In the summer of 1941, the war was raging in Europe. I was 1A for the draft, so I joined the Air Forces. I was shipped to Fort Lewis, and while there was given the Army General Classification Test. Fortunately, I did well on the test.
I was shipped to Jefferson Barracks, Mo., and was assigned to help recruits who had little schooling learn to cope with Army routines, plus basic reading and writing. (I hardly knew the routine, myself.)
When Pearl Harbor was hit, I was sent to the Bay Area, with no idea what was in store. I was assigned to Squadron 8, 49th Fighter Group, 5th Air Forces.
We left the U.S. Jan. 12, 1942, and arrived in Melbourne, Australia, on Feb. 2. Our first meal was mutton stew. At that time Australia reportedly had 7 million people and 114 million sheep. We moved to Canberra, where the pilots trained, then to Darwin.
Living was primitive at best. We lived in tents with cots covered by mosquito nets. It was not unusual to see a tiger snake -- Australia's most deadly -- slither through the tent. Drinking water was from a Lister bag. One would fill his canteen, let the mosquito larvae settle to the bottom, then drink off the top. To eat a slice of bread, made in the mess tent, it was necessary to first pick out the bugs, then eat the rest.
Bombing raids were commonplace. If at night, and planes were not directly overhead, one stayed under his mosquito net, rather than being dive-bombed by hungry mosquitoes. The entire experience was a threatening but maturing one.
Even so, it was not as bad as what came later for those involved at Iwo Jima and points north.
After eight months in the Darwin area, we went by coastal freighter to Port Moresby, New Guinea. After many months there, I was shipped home for flight training. Malaria intervened, changing that plan. By then I was a staff sergeant, with no MOS (Military Occupational Specialty). I had served in operations in the South Pacific, manning the field telephone and alerting pilots for takeoff. I saw an announcement for Officer Candidate School in Miami Beach, Fla., and applied for that. I was told I did not qualify, as I had never had basic training. I went to see the base commanding officer -- this was at Shepherd Field, Texas -- who made a series of phone calls, and informed me that I had basic training. I attended and graduated for OCS (after another bout with malaria).
After that I was stationed in Greenville, S.C., during which time I attended a Personal Affairs School at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. I then went to New York, and made two trips to Europe and the Mediterranean, returning troops and providing them with information regarding rights and expectations. I was discharged from service in November 1945.
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