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Chapter 7
Going Home
I was taken to Paris where they processed me. They gave me shots and I traded my francs for U.S. dollars. I went to where some [blacks] were playing dice. There was one shooting dice and he was red hot. I had some francs left so I started betting on him. I won over three hundred dollars in francs so I had to change that to U.S. dollars. They put us on the USS Argentina. On the way home, one ship broke down and we had to tow it. We landed in Boston.
They gave us a little orange for breakfast. We were on deck throwing French and English coins to some girl dock workers. When a man tried to get some of them, we threw the oranges at him.
They put us on a train and sent us to Camp Endicott, New Hampshire. We were processed and had a medical checkup and they gave us some shots. Then we received a lecture on civilian life. I received a delay-en-route furlough and it was thirty days at home before going on to Santa Ana, California.
I came to Cleveland by train and then went by bus to Akron, and I hardly knew the town after three years. My brother Bill arrived home three days before I did. He had been a prisoner of war. Well, we had a time for thirty days. I think we hit every bar in town and had the family worried.
I had to take the train for Santa Ana Air Base on V.E. Day. I got off the train in Los Angeles and thought I would see the town before checking in at camp. Every place I went there was an M.P. pointing the way. I ended up in the bed of a GI truck.
Well, they processed me and said that I was essential. I made a lot of noise about that but there was nothing I could do about it. They were going to send me to the Pacific Theater of War, but when the atomic bomb was dropped I didn’t have to go. I was sent back to Lockbourne Air Base at Columbus, Ohio. When I arrived there was a telegram for me. My sister Cleo had passed away.
Well, I got a one-week furlough but I had no money. I went to the Red Cross to get some money and had to have five officers sign for me before they would let me have any money. I had to go to Gary, Indiana, for the funeral. When I returned to camp they took the money from my pay that I had received from the Red Cross. Well, I finally got to see all of my brothers and sisters and I was called for discharge. They said if I would re-enlist they would give me a Master Sergeant’s rating. I wanted out so I took the discharge. I was discharged at Wright-Patterson Air Base at Dayton, Ohio.
Stories 