Sylvia(My Wife) was the local, one-room-school teacher in the schoolhouse I had
attended for eight years, some years previous to her attempt to cope with
the crowd of rowdy, not-too-well-mannered and not-too-well-endowed-with-brainpower
kids that were in attendance in the 1942/43 school year. Her home was some 8 miles
from the school, so she took room and board from my mother.
I had graduated from high school in the spring of '41, then worked for about
six moths in a radio factory in the Chicago area, taking room and board with
my oldest sister and hubby and two boys. The job was pretty boring, how else
could it be, packing radios as they come off the assembly line? After that
six months I figured to go home for Christmas then enlist in the army. Two
of the neighbor guys were working in Milwaukee and we could get an apartment,
all together, so I trashed the patriotic urge and went to Milwaukee. Worked
in a small machine shop for a couple months, then my buddy got a job at
Schlitz brewery, making considerably more money than the shop, so I hired
on at Schlitz, too. Spent one night at the brewery, where I found out that
because my buddy was a year and a half older than I, he could work in the
shipping department (loading cases of beer on freight cars) and made several
more cents per hour than I. That night (I was on a night shift) I spent
several hours watching bottles of beer passing before me, supposedly
checking them for broken bottles, dead mice or other vermin. Confusion as
to who my boss was, and who I should obey (One guy would holler at me to go
such and so, and do thus and so, then another guy would come along and
beller at me to go some other place and do something else.) I stuck it out
that night, then never even went back to collect my pay..they eventually
sent me a check for ??$ for one night's misery.
Got another job in a factory, then decided to come to Michigan, where my
older brother lived with his recently acquired wife. Worked for a few days
on the Fisher (I think, or maybe it was a Dodge brother??) farm near
Rochester, then a job in a machine shop in Pontiac. About September of '42 I
got a patriotic bug again, decided to go back to Bruce, Wis. and enlist in
the service. That's when and where Sylvia and my paths crossed....the
school was right next to our pasture, and since I was driving the car to get
the cows, I stopped at the school to ask the "School marm" if she wanted a
ride home. That was the first time either of us had seen the other. She
peeked out the door and saw the car was one from the farm, thought I was
probably one of the Beebes, so she took a chance on it, rather than walk the
3/8 of a mile home.
My twin brother, who was staying on the farm with my dad, was planning to
get married the next summer, and he asked me to stay on at the farm while he
went to Chicago to work until I would be drafted, so I stayed until Uncle
Sam sent me his invitation to come join the party on Feb. 4th, '43. That
gave us 3 months or so to complete a preliminary courtship, and I marched
away to the army complete with a promise that Sylvia would marry me when I
got the Krauts and Japs licked and could come home again. And that's the
way it turned out.
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Sylvia(My Wife) lived in Ladysmith, a larger city than the Village of Bruce. She is
only a month and two weeks older than I, but her birthday is Nov. 26, so she
started school with those who were born before Jan. 1, and my birthday is
Jan. 3, so I was held back to the fall of the year after she started school.
She graduated from high school in 1940. She was a member of the Ladysmith
High school Debate Team, and was awarded a school letter in recognition. I,
of course never had the pleasure of witnessing her team in competition, but
I am sure she was one of the best! Her sense of logic can still win about 9
out of every ten arguments we get involved in. (But I'll deny to my dying
breath that I ever said that!)
After high school she worked for the local weekly newspaper and attended
Rusk County Normal School, in Ladysmith, a two-year teachers' college aimed
at training teachers for the rural schools in the county and some adjoining
counties.
She had the best scholastic record of the 8 or 9 members of her class, so
was recommended by the county superintendent of schools to be assigned to
teach the Pleasant View school, which had a reputation of being a nest of
the wildest, dumbest and hardest to handle kids in the county. (That was
the school that I had attended, but, and I am not bragging or putting you
on, the caliber of students had sunk to dismal levels after we graduated.)
One year of trying to cope with those hooligans convinced Sylvia that life
was far too short to be worth the tussle, and she wasn't about to continue
as a rural grade school teacher, come whatever the cost. (She made the
staggering total of $75.00 a month, AFTER a probationary period of a couple
of months at $65.00!)
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Seems like you told me once that you had been involved in pea or
bean harvest in the Rice Lake area, away back when. Rice Lake was a bit out
of our orbit, I was born/raised on a farm about two miles east of Bruce, and
Sylvia was a native of Ladysmith. As a member of the Bruce High School
football team I did get to Cameron, who's team usually trounced us badly.
We were a point-a-minute team on occasion...like being beat to the tune of
66 to 6, or 60 to Zilch. We played eight man football, center, two guards
and two ends on the line, three men in the backfield. Had to make 15 yards
to get a first down.
Our starting quarterback was the local Congregational preacher's
son. Our coach was a pretty good guy, but his vocabulary was filled with
some pretty pithy words, especially when we goofed. I think we were playing
at Shell Lake on a rainy, cold day. In the course of events our quarterback
(Preacher's kid)got off an excellent punt (At least far better than his
average, and in the pouring rain, slippery, muddy field.) The referee
called off-side on the opposition, a five yard penalty, and gave our
quarterback his choice of penalty or the play. The kid opted for the
penalty, planning to kick again.....well, as you can probably guess, the
second punt was blocked! Stupid mistakes like that, when pulled by a "rank
and file" team member would get a real cussing-out by Coach Mills, and
Quarterback Hovda really deserved a chewing-out, but he WAS the preacher's
son, and that put poor Coach in a real bind. He just couldn't vent his
wrath in preacher's-son-acceptable language, and he was afraid of the report
that would get to Papa Preacher, thence to the School board....I suspect his
stress level and blood pressure reading both reached new heights that day!!
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(Bill Writes)The school year 40-41, by coincidence, found myself as well as
your wife Sylvia, teaching in a rural school. Mine was a four-room, with
me teaching grades 7 and 8. I also left after l year, and being in an
affluent suburb of Chicago, pulled down $92.50 a month for 9 months.
I will leave further details until a later time, as part of another letter.
During the school year 40-41 all schools in the U.S. of A. became
registration centers for the military draft. If I have my facts strait,
you would have been short of l8 only several months. It would be just
too much of a coincidence for you to have been signed up by your future
wife (but you were Bruce High School at the time, now that I think of it.)
Well, in any case we were making history. Your story now takes you into
the military. That's a chapter that needs to be set in type. Get the
cursor going when you have the time, as Pearl and I both read your text.
I print everything that comes this way.
There is a town Bruce Crossing further north in the UP you are probably
aware of. Bruce must have been a lumber baron, or some other kind of
predator, or benefactor. Know anything about that?
The sponsor I have is the U.S. Gov't. subsidy which pays for Merit. The
same evil U.S. Govt. which invented the internet, won the cold war, looks
after Senior Citizens and Veterans. children, widows, unwed mothers,
inspects food, promotes disease control, builds and maintains the Inter-
state System, and operates the Justice Department. the space program.
Medicare and Medicaid, and on and on.
(Back To Ray)Anyway, back to the beginning....Sylvia did not teach during 40/41...she
graduated from high school in the spring of '40, then Normal School in the
spring of '42. Her year of hell in Pleasant View school started in the fall
of '42 (The '42/'43 school year) And Pleasant View, being a one room,
probably 14 or less students, school, wasn't involved in Selective Service
registration. I think I registered for the draft by mail, since I was
working in Chicago, Milwaukee or Rochester, Mich. at the time. I did
register, and was considered a part of the quota from Rusk County,
Wisconsin, of which Ladysmith was the County Seat and which included the
Village of Bruce, and, among about 18 or 24 other Townships, the Town of
Thornapple, in which our home farm was located and in which Pleasant View
school also was located.
I , and several other guys from Rusk County, was hauled to the Milwaukee
Induction center, put up for one night in about the no. 4 or 5 basement
floor in the Plankinton hotel, fed a dinner of horsemeat (I'm sure it was
horsemeat, because of the color and texture.) and bright and early the next
morning we were physically, mentally and what-ever examined to determine our
fitness to serve with the U. S. Armed Forces. I evidently was a fit
character, as I was selected for service in the Army Air Corps. (That was
prior to the current Air Force.)
The system at the time, if one were accepted for service you were signed
in, sworn in, etc., then you had the option of going home for two weeks to
wind up your civilian affairs, then reporting for duty, or going directly
into service at that day. My situation was that I had my affairs taken care
of, and I knew that if I went directly in I would get my first furlough much
sooner than those who opted to take the two weeks, so I opted to go
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Like I was saying, I was sure if I opted to go directly into active
duty instead of taking the two-week furlough I would get my first furlough
real soon. The "real soon" furlough was just two years, nine months and one
day after I opted to go right in. (Actually, I never did get a furlough,
the 2 yr., 9 mo. 1 day time frame was the entire length of my service, and I
was given an Honorable Discharge, at Camp Grant, Illinois on November 4,
1945. I was sworn in Milwaukee on Feb. 3, 1943.) So much for not taking
a furlough when I could have. One soon learns that in the U. S. Army one
takes what is offered when it is offered, and don't wait for a better deal,
because it'll probably never happen.
Anyway, about 11:00 o'clock that night, after having been sworn in and
ordered to clean up the premises of the induction center, I, and about a
dozen others were put aboard a "Chicago Northshore" inter-urban train to
Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Got in about 1 or 1:30 in the morning, were
trucked to a barracks, given a blanket and assigned to a bunk, all ready to
snug in for an overdue 8 hour sleep.
Eight hours? Some energetic jerk stuck his head in the barracks
door at 5:00 that morning, blew the loudest whistle you can imagine, and
we're off and running for a full day of medical shots, being issued
uniforms, getting Government Issued haircuts (You sat down in something
like a barber chair, the barber took a pair of clippers and about 3 minutes
later you got out of the barber chair with a head of bristles where there
was once long, waving, curly hair.)
About 10:30 that night we sat down at desks and were given our Army
aptitude tests, which probably were not too accurate, since it had been a
few days since we left Ladysmith, and hadn't had very many hours sleep in
the meantime. Ah, well, as the Frenchmen would say. "see la goddammed
gare" The French would write that "c est la guare", I think, and omit the
"goddammed" bit, but that wouldn't really express our feelings about life in
general at the time.
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Now, where was we? After a couple of hectic days and nights in
Fort Sheridan we were rail-roaded to Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Mo.
Got in about midnight and were walked (I wouldn't call that MARCHED, because
we were far from trained, seasoned soldier at that stage) about a mile
through the camp, being greeted by cheerful little epithets as we went past
occupied barracks, like, "You ain't gonna' like it here!" and "You'll be
sorry!". Were finally stopped at what would be "Home, Sweet Home!" for the
next month....Army tents, each equipped with coal burning heater stove, a
wooden floor, and cots for 8 men. Met our Drill Instructor the next morning,
and soon developed a deep, deep hatred for the S. O. B.! Weather in February
in St. Louis is VERY changeable. Could be warm and sunny one day, and the
next morning 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground. The uniform for the day
would be the type of clothing you should have been wearing the night
before, and you bloody well wore that until noon, no matter what the weather
might be. If the sun was shining the night before, you wore fatigues and a
light field jacket until noon, regardless on whether it was sunny, raining
or snowing. Lots of sickness, too many sick for the hospital facilities...I
came down with severe flu, laryngitis, upper respiratory infection or
whatever, the night I was scheduled to pull guard duty...went to the company
orderly room, somebody stuck a thermometer in my mouth, it topped off at 104
degrees, so the sarge conceded I was ill and excused me from guard duty.
They hauled me to the hospital in an ambulance, where I was inspected more
thoroughly, given some pills and delivered to my hospital ward...the balcony
of the base gymnasium! We had an excellent view of the gym floor...literally
covered head-to-foot with cots and sick recruits (soldiers we were not at
that stage!) A week later I was pretty well over the bug, and sent back to
duty.
We finished our basic training in about a month, and somebody
discovered that all the schools that were to be our next stops were filled,
and all bets were off regarding getting the kind of duty/training we had been
promised back in Fort Sheridan. After loafing a couple of days they called
us all into a big arena and a major made a short speech, the total content
of which was, "All of you who are afraid to fly get up and march out the door
to my rear. The rest of you remain seated." After about two minutes all
the "Afraid to fly" folks had had time enough to walk out (There were no
walker-outers---nobody would have had guts enough to chicken out in front of
all one's buddies) the major ordered us to go back to our tents and wait for
further orders. About 10 o'clock that night we were loaded on a troop train
and headed north east thru Illinois, destination unknown, but happy as a pig
in stuff to be leaving that S.O.B. drill instructor and Jefferson Barracks!
About two and a-half days later we were shunted into a rail-road
siding somewhere, and unloaded into a dark, dreary, drizzly afternoon and
lined up along the train while the roll was called by Captain (I forget his
name), all decked out in calvary boots, britches and "Fifty-mission Slouch"
air force cap, complete with Sam Brown belt and army issue colt forty-five
pistol, and a hunting knife stuck in the top of one boot. He called the
first name, I suppose Adams or Allen, and from way down at the far end came
a timid, quiet little "Here." That got a roaring response from Captain,
"HERE, SIR! GOD DAMN IT! YOU'RE IN THE ARMY, BY GOD!" The rest of us
dutifully responded "Here, Sir" when our names were called.
That night we were all marched to the chow hall for an orientation
lecture by our friend, the well-armed Captain. He opened his lecture with
the statement, "Men, when we go into action your life expectancy is TEN
MINUTES! You are now in the Army Air Corps Airborne Engineers, and you
better get all the damned training and conditioning you can, because you'll
damn sure wish you had when you are flown behind the enemy's lines with
miniature tractors, bulldozers and other equipment to build airfields so
that our planes can operate at close range to the infantry."
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Well, we turned out to be at Bradley Field, near Hartford,
Connecticut, living in tar-paper covered barracks, wayback n the rear of the
base...at least a 3 mile hike to the PX and movie, so we didn't waste much
time at either of those centers of entertainment. There were three barracks
in a "U" shape, with a singe latrine/shower room at the center to serve all
three barracks, each with about 50 occupants. If one were struck with the
urge in the middle of the night it was a long hike from the upper bunk,
which was my home, to the throne. In cases of dire necessity one could hop
off the bunk, land in one's boots and dash for the john in one's skivies.
Even then, it was quite frequently a dead heat....thankfully, there were
several clumps of trees beside the trail; it was sometimes "any port in a
storm", so to speak, and the sandy soil made it easy to kick a trench and
re-cover it.
The mess sergeant must have had connections with some local spinach
growers because we had spinach for dinner and supper about five days every
week. The cooks and K.P.s never seemed to learn how to really clean it, so
we had boiled spinach seasoned with sand, and after about ten meals a week
it is almost (but NOT QUITE)a welcome change to find HALF of a CRICKET in a
forkful---you always wondered who ate the other half.
A month or six weeks later we were in pretty good physical condition,
having ran the obtacle course, plenty of P.T. (physical training), bayonet
drill, close-order drill, double-time marching and long hikes had done
wonders to our pot-bellies....we felt pretty darned tough, and we probably
were. Next order of training was the rifle range. The range was located
about 12 miles from the base, so we were to be trucked out...that, of course
reguired trucks and drivers. Trucks we had, but no licensed drivers. The
solution? Assign two men to each truck, load 14 or 16 riders in the back,
and head out for the range. The word was that one of the drivers was to
drive out to the range in the mornng, the other would drive back that
afternoon. If there were no serious problems both drivers were to be issued
G.I. drivers' licenses. The guy assigned to the truck with me was an old
codger, must have been at least 30 years old, and had lived in New York City
all his life, and had never driven a car. He wasn't about to start driving
then, so he said, "Beebe, can you drive a truck?" I said, "Yeah, I can
drive a truck!" (After all, I had driven a coal truck in Michigan from one
side of a lumber yard to the other once or twice, and I could drive a car
reasonably well.) My oldster buddy said, "Great! Then you drive out and
back, too, and nobody will know the difference." So I did, we made it with
no problem, and both of us were issued our licenses!
We were just nicely finished with advanced basic training, when our
apple cart was upset once more. At a formation one evening we were told
that we were no longer Airborn Engineers, but had been reformed into
Engineering Fire-Fighting Platoons. What in the heck is an Engineering Fire
Fighting Platoon? The rumors were wild and plentiful; "We'll be a special
team to go in front of the infantry with special, secret flame-throwers!"
seemed to be the most feasible and believable one. Talk about "Out of the
frying pan into the fire!" Airborne Engineers, with the good captain's 10
minute life expectancy, is one thing, but flame throwers in front of the
infantry is a far differnt kettle of fish!
Well, it didn't turn out so badly after all. We were to be
crash/fire, rescue teams at airfields, and we were needed in North Africa as
soon as we could be trained. That meant ten hour days, seven days a week,
learning how to hook up fire hoses to hydrants, how to squirt water on
imaginary fires in imaginary airplanes after they had imaginarily crashed,
and we had imaginarily saved the imaginary crew from burning. We were given
two hours off on Easter Sunday; half-hour to clean up and change to dress
uniform, an hour for church service and a half-hour to change back and get
to work again. Rush, rush, rush, no passes, no furloughs, get trained and
get shipped to North Africa; Ike Eisenhaur needed us badly.
On our way overseas we were bored, whenever we weren't scared of
submarine attacks. Somebody arranged a boxing tournament and called for
contestants. I had been on my highschool boxing team, so the boys urged me
to sign up...I did, fought three bouts, each with three, 2-minute-long
rounds. I lucked out and won all three bouts, which made me the heavyweight
champion of the trip, for which I was awarded three cartons of cigarettes
and a fresh-water shower!
We were stationed at an airfield near Algiers when we had our first
plane crash...a Royal Air Force twin-engined night fighter aborted his
landing, stalled and crashed into a Free French anti-aircraft artillary gun
emplacement near the end of the runway. It was a real baptism of fire. Two
men in the plane and four or five of the French artillarymen were killed
instantly. Picking those charred bodies was a job that had to be done, but
it was a far cry from our imaginary training back at Bradley Field.
TO BE CONTINUED
I can be contacted at raybeebe@tir.com
Send comments to Dan Machesky at dan@beesky.com