War stories by the residents

Wesley Graff

Him and four other men signed up to take ammo up to the front lines. They loaded up a truck and headed out. They came to a cement canal that had been drained. 50 yards across the canal they could see that the bridge had been blown and so had the railroad bridge. So they had to lower the ammo into the canal and then lower themselves down and climb up the other side. They went about ten miles and delivered the ammo. After delivering the ammo they were to take 150 captured German soldiers back the way they came. By the time they reached the cement canal a group of soldiers were tearing down the walls and they were able to relieve these four soldiers of the captured Germans.

Roy Grossman

On June 16th Roy was wounded while in combat. A soldier was firing at him with a machine gun and he was shot multipule times across the thigh and if the gun man had not seized fire it would have took off his leg. He was taken to a hospital but was taken prisoner. French doctors where the ones who tended to his wounds. He was a prisoner of war for about three months before he was rescued. The day he was rescued he was standing in the doorway to the hospital watching the American soldiers force their way into the camp.

Ben Gould

Ben joined the army Feb. 5th 1951. He was in 14 weeks of basic training and was sent to Korea from there. He spent ten months to a year in Korea and was in action on a part of the front lines. He remembers the first day of combat they were traveling up the face of squaw peak and he could see lots of men laying all over the ground. And he realized they were dead.

Enid Anderson

When the war broke out Enid and her friend went to join the Navy. They were sent to New York for training and then to the base across the bay from Sandiago, where she worked in the 11th Navel district headquarters as a typist for two years. Her favorite story to tell is Enid met Merrill one day visiting her sister after she returned home from the Navel base after the war was over. They dated a few times before Enid asked why he wasn't married yet and he replied, "I can't find anyone to marry me." She smiled at him and said, "I will, all you have to do is ask."

Rose Mackley

During the war Rose worked several hours in the Doctors library, which was located in the hospital and then after working there she would go to the patient library, which was also located in the hospital. She worked with a Dr. Slocom who was a phsycologist and they worked in section eight with the mentally ill. One day Dr. Slocom said, "Ma'ma why don't you go to officer training?" and she said, "I wouldn't make a good officer." And he said, "Neither would I ma'am, neither would I." And he was a colonel.

Warren Williams

Warren served with the atlantic fleet and all those who are familiar with Pier 92 and New York City would know they are infamous for the commander wanting people's hair to be cut short. You were inspected and if your hair was too long you would have to get it cut. So his name was on the list to get it cut but he noticed the person who was checking off the names, as those who were getting their hair cut called out their names when they were done, didn't look at people when they called out their name. He just checked them off. So he waited a reasonable amount of time in between the last person who called out his name then called out his own name without getting a hair cut and he was checked off the list. But his buddy wasn't so smart and tried the same tactic but forgot to leave a time lapse inbetween and the checker looked up and noticed his hair wasn't cut so they made him get it cut.

Kenneth Davies

He was made an officer in charge, which is called a Skipper of an LCT (landing craft tank) for tanks and man power as they make an invasion of an island or any place and the bow would opened up and fell down on the shore that way they could move the troops and things off. The war was over but they used them to transfer material from closing of bases in one area and certain supplies to major bases. He received no training to run one of these vessels. He was sent from the island of Somor to another island of Latia to help close a base. He had to stop at a tanker just outside of the one base of Somor to load up with fuel to get to the other island. He had a radio but could not connect with the tanker. They were all asleep. So they couldn't make any contact with anyone. They tried signaling them with the signal light, and on the radio but still no response. So he decided to hook up to the tanker anyway. He never did it before and he came along side the tanker and there was no one there to received the line from the boat to the ship. The wind and the current was taking him beyond that and it was a narrow passageway that he had to go. He got to where he could not of hooked on to get the fuel so he back downed his engines. The bow swung into the side of the tanker. The tanker was made of concrete. And when he did the bow knocked a big hole in the living quarters where they sleep. It was around eight o'clock in the morning. And all the men finally came running up on deck. They were able to pull them in and fuel them up but there was a huge hole left in the living quarters. When they finished their business and were coming back he noticed they had cemented the hole up. He never got in trouble.

Dick Duvall

It was during the Korean war. Because he thought he was going to be called back to active duty since he was in the reserves he went to the executive officer and asked if it would be a good idea if he took a company officers training course at Fort Benning. The officer said yes it would be a great idea because I am going to be taking a field officers training course in the same place. So he said ok and took the course. During the training course the other officer named Scotty went out for the weekend and on the way back he had car trouble so he left his car on the side of the road and hitchhiked back to camp. He asked one of the captians if they would take him up to warm springs to pick up his car and he said he would. Over the course of the day the captain decided he didn't want to go up to warm springs so he told Scotty he wouldn't be able to take him up there and Dick over heard the conversation and said, "Heck Scotty, I don't mind taking you up there." They were about to get in the car when another officer asked where they were going and they told him. The officer said, "Oh well I met some girls up there in warm springs last weekend." So they all went back in and got their uniforms on. They went back for the broken down car, and pulled it into warm springs so it could be fixed then they went to meet the young women the other officer talked about. When they got to the place where the girls where his friend Scotty started to go towards the prettiest blonde and he reached over and said no Scotty she's mine. And he is lucky he stoped his friend because he married that pretty blonde two months later. And had her for 53 wonderful years.

Robert Court

He was in a special branch of supply one of standard hardware. When he started his project they put him in a special unit so that he could spread his papers out and figure it all out. He was told after the war that if it had not been for them the war would have lasted a lot longer as they made their equipment go to the right place. Before they started their project they had warehouses full of supplies every little nut and bolt was seperate because it came on a different pump and the Navy is nothing without a pump. It was determinded that if they had the information in thier hand before the war started there would not have been as much damage at Pearl Harbor as there was because of the way that they were supplied.

Lee Robison

He was in WWII from December 1941 to November 1945. Then he was in the Korean war from July 1950 to 1951. He served in the South Pacific in the air core, which is now called the air force. He was an airplane mechanic. He was in the Pacific stationed on a little island that was a top of a volcano. They had a deep harbor there for ships and he was on the air force side and they had a runway where planes could come in and take off. The first part of the war he was on a fairing squad stationed at Hamilton field his job was to service planes that were going over seas to combat areas.

Myron Thompson

He was in the Air force ROTC in college and he wanted to be a pilot so they sent him down to salt lake but he failed the eye exam because they found out he saw double from an injury. So he was sent to the draft board but he failed once because of his eyes and because he didn't have enough teeth. So he joined the army because they said they would pay for surgery to fix his eye and his teeth. When he got in the service in fort ord California there was a 19 year old boy from Salt lake ahead of him going through the barbed wire through the mud with thier rifles in their arms and he stood when the machine guns were firing, and Myron takled him and held him down and wouldn't let him up. Myron was 24 and he was 19. When they finished and they met the colonel and he said are you proud of that you have done? He asked what he was proud of what he had done. He said he saved a mans life because they could have used him for an example.