Rambling Anecdotes

[4V50 Gary]

First, I'm not laughing at the people of New Guinea. I also acknowledge that they were good allies and contributed to driving the Japanese back on their island during WW II. Here is some pidgin English with the first being the Lord's Prayer and the second the Ten Commandments:


Prayer Bilong Big Master

Fader ubilong mipella
Ustopalong Heaven,
All hearem talk about U.
Kingdom bilong U I kum
Along ground allsame along Heaven.
Give mipella Kai Kpi alongday
Forgive wrong bilong mipella
Allsame mi forgive wrong alone nothapella.
Take along us not to wrongdo
Mipella folla U awaay from wrong
Upella bilong Kingdom cum
Same power. Same Glory
Allsame now. Allsame Time. Amen.

Commandments Mipella Do

1. Man I got onepella God, Inogot notha pella God
2. Man Ino try make nothapella God
3. Man Ino swear.
4. Man I keep No. 1 day, No. 1 day belong Big Master
5. Man I good along. Fader, good along mimma
6. Man Ino kill.
7. Man Ino take Mary bilong nothaman
8. Man Ino steal
9. Man Ino like along nothapella. I talk true all time
10. Man I see good something bilong notha man, Ino wantim alltime.

From Between Tedium & Terror, page 133.

 

[4V50 Gary]

"A very funny hoax was pulled on Charley Norvell yesterday when he received in his mail his Captain Marvel pin [comic book character popular in the 1940s] and membership card, personal letter from Captain Marvel telling him to help the war effort by saving scrap paper. That was a tremendous laugh. Herndon is the one responsible. Poor Charley will never live it down. Fellows go about yelling 'Shazam' at him, and 'Here comes Captain Marvel!' Everybody has been hilarious about it."

Talk about Hayduke style trolling circa 1944. Ditto pages 189-90. Here's the Captain Marvel pin and things that probably came with it. It's amazing what you can learn from books.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Major Joe Collins meets Lt. Col. George C. Marshall...

"My firsrt contact with Colonel Marshall occurred when he slipped quietly into the back of a lecture hall moments after I started my first lecture, which had been postponed when I came down with a bad case of laryngitis. To explain the postponement, I had begun with a story about a visit of a Senate investigating committee to an American camp at the French port of Brest during World War I, when I spotted Colonel Marshall in the hall. All I had read or heard about him had drawn him as a grave, humorless man, all business. I had some qualms about continuing the story, which told about a visit of this committee to a model trench system used at Brest to familarize newly arrived American soldiers with what combat trenches were like. But I was too far committed, so plunged ahead. 'The senators were met at the entrance to the trenches by an officer guide. In a subdued voice he said, 'We are in a communication trench leading to the front. Follow me.' A bit farther on he stopped in a widened section of trench containing two 80-mm mortars, manned for this occasion by a section of infantrymen. 'We are now in a mortar position supporting the front-line troops,' whispered the guide as he ducked under some overhead cover. The senators followed, keeping their heads well below the parapet as they proceeded past a machine-gun nest in the front line until they came to the end of the trench where two soldiers were sprawled under a camouflage net, surrounded by loops of barbed wire. 'We are not at a listening post,' said the barely audible guide. 'How far away is the enemy?' whispered the comittee chairman. 'About four hundred miles,' came the reply. 'Then what in the Hell's going on here?' roared the chairman as he straightened up. Pointing to his throat, the guide replied, 'I lost my voice.'' When I came to the denouement Colonel Marshall laughed as heartily as anyone else."

page 48-50 of Lightning Joe: An Autobiography by Joe Collins.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Viktor Survorov's The Liberators: My Life in the Soviet Army

Suvorov talks about the failure of central planning. The Soviets want to increase food production but realize they can't make people work harder. Lazy people will always be lazy because they know they get paid the same as the hard worker. So, they hit upon the idea of making fertilizer that can be given away for free to the communes. This means no one will have to work harder yet production will increase!

Communes are told to come 'n git it. Trouble is, with that great central planning, no one thought of getting trucks to transport the mess. Score one for central planning. Viktor's commune has only three trucks. One is for milk. Can't contaminate that. One is for water. Can't use either. So, they use their sole truck for fuel to transport it. Each truck is required to transport a ludicrous oad that is impossible given the time frame. Another victory for central planning. Viktor notes that trips by trucks that should take hours takes minutes. What? So, when his truck is loaded, he follows the others and like them, dump the fertilizer into the Dneiper River! It kills the fish. Another victory for central planning. Along with other drivers, Viktor is caught and made to haul one load back. But it's too early to use it and the commune has no place to store it. Central planning wins again! So Viktor dumps it into his own garden. Too much in too small a space and it reeks! The soil is ruined and now he can't grow food for himself. Opps. Unwilling to do time for counter-revolutionary activity of improper disposal of the fertilizer and unhappy at the prospect of starving, Viktor runs off and joins the glorious Soviet Army where he can at least get fed.

His book is filled with lessons about communism and why it fails.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Kid's logic

Currently reading Taking Risks: A Jewish Youth in the Soviet Partisans and His Unlikely Life in California. He moved to San Francisco and didn't pass away until a few years back. We might have crossed paths there too. Too bad I never took the time to speak with the veterans there.

"But we refused to take on faith Jewish law and belief. Neither my brothers no my sisters showed the slightest interest in the Torah or talmud, the cornerstone of my father's life. To me they seemed as if they were most obscure and irrelevant writings in the world. I now only violated Shabbes without any qualms if I thought I wouldn't get caught, but also ate tempting Polish sausages once in a while. The son of a respected butcher, I ate kielbasa even on the solemn fast day of Yom Kuppur, though my friends and I went into a deep cellar to do so. We figured that in case God did exist, he wouldn't be able to see us sin so far underground."

The bolded part certainly is kid's logic. I had to laugh at that one.

Book gives quite a bit of insight into anti-semetism in Poland and Ukraine (where the family fled to after leaving Poland in 1939).

 

[4V50 Gary]

More from the same book

Pell spoke Polish and some Yiddish. Through his war experience he picked up some Russian, Ukrainian and German. Now he immigrated to America and decided to move to San Francisco. He and a friend catch a bus and when he told his friend he wanted to learn english, his friend told him to look out the window and start reading the signs.

"I took his advice and was soon baffled. It appeared that most of the property in the American West was owned by one man named Motel. I saw this sign everywhere and thought it was pronounced "Muhtel," the same as a cousin of mine back in Poland. I asked Paul how this guy (evidently an East European Jew) accumulated so many buildings. He looked at me as if I were a child and, after setting me straight, repeated his recommendations: "Just keep reading the signs."

 

[4V50 Gary]

From A Partisan's Memoirs, pgs 99-100.

Book has been sitting at the printers & the publisher anticipates 3-4 weeks for the printer to deliver. I guess release will be concurrent in both the UK and US. Anyway, here's something for 2A fans. This is from a book by a Jewish woman partisan whose family was deported with most being killed.

"A gun was in my hand now. I would learn to shoot, to aim at the enemy. Now, if the enemy pointed his gun on me, I could shoot back. I had the opportunity to avenge the blood of my mother, my father, my sisters, my brother and my sister's two children. I was not afraid of being killed. Responsible only for myself, I no longer had much to lose except for my life. I was prepared to do everything in my power to help the partisans in their fight against our common enemy. I was proud to join the ranks of freedom fighters who lived and fought in occupied territory.

"I also felt strength in knowing I was one of thousands of Jewish, youth among the partisans. They were Jews from cities and farms, Jews from towns and villages, young men and women raised in the tradition of learning and culture to respect one another. They were a peace-loving people who had nothing nothing of war. Few had evfer handled a rifle; now they were forced to fight for their lives. Torn from the lives they had once known, they stood up and fought like lions . Young Jewish partisans were known as the most daring of all.

"I remember before the war, when a Polish officer would come to our house and put his rifle in the corner of the room, I would keep as far way from it as possible. My parents taught me that a rifle meant danger. But now a rifle was a friend. It meant survival, vegeance and self defense.

"I had never dreamt that I would be thinking like this. I never expected to be holding a rifle, and not only to hold one, but to learn how to take one apart and clean it daily. I learned all this and more so that the rifle lying beside me on the wet ground work work when I needed it. A rifle among the partisans was a passport; it was also my pillow. As long as the war continued, I would never part with it. I resolved to volunteer for active combat operations, to fight for my people - for Jewish dignity and Jewish honour - and for the end of the Nazi killing machine."

 

[4V50 Gary]

Many depression era children dropped out of school early so they could work and help support the family. Soldiers (generally draftees) who were illiterate but considered intelligent had to be taught to read and write by the US Army. I learned of it from Boy Soldier: Coming of Age During World War II by Russell E. McLogan and the author mentions a soldier from Georgia who never attended school. He asked how to spell "happy." "After I told him how, plus several other simple words, he showed me the books he had used at "goon school" as he called it. There were like "Dick and Jane" readers used in primary grades except the characters were soldiers and the situations military.

Prior to America's entry into the war on December 7, 1941, recruits unable to pass the Minimum Literacy Test were simply rejected. In early 1942, needing substantially more men, the military ruled that up to 10% of inductees could be illiterate so long as they were deemed "intelligent and trainable." In the winter of 1943 this quota was reduced to 5%, as illiteracy began to cause problems in the field. A few months later, however, both manpower needs abroad and the political consequences at home of excessive rejection of black recruits -- whose literacy rates in the 1940s were far below those of white Americans -- caused the literacy requirement to be dropped entirely.

As a result, and out of necessity, the U.S. Army "embarked on one of the largest programs of basic adult education in human history" (Brandt, p. 487). Through the use of special training units -- well-funded, with qualified teachers, specially-designed course material, and small class sizes -- nearly 95% of illiterate recruits achieved minimum literacy within two months, a remarkable success rate. These soldiers were then able to go on to the standard basic training. Later research found that many of these men continued their education after leaving the military.

https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/s/soldiers_lit.htm

Want to know what the GI reader looked like? https://archive.org/details/TM21-500/page/n37/mode/2up

It would be a good book to teach a foreigner some english.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Never make a soldier do duties shipboard

"One detail the soldiers had to do was to empty the garbage over the side during the dark hours. Supposedly this was to prevent the U-boats from following our trail of garbage to their prey. Hah! All they had to do was to follow the stench. Anyway, I had shirked from this detail until one night I was pressed into service and about six of us ventured around the rails, emptying the cans we found there. My partner and I tried to lift this one can but couldn't even budge it. we asked for aid, and it took five of us to lift it up on the rail and let the gunk inside fall out. We then wandered about trying to see what was loose and available for our six deprived stomachs. What is the use of the Army teaching you to be sly and sneaking without putting it to some use? We then carried our loot back to the lower deck whee the most was consumed in a short while.

"All hell broke loose the next day. Sailors were running around, ships were tooting, destroyers were cutting alongside, and it was a great break in the monotony of the voyage. Seems that someone, obviously a saboteur, had painted a four foot white stripe down the side of our boat. This was done by pouring forty gallons of white lead over the side sometime during the night. Hmmm! And beside that, some lowly bunch of louts had stolen into the officer's mess that same evening and had taken some fresh ham, fresh bread, several #10 cans of fruit cocktail, and the Captain's personal jar of Dijon mustard. An immediate search was launched for anyone with a sweet breath and yellow lips. The tannoy loudly announced that anyone seen throwing anything overboard would be a suspect. This initiated a rush to the rails by the khaki clad masses, all of whom simulated throwing something to the fish. The authorities were perhaps mollified that a mutiny was not happening by the broad grins on our faces.

"An armed truce was established for the remainder of the voyage. I say "armed" because the British crew placed a rifled sentry on their decks to prevent any more pilferage. The ship also had to put two sailors over the side while we were under way so they could apply gray paint to the white "aiming stake." We encouraged thm by making helpful remarks.

 

[4V50 Gary]

While on outpost one night I heard this weird caterwauling coming from a direction that wasn't friendly. No one was supposed to be out, so I unlocked my rifle and nudged my sleeping companion awake. We sat there ready but with the feeling that this noise wasn't threatening. Out of the black emerged this staggering figure singing his Native American Indian songs at the top of his lungs. He was one of our unit so we grabbed him quickly, shut him up (it was a court martial offense to be drunk on the forward areas) and hustled him back to our squad. Upon searching Willy we found two canteens full of beer. Being that we had been dry for some time, we took to keeping him awake so he could tell us where this treasure was laying. At daylight we moved through the ruins of this little town and finally discovered this crawl-through where the casks would be rolled out to the drayage. Upon entering this space we found ourselves in a room filled with oaken barrels, all filled with beer. After testing it to see if it was fit to drink, we sent a man back to the platoon to get the jeep and trailer then loaded it with one full cask on board. These casks held about 300 liters. It was hard work!

 

[4V50 Gary]

POW interrogations

"A new crop of war prisoners was brought in and turned over to the team of interrogators. An interrogator costumed for the encounter with a pup tent shelter half draped importantly around him walked over to the group slowly, gave each prisoner a lingering, terror-inspired gaze, then with a dramatic flourish selected one and sent him to another interrogator wearing a Russian gold start general's insignia. He began testily to question the prisoner, quit abruptly in a few moments and haughtily turned him over to a third interrogator. This one took a milder tone, drawing out the prisoner conversationally.

"A lieutenant emergend from the headquarters tent and said loudly in German, 'Everyone from the 5th Company step out.'

"Two prisoners began moving, caught themselves but it was too late; they had given themselves away and identified their unit. Finally the prisoners were segregated into two grops, one with those who would talk and the other who wouldn't.

"'This group goes to America,' said the lieutenant, then pointed to the nontalkers,' and this group goes to Russia.'

"Instantly the nontalkers outshouted each other saying, 'I'll talk, I'll talk!'"

 

[Ricklin]

Good stuff Gary, And where might we purchase your book?

 

[4V50 Gary]

Highland Regiment Inspection

Never knew this stuff. Reading about a soldier who served in the First Battalion Argyll & Southerland Highlanders (called by some wit the agile and suffering Highlanders). Being dressed in kilts, they presented themselves for inspection so that they may be presentable when out in town.

"Bob Moat, Ginger and I decided we would go into toown to see this new Walt Disney movie called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We walked into the guardroom, dressed in kilts as usual, faced the duty sergeant and told him our names and regimental numbers. He then told us to stand over a shiny plat strategically positioned on the floor.

"He took a quick glance down at the lack of hairy one eyed monsters not glaring back up at him and then told us, "Ye hav draws on so ye dinny git oot the nacht!"

I have to read this book very slow because the Scottish speech is spelled out phonetically and I don't understand those words unless I can hear them.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Help yourself

"At Mail Call we would gather around the mail cler and as he called out our names a voice from the crowd would respond with, "Yo," or "Here," or "That's me." The letter was then passed on overhead in the direction of the call. I can still picture the smiling face when each name was called. I latter from home was worth a pound of cure. My mother would send me boxes of homemade butter cookies, and Italian pastries on a weekly basis. When my name was called and the package was being passed back to me, the boys would start opening it. As soon as the package was completely open, all the guys around me and I sahred the cookies with them. They were called, "Ma Limoli's cookies." We were like brothers by the virtue of our life together."

From Memories of a WW II G.I. by E. Gene Limoli. Limoli served in a field medical company attached first the 5th Army and then when Southern France was invaded, the 7th Army. They actually landed via glider in quasi-secured area. Seven days after they landed more stuff came in via parachutes. Yellow meant Signal Corps, red Artillery and maroon medical.

Ms. Limoli must have used some margarine in her cookies. Butter was rationed and if she wanted more butter, she would have to get some from a neighbor who understood the purpose of her needing more. Too bad Limoli never looked into how his mother got past the rationing.

 

[4V50 Gary]

BTW, recently read of a WW II American hospital in England where a black GI who had volunteered from the Red Ball for the infantry was housed among whites. All the injured men there were combat soldiers and no one cared about race anymore.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Alcohol smuggling

I've mentioned how soldiers smuggled alcohol in the past. There's also one involving a mother who sent a bottle to a friend's son in Vietnam and how after it broke, the postal inspector visited her. She thought it was a death notice but relievingly laughed when told it was about the booze. Post Office Inspector was not amused and told her it was serious. Still laughing, she apologized and told him she thought it was a death notice. He admonished her and left embarrassed.

Anyway, here's the first WW II incident that I've found:

"I'm looking forward to receiving your packages. Now I know you won't want to send me any booze, either because you are afraid you might be embarrassed or because you don't want me to have it. I think it is the former. Here's a fool proof method that is working for the other guys. Simply put the alcohol in a bottle of Dill pickles after draining off the vinegar. The pickles do not hurt it at all and looks O.K. Suit your self but I would like to have a jar of Dill pickles, and some stuffed olives and you might slip in some good fresh crackers. Anything else you might think I like. Oh yes, a box of Chili peppers."

From p. 93 of John Pearce's A Private In The Texas Army. It's the diary of his father, Frank Pearce.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Impotency pills

Our company officers were taking turns eat day standing at the head of our chow line to make sure that we were taking our atrabrine tablets to prevent malaria. By this time, we were required to take four of these very bitter pills at one tine. Atrabrine destorye dour sense of taste and often made us sick to our stomachs. In time, our skin turned as yellow as squash. These pills cause much consternation after the rumor started that they would cause us to be impotent. The officers had to force us to take atabrine after that. The great baby boom after the war certainly refuted this rumor.

From Jesse Coker's My Unforgettable Memories.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Hollywood moment

Here's a GI who was involved in a moment made for Hollywood. The GI is the angel/savoir.

"I came down the back stairs to the first floor as we cleaned out one building. There was a glass in the outer door and I carefully looked out. In the yard was a German soldier. He had a slave with him who he had apparently ordered to get on his knees and say his prayers. The German pulled out his pistol, loaded it and placed it to the slave's head. I carefully opened the door, stepped out, took aim and fired, dropping the German in the hopes his pistol wouldn't go off.

"Some of my men came to the landing behind me. They covered me as I went down the few steps and crossed the yard. The slave was still saying his prayer and shaking all over. I placed my hand on his shoulder. As he looked up, I pointed behind him to the dead German soldier.

"I couldn't speak his language. He looked but didn't seem to understand what had happened. There was a lot of shooting going on in the town he hadn't heard my shot. It took a few seconds for him to understand. Then, he pivoted around his knees, wrapped his arms around my legs and cried his heart out."

If that isn't a movie moment, I don't know what is. This is from p 79-80 of Curt Whiteway's Brave Men Don't Cry. Whiteway belonged to the 99th Infantry Division (Battle Babies).

That man was among many that Whiteway and his buddies liberated. They once caught up with a Jewish prisoner column from Muhldorf that was escorted by the SS (for execution). Whiteway and his squad formed a skirmish line, shot down every single SS man and saved the prisoners.

Elsewhere Whiteway and his buddies learned that their duffel bags had been looted by MPs. Two MPs carelessly talked about it in a bar. By now the checkerboarders (because of their patch) had had their patches removed as they were awaiting return to the United States where they would go to a new camp and be temporarily assigned to a new command. So the MPs talked in ignorance of the presence of their victims. Whiteway and his buddies followed the off duty MPs and worked them over in revenge.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Texas A&M is a school that included military training as part of its cirriculum (1940s). Thus when students were inducted at the outbreak of WWII, they puzzled their drill sergeants who knew nothing of their background. They already knew all the marching drills. Slowly they were sent off to OCS to graduate as officers. There were still some waiting for their orders to go.

"Also included in our group of overseers was a corporal who had attended A&M for a couple of years with some of the men. He had dropped out to join the army and was familiar with our background, traditions, training and so forth. The first sergeant and other NCOs were somewhat perplexed when they observed us instantly comply with instructions from the corporal while seemingly grudgingly tolerate their own leadership efforts.

"By the last two weeks of our stay, our ranks had dwindled down to only a hundred or so men who had not yet shipped out. Looking for ways to get out of the barracks and away from trivial duties, we conspired with the corporal to institute daily training hikes, made with the blessings of the first sergeant and other non-coms. What the upper echelons didn't know was that we had also conspired with the corporal and a local bakery and a dairy distributor to meet us every afternoon a couple of miles away from the base with vans laden with pastries and dairy treats. After a long, leisurely snack time, we all hiked back to base. The staff kept waiting to hear complaints about the daily hikes, but none were forthcoming."

In the next installation, I'll share how these college boys cleaned their barracks.

 

[4V50 Gary]

"Field Day" or cleaning the barracks

"We hadn't been in the barracks long before the sergeant reappeared to issue further orders. 'Okay, gentlemen, we are going to have what is known in the army as a 'field day,' which was nothing new to the Aggies. 'That means I want these barracks to be scrubbed from top to bottom. There are some GI brushes in the latrine. I will be back in a few hours to inspect.' Following his departure, a discussion ensued in our ranks as to whether we should comply with this order or not, and what the other optioons we might have. My roommate, Ike McCarroll, had been issued a fatigue jacket with corporal's stripes painted on the sleeve. Another classmate, Cullen Rogers, who had been a starting halfback on the A&M football team, said, 'I've got an idea. Ike, give me that jacket. I think I can take care of this situation.' He put the jacket and went for a walk down the company street. He soon chanced upon a couple of recruits fresh off the farm and stopped them. Pointing to his sleeve, he said, 'Do you men know what these stripes mean?'

"Wide-eyed, they responded, 'Yes, sir.'

"Come with me, I have a job for you." They obediently followed him to our barracks. He informed them that their assignment for the afternoon was to thoroughly clean the barracks. 'By the way,' he added, 'these men have been on an all-night training exercise and are very tired. Work quietly so they can get some rest.' Thereupon, most of us settled into our racks for afternoon naps.

"After the two boobs had finished, Rogers inspected their work and had them clean the latrine a second time before dismissing them. They had just left before the sergeant returned to conduct his inspection. After a thorough tour, he assembled us and issued his verdict, 'You men have done a good job. Go ahead and take the rest of the afternoon off.'"

And that faithful readers, is how you clean your barracks.