Oral history interview of Gene Bowen Brown

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Gene Bowen Brown
Creator:: Gantsoudes, Lillian
Brown, Gene Bowen, 1927-
Date of Original:: 2003-12-03
Subject:: M1 carbine
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Brown, Agnes Lucile Bowen, 1887-1952
Brown, Joseph Jackson, 1878-1959
Parker, Jo Helen Brown, 1915-2005
Parker, Harold Robert, 1917-2000
Kaye, Danny
Shore, Dinah, 1917-1994
Andrews, Dana, 1909-1992
Natasi, Charles
MacArthur, Douglas, 1880-1964
Western Union Telegraph Company
Georgia State College (Atlanta, Ga.)
Japan--History--Allied occupation, 1945-1952
Location:: Japan, Atami-shi, 35.08992, 139.059891
Japan, Atsugi Army Air Base
Japan, Honshu, 36.0, 138.0
Japan, Tokyo, 35.709026, 139.731992
Japan, Yokohama-shi, 35.444991, 139.636768
United States, California, Contra Costa County, Camp Stoneman, 38.00742, -121.92107
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Piedmont Park, 33.78649, -84.37382
United States, North Carolina, Cumberland County, Fort Bragg, 35.139, -79.00603
United States, Virginia, Isle of Wight County, James River, 36.94154, -76.44356
United States, Virginia, Newport News City, Fort Eustis, 37.15204, -76.5781
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Atlanta native Gene Brown describes his experiences in the Army in World War II. He describes his childhood in the city. He recalls hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the effects the war had on everyday life. He was an air-raid boy, gathered scrap metal, wrapped bandages, helped grow a Victory garden, and picked cotton. Because of shortages, he stood in line to get tobacco and nylon hose for family members. He remembers a mock bombing where five-pound bags of flour were dropped from aircraft to see what potential damage an air raid would cause and how airplane spotters were trained to identify aircraft. He recalls the war experiences of his brother-in-law, who was sent from England to the Philippines just before the D-Day invasion of Normandy. His first assignment in the Army was to pick up litter around the Army's exhibit at the Southeastern World's Fair at the Lakewood Fairgrounds. He recalls the Winecoff Hotel fire, which occurred while he was home on leave. Because of his experience working at Western Union in high school, he was given a job on General MacArthur's staff. He describes conditions in Japan after the war, the places he travelled, his fondness for the Japanese people, and what he learned about Japanese culture. He recounts the friendships he made in the Army and what effect his Army career had on him. He recalls his journey home and his post-war career with the Treasury Department, the Veterans Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. After the war, he joined the reserves for three years and narrowly missed being sent to Korea.
Gene Brown was in the U.S. Army in Japan with the occupation forces.
GENE BOWEN BROWN VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW Atlanta History Center December 3, 2003 Interviewer: Lillian Gantsoudes Transcriber: Stephanie McKinnell LG: Lillian Gantsoudes: My name is Lillian Gantsoudes. I am on staff at the Atlanta History Center. Today is December 3, 2003. We are interviewing Gene Bowen Brown. Mr. Brown, if you would, repeat your name and give me your birthdate. GB: Gene Brown. April 27, 1927. Where were you born and raised? Atlanta, Georgia. Tell me something about your family background. Well, my family goes back several generations in Atlanta. We're native Atlantans. Tell me your parents' names. My parents names were Agnes Lucille Bowen was her maiden name, Brown. My father was Joseph Jackson Brown, and they were all from the Atlanta area. Are you related to the Browns that were politicians in the state of Georgia? I don't think so, but I can't say for sure. What is your current occupation? I'm retired, have been retired for about 18 years. Let's talk about the time of sort of growing up in Atlanta, where did you go to grammar school? Well, I went to East Lake Grammar school, I went to ____ grammar school, and I went to Smiley Grammar school. Then I went to _________ junior high school. Then during the war years when all the men in the family were in the service, I went down to Miami, Florida, where I had relatives, and I finished high school down in Miami. Tell me about World War II during that time in Atlanta. Where were you and what are your memories of say, Pearl Harbor Day? Pearl Harbor Day, I was at the 10th street theater on Peachtree and 10th street. Every Sunday afternoon, I went to the movies, and I was in my customary seat at the 10th street theater. How old are you? I think at that time, I'm about 13, 15 years old, something like that. When I came out of the movie, it was about 3:30 in the afternoon. Do you remember what movie it was? No, I can't remember the movie. But I do remember that the 10th street theater had a very unusual seating arrangement. They had what they call love seats, and it was a double seat where you and your date could sit in the same seat, and it was very, I've never seen that before or since. But that was at the 10th street theater, when I came out of the theater about 3:30 or 4:00, running down the middle of Peachtree Street were these newsboys hollering Extra, extra, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Well I was just bowled over. I ran all the way from the 10th Street Theater down Peachtree to 6th Street. I lived on the corner of 6th Street and Piedmont Avenue in the ____ apartments. And I went home, and I can remember my sister was not feeling well at that time, and she was knitting an afghan and we turned on the radio and we were listening to all of the broadcasts you know. Who were your sisters? My sister is Joy Helen Parker. How old was she? She was in her 20s. I'd say she was about, she's 12 years older than I am, so she must have been about 25, or 27. 27 because she was already married. 27 at that time. I lived with my sister until I was 34 years old and I got married, by the way. That's an interesting thing. She was kind of like a sister and a mother to me. During that time, this place that I was living on Piedmont and 6th was an apartment. I think you had asked me about my mother's situation at that time, I was an air raid warden, and I was responsible for the block of Piedmont Avenue between 6th Street and 5th Street, the block of 6th Street between Piedmont and Juniper, and block between Juniper and 5th Street, that full block area. My job was to go around the block to make sure everybody's windows, there was no light escaping the houses. Had to have quilts or blankets or something up over the window. And if I saw any light coming out of the thing, I was to go up, bang on the door, and tell them to please cover it up. Another interesting thing, we had airplane spotters on the top of our apartment house and many of the buildings around Atlanta. They were trained to identify different types of planes that came over. Also a little known fact that not many people remember, at least that I've talked to, I've never heard anybody else remember this situation, is that Atlanta had a mock bombing, and they bombed Atlanta with 5-pound flour sacks. The purpose of that was to see the collateral damage that might take place when a bomb was dropped in a certain location. The flour would spin out like this and they could get an idea about what maybe would happen. To my knowledge, I have never heard another single soul say anything about that, and I've asked people if they remember that. Yet this happened around Atlanta. Were you, do you remember the story, or did you see it happen, or what, did you read it in the paper? Oh no, I was experienced it. I experienced it. And we had a victory garden even though we lived in an apartment house, we had a green space in the back of the apartment house and everybody had a victory garden. We had our victory garden, and it went real well as a matter of fact. We had a lot of vegetables and tomatoes and different things like in the garden. Another thing that was fun, before that time, we led a very carefree life, and we played cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians and red light and all those kinds of games. Well, the government started requesting that we gather up scrap iron. And so we used to play games, and now we collected scrap iron, and it was lots of fun. It was like having a scavenger hunt, and everybody tried to gather as many metal type things that they could find. It was sent off to the war department to make guns and to make all kinds of military equipment. You said we would gather it, who is ‘we'? We, my friends in the neighborhood. Who were your friends, do you remember their names? Joel, what was Joel's last name. Oh mercy… That's ok, it was a long time ago. It was a long time ago. But the girls too, the girls and the boys all went around the neighborhood and gathered scrap iron. What would you put it in when you gathered it? We had sacks that we placed it in, and a big 6 x truck would come by and gather up all these metal scraps, take it off. Did you leave the sacks with the stuff in it on the side of the street? I don't remember, I really don't remember what we did with it, but I remember it was lots of fun, and it took the place of playing those games, and we were doing something worth while. Another very interesting thing is that all the men were in the service at that time and the cotton crop came about and there was nobody to pick the cotton. They sent big trucks again, by the high schools, when I was going to Okeefe High School, and they would pick us up and take us up near Norcross, Georgia, and we would pick cotton all day long. On my rear end as a matter of fact, scraping down between the isles, picking the cotton, and they had real sharp things, under your fingernails would get kind of bloody from picking these things, and I'd just push my self down the isle picking the cotton over here and over here and bagging it up. Oh I felt so proud. I had these great big ____ sacks, they were tremendous, about this size, about this tall. What sacks? Kroker, kroker sacks. Do you know how to spell it? No I don't. Its brown, it's a brown sack that has kind of a weave to it, and we'd put the cotton in that. I had this tremendous, I thought hoo boy I'm going to really have it, cause they were going to pay us a penny a pound. That was a penny a pound for the cotton, and I had this big sack just a loaded, and I thought hoo. We took it over to the scales, they had the big scales that balanced like this and it had a hook on it, and they put my bag up there on the hook, and it weighed 30 pounds. So I got 30 cents for picking cotton all day long, and I was thinking I was really going to have a lot of money. How many days did you do that, just the one? I just have the memory of that one time, but we did all around Atlanta. I used to wrap bandages for the injured people, you know in the service. They had the Red Cross headquarters on Peachtree Street at 6th Street and Peachtree Street, right close to where the Peachtree Manor Hotel is located today. Its not that hotel now, its condominiums now, its right on the corner. But on the other corner was an old Victorian house, and that was the Red Cross headquarters and we would go down there and wrap bandages for the injured soldiers. That was also the place where when Gainesville, Georgia had the 1936 tornado that was so horrible, all was destroyed. That was where we collected clothes and all kinds of food items to take to Gainesville, Georgia, at that same location. Do you remember anything specific about rolling bandages? No, other than just sitting at big round tables in there and having, I don't even remember all the things about that, but they had all the materials on this table for. We had a certain way, there was a certain way they were to be folded and prepared, but I don't really remember anymore on that. An interesting thing that I think was interesting, the women in the family, everything was rationed. You couldn't get nylon hose. And when you could get nylon hose, there would be a line 2 or 3 blocks long, waiting in line to get your pair of nylon hose. So I was elected to try though I didn't have any responsibilities to it, to go stand in line and get the nylon hose for the women in my family. And also for the people who smoked, we had to stand in line to get tobacco things. We had these tobacco machines that was about this long and it had kind of like a white canvas thing to it that would come down, and it would be a little overhead, you'd pour the tobacco in there, and it had a little handle, and you'd pull it like that, and it would automatically wrap the tobacco in this little white paper that was inserted in there. And I used to wrap and make cigarettes with this little machine. Those are some of the, course everything… COUNTER 135 Did you have any of those machines? I had one for years, but I don't have it anymore, and I don't know what happened to it. I don't know whether people remember those days or not, we did, that's the way we wrapped cigarettes. Gasoline was rationed of course, and we had little stickers that we put on the windshield of the car, like an ‘A', ‘B', ‘C', ‘D' that different categories where you could get different amounts of gasoline according to your priority. Did your sister have a car? My sister had a car. Do you remember what kind of car? I think it was about a 1940 Chevrolet, if I'm not mistaken. What color? Grey, 1940 Chevrolet. What letter sticker did she have for her ration? I'm not sure but I think it was a ‘C', but I'm not sure about that. One of the funnies things, my brother in law, her husband, had relatives that had a farm down near Conyers, and we used to love to go down to the farm because we were city folks, and it was interesting to go to the farm and see the cows and chickens and all this kind of stuff. We went down there one weekend, and on the way home, my brother in law was one of these smart folks that, he was always bragging about oh I just get the best gas mileage on this car, and I've been going all this time on those tires and he didn't even get his mouth open good till we had a flat tire. And we had to get out of the car, and we had one of those old fashioned pumps, you'd pump like this, we'd put it on the thing, we'd pump, but we had to put a patch, we had all these materials for a patch which was about like this where the hole was. We patched the tire and we drove maybe three or four miles, we had another flat, we had three flat tires on the way home. Same tire? I think they were different, I don't know for sure, but I just remember three times we had to stop and put those patches on and pump it. We'd give out of gas a lot of the time because my brother in law was the type that he wanted to see just how far he could go driving the car before he had to get gas, and we'd get down so low that we'd get out of gas and had to go, and it'd make my sister so mad she didn't know what to do. There was no excuse for it, we could have gotten it but he liked to see how far he could go. This brother in law I'm talking about served in D-day in England. What was his name? His name was Harold Robert Parker. And he was in England preparing for D-day, and then he had the points to be discharged when it was getting toward the end of the war, and so they told him he would be coming back to the states or something. He got on the troop ship and he sailed from Liverpool to what he thought was New York. Well he went to New York alright, but when they got to New York, the ship did not dock in New York. It came right down the coast through the Panama Canal all the way to Manila in the Philippines. And after he had served almost three years in England preparing for the D-day invasion and all this stuff, he had to go to Manila, and he was in Manila for a couple of years over there, and he had the points to be discharged, and he was 35 days on the ship down in the bottom of a hold of this ship, and as a result of this, he contacted yellow jaundice and he had a lot of medical problems, and I don't know if ________ he got in the Philippines while he was over there, so when he came back, he immediately had to go into the _________ hospital in Coral Gables, Florida. But he almost died, he survived and he lived to be about 83 years of age. He really did his part and more, he really had kind of a rough time. You mentioned that you were an air raid warden. Did you volunteer for this? I volunteered for that. What kind of training were you given to be an air raid warden? I don't really recall the training except he was what you'd call a chief warden, I don't what they called them at that time, and they called everybody together and they gave us instructions about what we were to do, you know, and what we were to look for. Did you have any equipment that they gave you? I don't remember any equipment, I think we furnished our own flashlights and everything, and I don't remember any special equipment. And at that time I was just like, I think I was about 13 or 14 years old at the time. Did you enjoy doing it? Oh I did very much because I felt like it was, I was doing something for the war effort. Everybody, it was different from the way life is now. World War II was the worst of times and it was the best of times, all at the same time. We had beautiful music and I learned the jitterbug at that time, that's when I first learned how to do the jitterbug down at Piedmont Park in the pavilion down there by the lake, ___________ and oh we had just beautiful music and wonderful movies, a lot of movie musicals, it kept spirits up for the people you know, which was very important. It was how I enlisted in the army because I had gone to see Open Hearts with Danny Kaye and Dinah Shore and I've forgotten, Dana Andrews I think was in it. At the 10th Street theatre? At a theatre, and it just got me so pumped up, I just wanted to go and fight. I was so scared the war was going to get over before I'd be able to get in there to do my part. And I never will forget when I did get into service, all of us were the same age, most of the fellows were the same age, and I'm still in touch with one of the fellows I met out at Camp Stoneman, California, and we went over to Japan on the same troop ship. He went to Saporo Japan in northern Japan, and I went to Honshu Island in Yokahama. We did not see each other for a year, and would you believe that we both got ready to be discharged we came home on the same troop ship after not seeing each other all that time. Then we both came back to Camp Stoneman, California, and I had the most freakish of accidents. You may be getting ahead of us. Tell me the friend's name. His name is Natasi, Charles Natasi. And where does he live? COUNTER 225 He lived at that time in _______ New York, ________ Long Island. Now today he lives at Henderson Nevada, it's a suburb of Las Vegas, and we're still in touch today, and we communicate with each other over the internet and cards, and he and his wife came and visited my wife and I here in Atlanta, and we just had a wonderful time showing him around. He was with _______ Aircraft corporation in civilian life, and he had something to do with the shuttle. He was responsible for getting the shuttle from California to Cape Canaveral, Florida. He came by Atlanta when he was responsible for the safety of the shuttle between that point, and he stayed with us two or three days, and I got to show him all around Atlanta, and then he and his wife came back later on and had a visit, a very wonderful person. Its surprising, when we came back and went to our stations at San Pedro, California waiting to be discharged when I got back from overseas. They kept us busy, they didn't know what to do, because we were just there, so they had ammunition in these big case, and they stored the ammunition, and I guess it was left over from the war, you know. So they had us to move the ammunition from one case to another case, and it was just something to keep us busy. Another thing they did, they had these great big concrete mixers, and we were to scrape them down and then paint them, and then prepare them for storage to be stored away for other use. Had the giant warehouses. We had concrete mixers, 6 ton concrete mixers, this is unbelievable, up on a truck, and we had two wooden planks turned down off the back of the trucks so this could come down on these planks into the warehouse, it was right at the entrance into the warehouse. Well all of the sudden, one of the concrete mixers started coming off the back of the truck down into the warehouse and I was kind of standing under it, so I to just back up against the wall of the warehouse as far as I could, and I got on my toes and stood on my toes to try to get out of the way of the concrete mixer as it came rushing down the thing. Well, I got everything out of the way except my left foot and it went across kind of diagonally like this across my foot. They were iron wheel son the concrete mixer, and it rolled over my foot, and it was so numb, I had no feeling in it, and as I walked around, the blood started gushing out of the soles, the stitching around the soles of the shoe. Some of the other soldiers noticed it and said hey, you've just got blood just coming out all over your shoes. So they rushed me to San Pedro, California, to Carnack General Hospital in Pasadena, which was about 45 miles away, at the height of the rush hour. I was more scared of driving in the ambulance to the hospital than I was scared about my foot, because I thought I ___________. We got to the hospital, and they left me laying on the floor for about 3 hours or more on a stretcher, just on the floor, and they asked me questions about what happened. I told them what happened. They said if that had happened that should have cut your foot off, and we left the shoe, took the foot off of the shoe, and it was left in the warehouse, so they said that should have cut your foot off, and I said well it didn't. We had to go back and get the shoe at the base, and they brought the shoe to the hospital, and it was clearly showing where it crossed over my foot you know, so then they allowed me to be entered in the hospital, they weren't going to allow me to be entered into the hospital until that came. Well, this Charles Natasi that I was talking about that went to Japan with me, he was in the medical corp, he had been assigned waiting for discharge at this McCarnack General Hospital where I went into the hospital. They had a manifest up there of all the patients being entered into the hospital and he saw my name on the manifest, and he came down there, and he said Gene Brown, I recognize that name. I'm going to go down there and see if that's the fellow I know. And it was. This was near Christmas time, just like it is now, and he did all my Christmas shopping for me. He was just the most wonderful man, he did all my Christmas cards, he visited me everyday, he was so wonderful to me and so kind, and wrapped my presents, took them to the post office and mailed them, he's just a wonderful man, and he's just a wonderful man today. Excuse me, that's one of those great benefits of being in the service, because of the wonderful friendships I had because we were all young. There was a sergeant in our barracks that was 30 years old. He was just 30 but we felt like he was an old man. We would get in the bed in the barracks you know, in the cot, and we would be talking when the lights would go out. The lights would go out at 10:00. We'd be talking and he'd say you fellows down there shut up or I'm going to come down and get you. But he would sleep in the nude, he didn't wear any clothes. He would come walking down the center of that isle between the bunks, it was on both sides, and he would stand over anybody he felt like, was you know, talking. Everybody would just lay real quiet, real still. Everybody, nobody liked him because we felt like he was an old buzzard, and he was just 30 years old. Isn't that interesting. But see, all of us were just young kids at that time. COUNTER 328 Well I want to go back and get some exact information if you don't mind. You said that you enlisted. Can you tell me when. I enlisted October 3, 1946, at Ft. McPherson, Georgia. I was sent to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Tell me, were you still living with your parents? I was still living with my parents. What did your parents think when you enlisted? Well, my mother was especially sad. She just, when they took me down, when I left for the railway station at the old Terminal Station in Atlanta, my mother couldn't not get out of the car. She stayed in the car, and the rest of the family went in. I was the last of 7 children, I was the baby. And she thought the sun set and rose with me, and it just really devastated her. She wrote me every day when I was in the service. Every day. I was not that good of a writer, I didn't like to write like that. I didn't write as much as she did, she wrote me a letter everyday. Just a wonder, I was fortunate that I had a real momma that really loved me very much, and I loved her, and I have marvelous memories of her. I have an interesting story to tell about when we went out to Ft. McPherson to be inducted. They sent us to the quartermaster place, and we went through the line, and they issued us fatigue uniforms and hats, and we went through the line. They were just slapping this equipment down to us, you know, and then sending us off to a Quonset hut like thing to be there. The first job that we had, it was in the fall time out at Ft. McPherson, and what we had at that time called the Southeastern World's Fair was out at the Lakewood Fairgrounds. The army had a military exhibit out there. They piled us, we got in our fatigue uniforms, and they first job they told us, they put us, they took us out to the Southeastern World's Fair, and the first job I had in the service was picking up papers and policing the area around the military exhibit and the Southeastern World's Fair, and this fatigue uniform I had on, I weighed 109 pounds. I didn't even have to go into service because the minimum weight was 110. But I bluffed my way in, I said I could gain a pound by eating, that was a lie, but I did get in. Which service branch did you join? Well I was inducted at Ft. McPherson. The army? Yes, into the army, the army. And then they sent me to Ft. Bragg, NC to be processed, and I was there a short while. Do you remember anything about Ft. Bragg. Yes, I have funny memories with that. My experiences in the service were kind of comical, it was very much like Pvt. Hargrove, exactly almost. We went to strip down again, cold weather, and they had these white footprints all over the floor where we were to line up and follow the footprints all along all these rooms for the physical examination being processed. We got up to the place where they were checking blood. The put the needle in my arm, and it was so cold and we didn't have any clothes on, they couldn't get any blood out of me. They said soldier, you just go over there and stand over there until you warm up and we can get some blood. And I had to go over there and stand there with this needle in my arm just standing there waiting and they got to where they could do this. But we marched all over this thing following these footprints without a stitch on, cold weather. Do you remember what you were thinking? I was thinking I was freezing to death, that was one thing I was thinking about. And I was wondering why we all had to be _____. Course now I understand it, but I thought well why do we have to just march around here without a stitch on in all these places. Well we got through with that, and after we were processed in Ft. Bragg, we were sent to Ft. Eustis, Virginia, on the James River for our basic training. Tell me about basic training. Basic training was a real experience for me because I led a very sheltered life and I had never experienced, I'd never had a gun in my hand, and I took training with the M-1 rifle quite a bit and I became a sharpshooter. I'd never had a gun in my hand my whole life. I was real proud of that. And I got a sharp shooter's medal and that thrilled me to death. I've still got that medal, it means a whole lot to me. Then we took ______________ where we had the barbed wire, the machine guns firing, and you had to crawl under the wire like that. I had a bad knee… TAPE 1 side B …a left knee, and I was so afraid that it was going to swell up where I could not move or carry on, but it never gave me any trouble at all. I had no trouble whatsoever. I completed 8 weeks of infantry basic at Ft. Eustis, Virigina. Do you remember anything, any experiences, food or friends, or the barracks. I just remember very cold weather and we had to take 20 mile hikes up and down the James River. And I remember that when we got back from the 20 mile hikes, they had us all to strip down and they gave us shots and all this stuff when we got back, and we dreaded that. The first morning that I got up, this was interesting too, I didn't know what to expect, but when we go ready to go to breakfast in the mess hall, the line going into the breakfast hall was a block or two long, double line, and we had to stand and wait all that time, and I thought my goodness. And everywhere we went it was double time. We didn't walk anywhere, we double timed everywhere we went. That was quite interesting. We could not walk, Norfolk, Virginia was close by Ft. Eustis. Norfolk was a navy town, and they warned us not to get anywhere near Norfolk because it would be rough, we were not to be there. They said the navy didn't come over to Ft. Eustis. But one day all of the sudden I see this ______ sailor walking down the street, he looked so funny because all of us were in these khaki colored uniforms and here was this one sailor coming down, he stood out like a sore thumb. But he had no trouble at all, we didn't bother him, but they did warn us about going over to Norfolk, they said it would be very dangerous, they told us to stay clear of that. You said you went in at 109 pounds? What did you way during basic? I gained a little bit, not much. My total weight with my M-1 rifle and my backpack and all the things I had weighed about 65 pounds, it was over half of my weight. When I was discharged from the service, I only weighed 114 ½ pounds. I was just thin, that's one way you can say it. How did you get through basic? I did extremely well in basic. In fact I did better than many of my contemporaries there who were bigger and more muscular. I was quite _______, I was 109 pounds. But I would take the hike and I was able to hike the full 20 miles and back to the base and not have any problems. But many of the fellows that you thought could stand anything had to be carried back in an ambulance. And another interesting thing that maybe really did worlds for my feeling for myself, when we'd go to get the shots and everything, a lot of those big fellows would pass out, and I never passed out. I didn't like it. We'd go through a door that had medics on both sides of the door. When you'd go in the door, they'd ________ with a couple of shots over here and a couple of shots in that arm, and they told long tales about having this big needle that they'd would just to scare everybody. And they succeeded, they scared everybody. They learned a lot of things about venereal diseases that I had never heard of in my life, and that was in interesting experience. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me, to go into service and be associated with all these people from all these various backgrounds and cultures, and it was a wonderful experience that I wouldn't take anything in the world for, because it made me a much better and much stronger person. I was very fortunate to serve on General MacArthur's staff when I was in Japan. Lets get to Japan, so you're in Virginia, and then what happened? When I completed my basic training at Ft. Eustis, Virginia, we had a ten day delay en route. I came back to Atlanta, and a very interesting and historic thing happened to me then. Not only to me but to Atlanta. I came on December 6, 1946. That night, when I was in the bed, I heard all these sirens going off and all this rattling and stuff. The Winecoff Hotel burned that evening, right after midnight, it was on fire. 119 people were killed in that fire, one of the worst hotel fires in the United States, it may be the record today. What was so sad is there were a lot of young teenagers from south Georgia who were up on a convention in Atlanta staying at that hotel, and a lot of them were killed, and it was a very, very sad thing in Atlanta, one of the worst hotel fires at that time ever in the United States. That was that night. Did you go down to the fire or did you… No I did not go until the next day to see it. Did you know anybody there? No but the lady, Francis Winecoff, the owner of the hotel lived in the same retirement place that my sister lived in, in the Candlestone apartments in Buckhead. She lived there, she was one of the member of the family, the Wincoff family. After the ten day delay in route in Atlanta at my home, I got on a train in Atlanta, and my mother went down to see me off, and that's when she could not come into Terminal Station to see me off. But I was on the train for about five days. We went through Montgomery down to New Orleans, New Orleans across Texas, and it seemed like we were crossing Texas for 2 ½ days or 3 days, it took forever to get through Texas. Who else was on the train with you, who loaded with you? A lot of troops you know, army troops was on the train going out to the various bases in California. On the train, they had some of these girls, I don't know if they were following the soldiers or what they were, but they had this beautiful girl on there, and I was not very good looking, and I was scrawny little kid, but this girl kept trying to get me to drink a, something, a zombie. I had enough sense that I had heard about how strong zombies were you know, and I think she was trying to get me drunk or something and take some money or do something, I don't know what she had in mind, but whatever it was, she did her best but I never did drink the things. We went through California and then up through Fresno where the state capitol is and up to Camp Stoneman, California. Then we got on the troop ship at Camp Stoneman after being processed again at Camp Stoneman, and I think it was the General, it was an army troop ship called the General Polk, I think it was. And we got over on the General Polk, and we were on the ship for 17 days crossing the Pacific. What was that like? It was miserable for me because I was sick every day. I was nauseated and just, oh, it was terrible. And my buddy Charles Natasi that I went over there with, we played a lot of hearts trying to keep our minds off. He didn't get sick but I did, it just made me sick. And they put me on duty, I didn't care for MPs very much, and they made an MP out of me on the ship. I was supposed to be by the galley, stand by the galley, and the fumes from that food in the galley, they said if we left our post we could be court martialed. Well I was standing there guarding the door for whatever reason I don't know at the galley, and those fumes passed by and made me so sick I couldn't stand it. I deserted my post, I went up those steps of the ship and I just leaned over and it was awful. But 17 days. And when we got, right before we got ready to cross the international date line another troop ship was out there and we had a typhoon, and we drifted for 3 days at the height of the typhoon on this ship that was about 60 miles from us. They got a radio message on the ship that a man was having an appendicitis attack and they did not have, that ship did not have a hospital thing on it, ours did. So how we did this because we were just drifting all that time, but somehow or another they got the ship over to this over ship and transferred the man on one of these stretchers in the air, have you ever seen that? Where they have some kind of pulley string. And they put him on a stretcher and carried him across from that ship to our ship. He was operated on, and the two ships stayed close by each other, and then after the operation and everything, they put him over stretcher, I mean back on his own ship. In the middle of the typhoon? While that storm was going on. And like I said, we just drifted. That's why I'm not clear about how it was possible for them to maneuver closer to where that ship because we had been drifting all that time. Finally the calm, the storm calmed down, and we got onto Yokohama, but it took 17 days. When we got to Japan, I had a real interesting experience. When we pulled up at the dock in Yokohama where I didn't know we were going to be stationed, that's where my permanent base was. I did know that at the time. The dock workers down on the dock were going like this, and we said what are they doing, all these Japanese you know doing just like this. I told you I weighed 109 pounds, my face was kind of long, I had a long face, and it was real narrow, and what they were doing, they were, ________, and long faces. Japanese had round faces, kind of pie shaped, well they had never, I don't think they had ever seen anybody with such a long face, and so here's all these dock workers going like this. We finally figured out what they were doing, but it took us a while, and that is my introduction to Japan. Tell me about your job or your assignment. Oh, I was fortunate again because when I was in high school in Miami, Florida, I had an afternoon job at the Western Union. And when I would get out of high school in the afternoon, I would go to work at Western Union. This is during the war years. And I would work from 4-12. I worked and got experienced on teletype machines and I forgot what the machine is that has the perforated tape with the little holes in it that they pull through. I can't recall what they called that machine, but anyway, I took training, they taught me that at the Western Union headquarters. I had a wonderful supervisor, and she was from Ball Ground, Georgia, if you can imagine such a thing, that used to amaze me, Ball Ground, Georgia. But anyway, she was a wonderful woman, and she really trained me well. I didn't realize at the time you know, God takes care of things in life, and He was preparing me for something that was really fortunate for me, because when I got to Japan as a result of this experience, they looked on my records, and they saw where I had worked for Western Union, and so I got a job in General MacArthur's satellite office in Yokohama as a person in charge of this communications office. General MacArthur would send the troop movement messages down to me and we had what we called RTO's, railway transportation office, and he would send these messages to his commanders out in the field, I would send them out into the field like that, because of my experience that I had at Western Union. I had a, my commanding officer that came in, not my commanding officer but the officer that was in charge because I was a corporal, a technical corporal at this time. I went in as a recruit, I was not even a private, I went in as a recruit. I became a private, I thought I was really something when I became a private because I had been a recruit. And when I became a private first class and it was posted on the wall, I thought I was really something, PFC Gene Brown, and then when I got overseas, I got corporal stripes, it was a T-corporal. It had two stripes with a T down at the bottom, which signified that I was not in infantry duties but I was in technical. Well after I was in charge of these Japanese, I had about five Japanese in there, I spoke no Japanese and they spoke no English. We had to do a lot of sign language but that's a miracle again. I make the motions and they make the motions and we could kind of figure out what we were saying, and gradually they picked up some English and I picked up some Japanese and I learned to say ‘good morning Ohio' like the state of Ohio. And I learned a very important phrase, where is the restroom please [said in Japanese] and thank you very much [said in Japanese] Good afternoon was [in Japanese] and good evening was [in Japanese]. I still remember that and when Japanese people come through Atlanta, I always do that and they know what I'm talking about. They recognize it. So it has stuck with me. I had an interesting experience. I went to roller skate, not roller skate, ice skate at the Tokyo ice rink with General MacArthur's son. He was about 12 or 13 years old at the time. The ________ building was the headquarters for General MacArthur in Tokyo, it was located right across from the Imperial Palace and I had to go down there to get different information and take different information back and forth. COUNTER 171 Where did you stay while you were in Japan? Army barracks? Well when I first got to Japan after we'd landed in Japan at Yokohama, and I got experienced about the faces, they sent us to Atsuki army air base. And would you believe they did not know what to do with us when we got there. We had to take basic training. They pretended like the lost our records. I had to take another full set of infantry basic at Atsuki army air base. I had a double dose of it. And they told us they were toughening us up and they said you look like pigs, we're going to treat you like pigs, you so and so. And we were in the old Japanese West Point barracks, big huge wooden barracks with the windows, a lot of the windows broken out. The only heat in it was a pot bellied stove at one end and a pot bellied stove at the other. In the middle of the two residential barracks where the cots were, was a day room, a big day room with the pool tables and all this kind of stuff. The first night I was there, they put me on the guard duty to make sure the barracks were safe. While I was standing duty there, these Japanese little fat squats, Japanese people came in and started circling me and boy I was scared to death. I backed up on the thing and I just was prepared for most anything. They were talking but I didn't know what they was saying. What they wanted was cigarettes and I didn't know that, I was scared to death, I thought what in the world, what is it they want, what are they doing in our barracks you know, like that. But apparently the were workers there somewhere on the base. Fortunately it was cigarettes they were after, but I didn't smoke, so I couldn't have helped them out. Are you in Japan…? My entire service other than my being processed, going overseas, and coming back, was in Japan. When did, when was V-J day? I guess I was _______ on V-J day. I don't recall. If this was Japan, occupation Japan…? I was in the occupation forces. The war was over? It was 8 months before the war was over. I think the war was officially over in 1946 '47. I forget when the official day was. It was something, I had about 6 or 8 months in officially in World War II because I was in the occupation forces of Japan. I had a lot of interesting and funny experiences there too. Well tell me some of your experiences there. Alright, one of the experiences was when I had to go to the bathroom. And I led a very private life, I was used to going to the bathroom and shutting the door being very private. All of the sudden I'm in a place with 16 toilets. There was 8 toilets down this side and 8 toilets down this side and they faced each other and there were no partitions. Well, I just could not do the things that I was required to do because there were all these people looking at me, and it kind of unsettled me. Well I noticed that, I noticed that while I was in there, person would ____ there just like this, and then they would sit down and they kept rising like this standing up and sitting down and I noticed that everybody was looking at me, just staring at me. Some were writing letters to girls, I got some news for you. A lot of the love letters that you would see was written on the John. They would be writing letters, some of them would be reading the newspapers, and just talking about what they were going to do on their passes or whatever. All the time, it was just like pistons in an automobile going up and down like that. And everybody had their eye right on me. All of the sudden I heard this roaring noise, they had automatic flushing toilets and what it did, it just flushed all the toilets automatically, and it just washed you off practically, and they were waiting, they knew that I didn't know anything about it, it was my first time. And they were all waiting to see what would happen to me, and of course when that happened I shot up like this, my eyes _____ like that. And that's what they were doing, that's why they were all staring at me waiting for me to be initiated, they had a lot of fun at my expense. Did you ever do that to the next new guy that came in? No, well I'm sure I was in there when it happened when the next guys came in. The whole time in the service, I always had a guilty expression on my face when I was in the service. When everything went wrong, I had this guilty expression when I really didn't have anything to do with it, and I'd be placed on KP a lot of times when I was supposed to be going off for the weekend pass or something and everybody was going to town. I'd have to stay there and we had to scrub the bottom of the tables, the mess hall tables, the bottoms and the tops. And we literally did what you told, take toothbrushes and clean in between the cracks on the floors on the walls. And our sergeant in our barracks said he wanted our barracks to have the award as the best kept barracks in the place. And we had to bleach our floors, bleach the walls, everything. The trunk at the foot of the cot had to be folded and set, all our clothes in the thing had to be just so. And they'd come by and take a quarter and flip it on you cot when you made your bed. If the quarter didn't flip around like that, they'd yank all that back and you'd have to do all the covers over again. I just had so many different experiences that was just really a __________ its hard to remember all the different things that took place. Do you want to tell me about coming home? Coming home? Coming home, I came home on the General Langston, another army transport ship. This… Was this trip easier or harder than the trip going out? The trip coming home was easier but it was still a long trip and I was still kind of nauseated. I've forgotten the exact length of time but it was about the same length of time, maybe not quite as long because of the typhoon on the way over. But I was on the bottom bunk, we had canvas bunks that were just about this wide, six deep. I was on the very bottom bunk on the floor right near the head, the head is the bathroom. When you were laying down in the canvas bunk, you didn't even have room enough to, you could do your head up a little bit like that but you couldn't, you just had to slide sideways out of the bunk. The whole time we were on that ship, that's the way we slept. We were six deep. And hearing those people, you know that was not feeling well, all that noise, and it was hot. It was a bad situation, but you do the best you can with whatever the situation. And another funny thing, we had to stand up to eat. We had to stand up to eat so when we'd go in the galley, this was an interesting thing. We had these metal trays I think it was, its been a long time. And we'd go through the line, they'd get the trays, and we'd go to these big tables, it was like this, kind of high. We'd put the tray down. And any time the ship would roll, the tray would go down this way and then it'd bring your tray back, you'd take a bite, and then the tray would go over this way. So the whole time all over this place, here we are eating. Oh me, those were interesting experiences but it was wonderful. You know, everybody was in the same boat. Everybody had a wonderful attitude, and it was just great. And it was towards Christmas time when we were coming home then, right before Christmas. COUNTER 295 Were you awarded any medals? The presidential citation, unit citation. The Asiatic pacific, the World War II victory medal, and there's still another but I cannot recall. I have the things at home, and I have the ribbons, things you know. I had a disappointment when I was over there. At the time, it really made me feel real bad. All my buddies that I went over with came back as tech sergeants. I was the only one to come home as a corporal. There was a lieutenant that was in the signal corps that was sent to my office because he was not doing well where he was stationed in the signal corps, so they sent him to my office. He had not had any experience in communications, so when he came into the office, he had to ask me what to do which he did not like. And I had to show him different things, and I was very nice and very kind and I never gave him any reason, but he was very, it just upset him a lot that he had to come and ask me and I had to do all the things. So when it came time for promotions, he could say he put me in for my promotion but he waited until it was less than, it was just slightly less than three months before I would be sent home, to be discharged, and because I had less than three months to go, they didn't process the promotion. And see he did this just because he just couldn't you know. And all my buddies came back as tech sergeants and I came back as a tech corporal. At the time, it really bothered me a whole lot, but then I matured a little bit and I thought just what is all that, that doesn't really mean anything. It hurt me at the time, but then I got over that quick and that didn't bother me, but it did at the time really bother me because I should have, deserved it, but he just didn't. He was from Brooklyn, NY. I'll never forget him, Lt. Jack Hockstecker, I'll never forget him. You said that you, instead of going on leave, you had KP a couple of times. What did you do when you went on leave, did you get some leave? Oh yes. That was the nicest thing that occurred to me. We got an R&R trip for a week and we went down to Atomi, Japan, and it was Emperor Hirohito's summer residential area. Beautiful place. We stayed at the Atomi Hotel on top of the mountain with this gorgeous golf course. But you had to be a sharp golfer because every time if you missed the green, it was the side of a mountain, it rolled back. But we rode the Emperor's horses in his stables, and the bathtubs in the place were this fan shaped, just like a fan, and you would walk down steps into the thing to take a bath, it was __________. But we slept on bed rolls ______ roll out on the floor. It was a beautiful place, and I was really thrilled. That was my only trip that I got to see like that, but that was a wonderful experience, and beautiful area, and it was interesting to see a real Japanese hotel like that. I was fortunate enough too, when I was in Tokyo, to go through the Tojo movie studies where the Japanese movie industry is, and I got to meet a lot of the Japanese move stars and tour the sound stages, that was an experience. And I went to _____ park in Tokyo where they had a memorial for the earthquake that killed so many people in an earthquake they had over there that was very bad, in ____ park. I had a few, I was afraid to get out frankly too much unless I was with somebody because it was seen that we were the occupying force and you just didn't know what. But they were very nice, I have to say this, I became very fond of the Japanese people, and they became very fond of me because when I left they brought me presents and everything when I left, from my association there in my office. Beautiful farms, their farms look like gardens, they were just so gorgeous. They were vegetable gardens but they were manicured so beautiful that it just looked like you had gone on a tour of gardens, that's the way the farms looked, they were gorgeous. And when it rained. Oh, when I was there, the men and women wore kimonos. The men didn't wear western things, they wore black kimonos with wooden shoes. They wore wooden shoes like in Holland but they were not made up on the side, they were just like a flip-flop or wooden thing with a strap that came across the toe. You'd hear all this flip flopping going down the street. When it rained, the women, the men had umbrellas too the same way, but they had these big sleeves that had pockets that kept the umbrellas. But the minute it started raining, out would come these thing, and they were real colorful, real bright colors, and it almost looked like a Mary Poppins movie. All of a sudden here would be all these umbrellas in all these beautiful colors like in the springtime flowers or something, and that was a sight to see. Did you bring any mementos home from Japan? I did. I brought back some beautiful embroidered kimonos with golden dragons down the back you know, and they do this elaborate embroidery. They're very beautiful. I brought back several kimonos, and I was going to bring a tea set but I had acted kind of ugly. I didn't smoke, and so when I would get my cigarettes, I would sell my cigarettes because I didn't smoke. I would take the money that I got for cigarettes to buy things to bring home. I got this beautiful china set with cups and things and you'd hold them up to the light and you'd see the Japanese figure through there, and I took it to the post office, and while I was standing in line COUNTER 416 ends TAPE II side A COUNTER 24 ….at the post office, this colored was standing in front of me, and the MPs came up and got him for something that he bought. And it made me ______, I said look I'm getting ready to go home, I don't want to offend anything, so I turned around in the line and I did not take that home, but I did get home with a chocolate set that's real pretty, and we still have that today. Its kind of a brownish and white, and it has the little figures in the bottom, and that was all I could get by with that. So I got that home, a few things, not a lot of things. And I have a lot of pictures that I took while I was there. Our barracks where we stayed in Yokohama was right on the waterfront, and I had some interesting experiences with that too because I did not drink, and they used to call me Nehi Brown because I'd have a Nehi orange and they'd be drinking beer or whatever, and they'd get too much to drink. And they always liked for me to go with them because I would bring back one on one arm and another on the other and get them back to their barracks safe. Well I'd get them in the barracks and someone would have so much to drink ________________ our barracks was on a ________. Well I was afraid they'd get out and crawl and fall so I was busy all the time you know trying to keep them safe and well and everything. When we got ready to ship out to come home to discharged we had a good farewell beer party and I knew they were going to make me try to drink beer. It had kind of a brown colored bottle. I had sense enough to get me a empty brown bottle and I kept the bottle in my hand like this and I would just put it up to my lips like I was drinking beer, and I got to cutting up because I've always been kind of extroverted, I was not shy or anything like that. So I would just, and I got to singing Oh the lucky wrapped his tail around the flag pole around the flag pole, and I was doing all, see I had lots of experience because I knew exactly how they operated. I got on the bus, I crawled on the floor just like they did because I was trying to protect myself because I knew that they would try to get me drunk or try to do something. Not because they disliked me or anything but the fact was this party. And I knew it would make me sick so I just kept that empty bottle and I did all the monkey motions that they did, I knew I had it down pat, and to this day, if you bumped into any of my brothers, one was Lawrence Lees, you asked me if I could remember, he was Old Hickory, TN, and I remember his name. My closest brother, this is interesting, I was from the deep south. My closest buddy I had in the service was from Long Island, NY; Chicago, IL; Pierre, SD; and I think the attraction was they were interested in me because they were learning about how southern boys feel, and I was interested in them because I was learning about Yankee boys. My very closest buddies in the service were all Yankees. I had plenty of southern friends that I liked too, they were my closest buddies and stayed in touch with them a pretty good while. The one buddy that I had been in touch with for about 30 years, his name was John Mehlhaff, he must have been German, and he was from Pierre, SD. He was a farm boy, and he was just a wonderful fellow. We kept in touch for about 30 years and all of the sudden I never heard another word from him. Well I knew there was something bad wrong because you don't keep up with somebody, you're not in the service and keep up all that length of time and just all of the sudden. So my wife and I took a trip, took a 10,000 mile trip all over the United States and Canada, and we went to Pierre, SD, looking for, found the Mehlhaff's, but we never could find him. We asked and said do you have any idea where they could, said well the Mehlhaff's moved to _______ Lake, Iowa. We wanted to see him so bad that my wife and I drove to _____ Lake Iowa searching for him. And we found some Mehlhaff's again in _____ Lake, Iowa, but we never did find him. And to this day, the only thing that I can figure, he must have been in the ____ and was killed or he died if he got some kind of and died. Because I'm sure that after all those years that, because we kept in close contact. So the only one brother that I had from World War II today that I'm still in touch with is this Charles Natasi that lives out in Las Vegas. Wonderful friend. When you, we've got just about five minutes left, tell me quickly about what work, or when you got home, did you work, did you got back to school on the GI bill? Can you just sum up quickly what you did after? I was only home ten days when I got a job. I got a job at the US Treasury Department, temporary job. I got the job and was there for three months. At the end of three months, the temporary job was over and then I got a job at the Veteran's Administration, and I was with the Veteran's Administration, and that was like being in prison. We went to work with the bell. When it was time to go to lunch, the bell rang, when it was time to come back from lunch the bell rang, and when it was time to go home, the bell rang. And we had these case files, veteran's case files, stacked up on our desk like this. You never saw the light of day, they never went down. Every day they'd just come… After I'd worked there for about two or three years, I said I've had enough of this, this is just terrible. Like if I had to go to the doctor or anything, I had to sign a memo that was sent to my supervisor and then it went all the way up, if you can imagine a simple thing like that, all the way to the top man, and then back down again in order for me to be able to go to the doctor. I got tired of that, I left, and I went with the US Public Housing Administration, which later turned into the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and I was with them for 39 ½ years and retired. When did you meet your wife? I met my wife in 1959. I was a founder of a singles club in Atlanta called the After Hours Social Club of Atlanta for single people who wanted to meet other people of like interests, and I was the host of this party, and my wife came in. It was my job to introduce other people around, and she was one of about 35 or 40 women that I danced with that evening. Two weeks later, my buddy brings her to my Sunday school class at Peachtree Road Methodist Church and she comes in and she recognizes me, and she says oh I just enjoyed dancing with you so much the other. Well I didn't remember her from Adam's housecat because she was just one of all these women that I was busy introducing and dancing with to make sure they had a good time. But my momma didn't raise any fools, and I said oh yes, I enjoyed dancing with you too. But I did not tell my wife about that for about 10 years later. But anyway, that's how we met, and the people in my Sunday school class got us together. We played bridge and they'd say you go pick up Charlsie, and I'd go pick up my wife Charlsie and we'd go out and it developed from there, before what I new what was happening. Tell me when was your wedding day. My wedding day was August 17, 1961. Married here in Atlanta in the chapel. We were the third couple married in the chapel of Peachtree Road Methodist Church, and I got a fabulous gal. She's a Georgia Bulldog, and I was a Georgia Bulldog. I went to Georgia State College when I came out of the service. I worked during the day and went to school at night. At that time it was the Georgia, Atlanta division of the University of Georgia, and we had full campus privileges but we just went to school in Atlanta. My wife was over at Georgia at Athens, so we had a lot in common with that. And I just got a wonderful girl. We've been married 43 years now, and she's just a fabulous person. I got a much better wife than I deserve, just wonderful. Congratulations. Do you do anything with any veteran's organizations? COUNTER 117. No, I never was. I didn't want to be. There's another interesting story here. I didn't want to join the, when I got ready to be discharged, they wanted me to join the reserves. I did not want to join the reserves, I had had all I wanted of it. But when I went to work at the Veteran's Administration, my boss was the commander of a unit in the reserves. He ___ day that I came to work for six months. And after six months of being _________ on, I finally relented and said well I'll join the reserves. I had a three year enlistment in the reserves, and I almost got myself in the biggest jam in history. I was down at summer camp in Fayetteville in Georgia toward the end of my enlistment for three year enlistment. Korean war broke out. I almost had to go in the Korean war. Because I had less than a week to go before I was to be discharged from the reserves, I didn't have to go. Boy that was a close shave. The unit that I was in was the first unit to leave Atlanta to go to the Korean war. Pictures were on the front page of the paper. Presented me with a tremendous dilemma because a lot of these men that was in my office, they had wives and children and I was single. They left from Brookwood station down on Peachtree and I had to determine do I go down there and say goodbye or should I stay home because we had been together almost three years. I hardly slept that night, I was stewing about what in the world, what is the proper thing for me to do. I finally decided that I would go, it was extremely difficult, because it was terrible. These men were in the worst battles of the Korean war. I probably would not have come home. They were in the Porkchop hill battle, that was one of the most famous battles in Korea. They were also, some of them were in the Puzon area when they were backed up the Pacific you know kind of like ________. I missed that just by a week, less than a week, or I would have been over in the Korean war. I doubt if I would have come back, so ______________ it really got me in a jam. I didn't want to be in the reserves in the first place. Is there anything you want to add, have we covered the interview with stories that you haven't told or experiences? There's just little things that's hard to get your mind. I've had so many wonderful experiences. Did you think at the time that you were doing something, that you were fighting in this war? Did you realize how historic it would be, that this war would be so historic? No, I didn't at the time, but I did know this. I had a burning desire because of the things that I did on the homefront before I went in the service. I wanted to do my part, that's why I was so anxious to go in the service. I didn't have to go in the service because I didn't have the minimum weight, and I told them that I could gain a pound, you know, if I really… And I had __________ so I really didn't have to go, but I wanted to go, I wanted to do my part. It was wonderful. I did my part. I was so, in MacArthur's satellite office in Yokohama, best thing that I ever experienced. Best thing that ever happened to me, and why, because it made a man out of me. It was a wonderful experience and I wouldn't take anything for it. In fact I had such a wonderful experience in Japan that I felt like writing Uncle Sam a thank you note that I had the opportunity. But it was devastated. The Tokyo central station had no roof, everything bombed out. Blocks, bombs, you know, everything desperate situation to see old men and old women fighting over cigarette butts on the ground, and one little old woman looked like 150, but she was just a little short lady, and she sang a little song [singing in Japanese]. That's just stayed in my mind all these years, that little old lady freezing cold, on those little shoes and her feet so cold they were red, and you really had to steel yourself because the times were hard and it was pitiful, and the situation was bad. What they, you know, I didn't, I saw all those war movies about the Japanese and how terrible things were and a lot of people still to this day, they can't stand it. But its like the leaders cause the problems in the world today, the decisions they make a lot of times, and the people in those various countries, they're just like you and me, they did what they were told to do. I think they responded the best they could, and they're really a wonderful group of people, its just unfortunate that the situation, its just like its being repeated today, the Iraqi people for instance. I don't think they are bad people, its just that they had bad leaders that exploited them and truly have been so terrible. I thank God. God, you know, He plans your life like, I've had those experiences, I was able to go to college because of the service, I met those wonderful Japanese people, and I learned a lot from my brothers that was in the service for me. It gave me kindness and understanding, and God provided me a wonderful wife that I never dreamed, I got a lovely wife that's very intelligent, very giving, very loving, and she loves it, my wife loves Atlanta, and she puts her money where he love is. She supports all the organizations all over Atlanta. She's a big music fan. She's given lots of funds to the Steinwick society and the ___Mozart society, the Atlanta Symphony, the Children's Theatre. My wife and I both love Atlanta dearly and we do all we can to volunteer with the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and we welcomed the world and I just have the most happy and…. I feel so sorry for the people who say I'm leaving Atlanta. I don't want to be here, they've missed out on the experience of a lifetime, the most exciting and most thrilling time to be in Atlanta, and I got to show people from all over the world around Atlanta, and I was responsible for a British group, the handicapped people, I had to escort, take them around different places, and it was just a wonderful experience. A lot of times, you think you'll have a bad experience, you want to get out of town, you miss out on a wonderful experience, it's the most marvelous time that Atlanta ever experienced. Its just been a wonderful time, I've been very blessed in my life, extremely blessed beyond anything that I can ever imagine. God has been real good to me. I have a nice home, and I grew up during the depression years with pants made out of flowers cut up from my sister's dresses, and I wore ________ shirts made out Capicola flower sacks, we must have been pretty desperate, it was that way for years and years, and it was World War II when we came out of this. If anybody ever told me that I would be living in a lovely home like I live today, that I would have had the opportunity to travel the world, I've been to China, and I've been to the Holy Land, and I've been all over Europe, and I've had all these wonderful… I feel so privileged. And this wife I've got, I keep going back to my wife, I got this wonderful girl, far beyond anything she could have married much better. I was a _________ I didn't have any money, all I had I did love her, and I was honest with her. I told her I said I can't really offer you a great deal, I love you and I'll be a good husband while I can't offer you a lot. So she knew up front what she was getting into, but we've been married 43 years and we have a happy marriage, and she's just a wonderful person, and I'm grateful for my home and my friends and that I can live in this wonderful country. This has been a magnificent interview and for you to take the time to share your story has made a wonderful afternoon for me, so thank you very much. Well, I ask your forgiveness for…. COUNTER 237
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Extent:: 1:19:03
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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