PART THREE

LaCrosse High School

Southwest County

Bomb Defuser, Coast Guard, Engineer, Farmer, Gunner,

Infantryman, Mechanic, Sailor, Tank Driver, Topographer, Wife

Moving along to another part of Whitman County, we have stories from LaCrosse, Hooper, Hay, and Endicott, plus a couple from Colfax that made it to our LaCrosse High School interview session. At this point we were attempting to keep our record of losing at least ONE person per interview session intact, but stumbled at the last moment. One candidate almost didn't make it… somehow Gene Ellithorpe ended up in Hay before finally showing up in Endicott. I told him that's what he got for flying without a wingman. Well, you had to be there.

Anyway, what emerges in this group of stories - some long, some short, all true - is a wonderful set of experiences set in the context of many different occupations our greatest generation people engaged in during those war years. Part Three presents a number of people in TRIBUTE who served over the Hump in the China-India-Burma Theater of War, and also touches on the Aleutian Islands front, two areas of the war heard about much less frequently than the Pacific or European fronts.

We had a really nice day at LaCrosse High School. The students posted two kids at the doors to welcome people as they came in and we had a little chat session before breaking off into groups for the interviews. They served cinnamon rolls and coffee mid-session and we were all invited for lunch when we finished.

A week or so before our scheduled interview session at LaCrosse High School, our contact teacher there, Mike Jones, told me a speaker was to do a presentation at the school. She was a Jewish woman named Naomi Bon, a survivor of a German Concentration Camp. I went to hear her speak, drawn by her connection to our tribute to World War II era Whitman County residents. Her story resonated with memories, feelings, and experiences of prejudice, bigotry, hatred, and curtailment of personal freedom, some of the reasons America got into the war in Europe and responded to attack in the Pacific.

As I listened to Naomi Bon I turned and watched the High School students who had gathered in the gym bleachers for her lecture. They sat mesmerized by the tale she told, one likely they had only heard before as fiction. Before them was the living truth, and they heard her.

I only was able to hear the first half of her presentation, but her words painted a clear context for the stories that follow. Here is part of Naomi Bon's story.

NAOMI BON

Naomi Bon spoke of the many German people who were against Hitler and what he stood for, and their inability to stop the progress of the Nazi party. She recalled Jews having to wear a yellow star on everything they wore to set them apart, then being herded into ghettos where they could be more easily supervised. Persecution grew in earnest. Eight more families were moved into the house she shared with her family. All able bodied Jewish men up to the age of fifty-five were forced into labor camps to support Germany's war machine.

She and the other women of her family, including a baby sister and an aged grandmother, were ordered to railroad cars and were permitted only one change of underwear and no valuables at all. They were given numbers and eighty-five of them were shoved into a cattle car with only a bucket to serve as a toilet for all of them.

"We didn't know what was happening," she explained.

When they finally reached their destination she was separated from her family by the wave of a stick in the hand of a German officer. She never saw any of them again, but learned later they had been sorted out to go to the gas chamber, or killing factory. Her female family members were considered too old, too young, or too weak to work for the Third Reich.

After a long time in a crowded flea-infested prison camp, Naomi eventually was forced to work in an explosives plant, a life or death experience every day. She and other Jewish women agreed to put their lives on the line by deliberately building bombs that would not explode. Their lives were preserved by a woman who worked in the Nazis' kitchen. She would put edible food out in the kitchen garbage cans so Naomi and her friends could sneak out at night and retrieve those life-sustaining leftovers. Years later Naomi found that very woman and was able to thank her for her kindness to a few starving Jews.

She lived to be liberated by the Allies in the spring of 1945 only to eventually be imprisoned by the Russian forces. Finally free, she immigrated to the United States where she and her husband raised a family.

Naomi Bon now spends her time touring all over America, going to schools wherever they will make time and room for her to speak to deliver her message. That message is: yes, it really happened. She believes her life remains proof that America was morally obligated to join the battle against Hitler and the world domination he planned at the expense of innocent lives.

That moral obligation was played out in lives all over America, both in those who went to war and those who manned the home front, and also in the lives of children. Della Evans was one of those people interviewed at the LaCrosse session who did her bit to win the war when she was a school child.

DELLA EVANS

By Toni Hopkins

Della Barr Evans was a grade school child in 1941 when the second World War broke out. The war was something that everyone knew about, everyone followed events closely, and they worried about friends and loved ones who were involved. For Della, life didn't change too very much.

School stayed the same, but the subjects started to circle around the war. They held a mandatory scrap drive at Riparia School, the one-room school that Della attended. Scrap metal was in demand in the war effort and so school kids all over America were sent out to scour the countryside for metal and also tires. The metal was shipped off to make things for the war. No one is quite sure what happened to all the tires. The kids at Riparia did better than they thought they would do, gathering twice as much metal as they expected to gather.

The day Pearl Harbor was bombed, Della was out riding her horse. Though it was a surprise that the Japanese had bombed Hawaii, it wasn't a surprise to her they were going to do something big. Della quoted her father as often saying that it was going to happen sometime. Della said even she knew the beginning of the war was soon to come.

When the war ended with the dropping of the Atomic Bomb everyone was overjoyed, according to Della Evans. No one wanted the war to go on any more than it already had. They were happy about the bomb, but no one really knew what it was. They didn't know what "atomic" meant. The bomb was a total surprise. That it happened was a huge relief and no one showed any sympathy for those who started the war. No one felt sorry. They thought that the Japanese deserved what they got for causing so much grief, hate, and hurt during World War II.

Della told about her husband, Bill, who lived in Rattlesnake north of Prosser. Every day he could watch the Hanford area, but he and his family had no idea what was going on down there.

During the war, Della said, everyone was urged to buy War Bonds and Saving Stamps. Those red stamps had "America On Guard" printed on them. According to a Savings Card Della still has, "Savings stamps are available in denominations of $0.10, $0.25, $050, $1, and $5. They may be purchased in any amount and may, when affixed to savings cards or albums, be cashed at any postal-savings post office or applied toward the purchase of postal-savings certificates or United States savings bonds."

Della smiled, "I saved so much I guess I saved them forever." Although she still has some savings stamps and a Savings Card she has kept all these years, the bonds she bought were turned into cash after the war was won.

Della also kept a War Ration Book that included the instruction "This book is valuable. Do not lose it." Della didn't.

The instructions also stated, "Rationing is a vital part of your country's war effort. Any attempt to violate the rules is an effort to deny someone his share and will create hardship and help the enemy. This book is your government's assurance of your right to buy your fair share of certain goods made scarce by war. Price ceilings have also been established for your protection. Dealers must post these prices conspicuously. Don't pay more. Give your whole support to rationing and thereby conserve our vital goods. Be guided by the rule: If you don't need it, DON'T BUY IT."

Ration stamps were issued by a Local Ration Board, then the stamps were used as you purchased rationed goods, and the person selling those goods had to collect the stamps. Gas, shoes, meat, sugar, and tires were some of the items that cost the most stamps. Some ration stamps had pictures of tanks on them, and each stamp was numbered.

Della Evans had the pleasure of editing a book titled Rural Reflections which contained a story titled "Gold Star Mother" by Norma Dipple. Della says, "When I was a youngster during the war and went to town, the houses along the streets would have stars hung in the windows. Those were red, white, and blue, signifying they had a son or daughter in the service. When that son or daughter was killed, they were given a banner with a gold star.

"When I was putting Norma's story in the Rural Reflections book, I wanted a picture of one of those gold star banners so I went to the library in Colfax. The librarians had never heard of such a thing. Something that was so important when I was young had been completely dropped.

"There was a Mother in Lacrosse who lost her son and every year until she died, she would plant in her front yard a floral display designed as the Gold Star Banner to honor all the Gold Star Mothers."

The Gold Star Mothers organization was formed in 1929 to help veterans in VA hospitals and other centers by donating thousands of hours visiting, writing letters for them, sewing lap robes, and aiding them with personal needs.

Della now lives near LaCrosse, Washington, where she teaches her grandchildren all about the war and its history. She has made several trips to Washington, DC taking her grandchildren with her and showing them the memorials and telling them the history of the war. She will never forget that war and all than happened to so many people.

At Pullman High School when two or three students interviewed one person they did one paper. At LaCrosse they chose to do differently, so some of the people in this Part Three section had two papers written about them. We chose to print both stories. One such interview was done with Charles Tobin. Chuck could not make it on the big interview day, but came in the next day, so I got to be there when two students interviewed him. We all three heard a story made more compelling by the gentle tone of Chuck's voice. Here are two versions of that interview.

CHARLES "CHUCK" TOBIN

By Travis Carter

Mr. Tobin was born in South Dakota. He was the fourth oldest out of six sisters and three brothers. When he was young, he came west by freight train. Charles got married in 1952 and has four children. He worked for McGregor's for 50 years and now lives in Hooper.

Mr. Tobin got a draft notice for the military when he was twenty-two years old. He went to Spokane to be inducted and then Fort Lewis for basic training, then on to Fort Knox to train to be a tank sergeant and driver. The reason why Charles became a tank driver is because he worked for a farmer and he knew how to drive a tractor.

He said, "Driving a tank and a tractor is the same, except the steering clutches are different on a tractor than on a tank."

Chuck Tobin went to England for four or five months. Then he went to France for thirty days. That is where he saw the most action in his military career. He was very active when he was in France. He fought at the Battle of St. Lô. The Battle of St. Lô was after D-Day. He and other reinforcement troops were sent in about two weeks after the conquest of Normandy.

Mr. Tobin drove an M5 tank, a mid-sized tank. They worked very near the front lines. The bigger tanks were behind him. He was told where they were to go by a commanding officer who was sticking his head out of the tank. The M5 tank's job was to shoot down German men with heavy arms, like bazookas, so that the Germans would not get a shot at the larger tanks and the infantry men who were behind them.

Chuck's tank did pretty well until after they were in France about thirty days. One day his tank got hit by a bazooka, which just crumpled the front end of the tank. Not even an hour later, when Chuck had driven the tank through a hedgerow, they started down a little incline and ran over a land mine. Charles lost the front portion of his right foot and broke his left foot. Nobody died out of the four people in that tank, but they were all thrown out onto the ground and the Germans kept shooting at them.

After spending six months in an English hospital, Charles came home with a Purple Heart, which he showed us during the interview.

He told me he will never forget having to walk five miles in the morning to where they parked the tanks and five miles back in the evening every single day for two months while he was in training.

CHARLES TOBIN

By Jessica Lane-Zehm

Charles "Chuck" Tobin was born in 1917 in a small South Dakota town. He was the fourth oldest of six girls and three boys. During the Great Depression while he was in school, he spent his free time working for a farmer to earn any extra money he could. In 1933, at the age of seventeen, he came to Whitman County to look for a job. He traveled by railroad in the dirt and filth of any freight train car that was not already full. Chuck settled in LaCrosse, Washington and started work for a local farmer. He remained in LaCrosse until he was drafted in 1941. At age twenty-two he reported to a draft board in Spokane for induction, then was moved by train to Fort Lewis. A month later he was in Fort Knox, Kentucky where he spent many days and countless hours in training. At the fort he was taught how to drive a tank, which he says is not much different than your everyday tractor. They learned to shoot, drive, and above all to take orders.

"The hardest part was probably the marching," he said. "We had to get up and march five miles every morning." Another hard part of the training was the gun drills. The men were ordered to crawl along the ground while machine guns were fired over the top of them.

"One guy panicked and jumped up in the middle of the drill. He was lucky though because they had stopped shooting long enough to reload." Chuck remembered that incident very well.

After training Charles was sent to England for five months, then went to France. He was sent into battle at St. Lô. Reaching the battle site was a long and tiring process. They had to wait for high tides to come in before they could get up to the beach where they could unload their tanks, which took days. For Chuck combat went by as a blur. They never got a relaxing or easy moment. They were constantly on their toes. "We were always scared, but we just went in to do our job and hoped we came out alive."

There were four people in his tank when they would go into battle. Chuck was the tank driver, and there was also a navigator, a gunner, and a lieutenant to command progress. Their job was to find and destroy German machine guns to clear the area so the infantry could walk in. When Chuck was asked what motivated him to keep going, he shrugged and said, "I guess you could say it was those one hundred guys out there on foot, out in the open, coming up behind me."

After they had been in France about thirty days, they were in combat one day and Chuck had been watching for Germans when a bazooka hit the tank at close range. Looking out the hole in the tank, he could see Germans close enough to see the detail on their faces. He watched them as they tried to hunt him down.

During the chase, which lasted less than an hour right on the front line, Charles maneuvered his tank through a hedgerow. As he was starting down a slight incline on the other side of it, he hit a land mine, blowing off the front end of the tank which was about two inches thick. The lid of the tank blew off too and all four of the crew were thrown out onto the ground as the tank caught on fire. Chuck tried to crawl behind the tank for protection from the enemy machine gunners, but his feet were both seriously injured and he had trouble moving under the barrage of German fire. One of the men was severely burned and flying shrapnel had injured the lieutenant. It was amazing that the Germans, who were so close to them Chuck could see the expression on their faces, failed to hit any of the four of them.

When the medics reached them they were all hauled off to different medical establishments to be treated. Chuck's left foot was badly broken and his right foot was partially blown off. He stayed in a treatment center in England for six months before returning home. The nurses and doctors treated him the very best they could, giving everyone their full attention, even though there were rows upon rows of injured people to attend to. The nurses were constantly exhausted but tried to make his stay as enjoyable as possible.

He was supposed to stay in bed and not try to walk, but on some occasions he would let himself off the bed and crawl around the hospital. One of the orderlies would find him away from his room on his hands and knees and just wrap his arm around Chuck's waist, pick him up, and carry him back to bed.

After the war and after he healed, Chuck moved to Hooper, Washington. He worked for McGregor Land and Livestock for fifty years before retiring. At the age of thirty-five he married and had children who have long since grown and moved out of the house. He plans to remain in Hooper where he is happy, spending his free time at Sara's store for a daily coffee hour.

Charles "Chuck" Tobin earned a Purple Heart for being wounded in the line of duty, and also gold bars and a Bronze Star. Those medals were all well earned through his bravery, determination, and honor for his country.

Charles was a lot of fun to interview. He told me some great stories, and basically made the experience interesting. I really admired him for his courage, determination, and strength. He went through a lot and never gave up, but kept trying through it all.

I want to add to the story you just read that at one point early in the interview Charles Tobin had just answered the question "What did you do in the war?" by saying "I drove a tank." Jessica, looking a little disappointed politely asked, "Is that all you did, just drive a tank?" He quietly nodded, "Yes, that's all I did."

One thing became quite clear as we began to pile up a stack of stories about what people did during WWII: it took many people doing many, many different jobs to win the war. Here we have two students who both interviewed a Flight Engineer who now makes his home in Hay.

CECIL "TYKE" CURTIS

By Drew Henley

Cecil Curtis, more commonly known as "Tyke," was working at the Boeing plant in Seattle, Washington when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He decided he wanted to fight for his country's freedom, and joined the service.

He told Boeing he was going to quit and they said, "Well, you can't. If you do, we will make you join the service."

Tyke replied, "That's where I'm headed, so see you later."

Tyke was going to go in the Navy, but when he got home from his last day at work he had a draft notice from the Air Force. This kind of shocked him, because he was not aware that they were drafting twenty-year olds. He packed up his things and took off for where the draft notice told him to go.

While he was waiting for a bus, a man reading a newspaper said to Tyke, "Do you know that they are drafting 20-year olds now?"

Tyke replied, "I sure do."

So off to Wichita Falls, Texas went Tyke where he would study Aircraft Mechanics. Then he went to Burbank, California for a special school. He was really more interested in being a fighter pilot or being on a B-24 than being a mechanic, but he was over six feet tall and they would not allow people over six feet to be on a plane. After his schooling, Tyke received notice that taller men were being allowed in aircrafts. So he reapplied and was accepted.

Then it was off to Utah to gun school and to learn how to fight. That was a difficult feat because the lowest 10% were automatically flunked out and had to try again. After graduation from gun school, Tyke headed off to Phase I in Tucson, Arizona. He was now a certified B-24 Flight Engineer. There were ten people on a plane: a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, radioman, flight engineer, two waist gunners, a tail gunner, and a turret gunner, the last being Tyke's position.

For Phase II he headed to Springfield, Massachusetts, then he and his crew were off to New York to get their brand new airplane. Then they flew to Palm Beach, Florida for a final check of their equipment. It was there that they practiced flying their brand new airplane, but when they went to land it after testing it out, the front landing gear was destroyed and they had no plane. This is where Tyke and another man got separated from their squad. They received orders from a higher-ranking officer to meet them in Italy and get more orders from there. So the two of them took a bus from Palm Beach to Homestead, Florida where they took off with an ATC aircraft transporting a B-24 bomber. Their first stop was in Puerto Rico. Then they flew to former French West Africa.

Once in Italy, after trying to hitch-hike for a ride, they finally found an Englishman and asked where the base was. He gave them a ride to Naples, Italy. They stayed in Naples for a little while looking around and finding out what they needed to do. Then they went from Naples to Berry, then north to Cerignola where the base was located.

When they arrived they were given a mattress cover and were told to fill it with the straw over yonder and they were also given a tent. Italy was cold that time of year and they were too, so they had to invent some kind of heater to keep them warm. Tyke and his partner made a chimney from scratch and put some gas to fuel their heating device in a barrel outside the tent.

So it was that Tyke and his partner made it over to Italy where they would have to fly thirty-five missions to complete their duty in order to get discharged. Their problem: they didn't have a plane.

They asked another squad if they could borrow their plane for a couple of missions until they got their own, and the other squad agreed. So Tyke and the rest of his squad got in the plane and headed out for their first mission. They returned from the mission, but not without getting shot up pretty bad. The squad they had borrowed the plane from needed the plane back so they could fly their own mission. Tyke and his squad waited at camp. The other squad never returned, so he and his squadron were without a plane again.

Finally, they saw an old wrecked plane at the camp. It wasn't in too bad a shape, so they decided to fix it up and use it, and that's what they did. They flew all their missions with that recycled plane, which treated them well up until their last mission. They were out on a mission when they caught the corner of a very harsh storm. They were flying with three other planes, all of which turned back while Tyke and his squad kept on going. They had one engine out when they came out of the storm. They were over the Czech Republic so they flew low and tried not to let anybody know they were there. They then flew over some water and as they were approaching a little island they thought nothing about it.

Suddenly they were getting fired at! Their well-experienced pilot tipped the plane up on the wing that still had working engines and they escaped death. They got an amazing seven hundred and forty bullet holes in their plane that mission.

Tyke told me about how everyone on the plane wore parachutes because people were always falling out or getting shot at and things like that. Well, Tyke did not fit too well in those planes being over six feet tall, so a parachute would not fit on his back and still give him room to move around comfortably and freely. So, just in case he would need it, he would stand on it when he was fighting from the top turret position.

He said, "I would always glance down from time to time to make sure it was still under my feet."

Tyke is a remarkable person and contributed greatly to World War II. I'm very happy people like him are in our world, people who are proud of our country and people that will fight with everything they have to stick up for us. Tyke is amazing and I am happy I had the opportunity to interview him.

CECIL "TYKE" CURTIS

By Amanda Evans

Cecil A. Curtis, also known as Tyke, had the title of Flight Engineer during World War II. Tyke was working in Seattle at Boeing when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He wanted to leave to fight for his country so he told his boss he was going to quit.

His boss replied, "If you quit we will put you in the army."

Tyke told him that's what he was leaving to do.

It was off to Wichita, Texas for mechanic's school. From there he was assigned to a P-38 squad in California to be a mechanic. He became Crew Chief at Edward Field. From there he went to gun school in Utah where he graduated.

He was assigned to fly in a B-24 in Tucson, Arizona. There were ten people to a plane. He went from Tucson, Arizona to Springfield, Massachusetts for the second and third phases of training. He had to go to New York City for a new airplane and that is where he got his new hand gun, which was a forty-five. He still has that gun to this day.

After the stop in New York City, his crew flew to West Palm Beach, Florida for their final check. When the crew got into West Palms the nose wheel collapsed on the plane so they had to stay there for about a week waiting for a new plane. They ended up never getting a new plane so everyone was on their own to get to Europe.

So, Tyke and this guy he had become friends with took a bus to Homestead, Florida for the first leg to Africa. They hitched a ride on an ATC transporting a B-24. Their first stop was Puerto Rico, then on to Brazil. From Brazil they went on to French West Africa, and ended up in Tunis which is in North Africa. They then flew across to Berry, Italy. Tyke and his friend stayed in Berry for a few days. They were getting paid seven dollars and fifty cent per day and they were staying in hotels for one dollar per night.

After a few days they hitch-hiked north to find out where their outfit was. They had to set up a tent to sleep in. There was no heat in the camp, so Tyke and his friend hitch-hiked back to Berry and found a stovepipe to heat their tent. Their stove was the best stove in camp.

Tyke drew his first mission and was hit by a fighter outfit. They survived but the next crew got shot out of two planes. They took an old plane that no one used except for parts and when they fired it up the plane started and off they went. The plane lasted Tyke until his very last mission. He ended up with seven hundred and forty bullet holes in that plane on the last mission, but it still flew. Tyke flew thirty-five mission total while he was in the service.

After his last mission he went back to New York. In New York he wanted to go to the Broadway show Oklahoma which had recently opened. He was told he had to wait six months, so he decided not to get tickets. Strangely enough, Tyke was back in New York in exactly six months and twelve hours, but he never did get to see the Broadway show.

He skipped rest camp to go to B-29 school, then he was sent to Boise for Instructor of Engineers classes. He was then sent to California for more training, then to Portland where he was discharged. He got a job working for the Navy in Seattle. Soon after arriving back from the war, Tyke got married. Then, with a baby soon on the way, he and his wife decided to move to Hay, Washington where they still live today.

The following is the story of one of three Dormans interviewed for TRIBUTE. Jack was one of those people who ended up in a very dangerous job: defusing bombs. The years since the war have not taken the edge off of Jack's ability to express himself, as he did to Mike Broeckel. Also, when I asked him for a picture of himself for this book, one from the 1940s period of his life, maybe one of him in his uniform, he answered, "I don't have any of just me. They all have girls in them and I don't remember any of their names." Somehow, I had no trouble believing him.

JOHN R. DORMAN

By Mike Broeckel

John R. Dorman, known as Jack, was a sophomore in high school when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The next day, Monday, there was an all-school assembly where they listened to President Roosevelt declare war on Japan and Germany.

"It was an experience of growing up and wanting to do something. I felt insulted and angry over those Japanese stabbing us in the back. Giggly girls weren't important anymore," Jack said.

He didn't mind growing up fast, because having fun wasn't as important to him as his country. Everyone had a common thought, helping the United States. He graduated from LaCrosse High School in 1943, then was stationed at Walla Walla to go to Officer Candidate School (OSC.)

He was there two weeks before classes started. He learned all of the marches, rifle skills, and everything that he needed to know for OCS. They were taught in only two weeks everything that normally took eight weeks to learn. After the first two weeks, Jack took classes in naval warfare, sciences, history, math, and leadership. Mr. Dorman said he only got paid thirty-one dollars a month as an apprentice seaman. One of his greatest achievements was being appointed Company Commander at OCS.

Jack Dorman's interest in football caused him to lose interest in his studies so he washed out of OCS. He went to Great Lakes Naval Training in Chicago for one month. Most of the people that went to that camp called it the "rest" camp. The reason they called it a rest camp was because most people needed time off to rest after OSC training.

"Most people just got burned out from the intense training at OSC," Jack said.

He told about one exercise they did where they would jump off a forty-foot platform into water, then take off their pants and trap air in them so they could stay afloat. He explained, "Challenges are not meant to kill you, but are meant to be overcome."

After Chicago, Jack went to Norman, Oklahoma. Norman was an Aviation Ordinance School where he learned to load cannons, arm bombs, and take 50-caliber machine guns and 20-millimeter guns apart blind-folded. The summer at Norman was very humid and Jack experienced his first hurricane while stationed there.

Jack tells a funny story about Aviation Ordinance School. "It was the last day and we were all marching to our last class. I was the right guide for our company and I knew where we had to go, so I wasn't paying much attention to the commander. Well, the commander called for column left and I was the only one that went to the right. Everyone got a good laugh out of it."

While he was stationed in Norman, the United States attacked the beaches of Normandy. The Navy was in charge of transporting the troops across the English channel on landing crafts and ships. Some of the ships opened their troop deployment doors too early into about eight feet of water. Lots of men drowned due to all the weight they were carrying. And the ones who didn't drown were literally cut in half by German machine guns as the troops attempted to make it ashore.

"I wondered if I would have had the guts to keep the ships going in after the other officers had dropped the doors early," Jack said.

At the end of Ordinance School, the top five men got to choose where they wanted to go next. Jack ranked sixth. He was stationed at a Bomb Disposal School in Washington, D.C. There Jack had to learn to defuse live bombs without getting blown up. He defused Allied, German, Italian, and Japanese bombs in forty-foot holes that were dug just for defusing bombs. Jack only had to defuse bombs that he knew. The officer in change had to defuse any bombs that were not common. This was not always a successful process. The officer would talk by radio to another man that was four hundred yards away from the bomb, telling him exactly what he was doing. If the bomb blew up, the next person that had to defuse that kind of bomb would know not to make the same mistake.

"In war the Germans had everything they left behind - toilet seats, doors, hallways - booby-trapped with a fine wire filament that felt like a spider web," Jack explained. This same kind of wire was strung in all sorts of places at the school to get the students used to always being aware of things being booby-trapped. Wires would be placed on toilet seats, bed springs, door ways, or chairs and when you broke the wire a cherry bomb would go off," Jack said.

While he was still in training at the Bomb Disposal School, the war ended. But before Jack could leave they all spent one month cleaning up the base.

Next Jack was stationed at Terminal Island, Los Angeles. There he drove a semi from San Diego to L.A. hauling disassembled airplanes and delivering goods in between hauls. Jack told of one exciting experience at one of his stops.

"I had to drop some stuff off at a Navy prison, a prison for Navy personnel that were hardened criminals - murderers, rapists, etc. I walked through the first set of doors, then the second set of doors, and then had to walk across the entire compound. All of a sudden a big Navy guy - as big as a gorilla - walked up to me and asked me for my Tailor Made cigarettes. I told him I didn't have any and he tore my shirt off, mistaking my note pad in my shirt pocket for cigarettes." Jack said it was one of the most trying experiences he can remember.

After Terminal Island duty, Jack Dorman was discharged from the service. He didn't think the service was a negative experience at all. He didn't get into any trouble and would have done any and everything he was told to do. He didn't save anyone or win any battles but he served his country proudly. Jack said that discipline and respect were the name of the game.

When Dorman was asked what lasting lesson he learned from the war, he answered in a few sentences.

"War is hell. If we had not gone over and fought we would all be speaking German or Japanese. Appeasement doesn't work. We have to set boundaries. There are some things worth fighting for: your God, your family, and your country. Sometimes it isn't fun, but you have to do it. And if you are going to do it, go to win."

When I sent Darwin Nealey's story to him, it inspired him to sit down and write a greatly extended version of Melissa Hargis' story written from her interview with him. After doing a bit of thinking about it I decided to use his lengthier rendition because it deals with an area of World War II that is spoken of infrequently in histories of that era. Our thanks to Mr. Nealey for educating us with his war time memories and thanks to Melissa for getting him seated and writing.

DARWIN R. NEALEY

By Melissa Hargis and Darwin Nealey

In May of 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met to divide Berlin among the United States, England, and Russia. They needed detailed maps of the area and the 659th topographical mapping outfit was chosen to make and distribute those maps. The project was to remain ultra secret, not even to be discussed within the outfits from which a special team was drawn.

Darwin R. Nealey was selected as the officer in charge of the project. He proceeded to choose the ten best men he knew, men who could do the job quickly and efficiently. As a team they prepared the Berlin map, keeping it a secret until its world-wide release. Every person did his part. They just sat down at their equipment and did the work, then when each was finished, Nealey assembled the map.

Nealey graduated from Washington State College June 10, 1941. Being a member of ROTC, he was sworn into the Army as a Second Lieutenant the same day. Instead of going home, his class had to be at Fort Wright in Spokane the next morning. His first assignment was to the 29^th Engineers Topographic Mapping Battalion in Portland, Oregon. The 29^th consisted of a headquarters company, photomapping company, reproduction company, and two survey companies, one of which worked in Washington and Oregon. The other survey company surveyed around Knik Arm in Alaska and also in California. The 29^th Engineers was the only mapping battalion held over from World War I, so they cadred nearly all the early new mapping units for World War II.

In February 1943 Nealey was chosen to be the liaison officer to obtain the mapping photography of the Aleutian Islands. He was on joint and direct orders from the War Department, the Western Defense Command in San Francisco, the Alaska Defense Command, and the 29^th Engineers. He arrived at Elmendorf Field, Alaska, the first week in March, then was sent to the advance force Alaska Defense Command on Adak with their intelligence unit. The Japanese had already landed troops on Attu and Kiska and it was apparent that line of attack had to be stopped.

The 11^th Air Force, which was to furnish planes and men for the mapping project, finally came up with one B-25. The photography needed for mapping had to be very precise with a sixty percent overlap forward and a thirty percent overlap sideways with the other flights. That was very difficult for pilots unaccustomed to such work, plus the weather only offered them about three days a month air time to do it. Nealey requested four photomapping planes with crews assigned to him, and in July got two B-17s with two photographers and one co-pilot for each plane. Nealey assigned one plane to be based on Umnak and work east toward the mainland, and took the other plane west of Adak to work toward Attu. He was also assigned a Coast and Geodetic survey ship to help get the ground control.

The Army had kept the Battle of Attu a secret because they didn't want Americas to know Japan had actually occupied part of the United States. According to some reports, the Battle of Attu had killed or captured every Japanese on the island, a report proven to be untrue. While Nealey was navigating one flight over Attu, they were shot at with anti-aircraft artillery that narrowly missed them.

In addition to that, he decided to visit an ROTC friend, located on the side of a mountain on Attu with a Combat Engineer Company. When Nealey had hiked back from that visit he received orders to climb aboard a Navy transport ship and return to Adak. He slept aboard that night and the next morning he saw a footlocker and duffel bag on deck with his friend's name on them. A month later he found out the Japanese had come off the mountain and attacked his friend's outfit, shooting him in the jaw. The man was being shipped to Utah for facial surgery. The same Japanese troops had followed Nealey to his camp and, during the night, had gone down the row of officer's tents tossing hand grenades into the tents. His two bunk mates were killed.

The weather was always very difficult. Darwin told this story about the winds. "Another Lieutenant and I attended a movie in the evening at the Navy's theater. We came out into a wind that was blowing very hard. We had about a quarter mile over open ground to get to our Quonset and the wind was blowing my friend, who had a bad knee, around like a rag doll. I was finally able to grasp him and together we crawled on our hands and knees, mostly on our stomachs, to our hut. That wind blew the weather station over, but not before it had been officially recorded at 110 miles per hour. The locals called that kind of wind a Willawa, which I define as a wind blowing 100 miles per hour in four directions at once."

Nealey was pressured to get mapping photography of Kiska also, but the Japanese were occupying that island and would have shot them down. The high brass then decided to land on Kiska to re-occupy it, and trained Army troops in San Diego for that purpose. Their main objective at first was to prevent Japanese supplies from getting to their people on the island so they would starve and surrender. That didn't work.

During the last of June and early July there were five days of solid fog and bad weather. During those five days, the Japanese Navy apparently moved in with ships and submarines and evacuated five thousand troops off Kiska and got away, unnoticed by the US troops. When the US landed in early July they were surprised to find not a single Japanese remaining.

By November Nealey had completed seventy percent of his mission, but the weather prevented further work until spring. Upon returning to Portland, he was promoted to Captain and given command of Headquarters Company of the 29^th Engineers. He was married in December 1944, then learned two weeks later he was ordered to be the operations officer of a new photo mapping battalion, the 659^th, and was to be sent to Europe. He landed in France in February where he spent two weeks in the Lucky Strike assembly camp. The 659^th was to occupy one of France's top magazine plants, the Illustration, located in Bobigny, a suburb of Paris, along with a sister topo battalion pulled out of England. They built a cantonment area of tents with wooden floors for the enlisted men and the officers were bunked in the tower of the magazine plant. The purpose of the two battalions being there was to make maps of Europe which were to facilitate the Allied push to end the war, which happened soon thereafter.

They were in Paris to celebrate V-E Day.

Darwin was assigned to return home on the Queen Elizabeth. Two-person compartments on the ship were altered to care for eight to ten officers and the enlisted men slept in the hold. It was a rough trip through one of the worst storms ever in the North Atlantic Ocean. Darwin was the only one in his group to make it to every meal. The ship was going up and down and rolling so much that the dishes would slide clear across the table. The men would sit down, then pour water on the table cloth so the dishes wouldn't slide.

"Can you imagine the state room with all of those sea sick men? I won't ever forget that. I was so glad to see New York," commented Darwin. He was flown to the West Coast, promoted to Major, and discharged from active duty at Fort Lewis on May 10, 1946.

Mr. Nealey was a delight to be with. He shared a lot of information, was very detailed, and gave me a good story. I really thought this was fun and I would like to do it again sometime.

Just to make things a little more complicated, we now have two people interviewing two people. The Camps edited both versions, so we can believe the four of them came to agreement on what the Camps did during the war.

DON AND NONA CAMP

By Daniel Broeckel

Don and Nona Camp lived near the town of LaCrosse when World War II started. They ran a large farm about six miles out of town. Don was a hard worker on the farm because there was nobody to help. It was long hours and hard days. He farmed three men's jobs by himself. The harvesting was the hardest. They sometimes found help in town at the hotel. People who needed work would go to the hotel and farmers who needed help would go to the hotel to get someone to work for them. Older men and local teen-agers were recruited to help.

The Camps were very fortunate to be running a farm because Don did not have to go fight since the country needed some men to stay and produce food for the troops. Don was willing to fight in the war if the chance ever came. But his father was getting older and there was no way he could farm. So the Government deferred Don to stay and farm.

Don rarely came to town because farming took all his time and then some. But he and Nona sometimes came to town on Saturday night to have fun and talk to other farmers.

Don and Nona Camp had two sons. One fought in a later war, the Vietnam War. And the other was in the military stationed in Germany in peace time.

During World War II the community where the Camps lived was very different than it had been. The families around them changed and did different things. They had an airplane lookout station that people of the town manned. They would write down a note if a plane flew over and write down what time it was. For doing this they got medals and awards for the hours they put in.

The home front was a very different place compared to the years before. The farming community was very helpful to the war effort. They had fund-raisers for the war. The country had to pull together and that is what they did.

Don and Nona were one of the many families that made contributions to the war by farming and giving money. Don was glad that he did not have to go to war, but he was willing to go. Don and Nona are still in the small farming community they lived in during the war.

NONA AND DON CAMP

By Trisha Goolsby

Don Camp has lived in Whitman County for about eighty-five years. Don and Nona have been married for sixty-four years. Together they have two sons, one of whom served in the Vietnam War. The other son was stationed in Germany.

Farming was hard during the war because a lot of the help had gone off to fight the war. They had to feed their livestock wheat-hay. When harvest came around, they would use a pull binder which took four mules to pull. One day their barn caught fire. Their neighbors around them rushed over to help Don's family put out the fire. The wage for harvesting was three-fifty to five dollars a day. Wheat sold for sixty-one cents a bushel in 1940.

The Camps never served on the war front, but had family and friends who did. During the war Don and Nona stayed on the home front and farmed. Don was pardoned from the war to help his father farm and take care of the ranch. Don and Nona did help fight in their own way. They would come into town to watch for airplanes passing through the sky. Don and Nona had to learn all the names of the airplanes and what kind they were. Once they spotted a plane they had to write it down in a log book and call it in. They could go for weeks and not see a plane, then one day they would see two or three planes. People would build shacks to sit in to watch for the planes.

There were shortages of many things and gasoline and sugar were rationed. The attitude the people had on the home front was this: they had to do what they had to do. A lot of people would send care packages to friends and family in the war. The care packages would have cookies, clothing, and other things that would try to make the soldiers feel more at home, or at least somewhat comforted. The people on the home-front would make up fund-raisers to earn money for the war. Don's father bought an old school bell for one thousand dollars to help raise money for the war.

During the war LaCrosse was a very busy place. Nona told me they would have to rush through their chores in the morning, just so they could get a parking place when they got to town. Today LaCrosse is only a fourth of what it was in the 1940s. LaCrosse had a number of stores, theaters, and even a bowling alley. Also there were meat stores, dance halls, and hotels. There were three grain outfits in LaCrosse at that time.

One question I asked was, "Do you think the U.S. did the right thing getting into the war?" I found their answer interesting. Nona and Don told me they thought it was not the right thing to do. But they also said that if we didn't enter the war Japan would have kept coming. And, they told me, we had to do what we had to do, which meant the United States had to enter the war.

The following is another collaboration between the "teller of" and the "listener to" a story. Don Dorman's experiences were complex and varied including time spent in a Prisoner of War camp in Germany. While his stories could easily fill a book, we have presented an abridged version that we hope will encourage him to commit his entire story to print.

DON DORMAN

By Brian Thompson and Don Dorman

Don Dorman was at Washington State College (WSU) on December 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. It was just a calm, peaceful Sunday. He came home from church, walked into his fraternity house which was usually a hub of noise and commotion, and found it deadly silent. "There was not a sound, except for the radio playing," Dorman said. Then he heard the message: Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

Mr. Dorman enlisted in the Army Air Corps in Spokane at Geiger Field in September of 1942. He had graduated from High School in the summer of 1940 but needed some time to earn money to attend college. At that time you could stay in high school an extra year if you wanted, so he continued to take math, physics, and other science courses while he worked. "That extra year of High School really helped me," he noted. He studied at Washington State College in Pullman for two semesters, then his education was interrupted when he was called to duty in February, 1943.

When the call came he rode the rails to Ayers Junction, then switched to a passenger train going to Salt Lake City. He was ticketed for a sleeper car, but when he got to his space he found it occupied by a woman and baby, so he slept in a seat next to the conductor. "Everything was so crowded," he said shaking his head. "People were being moved all over the country." At Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City he was put on a troop train along with people from all over the country who had assembled there to be assigned to training posts. He was first sent to Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, Texas, then went to Kelly/Randolf Field in San Antonio where he had a complete physical exam and some basic military training. For one thing, he learned how to keep the points of his shirt collar sharp by using a "spiffy." The First Lieutenant over him was so adamant about those collar points being kept sharp with a stay that Don and the rest of his unit gifted the man with gold spiffys when they completed their training.

Dorman was then an Army Air Force Cadet and was moved to Fort Hayes Teacher's College in Kansas, a training detachment located on a community college campus. Next move was to Pine Bluff, Arkansas for Primary Training in PT-19s. His flight instructor started giving him a real bad time after about seven and a half hours of instruction. Finally when Don hit eight hours the guy growled at him to land, and he got out of the plane. Don wondered if he was going to be washed out. As the instructor stomped off he shouted, "Go up there and kill yourself."

Don was so excited, he flew up to two thousand feet instead of the required one thousand, but when he came back to earth he executed what he calls "the best landing I've ever done in my life." That training and solo flight got him moved on to Independence, Kansas and into Basic Training where they flew BT-14s and BT-13s to learn instrument flying.

"I didn't like the BT-13," claims Don. "It had a paper tail and shook real bad. The guys called it the 'Vultee Vibrator' for good reason." Also, it was very cold in Kansas that winter. Once he and a couple other Cadets, eager to get in some air time, tried for over an hour in freezing weather to start one of the BT-14s. They had to turn a crank on the wing to get it to turn over, which they did, repeatedly, until they finally coaxed it into a steady roar. Then their instructor came out of the warm shed nearby and took the plane up himself.

Next stop for Dorman was Moore Field in Mission, Texas where he completed Advanced Training in AT-6s, along with seven other men in his flight. They all got their Wings, but only half of them survived the war. Flight training procedure had changed and Don's class, 44-C, was retained for eight hours more of flight training in a P-40, another plane he didn't care much for because of its narrow landing gear. Also, it was torqued so he could only slow roll to the right, which nevertheless he and his buddies enjoyed doing. One day they were flying loose formation and came up on a B-24, a four-engine bomber. They all slow rolled by him, just showing off. Then the bomber pilot slow rolled his plane! He started at twenty thousand feet altitude and came out at ten thousand feet. "We all got out of there in a hurry!" Don laughed. "We didn't want to fly anywhere near that guy… he was crazy!"

Don and a friend bought a Plymouth coupe which they then drove to Richmond, Virginia, then to Blackstone, another training base, where he was introduced to the plane that brings a big smile to his face, the

P-47 Thunderbolt.

"We learned to strafe, bomb, and dog fight. We would go up together, fly by each other, break up, and go into vicious battle maneuvers. We practiced a lot and learned how to fight in the sky. One day when we landed we were all soaking wet from sweat from the intensity of flying combat action. The Thunderbolt handled great. It couldn't turn inside a German 109 or one of our P-51 Mustangs, but you could do a slow roll, chop the engine, hit rudder, pause, then full throttle and be right behind any airplane you were fighting."

Moving on to Dover, Delaware Dorman spent some time flying with loaded bombs out over the ocean looking for German submarines they knew were out there, but never saw one they could attack. He and a friend took off one day with irritant smoke they were to practice discharging. They were flying over Chesapeake Bay about sixty feet off the water when they came upon a Navy Cleveland class cruiser surrounded by small boats. Neither of them said a word to each other, they just opened their smoke valves and flew over the ship. There was no wind so the smoke just settled down until all they could see was the smoke stack of the cruiser sticking up out of the cloud of irritant smoke. Well, apparently the Navy was indeed irritated. The next day there was a terse notice on the Bulletin Board in operations directing all pilots "NOT to fly near Navy ships."

Then it was Don's turn to board a ship. He and about seventeen thousand others sailed on the Queen Elizabeth, built for one thousand passengers. They headed for Glasgow, England. The trip was profitable for Dorman who was able to send home about thirty-five hundred dollars from poker winnings. The first two months while he was at Atcham Field near Shrewsbury, England, he learned to fly with British pilots. One important thing he learned was not to come up directly behind a Lancaster Bomber in his P-47 or they would start firing.

Paris had been liberated just two weeks before Dorman arrived in France in October of 1944. He was billeted in the former German Officer's Center at Chateaux Rothschild outside Paris where the grounds were liberally sprinkled with signs that said "Minen" or mine. The Germans had planted land mines all over the place as they evacuated. Dorman and a friend of his were celebrating a mission well done one evening and somehow forgot about the mine field and walked all the way across it in the dark, not giving any consideration to where they were walking. "That could have been it," Dorman said sheepishly.

He was next attached to the 406^th Fighter Group, 514^th Fighter Squadron, at Mourmelon La Grand, near Reims, France on the front lines. First Lieutenant Donald O. Dorman, Jr., had flown just six missions when on December 16, 1944 German General von Rundstedt launched a major attack that came to be known as The Battle of The Bulge. The next day Don flew a morning mission, then returned to base and volunteered to replace an ill pilot on an afternoon flight. Near Gilszem, Germany his formation came upon a German tank unit that had stopped in a woods to camouflage their tanks.

"We dropped our napalm bombs on them," Don said. "One of my bombs hit a tank, but I saw the igniter fall off and bounce away, so it didn't explode. We had to break away when an ack-ack position opened up on us. We came back around, three or four of us. I was flying 'tail-end Charlie.' We went down to strafe the gun position that was firing at us. I located the emplacement and dove down to hit it. I didn't see another gun off to my side. He made several hits. I could hear metal grinding, my engine quit, and I had fire coming up in the cockpit. I threw the canopy off, unfastened my seat belt, jumped up on the seat, dove for the trailing edge of the wing, and pulled the rip cord. My leg hit the tail of the plane as my chute opened. I swung once and hit the ground at the bottom of the swing, then rolled into the ack-ack hole I had been strafing seconds before. The German gunner very carefully removed my 45 automatic and with his knife cut the chute cords from around me. He said, 'For you the Var isst over!!'"

Dorman was temporarily placed in a civilian prison in the town of Trier, about two miles from where his plane had gone down, almost on the front line. He was locked in a cell on the top floor. A few days later American B-26s came over, dropping bombs, one of which hit the church across the street, and another hit the prison kitchen. Locked in his cell, huddled against the wall, windows blown in, bombs screaming, Don remembers, "I never felt so helpless and scared in my life."

Then a very odd thing happened. A German guard, risking his own life, made his way through the prison, unlocking all the cell doors. The prisoners rushed out and followed the guard to an air raid shelter under the prison. After the all-clear sounded that same guard put Don in a ground-level cell which contained a printing press and some parts. He and his cellmate, Rusty Price, a member of his squadron, were able to pass their time taking apart the press. They used long pieces of that metal to try to pry apart the prison bars. Don covered the noise by singing his high school and WSC fight songs. Their efforts were to no avail since the Germans had built the prison too well.

Dorman and Price later walked to Bitburg, then Don was shipped to Barth, Germany where he spent the balance of the war at Stalag Luft I. He was liberated in the second week of May 1945 by Russian troops. While in prison camp the twenty-three men with him in Room 10, Block 9, North Compound 3 agreed to pool and share all food that came to them including Red Cross parcels.

Their main staple was what he calls World War II Black Bread, made from the following recipe which came from the official record of the "Food Providing Ministry published (top secret) Berlin 24. XI 1941 by the Director of Ministry Herr Mansfeld and Herr Moritiz."

The recipe read, "It was agreed that the best mixture to bake black bread was: 50% bruised rye grain, 20% sliced sugar beets, 20% tree flour (saw dust), and 10% minced leaves and straw."

After the war Don returned to his studies at WSC, graduated in 1948, and returned to LaCrosse to farm his family land. He married Ruth Ellingwood in 1946. He is currently the mayor of LaCrosse.

The mayor's wife, Ruth Dorman, has a story to tell too. It is one of life in the throes of rationing and shortages, and also speaks of what it was like to be a young college woman and a USO girl.

RUTH DORMAN

By Brandi Weekes

Life on the homefront during Wold War II could easily have been characterized as exciting for Ruth Dorman. When the USO formed in Spokane, Ruth became one of the first USO girls.

Ruth Ellingwood and her family moved to Spokane, Washington from Madison, Wisconsin in 1937. She attended Lewis and Clark High School where she graduated in June 1941. She and her classmates were well aware of an impending world crisis. They presented a poem chorus, based on John Brown's Body, at their graduation ceremony at the Fox Theater. The script was written by a classmate. During the summer Ellingwood worked for her father to raise tuition money for Eastern Washington College, then called Cheney Normal School, and began classes there in the fall.

On December 7, 1941, she had finished eating dinner in her dormitory and had gone upstairs to get an early start on her studies when a friend motioned to her. The radio was broadcasting the situation about Pearl Harbor. Life was forever changed for Ruth.

She wanted to join one of the women's service groups, but her father persuaded her to continue her education. After Ruth¹s freshman year of college, life took a dramatic change on the home front. Travel had been restricted and ration books were disbursed to all families for things such as food, butter and lard, gas, tires, and sugar. Even silk stockings were rationed. Ruth remembers women painting their legs with tan facial cream and using eye liner pencils to draw in the seams, which hosiery all had at that time.

Ruth had to work for a year before she could continue her education, so she found a job as a secretary in a real estate office in Spokane. She also rolled bandages for the Red Cross.

Spokane was the closest city to both Farragut Naval Training Station in Northern Idaho and Geiger Field, an Army Air Corps training base north of Spokane. On weekends those sailors and air men had nothing to do, so a USO center was formed in Spokane. Wanting to be a part of the war effort, Ruth signed up as one of the first USO girls. Vowing to never drink, leave the USO club site without permission, or date servicemen, USO girls provided amusement for servicemen on the weekends, holding dances and providing food and drink.

Ruth loved to dance. She remembers one Chief Petty Officer who had taught dancing in New York City at an Arthur Murray Dance Studio. He danced with every girl. Ruth stated, "When you danced with him you were really dancing." Dancing was an opportunity for the USO to help morale and offered a chance for relaxation.

In the fall of 1943, Ruth began school at Washington State College in Pullman. She joined a sorority and worked half days during the week, and from eight to one o'clock on Saturdays. All fraternities were vacated. The only males on campus were medicine and veterinary majors. Then the "90-day wonders" arrived to live on campus. They were college training detachment men preparing to be officers in just ninety days.

Ruth remembers several summers in Spokane during the war when she and her two younger sisters took the bus to go swimming at Comstock Pool on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. When they would get off the bus coming home, servicemen would follow them. Her mother would have watermelon, homemade ice cream made with honey since sugar was rationed, or sandwiches ready to serve whoever came just to give the young men a taste of home life far from their homes. Ruth wondered how her mother knew she and her sisters would bring home young men on those afternoons, but she always greeted them prepared!

In the summer of 1944, Ruth worked at a Receiving Hospital at Fort George Wright, Spokane. Receiving Hospitals housed soldiers who had been overseas for too long and needed rest or care for injuries. Ruth served as a secretary for the doctors in the psychiatric ward where the patients talked about traumatic war experiences, such as bomb raids. She then wrote up their case histories.

In October of 1945 Ruth met her future husband, Don Dorman, when he returned from overseas and went back to college. She graduated from Washington State College in June of 1946 with a BA in Foreign Language, a major in Spanish, and a minor in French and History. In September of 1946, Ruth and Don were married.

Ruth Dorman was one of the many women who helped the war effort through comfort and encouragement. She danced, listened, and offered memories. She fought the war from home, encouraging those who were to fight in combat abroad.

I'm not picking favorite stories, that would be tantamount to impossible, but I have to say I really appreciated the innovativeness of Cyndi Berthold. She listened to Opal Wise share her story, then wrote it in first person so we have what sounds like Opal telling her story in her own words. Opal liked it too, so for your enjoyment, here’s the life of a young Army wife from her own thoughts and heart.

OPAL WISE

By Cyndi Bertholf

Tollie had been in the service for about a month when I went to be with him. We lived in LaCrosse. My dad was worried about me going because I had just finished college and I had never traveled.

My dad said, "Honey, how would you know where to go or what to do?"

I said, "There are always people and you can ask questions." So I went and was kind of scared, but I still wanted to be with my husband.

He was in Tucson and I had to find a place to live. At that time they would not let you live in a hotel. They wouldn't let you stay in a hotel but two or three nights at a time. Then you had to get out because someone else needed the room. I started out down one street and asked around at this hotel to find out where I could go. There were motels where I could probably live.

I kept walking and looking. And of course it was December when I went, but it wasn't cold. I did have this rude awakening. I wore a reversible coat. It was tan on one side and red on the other. I started out wearing the red side out and walked instead of taking the nickel bus. There were soldiers everywhere and they would whistle at me. I got so nervous that I forgot who I was! I happened to think, "I have a red coat." So I stopped right there and turned it with the tan side out. It made all the difference in the world! I was left in peace. That was something I had never come across before.

Then I soon found a place to live and a café close by where I could work. I had never worked in a café before. The owner and his wife were so nice to me and remained life-time friends.

While we were still in Tucson we had our baby. He was born in November. He and I were very sick at that time, but we both survived somehow. I had him, but wherever Tollie went, I followed in the car. He had to go on the troop train. So I would have someone go with me in our car. Our little boy was so good. He would just lay up in the back car window as long as we traveled. He was good as gold, a joy to us. He was a good young fellow and he still is, except he is big now.

After Tucson, we were in Palm Springs for about three months, then Tollie got transfered to New Mexico for awhile. I always wanted to go back East where Tollie's family was. They were from North Carolina . I thought it would be really neat to meet some of his family, but he never did get anywhere past New Mexico. Then just before he got sent overseas, we got sent home for two weeks. We bought a little house so that when he had to ship out, the baby, Gregg, and I didn't have to live with my folks or his.

I didn't work. I mean, we could manage. It didn't take much to feed me and a little boy. Tollie was gone a year and he wrote regularly. All of a sudden he quit writing. I thought he must have been on his way home, but he never came and I was getting really worried about him. I knew that the war was over and he should be coming home. He had flown over there, but as it turned out he took a ship home. I had a good friend at the school, a teacher, who said to me one time, "You know, you haven't heard from Tollie. I don't want to worry you, but at the same time I want to prepare you mentally a little bit."

I was worried, but held out hope that everything was OK.

It was a month before he made it home. When he arrived in Settle, he tried to call nearly half the night. Of course, I didn't know that, so he started again the next day, finally telling the operator, "I want LaCrosse, Washington, not LaCrosse, Wisconsin!"

They said, "Oh my goodness, we tried to call Wisconsin all night." He was pretty frustrated.

I was at my folks' when he got home. They lived in Colfax at that time. Gregg was fourteen months old when Tollie left and he didn't get back until he was a little past two years old. I always kept a picture of Tollie, in uniform, for Gregg to "talk to," and he was allowed to pack it all over the house.

He was down for his nap when Tollie came home. My mom took care of him while I went to Spokane to get Tollie. We had wondered if Gregg would remember his dad because he was pretty little when he left. When Gregg woke up, I picked him up and took him out in the living room where Tollie and my mom and dad were. I put him down and he went straight to his Dad. That was just good for all of us.

It was a trying time, but we were able to manage. When Tollie came back I was so thankful. It was a difficult time for all of us.

Opal's husband, TollieWise has continued his interests in serving his fellow man, and in things that run, well into his retirement years. He has long been a driver of clients for Council on Aging & Human Services, people who need rides to medical appointments, grocery shopping, hair appointments, whatever. Tolly drives his own vehicle to help people who need transportation. He was well-prepared for that volunteer work and his life career by the training he got during the war.

TOLLIE WISE

By Yvonne Enzweiler

Tollie Wise was born in the 1920s in LaCrosse, Washington. He went to school there and finished High School in 1938. After High School, Tollie joined the Army. His first experience in the military started off with Basic Training at the Flying School at Marana Army Air Base near Tucson, Arizona. Different Army Air Force units were stationed there including the unit he was attached to, the 758^th Basic Training Squadron. There were about seven hundred and fifty BT 13s on the field and Tollie "chased parts" for about one hundred and twenty-five of those planes. The Army would ship in guys by the trainload, guys who were learning to fly. They needed things done to keep them flying and Tollie was one of the men who kept them in the air.

While the planes were in the air, Tollie went through ground crew basic training. He marched, drilling up and down as a unit to teach all those men from different places to work as a team and take orders. They also did calisthenics to build up physical endurance.

Tollie Wise was transferred to Air Transport Command (ATC) which was a center in New Mexico to accumulate and disburse men into training programs. From there he went to Airplane Mechanic's School for sixteen weeks in San Bernardino. When he finished there he was told he was going overseas. His wife, Opal, had been with him, and he wanted to take her back to LaCrosse, so he scrounged around to get gas ration stamps. He was transferred to Palm Springs for about six weeks, so she stayed with him. He found himself with a whole lot of gas stamps he couldn't use up before they expired, so he took them to a gas station in Cathedral City, near Palm Springs. The owner of the station said, "Here, give them to me. When you need gas as long as you are here, just come on in."

After that six weeks Tollie got orders to report to Miami Beach with a two week delay enroute to take his wife and son home. Miami Beach was a shipping out center where soldiers from all over the country were dispersed. They were put up in a hotel and given orders what to do. Many men waited there a long time before shipping out. What would happen is, when it came time to go they were given orders to go up to the fifth floor. That meant it was time to go. Once they been marched up to the fifth floor with their barracks bag, they couldn't write home or talk to anyone else in the hotel.

Tollie was ordered up one morning. He tossed his stuff on a bunk and joined a crap game going on in a corner of the room. Suddenly he heard someone say, "Wise, get your stuff together, take your barracks bag, go get early chow, then you are going to India." Tollie and fourteen other soldiers were shipped on a cargo ship to Bermuda, The Azores, and finally through the Suez canal into the India Ocean. They landed in Karachi, Pakistan, then went up to Lalmanerhat, India.

Tollie found himself in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations where, according to the Army, he was to be a mechanic. They reported to an air base in the middle of a jungle in India. He couldn't do too much because he didn't have two or three stripes on his uniform. So he stayed behind the scenes, and got told what to do. Because he had a problem with one eye, he never got a chance to do what he wanted, which was to fly.

After awhile he got involved with generators. The base was set up with revetments around the perimeter, with three planes in each one, spread out to keep the Japanese from hitting them all at once. There was no electricity at the revetments, but Field Maintenance had generators they could carry out to the planes. Tollie kept the generators running.

But soon the airplanes started to have problems with their reconditioned spark plugs. They would have to change all twenty-four plugs and then when they would get done, the spark plugs would skip. So Tollie set up a spark plug shop. He had a big machine with an air compressor on the back of it that would pump four hundred and fifty pounds of pressure. He would then put a spark plug in the machine and pump electricity and air pressure to it to see if the spark plug could handle the pressure. He was the only person around who knew how to check the plugs, so Tollie was busy. If someone needed spark plugs in the middle of the night, he would have to get up and help them.

During the monsoon season the cold and moisture made spark plugs malfunction. Tollie built a box about 2x2x4 feet with two shelves and doors and a light bulb in it, and trays that could hold twenty-four plugs. He would put plugs in that cabinet to keep them dry. The shop where he worked was by the generator shop, so they had electricity.

He saw many interesting things, like a time when three ship loads of Chinese Cadets left China to go to the USA for flying instruction, but due to a storm while going around the horn only one shipload got to America. The other two ships sank in a storm.

Tollie was in India until the war was over. He was then shipped back home on a troop ship with maybe fifteen hundred other men. The bunks were three deep, not exactly a luxury liner. They sailed from Karachi along the China coast, past Japan, and into the North Pacific. The water was smooth as glass for most of the trip, then they hit a storm, which abated, then they were hit by a worse storm.

"Everyone was sick as dogs," Tollie said, "except me. It didn't bother me at all."

He was overseas for about a year, yet never had to see combat because of the location where he was. World War II was a horrible war and many of the great men who fought for our country died. Although many of the men who are recognized were the ones who did fight, there were many people, both men and women, behind the scenes and if it weren't for them, many things would not have been possible. Tollie was such a man. Without his services there would have been many problems. Tollie helped keep the planes fighting. So I am hoping that with Tollie's story out, more people will recognize the many people behind the scenes during the war.

Now, this next group of stories came out of Endicott, this first one being a born-and-raised-in-Endicott man, Bud Smick. Besides being the only veteran in the book on record as having been kissed by Lana Turner, he is one of the few who served in both the European and Pacific Theaters of War. Again, one man, two interviewers.

KEN "BUD" SMICK

By Jessy Stamper

I got assigned to interview Ken Smick. He had volunteered for the war in June 1942 at age twenty. At first he volunteered for the U. S. Army Air Corps but did not pass the physical because he couldn't breath through his nose well enough. He went to Seattle for surgery but when he returned to the enrollment office he was again rejected. Determined to serve his country, he went across the hall and volunteered for the Navy and was accepted.

Ken Smick was trained in San Diego for six weeks. After that he went to Armed Guard School on Treasure Island, near San Francisco. When he finished his training he was stationed as a Petty Officer on a merchant ship named SS Henry Villard during World War II. Mr. Smick helped run the guns on board the ship, which was equipped with 20 millimeter guns, a 5 inch 51 and a 3 inch 20.

Mr. Smick traveled around the world delivering ammunition and raw materials to our men overseas. After his journey around the world, he was reassigned to Treasure Island where he worked on a Carrier Aircraft Service Unit (CASU.) Ken Smick went from island to island fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific. During those battles Mr. Smick's unit was bombed two hundred and ninety-nine times.

KEN "BUD" SMICK

By Danielle Stamper

Ken "Bud" Smick is a veteran that lives in Endicott, Washington. He actually grew up in Endicott and graduated from High School there. He went to Washington State College for one year before he volunteered for World War II. Bud has lived in Whitman County all of his life, except for when he was in the Navy.

Bud was in Seattle when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. There were major blackouts all along the Pacific coast and no one could drive their cars around. When the U.S. declared war on Japan, Bud volunteered, but he didn't know what to expect. He wasn't really scared, but he didn't know a lot about what the war was going to be all about. He volunteered when he was twenty years old in June of 1942. He wanted to be a Fighter Pilot but couldn't get into that field because he had broken his nose so many times he couldn't breathe very well through his nose.

He joined the Navy and along with some other recruits gathered in Victory Square for a send off which included Lana Turner, a well-known movie star, who gave Bud a hug and kiss. He then went to San Diego where he was relieved of all his personal effects and given a crew cut and sent to boot camp for six weeks. He then went to Gunner's Mate Armed Guard School located at Treasure Island near San Francisco, California and then was immediately assigned to a Liberty ship, the SS Henry Villard. He left Long Beach in the fall of 1942 carrying different sized bombs. On deck were jeeps, ambulances, and weapons carriers leaving narrow catwalks with lines to hang onto. The ship had about twenty-one Navy people on it plus around forty Merchant Marines. They shipped all kinds of guns, ammunition, and other materials needed for the war to places all around the world, wherever supplies were needed. They sailed first to New Zealand, then west to the Gulf of Aden. They traveled forty days through the monsoon season over very rough seas. The Red Sea was heavily mined but they proceeded slowly and finally docked at Port Said, Egypt and unloaded their cargo.

When they arrived at Cairo, Egypt Bud had two weeks to do whatever he wanted. He went to look at the pyramids and got to ride camels. He also had the privilege of staying at the Grand Hotel.

When they left Egypt they returned through the Red Sea and on to Capetown, South Africa. The North African campaign was in full swing, but the Germans were no match for British General Montgomery. At Capetown Bud's ship refueled and he had shore leave in one of the most beautiful ports he had been in.

The Henry Villard then sailed west across the South Atlantic to Brazil where it joined up with a convoy of twenty-four ships, then steamed up to Georgetown, British Guiana off the northern coast of South America. As they neared their destination, they drew fire from enemy ships. Bud, along with all the sailors on board, manned battle stations waiting and watching for a torpedo that might strike their ship. One-third of the convoy was sunk that night by German submarines. In Georgetown, Bud's ship took on a load of bauxite and sailed on to Hoboken, New Jersey where the ship underwent repair.

He then had the choice of going to Murmask, Russia and getting thirty days off, or taking just two weeks off and getting re-assigned somewhere else. Bud didn't want to go to Murmask, so he decided to just take two week off and go back to California to the Alameda Naval Air Station at Oakland. There he got assigned to a Carrier Aircraft Service Unit, CASU#14. After weeks of training, he shipped to the South Pacific.

He landed at Guadalcanal, then advanced to New Georgia by landing craft. CASU 14 came ashore just behind the American land forces, often working through sniper fire and air raids. Bud's unit refueled, rearmed, and repaired Navy and Marine planes assigned to attack Japanese-held islands. They also saw many wounded personnel.

On the South Sea islands, which the Japanese had held but had been liberated by the United States, Bud's unit had tents and blankets, and they slept on cots which made it easy for the lizards and mosquitoes to get at them. They mostly ate a ton of canned Spam, canned tongue, dehydrated potatoes, powdered eggs and milk, and occasionally had lamb from Australia, but they also went on wild pig hunts and dropped grenades in the water to kill fish.

Because the Japanese were trying to take back the islands they recently lost, there were about two hundred and fifty to three hundred air raids that happened while they were down in the South Sea islands. Bud went through well over two hundred bombings. Every time there was an attack, they hid in foxholes. United States personnel dug some of those, but most of them were dug by the Japanese. The Japanese kept getting moved off of islands and the U.S. took over what they left behind.

After the nineteen months Smick served, he returned to the States. While on leave he and Sylvia from Diamond, Washington got married. He was then stationed at Pasco, Washington where his job was to check bombs in storage. He was in Seattle when D-Day happened and also when the Atom Bombs were dropped on Japan. After the war he and Sylvia lived in Colfax, then worked the family farm starting in 1948, retiring in 1984. They raised four children, all college graduates.

Ken Smick doesn't know if he can ever forgive the Japanese. He said, "They were the ones who started it, so I was glad for the Atomic Bombs at the time." He is proud to have served his country, and the fact that he helped win the war means a lot to him. He hasn't gone back to the places where he was stationed, but he went to see the Arizona at Pearl Harbor. He wishes he would have kept in touch with the friends he met during the war, but when they got back to the United States, they all went their separate ways.

This next story tells of a unique venue and an unusual occupation. This is the story of a man who joined the Coast Guard and saw action in the Aleutian Islands. Melanie Potter very appropriately titled her story "A Path Less Traveled."

JOHN MITCHAM

By Melanie Potter

John Mitcham has lived in Whitman County for about ten years now. He grew up in Spokane and graduated from High School in 1942. We proceeded to discuss what he did after the war. After John was in the Coast Guard, he went on to Gonzaga University and got a degree in Journalism. He got married in 1946 and he and his wife had four children, one son and three daughters. He moved around a lot writing for various newspapers, but his most memorable job was writing for the Skagit Valley Herald in Mt. Vernon, Washington.

When he and his wife first moved to Mt. Vernon there were about nine thousand residents there and now it has grown to over thirty thousand. After they left Mt. Vernon they moved to Whitman County and have lived in Endicott ever since. John has a little shop in his basement where he makes things out of wood and he plays golf with some buddies in the summer months. He has eight grandchildren, five boys and three girls. John is seventy-eight years old. His father was a railroader. John said his wife does all the gardening around the place but he does the lawn mowing.

John Mitcham became involved in World War II shortly after High School. He worked on his uncle's farm before going off to Coast Guard Boot Camp in Port Townsend, Washington. After spending six months there he was then transferred to New York City to Manhattan Beach. There were about ten thousand men there and they were taught everything you could learn about boats. After Manhattan Beach he was transferred to Seattle for about another six months. After that he moved on to Attu, Alaska, the last island of the Aleutian Island chain. Attu, which is the farthest west away from the United States, is only about six hundred miles from Japanese territory.

The closest he ever really came to war action was when he saw a Japanese bombing run at Massacre Bay, Attu. He saw three bombers come up over the high ridge of the mountains. One bomb landed on the beach and several landed in the water where they exploded without causing any damage or injuries. John was a member of the Coast Guard at a Loran station in Attu. Loran was a highly secretive electronic advancement at that time. However, John said he didn't deal with any of the electronics, all he did was clean the guns and wash the dishes.

On D-Day he was stationed in Astoria, Oregon at a Coast Guard repair base. There he helped to repair small boats. He was still a senior in High School serving as president of his class when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He has been back to Astoria where he had been on the Coast Guard repair base, but has not returned to any of the other places he had been. He also added he didn't think he would want to return to Attu in the Aleutian Islands.

I asked what thoughts went through his mind before the war and what he thought were the lasting lessons learned from it. His thoughts revolved around knowing that war is now a worldwide battlefield.

"It was no longer a little war. It was a big war." That is how John worded it. He also told me about how he couldn't tell his parents where he was stationed and how the war became the whole life of most families.

John hopes that the lasting lesson learned from the war was that the U.S. should stay out of wars and not be involved unless it directly affects our county. "However," he said, "I would say we learned no such thing."

Clif Workman was interviewed by two people who both seemed to catch the part about the Buzz-Bomb with no trouble at all. He was one of many interviewed who had passage on the Queen Mary, along with about a thousand times more men than she was built to hold, a detail all servicemen who rode the magic carpet seem to remember.

CLIF WORKMAN

By Stephanie Bryan

World War II was a very hard time for everyone. It affected many families in the United States and helped start the fight for women's rights. When men went off to war, women stepped in to support them by building planes. Even baseball players got involved in the war and left, leaving women to start a league of their own. Many things came from the war. Although bad things came from the war, lessons were learned.

Ernest Clifton Workman, known to most as Clif, was born in Sheridan, Wyoming in 1922. Clif was set up by his friends on a blind date and met Phyllis, who he married in 1941, and they are still married. One day Clif volunteered for service in the war and then went in once every week to ask if he had been picked for duty. Finally he was told he had been selected. Clif left for duty in October 1943, leaving behind his wife, a brother and sister, and his job as a banker.

Clif first served on the East Coast of England and was an Army Air Corps Sergeant Major in charge of payroll, paper work, and the activities of the squadron. Clif was in the 367^th squadron that contained three hundred and fifty men who flew P-47s with the emblem of a buzzard named "Gruesome Gus." The planes the squadron flew also had their tails painted orange to make them more recognizable in the air.

While still stationed in England, Clif recalls one night he came back to the base and a V1 Buzz-Bomb had dropped about three or four hundred yards away from where he was standing. It was dropped in a field that it flattened completely. The bomb left a hole fifteen feet deep.

After being stationed in England, the squadron was moved to France and Germany. They landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day plus thirty days. In France he was stationed in Tule and Nance. His next base was near the Heidelberg castle, which sits on the summit of Jettenbuhl. Clif visited the castle and was overwhelmed by the beauty and size of it. He saw the castle's cellar, which contained the famous Heidelberg Tun, a wine vat with the capacity of fifty-eight thousand one hundred and twenty-four gallons or two hundred twenty thousand and seventeen liters.

Many days went by before Clif was finally able to go home. The process he had to go through was long and tiring. Before he could go home he had to go through many different stations to see if he was needed anywhere else. He wasn't and he finally got to go home. Clif and many others went home on the Queen Mary. Designed to hold six thousand people, it transported about fifteen thousand which wasn't much better than his trip over on the US Monterey that was designed to hold six but transported five thousand.

Clif was finally back in the US at a base in New York in August of 1945. After waiting a few hours in line for the phone, he tried to call his wife. When he finally got to the phone he then had to wait while operators across the country manually routed his call from one town to another. When the call reached Sheridan, Wyoming, the operator there turned out to be one of his friends that he had gone to school with. After she greeted him, she missent the call to his folks in Sheridan rather than to his wife in Gillette.

Many people who were in World War II, or any war, try to forget what they see or how many of their friend's lives were taken. It is very tragic and the whole country thanks them for what they did. Clif Workman, along with many other men from the war, came home, went back to the jobs they had left behind, and continued like nothing had happened.

CLIF WORKMAN

By Frank Keeney

Clif Workman lived in Gillette, Wyoming with his wife. He worked at the Stockman's Bank. He found out he was going to have to go fight the war when he was at the post office. It was there that the sign up sheet was posted. He asked the clerk if his number had come up. She said, "Yes, you are going to be leaving this Friday."

When D-Day happened, he was in England with the 367^th Fighter Squadron. Clif was Sergeant Major (Chief Clerk) for the Squadron. The group he served with had an exceptional bomb tonnage dropped record in World War II. One of their best bombing missions was when they found a German train transporting goods and one of their bombers hit the train as it entered a tunnel, destroying the train and the tunnel.

While Mr. Workman was in England, he and the other men would get around on bicycles. One day he was coming back from somewhere and looked up in the sky to see a British airplane shoot down a Buzz-Bomb. A Buzz-Bomb is a gas-powered bomb. When they ran out of fuel they would fall out of the sky and hit the ground. The Germans used them to bomb London. The Buzz-Bomb landed within four hundred feet of their base. Mr. Workman was just entering the base when the British airplane shot down the bomb. When it hit the ground, the area cleared by the bomb was about one hundred feet round and fifteen feet deep. Clif was glad the Brits shot it down before it landed on the base.

When the group returned to the States, they were on the Queen Mary, a ship that was supposed to hold only six thousand people. They were actually transporting fifteen thousand people at once. When they got back to the States they were supposed to get to call a loved one, but the telephone lines were so full sometimes it would take over two hours to get a call through. When Mr. Workman got to call his wife, he discovered the operator placing the call was an old high school friend. His call was still misdirected to his parents in Sheridan rather than to his wife in Gillette.

The two following stories are about a couple in Endicott who both served in the military, one in the Army Air Corps and the other in the Marines. At our meeting before the interviews in LaCrosse, Dale introduced his wife not by name but by her rank in the Marine Corps. Aileen expressed feelings held by many women who served in the military in World War II. It was an opportunity of a lifetime for them to travel and work out of the home, unlike women in any country had ever done before.

DALE JOHNSON

By Troy Audet

Dale Johnson was born and raised in Endicott, Washington. His father owned his own garage and that was how he supported a family of seven. Dale spent a lot of time at his father's garage and learned how to do mechanical work. When Dale left his family home he got a job as a parts clerk. It was then that he and the love of his life, Aileen, got really serious. About that time, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Dale and Aileen decided to get married because they both knew very well that Dale was going to go fight the war. He ended up spending three years of his life in the Army Air Corps from September of 1942 to September of 1945.

Dale started his basic training at Sheppard Field in Texas. After that he was sent to the Permanent Party part of Sheppard Field where he was assigned to the Payroll Office. In September of 1943 he received orders to Muroc Air Force Base in California for overseas training with the 456^th Bomb Group, 745^th Bomber Squadron which was being formed to become part of the 15^th Air Force.

From there he boarded a troop train to Newport News, Virginia where the unit embarked on a Liberty Ship in December 1943 for the European Theater of War. He spent thirty-one days at sea before finally getting to his destination point, Naples Italy. Once in Italy they traveled to a location about thirty-five miles south of Foggia.

When the B-24 Bombers would return to base after a mission, he would go through them and pick up forms showing A/C and engine hours. If anything was broken he would write down the parts needed and take the paper to the main office. He would then make sure the planes got the proper parts so they could go back into action.

I asked Dale what he did for entertainment while he was in Italy. It took him awhile to answer, but I think it was because it was so hard and tough for them being over there that they really didn't have time to do anything except work. He did finally say they made a trip to Rome on furlough to sightsee and he once flew to Rome in a B-24 for a slow-time breaking-in of an engine. Also a couple of times he went to the Isle of Capri for R & R.

Dale told me he wanted to join a tank battalion. I guess he wanted to see some action. Fortunately for him he was told no, because he was underweight. Otherwise, I probably would not have had a chance to talk to him.

While Dale was in Italy he learned from his wife Aileen that she had joined the Marine Corps Women's Reserve. She was able to be released from duties in November of 1945 to be at home with him. They went to Vancouver where they lived until the spring of 1948, then they moved to Aileen's father's farm. They now live in Endicott where they are retired and doing well.

AILEEN JOHNSON

By Keri Mays

Aileen Johnson grew up in Endicott and married Dale Johnson. When Dale went to war, Aileen worked at various jobs including nearly a year at Sheppard Field, near Wichita Falls, Texas. Dale was stationed there before he left for overseas duty. In the spring of 1944 Aileen quit her secretarial job at Coulee Dam and went to Minnesota to meet up with a long time pen-pal that she had corresponded with for many years and whose husband was also overseas. While there, Aileen became interested in military service for women. When her seasonal job as billing clerk for Andrews Nursery ended, she went back to Endicott.

With all the news in the papers, and people talking about the war, Aileen decided to enlist in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve. Her father did not want her to go to war, but since she was married, she was free to do whatever she wanted. Aileen enlisted in the fall of 1944 and was sent to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina for Boot Camp. After Boot Camp she was assigned to the Officer Applicant Battalion at Camp Lejeune. She worked in the Payroll Office and then in the Service Record Office.

Aileen said, "I loved my job and what I did."

Living quarters were at the women's barracks. For recreation, Aileen rented bicycles, went canoeing, and enjoyed a number of other activities available to her, such as spending a Sunday now and then on the beach and seeing movies at one of the camp theaters. While working at the Officers Applicant Battalion, Aileen by chance ran into a distant relative and after being discharged was able to travel to New York state to meet more relatives.

The war ended while she was stationed at Camp Lejeune. Her husband, Dale, was discharged and Aileen decided to join him. Since she was married she did not have to wait for the point system to be discharged, so in November she returned to Endicott. From there they located in Vancouver where Dale had his pre-service job back and Aileen worked as a secretary.

In the spring of 1948 Aileen's father wanted to teach Dale how to farm, so they moved back to Endicott, and have lived there since. They had two girls and two boys. Aileen is a member of the Women Marines Association. Her chapter buys toys for the Toys for Tots program and Aileen gives out Valentines for Vets to the veterans at the Colfax nursing home and those who are ill and homebound.

"Although no one wants war, I wouldn't take back anything about enlisting," Aileen stated. She loved working as a service woman and would have stayed longer, but the war ended. She says her greatest contribution during the war was that of taking over office work and various other jobs to free men to join the combat forces. Because of what Aileen and many other women did, the Marine Corps was able to form the 6^th Division, which made a tremendous contribution to the war effort.

Aileen also said that while she was a Marine she learned always to wipe lipstick marks off of coffee cups before putting them in the dishwasher. She continues that habit to this day.

This man's story shows the determination Americans had to get into the service and help win the war. It also speaks of appreciation for the support services that made it possible to fight the battle on all fronts.

RAMSEY WORMAN

By Cody Goll

When the United States joined the war in December 1941 it doomed the Axis cause, although the effects of the US war production were already being felt. The factories produced, in a short time, ninety thousand tanks, over two million transport vehicles, and two hundred and forty thousand planes. This turned the tide. An inexperienced US Army landed in North Africa in November 1942 to fight its first offensive action.

Mr. Worman volunteered to join the Navy, but had to be discharged because of a sinus infection. "I was very upset about it," stated Worman. After he recovered from his infection he enrolled in a private aviation school in California. He then joined the Navy's Aviation program and became a teacher on how to work on B-24s. Ramsey Worman was part of ABATU. This meant he was assigned to a certain airplane that may have been damaged or wrecked during the war. His job was to fix it. Mr. Worman never had to go overseas during the war, he stayed in the Navy at home.

His job made a big difference and a positive impact for the US during the war. He was very skilled at his job and took it seriously.

Ramsey Worman was born on April 1^st, 1920 in Dayton, Ohio. He lived there his whole childhood life. He got married in 1949 to Joanne. They raised four boys and two girls in Dayton, Ohio. The Wormans found Endicott, Washington when they were checking on a house for his son. Ramsey said it felt like they were home, so they stayed. Currently Mr. Worman lives alone in Endicott and sees his family often.

I really appreciated his attributes and all that he did for our country. Ramsey Worman, I salute you.

These last two interviews in Part Three are about a fighter pilot and a bomber engineer, both now living in Colfax. Like all the people we interviewed, they keep active and busy, and are still serving others and showing a continued interest in local history and events. Gene wrote us a note saying, "Jake did a fine job and the whole visit was enjoyable for me. Please accept my thanks for the time and effort you folks are giving to this project." You are welcome, Gene, and thank you for putting your life on the line for all of us.

EUGENE ELLITHORPE

By Jake Schneider

Gene Ellithorpe was born in Spokane on August 2, 1922. He grew up in the Palouse region with two older sisters and his mother. His dad died when Gene was only five years old. When Gene was in High School he participated in basketball and baseball, graduating in 1940 as president of his class.

Gene had his eyes set on Washington State College (WSU) where he could study to get his teaching degree. That all changed one day while he was out on a walk and three of his buddies pulled up next to him and told him he was going to enlist in the Army Air Corps with them. Gene thought that fighting for his country would be more important than going to college right away, so he agreed and went along with them.

He enlisted in the Air Corps and went for his first training session at Randolph Field, Texas. There he learned to fly PT 21s. Those planes were for Primary Flight Training, so they weren't all that powerful. They were small and didn't have a canopy. After he learned to fly the PT 21, he moved over to Chico, California for Basic Flight Training. For this training he flew the Vultee BT13-A.

After Gene's beginner's training, he then moved on to Advanced Training in Merced, California. There he was introduced to the AT-6, which had retractable landing gear. Not only did he fly the AT-6 there, but he also went through flight and combat schooling. He finished school and then moved on to Rice, California for transition to the regular fighter planes, the Bell P-39 Aircobra. This period also involved maneuvers and staging.

He sailed out of New York on the HMS Sterling Castle with the 339^th Fighter Group. Gene was twenty years old when he sailed the rough North Atlantic. They docked in Liverpool, England and from there he had no clue where they would be heading, but it was quite obvious that there was a war going on. He was then a member of the Eighth Air Force.

The fun began in England when Gene was introduced to the P-51 Mustang. This fighter plane reached speeds up to four hundred and twenty-five miles per hour and had 108-gallon wing gas tanks on each side and another 90-gallon tank that sat behind the canopy. With that much fuel, they would be able to stay out for seven hours and could fly over thirteen hundred miles. While flying the P-51 Mustang, Gene's chief assignment was to protect B-17 and B-24 bombers. The bombers flew only in the daytime and when they did they were bombing German industries and railroads. The fighters were there to protect the bombers from German fighter planes trying to defend the bomber's targets.

On June 3, 1944, black and white stripes were painted on all combat planes in preparation for the Normandy invasion. For three days, Gene was in the air every four hours. In Gene's squad there were around thirty guys that were shot down. Gene's canopy was shot off and a piece of flack hit him in the left part of his chest, breaking his collarbone and leaving his arm with no feeling.

Gene became great friends with Frank Talcott. They even exchanged Navigation watches. Frank was one of the men who was shot down and it wasn't until after the war that Gene found out Frank survived and was captured in Sweden. Sweden wouldn't let Frank go until after the war. Gene learned later still that Talcott was killed in a plane crash in Sweden.

On December 24, 1944 Germany made its last push westward on the border of Belgium. This was called The Battle of the Bulge. It was the worst winter that Europe had seen in a long time. It was so bad that the planes were grounded for eight days. The Germans were running out of fuel and were slowing down real fast. That was when Gene and the rest of the flyers had their fun. Since the Germans had hardly any fuel, they couldn't attack. Gene and the rest of the American flyers flew over German air bases and destroyed them without any trouble.

When the war ended in Europe, Gene was destined for the Pacific, but the war ended there too. So he returned to his home in Palouse, Washington. He went to Washington State College (WSU) where he completed his studies to become a teacher. He also did the required schooling and worked as a Funeral Director for fourteen years. He then went on to teach at WSU and Lewis Clark State College. Gene was married in 1958 and is the father of four children.

Although Gene Ellithorpe is retired, he can be found most days working in the Colfax branch of the Whitman County Library.

AUGUST LUFT

By Jessica Wright

I interviewed August J. Luft. When I first met Mr. Luft, I got the impression that he was a very nice guy. We got acquainted by him telling me the story of how he had in recent years put together a D-Day Veterans 50^th Anniversary celebration. He said it was a hard task he did pretty much by himself. He ran an ad in the newspaper and put together a list of all the Whitman County veterans he could find. He showed me a picture of all the people who came to the event.

Mr. Luft has lived in Whitman County his entire life, except when he was in the service. He went to school in St. John and now lives in Colfax. With a big smile he claimed to know just about everybody in the county because he has lived here so long and that he is an "all around likable guy." I had to agree with him on that.

August Luft enlisted in the Air Force on December 19, 1941. He was put in charge of thirteen enlisted men as they traveled to Salt Lake City, then to Wichita Falls, Texas where they attended Airplane Mechanic's school.

In July of 1942 he moved to Long Island, New York on a train with no air conditioning or ventilation. It was hot that July and they had to travel with the windows open so they would not suffocate or die from the heat. The open windows let in coal dust so they were constantly sweaty and dirty. When they got to Mitchel Field in New York, they began working as mechanics on B-25 airplanes the next day. Three months later they were transferred to Westover Field in Massachusetts. After schooling there he started flying on a crew as an Engineer. They did anti-submarine patrol duty over the Atlantic Ocean. The entire crew kept watch for subs or oil slicks, flying one hour east, one hour north, one hour west, and then one hour south, then returning to base. They also flew patrol for ships entering and leaving harbors.

Next move was to Tyndall Field, Florida in June of 1943 where he attended gunnery school, then in August he went to Gowen Field in Idaho. When he started flying training missions on B-24s he thought he would soon be going into combat. However, in October his group went to Wendover Field in Nevada where he was able to get away to Reno several times to break the monotony. In January he moved to Hamilton Field near San Rafael, California and from there things started to happen as he found himself quickly getting ready to enter the European Theater of Operations.

Luft was then an Engineer Gunner on a B-24 bomber, the biggest bomber in combat at the time. In January of 1944 they flew to Florida, then to Brazil, then across the Atlantic to Africa. From Africa they headed north to Valley, England, then to Norwich where he was stationed while he did combat flying of bombers over the enemy occupied areas of Europe as part of the 8^th Air Force 96^th Bomb Wing, 458^th group, 755^th Squadron. It was Luft's job as Engineer to make certain the plane was ready to fly at all times and to look after the plane during flight.

The pilot who had flown them overseas was also the pilot they had on their first five missions and the best pilot August had ever known. Due to an ulcer that pilot was grounded after their first few missions. They were given a co-pilot from another crew who turned out to be the worst pilot Luft had ever known, having no natural flying ability. When he took off he swerved from one side of the runway to the other and bounced the plane around on take-off and landing so that they were more scared of their own pilot than they were of the enemy. Flying in formation was scary too because he couldn't control the plane and it was always going up and down and from side to side.

On August's second mission with that pilot, he was manning the waist gun in the back of the plane. The pilot called him to come forward to help him close the bomb bay doors. Luft made his way to the bomb bay doors, which were actually closed, and opened the doors. The catwalk that runs from the back of the plane to the front is only eight inches wide. It was eight feet to the bomb racks with a passage between the bomb racks that was one foot wide. There were supposed to be ropes about one inch from the door, but they were missing, so he had to travel along the catwalk without the help of the ropes. They were flying at twenty-three hundred feet, the air temperature was twenty degrees below freezing and the bombs were still in the bomb bay. The pilot called him again to come to the cockpit to help him get the bombs out and get the bomb bay doors closed.

He had to think about what was going on: there were nine other men on the plane, the bombay doors were open, they had a full load of bombs, and they couldn't get out of Germany like that. He kept trying to release the bombs. He had learned in training that you needed to take a screw driver to turn a knob and the bomb holder would release the bomb. What they didn't tell them was that once the bomb was in place, you couldn't get to the release mechanism. He went back to the cockpit and noticed the handle to the salvo for the bombs was dangling. He knew right away the pilot had pulled the handle, but he hadn't told Luft he had done that. In a matter of minutes he had reset the cam and closed the bomb bay doors. They were safe, but Luft was angry.

After landing in England they went to briefing, then to see the group commander. They told him they couldn't fly with that pilot, so they were assigned a very good replacement and the other pilot ended up in the North Sea. From then on Luft flew in the top turret gun position or the cockpit to better look after the plane in flight.

Mr. Luft told me he was on the farm when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He, like so many other people, was very confused as to why that had to happen. He wanted to know why there was no one up in the control tower, and why no one saw the Japanese coming. He got a bit upset when he was talking about this, and I do not blame him. He said many people had an idea it was coming because there was some sort of big metal shipment to Japan going on. He says that when he found out about it, the first thing out of his mouth was "That metal is going to come back in bullets." Sure enough, it did.

He said he always wondered where Germany got all of its money during the war. "I was watching the History Channel one night," he went on to say, "and I found out that the Nazis had a Jewish man in a huge underground tunnel just making counterfeit money all day and night long." He is of the opinion that the History Channel has pretty much gotten it right when it comes to all of the details of history.

I greatly enjoyed interviewing Mr. Luft. I only wish I had longer to talk with him. I am sure he had many more great stories to tell. Mr. Luft seems to me to be a very warm, kind guy. I think that we should do interviews like this more often. Maybe not even for reports, just for educational purposes. There are so many wonderful people out there with so many great stories. I just wish that we could get to all of them.

I wish we could too, Jessica!

It really was gratifying to hear all the students respond so well to this project. It may be an idea for the schools in Whitman County to more thoroughly mine the rich deposits of knowledge and understanding that lie within our senior citizen population. It is true: the more years you've lived the more stories you have to tell. And the young people seem to have loved listening and writing.

Well, that's it for the Lacrosse High School interview day. Next we moved to the Northwest part of the county where we had our third interview session in that one week, this one conducted at Rosalia High School.