Inducted at Ft. Sam Houston (San Antonio, Texas), 18 Dec., 1943.  Entered Active Service, Ft. Sam Houson, 8 January 1944.  Assigned to Army Specialized Training Program.  We were to receive 11 weeks basic training and then be sent to college (to study Electrical Engineering in my case).  Basic training was at Fr. Benning (near Columbus, Georgia)--a huge place- in the red sand hills and pine woods.  We were housed in old Civilian Conservation Corps barracks in a very remote area of the camp.  Seven weeks into the program, Congress decided the war would be over before we would finish college (3 yrs) and cancelled the program for most of us (medical, legal, intelligence, and language potentials continued).  Most of the rest of us were sent to the 86th Infantry Division which was training at Camp Livingston, Louisiana (near Alexandria).

After a month of basic training--half of it on various firing ranges--someone in the Pentagon decided "all of these young men shouldn't be put into the same infantry division--they had better potential in other units".  Some went to Signal Corps, some to Chemical Warfare, some to Ordinance, etc.  I was sent to newly formed 24th Signal Light Construction Battalion at Camp Swift, Texas (near Bastrop).  This was mid April.  Training was interesting and passes to Austin and San Antonio were welcomed.  Mid June the whole unit was packed up and moved to Camp Murphy, Florida (north of West Palm Beach) and converted to a Heavy Construction Battalion.  The trip was long, hot, and dirty.  The day on the Central of Georgia Railroad from New Orleans to Jacksonville was a coal-soot and cinder filled three miles forward and two miles backward trial.  At Jacsonville (Florida) we hooked onto a Florida East Coast engine and "flew" at 75 mph to Camp Murphy, arriving three hours early.  Our colonel had insisted we wear field packs, steel helmets and carry our weapons (so Supply wouldn't have to).  We were loaded onto open trucks, dirty from the soot, unshaven, steel helmets, rifles, etc. and moved from the train to breakfast just at the time all the pretty secretaries and civilian workers were headed to their offices.  Along with the whistles and ooh-la-la's we must have put fear into those workers.  Especially after stories in the camp paper that the new arrivals were battle-hardened veterans of the South Pacific.  (We did have two men that fit the description).  Camp Murphy had been a semi-secret RADAR training base and still had schools where students went to class from 6:30 to 11:00 and then were free to study, go to the beach, etc.  So it wasn't much like the Army.  We were mostly older men - late 20s and 30s.  When the PX sold out of beer for the first time in their history our first night--that didn't help our reputation either.

Despite the tar-paper barracks, set at odd angles in the brush and deep sand, the heat and high humidity, daily rain showers, mosquitos and difficult training, the time in Florida was enjoyable.  We always had coconuts and oranges on the line trucks--they had just fallen along the roadside where we were training.  Weekend passes to Palm Beach were frequent.  On my first pass, I attended the U.L.C.A. Lutheran Services.  I attended Luther League and spent many memorable Sunday afternoons on outings with the Leaguers.  This lasted until late October when all the equipment was prepared for overseas shipment.  About Oct. 26th we boarded a troop train for New York.

In New York at Camp (don't remember the name) we received more winter clothing, given a medical checkup and given instruction in lifeboat drills, life preserver, abandoning ship, etc.  On Oct. 30 we boarded the Queen Mary in New York Harbor.  We were the first unit aboard and acted as Military Police on the voyage across.  For four days we watched two conveyer belts loading cases of food aboard.  There was a constant loading of troops also until almost 16,000 were on board.  We sailed on Nov. 3rd.  The route took us along the Atlantic coast to Florida, then followed the Gulf Stream toward North Africa, then northward to Scotland.  This to avoid Nazi submarines and for maximun air protection by Allied planes.  Made the corssing in five days, arriving in the Firth of Clyde about Nov. 8th.  The unloading took two days with smaller boats shuttling the troops from the ship to land.  The last night our unit was the only one left on board.  Although as MP's we had access to most areas (other troops were limited to one-third of the ship--Red, White or Blue--depending on their badge), we visited the Bridge and other areas that had been off-limits.  Kind of a fun night.  Next day we landed and late in the day boarded a train.  After an overnight train ride we arrived in a small town in western England called Leominster.  This was to be home for the next ten weeks.

A 3 to 4 mile hike in the morning a softball in the afternoon constituted training over the next six weeks.  A week long furlough to London was educational and enjoyable.  Two weeks at a Signal Corps Deport in Chelteham were productive.  We worked 24-hour days checking two thousand miles of wire for insulation breaks.  The wire was salvaged from the roadways as the battlefront moved forward.  Back at Leominster we prepared trucks and equipment for our move to the continent.

About January 30 (1945), a month after the Battle of the Bulge, we headed for Portsmouth, boarded L.S.T.s and crossed the channel.  Wandered around France for four days--seems no one knew we were coming or had a place for us to go.  Ended up in Namur, Belgium, staying in the music wing of a convent.  Sixty men and 13 pianos was something else.  We did build a short electric line to a coal mine office and hauled crushed rock to patch holes in the Red Ball Express Highway.  This was a one-way fast route for supply trucks going from the ports to the front lines hauling food, ammunition, and fuel, etc.  We had just stowed a full supply of ammunition, poles, wire, and all the other stuff we needed when orders came to load it up again--were moving up to Leige, Belgium.

From the new base we went out in teams of 30 men to rebuild telephone lines.  I spent a week in the Malmady area (where the Germans had lined up American prisoners and shot them).  Then a week near Bastogne (the center of the Battle of the Bulge).  Back to Liege and then move up to Mönchen-Gladbach, Germany.

Sunday, March 18th was a beautiful, sunny day.  The weather had turned warm.  My team had completed their job and went to help another team.  It was then, at 10:30, that I was wounded.  Medics arrived quickly, took me to an Aid Station, and later by ambulance to a Field Hospital.  Other than a brief moment in the bumpy ambulance and later on a cold x-ray machine, my next awareness of the real world was a nurse tempting me with a bowl of split pea soup, about 4 p.m.  Five days in that hospital and then flown to a triage hospital in England.  Next day by ambulance to another hospital somewhere in southern England.  Here they discovreed that in addition to the head wound, I had three cracked vertebrae and sturnum.  So a body cast from shoulders to hips.  June 8th we boarded a hospital ship bound for Boston.  A check-up and then a hospital train to Longview, Texas.  Finally got out of the cast after 11 weeks.  Then to McCloskey General Hospital at Temple, Texas.  A 30-day furlough, passes nightly to Temple, a final operation in late October, two weeks at home at Christmas all made the time pass quickly.  I had been confined to bed only five days in all this ordeal.  On 9 February 1946 I was given a Certified Disability Discharge at McCloskey and returned home.  Thus ended my 2 years, one month and 22 days of Army life.

Victor attained the rank of Technician Fourth Grade during his time in the Army.  He was awarded the Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with one service star and World War II Victory Medal.

Back