entered the Army Reserve Corps and was accepted. He spent time as a trainee in a Veterans Administration hospital and then sent to dental school because the Army needed dentists. He was soon discharged because the Army had too many dentists, so he joined the Merchant Marine. He was sent to pharmacist's mate school. One weekend he went home with a friend and met Judy Garland and Sonja Henie. He recalls his voyage across the North Atlantic in rough seas. He describes his duties, his voyage home and his post-war education and career.
Joseph McKeone was in the Army and the Merchant Marine during World War II.
VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW JOSEPH McKEONE (pronounced McKeean) Atlanta History Center Transcribed by Stephanie McKinnell Robert Gardner: This is an interview of Mr. Joseph McKeone, born November 29, 1919. Current address is 3811 Land o' Lakes Drive, Atlanta, GA. The interview is being conducted by Robert Gardner, his daughter Sheila Parsons is also in attendance. Mr. McKeone, what branch of service did you serve in? Joseph McKeone: The army. RG: And what was the highest rank that you attained, sir? JM: Private. RG: What war did you serve in sir? JM: World War II. RG: Were you drafted or did you enlist. JM: I enlisted. May I make a comment on that? RG: Yes sir. JM: Well I was up for the draft, and I went through the physical exam, and when I got to the final results, results of the final doctor, they said I was too thin at the time and I'd be put on hold and come back when I gained some weight so I could handle the training. So what happened after that was, realizing that I would be called back, being in college at the time, I joined the Army reserve corps. I went through exactly the same examination with the same doctors and they accepted me into the army reserves. Now this meant that I could finish my college education. So when my college education was done, I graduated on June 7, '43, and I was called up for the service on the 21st of June that year. I was called to New Cumberland, Pennsylvania where the staging section was. So I was under quarantine for two weeks. And then I thought on the weekend I could probably go home and see my parents, which was only a short distance from New Cumberland, PA. But when the Saturday came, I was told I was to be shipped out that evening. So they put me on a train and they shipped me to Chicago, and this was at night time, and I remember getting woken up and told that I was on mess duty, so I had to get up and help get the food prepared, clean up the places, and clean up the dishes afterwards. So it seemed a long time for the train to get to Chicago. When it to Chicago, it started going north, northeast towards Rockford, Illinois, and Camp Graham, is located just south of Rockford, IL, where the present airport in Rockford now is. When we got up to Camp Graham, we were assigned tents, and there was five other trainees in the tent with me, plus about three or four chipmunks. And we went through the training and we weren't allowed to go anyplace but back and forth with these tents. The training, I forget, I took 13 or 15 weeks, and while in these tents. At night time, the cadre there would have a big __________ and the students from Deloite College women would go down as dancing partners for the cadre. But we weren't allowed to attend that, all we could do was hear the music. So after that, my training was done and we were in assembly and names were called out, most of my fellow trainees were being shipped to the south pacific. But my name come up, they told me I was eligible to be a doctor or a dentist because there was a shortage at the time of both of those professions that served in the army. So I had never had any idea of becoming any of this, even though the college I graduated from was known for producing students for professional schools like dentistry and medicine. So at the point, I could have gone to Marquette University in Milwaukee or University of Pennsylvania. Milwaukee would have been medicine, University of PA would be dentistry. So I though well, I'm going to the University of PA which is very close to my home, so I decided to go to the University of PA, and they shipped me there to Valley Forge, PA, where I spent about a month in the veteran's hospital there as a trainee. So after that month was up they sent me down to the University of PA in dentistry. So I spent the first two semesters in dentistry at the University of PA. And then they decided they had enough dentists in the army, so they gave us a discharge. So my discharge, honorable discharge is from at the University of PA. OK, so then I came up and decided I'd better join the merchant marine. So I joined the merchant marine and was shipped out to Sheepshead Bay on Long Island, and there I went through the merchant marine training. I was put into the _______ pharmacist mate school. So while there, one of my fellow classmates lived on Long Island and he invited us home over the weekend for, you know, just for the weekend. So when we got there, they were having a dance there and I remember one of the persons to dance with was Judy Garland, and the other one was Sonya Hainey. So after that was over with, we went back to Sheepshead Bay and went through this training. Now, in this training, I had to learn to type, I think it was 20 words a minute before graduating. So I got through that and while I was there one of my fellow classmates, his home town was close to where I lived, so we decided to go home for the weekend. So we got leave on Saturday afternoon and we took the train and went to Allentown, PA. So while we were there, we were thinking we got to Allentown about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We'll go out on the town that night. Then when it got dark, we thought well we'll take a nap before we go, so we didn't wake up until the next morning, had to get on the train and go back to Sheepshead Bay. At Sheepshead Bay I got the typing done and I was accepted and graduated as a warrant officer. So after that, we were given choices of where we wanted to go to get assigned to a ship. So I decided on Baltimore. And I was shipped down to Baltimore and I was sent to Johns Hopkins Medical school, and there I was an intern there for about a month. Then we went off to get on the ship, and while we were there, they were loading the ship with coal, and they would almost pick up the whole car of coal and dump it right into the hold of the ship. So after the ship was loaded, we got out into a convoy which was going up the north Atlantic, which was at that point a very dangerous place to be, but the convoy was always surrounded by navy ships to protect the ships in the convoy. So we went across the North seas, and the weather was rough, it was a rough ride, but our ship being loaded with coal had a lot of ballast and stayed almost even without getting too rough. So we were going over the North sea and we got word to go to Brendisi, Italy. So we got over to Europe, went down to Italy, and went up the east coast of Italy to Brendisi or Bari, Italy. When we got there, they told us we were going to be, go up to Triest. When we got up to Triest, we were there and while we were there, I noticed that there were big bags that you could put over your shoulders, and they unloaded the coal into these bags and there were women putting these bags on their shoulders and walking around in a circle getting filled up _________ dumping them, and I felt real sorry for those poor women. But that's what they had to do. And after some of the ballast was out of the ship, the ship would rise a little bit, so from there, we were sent to Venice, Italy where the ship was further unloaded. While at Venice, I had a change to visit St. Mark's square and St. Mark's cathedral. And after we left Venice, we went down to Naples. At Naples unloaded most of the coal. So now we were put on assignment to go from Naples, Italy, over to Athens, Greece. And the port of Athens is Pyreus, so we went to Pyreus. And this was about the time that penicillin became discovered. So there was a poor fellow there who had a very infected hand, one of the hands that helped unload ships. So I put some of the penicillin on his hand, and then we were taking surplus material back to Naples. Back and forth to Greece. So we went back to Naples and we unloaded this load of trucks, we had excess trucks we had on the ship. And then we went back to Greece again. When I got back I saw this fellow and he showed me his hand and it was so cured and cleaned up it was like a miracle to see how fast that penicillin really worked on that poor guy. So in appreciation of that, he gave me a big bottle of, I don't know what, ----- or some kind of liquor that I took back and put it in the ship in my room. So we went back and forth about five or six times to Greece. All this time, I had this big bottle of whatever it was in my room. So after we got al that done, we went back to Naples. Then we were assigned to come back to the United States. So when we were there, there were 11 women who worked for the state department. So my job on the ship is to take care of the health of the crew and to assign rooms to a person to whoever was on the ship. So we got this all settled and we had the word to go back to Baltimore. So on our way back, I was lucky enough that the ship was so slow and the weather was so awful that these women got bored doing nothing. So they'd come into my office and they'd prepare all my work for me, which included overtime and pay for the crew and all of that kind of work. And in the mean time, I was in charge of a place where they had supplies and things, and people could, or the crew could come in and they could buy things from this, I forget the name of it… Sheila Parsons: Commissary? JM: No, no. RG: Ship stores? JM: No. Slop chest, that's what it was called. And anyhow, we got back to Norfolk, Virginia, and got off the ship and they wanted to know whether or not we wanted to take another trip on the ship. So at this point, I thought I'd better go home, maybe go back to school or do something else. So I went back and I met my wife and we got married. That's all. I had four children, and that would be the end of my story. All this time in my service, I never had a gun in my hand, I never fired a rifle. My job was simply to take care of those who were wounded or hurt in the field of battle. Something like the TV series MASH. I think that's all I can tell you. RG: How did you stay in touch with your family? JM: I stayed in touch with my family by mail. I remember I was not being paid as a merchant seaman and I would sent money home to my parents like every month and when I get home, my parents hand me this check which gave me all the money back again. RG: That's usually what parents do for their children. What was the food like? JM: The food, I though was pretty darned good. I could remember Thanksgiving being over in the Mediterranean sea and we had a Thanksgiving dinner. I think the cooks on the ship came from the Philippines, and they prepared a very good Thanksgiving dinner. Christmas was likewise. Otherwise, we used to look forward to the food we got, and I never say I recall a bad meal. RG: Did you have plenty of supplies that you needed sir? JM: Yeah, I had plenty of supplies. I didn't need for anything. SP: What about for the ship, for taking care of the health needs of the people on the ship? JM: Well, luckily no one __________. I say the luck of the Irish, I was very lucky that things went as well as they did for me. RG: Speaking of luck, was there something special that you did for good luck? JM: No, I just had the luck of the Irish? RG: How did people entertain themselves? JM: How did they entertain themselves? Well I don't know. Like I said in Venice, we went to St. Mark's square and the cathedral. We enjoyed that visit. As I recall, I thought I'd order a spaghetti dinner and I had the worst dinner I ever had in my life. That's about it. RG: Did you get to do any other traveling while you were in the service? JM: Other travel? No, because I was on the ship, that's plenty of travel there. COUNTER 214 RG: DO you have any photographs? JM: Yes, we have one here. [viewing photograph] RG: Who are the people who are in this photograph? JM: The people in this photograph are all cousins of mine except one. These cousins at this time were all in different services, I think it was the marines, the navy, the army, and there were a couple of them in the army, those two in the army did serve in the battle of the Bulge and luckily got, one was wounded, but he survived and is ok. We had another friend who was born in Germany, his name was Guido _____, and he was in the service also, for the United States, and he received a purple heart. We all thought the world of this fellow. He became a school superintendent and later passed away from cancer. RG: That's a wonderful picture, thank you. JM: Did you keep a personal diary while you were in the service? RG: No. JM: Do you recall the day that your service ended? RG: Day my service ended…? I don't really recall, it was 1944. This was after being in the merchant marine and having been in the army. SP: Do you remember what it was like, did your parents come and greet you, or did you celebrate in any way? JM: I know they were happy to see me home again, but other than that, I don't remember any special excitement or anything. RG: What did you do in the days and weeks after your discharge from the merchant marines? JM: After my discharge from the merchant marines, that's when I met my wife and decided to get married because I felt I had been dependent on my parents too long and I didn't want to cause them anymore expense at that time. RG: Did you go to work or go back to school? JM: I went to work. SP: Didn't you kind of have a job hanging out at a friend's business or something, make it look like…? JM: Oh yeah. See at that time, they had what was called the 52/20 club. And what this was was unemployment payments. Every week we'd go and they would give us a check for $20. Now we were free to do anything we want. So what we'd do is go up to a friend, a cousin of mine, who was a podiatrist, and we used to sit in his office and just enjoy each other. So when a real patient would come in, the podiatrist would say to one of us, you're next and take us into the room where he took care of his patients, and we'd go out the back door and come around and come in the front again so it looked like he was kind of busy. RG: Did you join any veteran's organizations? JM: No. RG: Do you ever attend any reunions? JM: No. RG: How did your service and experiences affect your life? JM: Uh, I really thought they were good for me. A direct effect I don't remember any except I say being allowed to finish going to college and being allowed to graduate and being in the army specialized training program. Like I said after the war when they had the parade you have the marine, the army, the navy, the girl scouts, the boy scouts, then there was us. RG: That may be one way of looking at it, but the services that you provided were definitely something that was needed, I'm sure they were well appreciated. JM: Thank you RG: Is there anything else you would like to add that we haven't covered in this interview. JM: Say I was married to my wife for 52 years and 338 days before she passed away, and very nice person, and everybody liked her. Thank you. RG: I really, really appreciate you doing this interview with us sir. Thank you so much. JM: Thank you, I hope I wasn't too bad. COUNTER 290
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/260
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:: 26:45
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Holding Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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