>> I'm rolling.
>> So are you ready to go?
>> Ready to go.
>> Wonderful. This is James Newberry,
and I'm here with Al Hall on Monday, March 21st,
2016, at the Sturgis Library
at Kennesaw State University.
And Mr. Hall, do you agree to this interview?
>> Yes.
>> So let's start at the beginning.
Please state your full name for me.
>> Alan Ray Hall.
>> And Mr. Hall, when and where were you born?
>> Cincinnati, Ohio in November 30th, 1926.
>> So tell me a bit about your childhood.
What were your parents' names?
>> Their name?
My mother's name was Helen,
and my dad's name was Vernon.
>> What did they do for a living?
>> Well, my dad,
he was an engineer in air conditioning and heating.
And my mom, she just worked as
a nutritionist in a hospital and worked in
a beauty shop and things like that.
My dad worked up until he was
about 42 years old in heating and air conditioning.
And he decided he says,
"Why am I working for somebody?
I'll work for myself and do the same thing."
So he went to college at
the University of Cincinnati
and got his engineering degree.
And then he left the company that he was with,
and started his own business, and became successful.
And what he would do is where ever, like Florida,
where they had the hurricanes down there
and he would go down and bid on
the putting the heating and air conditioning
in the motel where they were building.
And so that's what he did until he was
about 74, and he retired.
He was in assisted living and home up in Cincinnati,
and he passed away at the age of 93.
>> Wow. Well,
tell me a bit about your childhood in Cincinnati.
>> [LAUGHTER] My childhood in Cincinnati,
that was during the Depression.
We moved from many times.
We didn't have any money,
and really to speak of.
My dad left when I was young and looking
for work as a lot of men did in
those days back in the '30s and '20s.
And so as I say,
we would move, I had a sister.
And my mother and my sister and I,
if we weren't staying with one of our relatives,
one of her sisters,
we would move and with little bit of
money that they would give us, we'd pay the rent.
And if we couldn't pay the rent,
we'd move someplace else.
[LAUGHTER]
A little tough life.
So I joined the Cub Scouts.
My sister and I just wandered around where
we lived and was suburb.
Well, actually, it was almost like a downtown area.
And so I was walking around and I saw this church,
and I went in this church.
This was early evening.
And I saw these kids about like me,
around seven and eight years old,
with these uniforms on,
these Cub Scout uniform.
So I said, what is this?
The Scout Master, he came over and he says,
"Are you a member here of the church?"
And I said, "No."
And I said, "I just came in here."
And I said, "I noticed these guys got these clothes on.
I didn't know they call them uniforms."
And he says, "Yeah, we're Cub Scouts."
So I knew, then he told me what they do,
and so on and so forth.
He says, "Would you like to join the Cub Scouts?"
I said, "I don't know.
I had to ask my mom."
So he said, "Well,
you ask your mother and this is where we meet,
and you come back."
And I have to get a uniform.
And I told all this to my mom when I got home,
and she says, "You have to get a uniform.
I'll see what we can do about that."
So we couldn't afford a uniform.
And I went back there anyway,
and I told him, I said,
"Do I have to have a uniform?"
And he said, "Yeah."
I said, "Well, I don't have you money?"
He said, "Don't worry about it.
We'll get your uniform."
So I joined the Cub Scouts.
And I removed from there,
and that was the end of the Cub Scouts for me.
[LAUGHTER]
So then, I don't know.
I guess it was when I was about seven or eight years old.
My mom didn't have a job.
We didn't have any money, as I said.
So you get to be what they call awarded in court.
And my sister and I had sent her to one home.
It's like an orphanage, and, of course,
to another one, we had all male
and she was at home with female Catholic.
My boarding school, I guess you want to call it.
So we had a regular school there,
and I wasn't Catholic, of course.
And so when the kids found that out,
we'd play sports like any other kids out in
a schoolyard at recess and all that.
And when we were playing football,
they made sure that we got smeared.
[LAUGHTER]
They called it, didn't call us with those names and
because we weren't Catholic and we had meals,
we had like a long picnic wooden table and benches,
where we ate and they played keep away.
They had meals were set up in bowls.
So they passed that down.
And when it got down, they always
made sure that we sat at the end,
not the nuns, but the kids.
They would scramble for it,
so they made sure we had the end
and they pass it they'd keep it away.
Promise he get up and grab it away.
So one of these guys, we call him Pinky.
We got to talk in one day and I said,
"I'm tired of this place.
I don't like it here."
He said, "I don't either."
He was the proudest.
He's a yellow, and when they used to.
So we decided we were going to run away.
So one night, when the nuns were sleeping,
we went through their dormitory and that's where they had
the clothes chute for the dirty clothes went down.
And then we went down that chute,
went out the door downstairs in
the basement and started hitchhiking.
Well, we didn't hitchhike right
away because we didn't want to be seen
by the cars at night so we ducked down
the culvert along the road and then
when it got close enough to daylight,
then we started hitchhiking.
And nobody picked us up except
one full Model A Ford came
along because a Model A is what goes in those days.
So he says, "Get in, boys. Where are you going?"
And we got in the Ford coop and,
"Where are you going?"
And we said, "Cincinnati."
We got in turned it forward around he says,
hey, Mr. Cincinnati is that way.
He says, I know and
the school you came from, is that way.
I'm the custodian janitor.
So he took us back to school,
we had to go before them.
Head nun, a sister and she says one at a time,
she brought us into the office.
She says, Alan, why do you want to run away?
I says, I don't like it here, sister.
I says it's these kids,
there's no fun and she said, well,
you got to stay here until your mother gets
a job and so I said, okay.
So I don't know how much longer we stayed there,
but it wasn't too much longer.
One day, she says, Alan,
I got a good news for you,
your mother got a job that's in the beauty shop.
So she said, you're going to be able to go home.
So my uncle came and got
mum picked up my sister and we got to go home.
And it wasn't long after that, I went to live
with my aunt and uncle in Kokomo Indiana on a farm.
So lived there for I don't know how
long and that wasn't too pleasant,
but my cousin, Jimmy,
I guess I was not yet in the eighth grade.
Is around the fourth or fifth grade, whatever.
And so came home from there
and what happened then?
Well, I guess I grew up and we moved up
to suburb called Hyde Park.
>> And that's a suburb of Cincinnati?
>> Yeah.
>> So where were you attending high school?
>> In Cincinnati at Withrow,
the name of the high school was Withrow.
>> Now, what are your memories of
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 41?
>> Well, that was on a Sunday.
I remember I was riding,
I had a whole bicycle.
And we used to ride the bicycle and hang on the back
of street cars and they pulled us along.
And so in Hyde Park Square,
I would sell newspapers we hid them on,
of course, right in front of the drug store.
I was Dow drug store and I also sold
magazines that we carried around in a bag,
colliers and some couple of magazines
and then I made myself a shoeshine box.
I went around to the salons and shine shoes,
anything to make money that we could.
So getting back to that,
I heard on the radio when I went in
a drug store there that
Pearl Harbor had been bombed
and what was that in 15, I guess.
And I said, boy,
that's something and I went to school,
of course, the next day and it
was all of the talk at school.
And so as guys got together, we says boy,
I wish I was old enough I could go into Navy.
I always wanted to like to the Navy,
I read about different things pictures and that.
And so in my junior year one day,
I became 17 and I went down instead of going to school,
skipped school and I went down to
federal boat and hitchhiked
down there and I got some papers.
I had to get my mom to
sign and brought him home and I said,
mom, she says, darling why aren't you in school?
I said, I got these papers here you had to
sign them because I want to go into Navy.
She took the paper and looked at it and she
said, are you crazy?
She said, don't you know son,
there's a war going on.
I said, yeah, mum I know, but I want,
guys in the college that's what we want to do.
Let's go do what we can do for
the country and she says, no.
We went back and forth and finally, she said, okay.
I'll sign that under
one condition and I said, what's that mum.
She says, when you take that paper
down to the federal building and people down there,
you tell them you're not going overseas.
She said it's not funny,
you tell him that, I said okay mum, so what was it?
Maybe six months later,
we were over getting ready to make D-Day.
So that was that.
>> Well, let's back up a little bit.
>> Okay.
>> So you're 15 when the Japanese attacked
Pearl Harbor and that's about two years
before you enlist before your 17th birthday.
>> Yeah.
>> So tell me about those two years.
I assume going to school
and what are you hearing about the war?
Are you joining in any home front efforts to contribute?
>> I got a job, when I joined the Navy,
I asked him my mom,
do you tell him first of all,
she says it's Christmas is coming up,
you tell him that you can't
go she's telling me to tell them something.
Anyway, they did they said,
okay you don't have to leave until January,
they give it second or something.
So I was home for Christmas
and prior to let's see.
When did I work?
I worked for a little while in
a plant in Cincinnati that made submarine gauges.
And then when my time
came to go into the Navy well,
they call I went down there that day
and they gave us lunch bunch of guys of course.
And we went down to the airport and got
on a plane and we flew up
to Great Lakes where I did my training.
>> Well, tell me about that plant
that made submarine gauges.
>> Well, it was a war plant and I still at home,
I still got my badge
where they take your picture and do all of that.
And so what I did is more or less,
like, a take parts
from one place to another guy and over.
Most of those guys, I guess,
were engineers or,
and I would take the different parts and give it to him.
>> What time of day were you working there?
>> Time of day?
Let's see from well in the morning,
from I guess 8:00
o'clock in the morning or so.
>> And then would you go to school?
>> Yeah.
>> After?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. And tell me about your final Christmas at home,
the Christmas of 1943,
before you left to go to the Great Lakes, Illinois.
>> Let's see.
>> What did I do?
It's hard to remember.
We never had many Christmases.
My sister and I,
we laugh about it the day we can laugh.
They say we never had any toys.
We didn't know, because when you don't have
anything, you don't know.
So this one time,
we were playing around and on up that square,
we'd call it Third Eye Park.
And somebody,
they put this old Christmas tree
in the back of the building,
like he threw stuff away,
we dragged that thing home
and so we had it there in the living room.
And Mom said, "What is that?
What are you doing with that old tree?"
We said, "It's a Christmas tree,
Mom," I said, "People put it up."
She said, "I know what people put up."
She says, "That thing's bad.
It might have bugs and everything else."
So we threw it out.
But getting back to,
that wasn't the Christmas.
I don't know whether we went.
>> I believe you departed for boot camp
in January of '44.
And so where was boot camp?
>> At Great Lakes, Wisconsin, Green Bay.
>> And so did you take the train or the bus?
How did you get there?
>> Well, we flew on a plane from Cincinnati up there.
And then when you got there,
they had buses from the Great Lakes at Navy,
but it took you to the camp and to Great Lakes,
which was a hoot because it was cold up there.
[LAUGHTER]
And we had guys with
short-sleeved silk shirts on from Florida that came in
because there was a lot of guys
[LAUGHTER]
and we were laughing
and these guys were freezing in the chow line,
standing outside, waiting to get into the mess hall.
And that was a hoot,
that was really something.
But we were glad to be there.
It was all, man we're in the Navy.
>> But what were the conditions like?
How harsh was the training at boot camp?
>> Boot camp wasn't bad.
That was coast ordered drill stuff.
And well, the first day,
I don't remember what exact day it was,
but anyway, our mastered arms of
the barracks in charge of our company,
we ordered it outside of the outside of
the hut into the front of the barracks.
Then he said, men,
today we're going to separate the men from the boys.
He said, there's a track out here,
we're going to run around that track,
he called it the grinder.
He says, we're going to run until the last guy drops out,
and I'm going to be right with that last guy.
His name was Gert,
he said, I never will forget that.
He was the first-class poster man. So we did.
We ran around, of course,
people dropped out and the guys were a little stouter,
and they were dropped out, and so on.
And he was the last guy.
He says, now, you see here?
He says, we've got this guy,
he's pretty strong,
he made it almost all the way.
Blah blah blah. He went over it.
Then what did we do?
We did some other close order.
They kept you busy,
but not with any strenuous.
The only thing, we had to go to the pool and they've got
a 50-foot diving board and you had to
jump off that into the pool.
And so I remember,
of course, you jumped in and just got up
as fast as you could.
So some guys wouldn't jump.
And the MA, Gert,
says, you know what?
I've got all day.
If you want to stand up there and freeze, okay.
And he says, come on, I need you guys to jump.
And the old saying,
don't make me come up there.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Was it an inside pool?
>> No.
>> So you weren't jumping into cold water?
>> No.
>> Now how long was boot camp?
>> I was trying to think of that
the other day. Let's see.
Winter, January.
If I remember, it was seven or eight weeks.
>> And then where did you go from there?
>> University of Chicago,
it's a communication special Class A naval signal School.
>> And tell me, what is signal school?
>> Well, that's where you pick up
the old Morse code and you learn the scouts.
You've seen the navy lights flashing,
that's the way you communicate.
And we learned that and semaphore.
>> What's semaphore?
>> Flags. How to A, B, C, D.
So from there, that lasted, it wasn't too long.
Let's see, from May, because we went to
March, that lasted about until the middle of March.
And then because it wasn't long.
They sent us up to
New York to Long Island to train with the Marine Corps.
And that's where you really got the training.
>> Before we do that, I want you to tell me
how you were selected for signal school.
>> Well, they ask you in an interview like,
what would you like to do Allen in the Navy?
And I says, well,
I would like to be on a submarine.
Tall as you are?
No. Them hatches are so low and everything,
and quarters are small,
you wouldn't like that.
What's your next request?
I'd like to be a gunner on a PVU, an airplane.
No, turrets are too small for you.
You're a big guy. I tell you what?
As tall as you are?
You'd make a good signaller,
up there on the bridge.
I didn't tell you that's the first place
you could shelved and.
So anyway.
>> So it had to do with your height?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Earlier when we talked,
you spoke about the Philadelphia Navy Yard?
>> Yeah.
>> Were you there briefly after signal school?
>> Very briefly.
>> What were you doing there?
>> Well, they were gathering us
together from different places.
Guys come out of school,
guys washed out of
flight school and forming our commando units.
And that's when from there,
we were only there what maybe a week and if that long.
And then they sent us up to New York.
>> Long Island.
>> Yeah.
>> Now, you said a draft list came
out while you were in Philadelphia.
What was that?
>> It's a draft list is a list of people,
the captain says these men will be sent.
How did they put that?
Overseas for a period not exceeding 18 months.
Something like that and then it had all these names.
You have us guys that were going to these units.
>> For the duration of the war?
>> Yeah. I think that was part.
>> So your name was not on that list?
>> It was on that list.
>> Okay. And because it was on that list?
>> That's why I was in a group that
went up to Long Island.
>> Okay. And what were you doing on Long Island?
>> Oh you wouldn't know.
But, you do everything from climbing rope
ladders to jumping over little hurdles like,
to taking a rope and swinging over
a mud hole of water and
climbing on a rope in itself and
learning some Judo they called
it and self-protection and of course,
firing rifles, climbing under barb
wire with your him while
your A -1 carbine and while
they're firing over your head with the wax bullets.
And just everything, it's
strenuous running miles and
just about anything that
you can think of to beat you into shape.
>> So you were in the Navy but this
was a Marine Corps school.
>> Tell me why.
>> Well, it was a training school for Marines also.
It was a Marine recon,
if I remember they called it a recon
and the Marines they
weren't training right with us.
But they had their own training where they
would do all the drill stuff
and they had oh, another thing up there.
One of the things that happened,
but maybe a week after we were
there when they called us out on the,
they had a big grinder,
on the grinder to line up and we formed like
a nail and they
marched the guy out there and he had a suit,
I remember a civilian suit on.
They had if I remember it was
two guys with carbons and two drummers.
And they marched him in front of
us like this and made the turn and hears the gate.
And as they march down there,
they give him a right face.
And he had to look at every one of
us in the eye marched him.
It was a guy that had deserted and they kicked him out.
That was something that he knew very seldom.
You don't see too much of that.
So then later on we asked him,
we said, what was that all about?
One Marine told us what it was.
So then after that training, nothing.
We did get, let's see,
how long were we there?
>> Did you do mock landings?
>> That was it.
So then we went to Jones Beach,
which is the south, I think of Long Island.
And we did mock landings in Higgins boats.
And then, by the way,
they took all of our navy gear away from us and stowed
it and gave us all green khaki fatigues, battle fatigues.
A-1 Carbines and everything that the Marines had
except that I think
they carried M-1s the marines but we had A-1,
which is a lighter rifle than what the M-1 is.
Anyway, so we had all those fatigues an extra pair,
and things like that.
And that's when they sent us up to put us on a bus.
We went to Jones Beach and made
those landings and just practice
and practice and practice.
And then we came home that night back to the Barracks,
and it wasn't long a day or two after that that we got on
buses and we went down to Pier 92, New York.
And there was a band there,
they were I don't know,
but they were playing Goodbye Broadway, Hello France.
That was funny. And Red Cross gave
us cups of coffee out of those milk cans in those days.
PET milk came in those little,
that was their cups.
And somebody gave us a carton of cigarettes,
Chelsea's, the old Chelsea cigarettes.
Then we boarded the troop ship.
And the next well,
it was no, it was that afternoon.
God, time it runs together sometimes.
Anyway, then we sailed and we went via White Island,
I think it's called where they told us
there's a lot of German U-boats that hung around there.
Sunk a lot of shipping.
So we made the old zig-zag course and
with another ship don't
remember who that was but anyway,
then we came into Glasgow Scotland.
>> Well, how big was the ship you were on?
>> It was a big troop ship.
And that was another funny thing we had to laugh at.
When we got on, we stowed all of our gear,
just took it off because I
think there was about three decks,
personnel decks where they had
five racks in a row
on just an aisle just
wide enough you could walk between the bunks,
the racks we called them.
And we stowed our gear just threw it against a bulkhead,
or packs and that stuff, what we didn't need.
So one of the MAs came down
after lights were supposed to
be out and we were talking and everything.
It was hot down there and in a hold, we would call it.
So he hollered, he said, "Lights out."
He said, "I told you turn them lights out."
So one of the guys hollered
"It's hot down here.
Can we get some air?"
And he said, "Who said that?"
The guy, he came over and he said,
anyway I won't use that language.
But he looked between
those two bunks and bulkhead and then was like this.
What do you call it an air?
Well, you got them in your house, but anyway,
he said," For Christ's sake,
you dumbass, get your gear away from that thing,
no wonder it's hot down here."
So that was funny.
And then we had another guy that went up.
We all had access to their canteen up on the deck,
and you could buy candy and different things up there.
So come to find out
this one guy he hid a bunch of candy under his mattress,
and guys found out about that said,
"Look at here, at least here you want this?
And it was hey. Stuff like that.
Guys will do anything.
And then we run into boy that North Sea.
You got about 35,
40 degree angle tilt.
And so if you're not used to that,
which none of us was really
and your tray or couch slides out.
Let alone, guys.
So you learn to take your helmet and use it as a bucket.
>> Did you get seasick?
>> Yeah. Half that ship was seasick except for the guys,
the crew that manned it.
>> So if you're sleeping,
don't the racks sort of? They're hanging?
>> No.
>> The beds?
>> No. They're buckled to the wall.
But they do you can put them up,
they go like this see.
In a word you put them up
and you got little clips you can
clip them so that when you do hit
rough I can't remember anymore,
what they call it so they won't fall down.
And so that's what
they do in daytime when you're not in your rack.
And that's another thing.
So those racks are only maybe about like that.
So the trick was,
the game was to take your lighter if you smoke and light
it like this until the guy says, "Hey."
[LAUGHTER]
>> The guy above you? I see.
Was it easy to sleep in those?
>> Yeah. Well, you're so tired you just.
It wasn't for me.
>> So you landed in Glasgow?
>> Glasgow.
>> And did you get off the ship
there or was it just a brief landing?
>> No. We had to,
if I had remembered,
trying to get that in my mind,
whether we disembarked because we went
from there to England.
I can't remember because
did we have to disembark there or not.
One way or the other we got to England,
which is right next to Scotland.
And then you got Wales up there that.
Where was I what?
>> Where did you go to in England?
>> I think the name of
that little town down there was Fowey,
F-O-W-E-Y, if I remember,
which was the home of
the Queen's Rangers Commandos they taught
us all hand-to-hand combat
and all that kind of stuff at the Marines
almost a copy of what the Marines taught us.
And so we did that up until when?
Well, about the last week in May,
and then they called us over.
We did nothing except go
over to the Quonset hut where the chaplain was.
And so he passed out these little cards looked like
the wife's recipe card and it had put
your name on there and your next of
kin and if you have a will and all that kind of stuff.
And then you turn those in.
And then we had boarded the.
>> But what did the chaplain say to you?
Didn't he say something to
the group of guys there at the Kwanza Hut?
>> Well, first of all,
one of the guys said sorry sir,
this looks like a one way street only on there way home.
He said maybe and
then he gave to give us a little prayer and
wished us all well and
so that made you feel like something was going to happen.
>> But you didn't really know anything
about the invasion at that point?
>> No.
Okay. So you boarded a ship
then this is the end of May 1 of June?
And tell me, go forward from there.
>> Well, then we went to
England and what we didn't know is,
we're trained to actually make the invasion,
and to what do we used to call it though?
Stormed the beaches, what we didn't know is they canceled
our orders for that
and gave us a mission to do our sixth unit.
And so that mission we
found out was to go to Le Havre France.
So when we got over there,
the army had taken,
we didn't go into land until five days
after the army pushed in and got
a foothold past those rows.
And so our mission was
to work our way up to
Le Havre and evidently hadn't been taken yet.
So When we came into shore,
we get off the LST,
and we walk because
the army has already pushed
forward and drove the Germans back.
So we walked never caught up with them, of course,
because what we would do and
that's another thing is we'd go to these little villages
on the way to Le Havre at night,
we'd stand sentry duty looking
for maybe any German snipers
that were left behind that we're
going to pick up some of those Frenchmen off.
And then more or
let's hit public relations with the people
there and this one little village we
saw there was about five women
that had their head all shaved.
And that was the FFF did that, the French guerillas,
the underground for cooperation with the Germans
and also that was in one village.
And then another village where,
I think that was Nantes, France.
They had a courtyard
and they had a wall
at the right end when you go in that gate,
it was not a gate really.
The big wooden doors of about that
thick and they opened
up and then you went into courtyard,
there was a wall on the end of it.
And that was pulling holes where
the SS would catch these guys,
the French guerrillas, and just line them
up and shoot them and their family sometimes,
the French told us that that's what they did.
And they would bring us the FFF,
would bring to us if they had any German guys
that had wanted to give themselves up,
surrender, which there was a couple of three guys.
And then we'd have to turn them over
to a Jeep would come around every once in a while,
Sergeant of the Army back at headquarters,
and he'd pick them up and take them back
to headquarters for interrogation.
So then we finally got to Le Havre
and set up our, we had our flashing light and
we could only do that in
a daytime because of the first of all,
I'm getting ahead of my story.
Our mine sweeps had to clean those mines
out from the amount of
this breakwater where the big ships
come in and we brought him in as Liberty ships.
They had to clean the oyster mines out.
You know what wish your mine is?
>> Describe it.
>> Well, it's put together so that
when any big ship comes over,
it works by sound.
The mine will separate itself and
come up because of the screws,
making that noise underwater.
So they are Navy guys and the mine sweeps they call them
boats cleared harbor and
all this stuff is what we were waiting
, coming through France.
And anyway, we had certain watches during the daytime.
We had a Frenchman out there and we had a,
Well, let me describe it first of all,
again we had again our quarters.
We had two guys to
a room just about like a cell looks like in a prison.
And of course, that's all cement walls but we had
one room was maybe about a quarter size
it is so that we had one of the old pot bellied
wooden stoves to keep warm at.
What else can I tell you about that?
The Dyke itself ignored the French call.
Was sky, I'd say I looked
like it might be almost a quarter of a mile long.
And that was a wall really and a walk it had
enough room on it where a Jeep could come out,
which they did to give us supplies,
and then it had a cement thing built up here,
and then this pathway.
And when that channel turned up,
it come up over and wash over
there and back into the channel.
And so thinking of Christmas when we just
did bring our Liberty ships
in signal or they had signaled to
us back and how is this or what about this and that,
where do we dock?
And we had papers we
cut to keep a log and all that stuff.
That's all we did out there and
play cards when we weren't on watch.
So telling you about that Christmas.
A couple of guys who were out
there on watch and they hollered at us,
the guys were playing cards, they said,
"Hey come here, men, we want to show you something."
And that channel was really kicking up in December.
So he said, "Look at this stupid."
[LAUGHTER]
There's a guy
and he had ducked down when the waves had come on.
He'd get against that wall.
>> He went over it?
>> Yeah.
>> And then he'd run over.
[LAUGHTER]
So what in the hell, finally he came out.
Of course, he had fatigues on,
his army fatigues,
and the little crosses.
He was a Catholic, a chaplain.
I said, "Sir, what
in the world are you doing out there?"
He says, "Well," he
reached in his fatigue jacket and he says,
"How many guys have you got out here?"
We said six.
Let's say he had hard candy.
One.
[LAUGHTER]
But we appreciated that.
That was his Christmas gift
and our only Christmas gift we got.
And then after we really secured the place,
delivery shifts came in,
and a Jeep came out one day and gave us a frozen chicken.
And that was, after having the K-Rations all that time,
moving through the field to get to [inaudible].
Germans had a little galley, by the way,
where they could cook down there
and I wish I had
brought that picture I'd have showed you.
I still got it, of a little Frenchman,
he's a little fat guy,
had his apron on and Louis, we called him.
And he'd cook. He said,
"I cook for you."
We said, "We haven't got anything you can cook, Louis."
[LAUGHTER]
So anyway, he'd come out there.
So anyway, they brought this frozen chicken,
so we put it in one of the pots that the Germans had.
And by the way, they had left behind
our oleo, but they had big couple of cans in it.
And we had some hardtack and it wasn't too bad.
[LAUGHTER]
We put that on that and we
thought afterwards to eat that stuff,
and not know what the Germans.
They were good for doing a lot
of booby traps, Germans were.
Anyway. So we put
the chicken in one of them pans they left behind,
and pots and underneath, open on a shelf.
And that night we were going to eat that, that next day.
And that night, we heard this rattling around,
so we grabbed our carbines when we were
coming out and thought, what in the world?
Either one of our guys got hungry.
And it had to be down in our little galley.
And sure enough, down there,
there was a gray tomcat and it had that chicken,
running around there to the dike.
And I know cat lovers wouldn't like that,
but we had our carbines and went on him, ta ta ta.
And the last thing we saw was that cat and that chicken
going over the side.
>> [LAUGHTER] So you lost the chicken?
>> We lost the chicken, yeah.
>> So you were in
a formerly German facility, is what you're saying?
>> Where the Germans had occupied that, yeah.
That's what we were waiting for, I suppose.
Why they changed it until the army cleaned them out?
>> Was the dike something that had
been built before the war?
>> Yeah. I couldn't tell you when it was,
but it had to be old,
you know what I'm saying?
Because you could tell in some areas,
we walked out there, went out.
That's another thing we did dumb.
But we walked out there and you could see
places where the water had eroded some of the wall.
A little bit of the wall.
We went out there one day,
fooling around, and didn't have the watch,
so we thought, what are we going to do?
There was a lifeboat,
had washed up to the beach.
So we were messing around out there and we said,
let's take this lifeboat out in a channel,
and take a ride with it.
So three of us,
we got in the lifeboat, and we were out.
And all of a sudden,
we looked down and the petcock had turned where you
couldn't get it back in and the water was coming in.
Out in the channel,
there was three British corvettes,
they're like our destroyers coming in.
And in them lifeboats, of course,
there was an American lifeboat, it had supplies.
And of course, they always have a semaphore in them.
So I got the flags and I'm sending SOS,
SOS, corvette stopped,
then the first one came over, far enough.
The water was coming up almost to the gunwales,
where it would just sink.
So they got us out and onto the corvette
and got us back into [inaudible].
And of course, the word got to
the commandant of the [inaudible].
So he sent word over to
our lieutenant that was
with us out there in the commando.
And then he said,
"You guys, how stupid can you be?
Didn't you look at the damn boat
before you got in there to see?"
We said, "We just figured it was all right."
[LAUGHTER]
That's how kids are.
Still a kid. Christmas,
I was still 17 years old.
>> So how long were you posted there?
How long did you stay?
>> Oh, I'll tell you another thing that happened before.
Right after, it was in April.
Yes, April.
They sent our sea bags,
which had all of the blues and
whites as you see a sailor.
All of our Navy gear in our sea bag,
they sent them over to us in Le Havre
and General Eisenhower gave
different troops R&R to London.
So we got a seven day R&R to
London or three days in Paris,
if and when we took Paris away from the Germans.
So we went to London for seven days.
And we had our blues on
and that was nice because you
got to tour around on a taxicab.
The only thing was the Germans were still
firing V-2 rockets over there.
It hit, BOOM, at night and
where we stayed was in a hotel,
but they had cleared the dinning room.
They had a big dining room and they cleared that and put
all Army cots and you had to pay
a quarter of night for an Army cot.
That was funny because there was a Black kid,
maybe about six, seven cots down from
me and one V-2 bomb hit,
wasn't too far away.
He heard, BOOM. And he said,
"What was that?"
[LAUGHTER]
The other guy said,
"Do you know what that is?"
He said, "Some kind of
a something [LAUGHTER] like a bomb."
He says, "That's exactly what it is."
One of them V-2s that the Germans fired.
You know they were the first ones to
really make stuff up,
that was special that and
the missiles and that kind of stuff.
We got one and I remember the scientists,
Wernher, then he worked on the-
>> Wernher von Braun?
>> Atomic bomb.
At the University of Chicago down in the basement.
So anyway, that was then we came
back from leave and then to answer your question,
that was in April and
then at the end of that month in April,
they put us back in the fleet on a PC boat Patrol Craft.
Which is the smallest ship
to cross the ocean under its own power. You can imagine.
That's all I'll tell you about that story.
But anyway, our job was to cruise the coast of
France up to North part and
back looking for the last of the
German U-boats if there was any.
They were out of diesel fuel.
They were out of ammunition and everything else.
So on May the 8th, I guess it was.
We were down in the galley,
in the PC boat several of
us guys and we had the radio one down there and
Churchill came over and said I'm glad to
report that the Germans had just surrendered.
The guys on the beaches was firing artillery out there,
we sent a light saying,
"Hey, we're still out here.
The Navy [LAUGHTER] is still out here."
>> You mean they were firing off guns in celebration?
>> Yeah. So that was a beautiful, beautiful night.
[MUSIC] Well, that's my wife's.
We came back to [NOISE] Cherbourg.
>> Can you say that sentence again?
>> Yeah, back up and start at
the end of the victory celebrations.
>> We came back. I was just going to tell you.
We came to dock at Cherbourg, France.
And that was a big port also.
And they were tearing down the rubble or trying to.
The French had,
let's think of it like
your water tanks in your basement. What do you call them?
>> A cistern?
>> No. They're either fired by gas or electric.
>> Hot water heater?
>> Hot water heater.
They're only about that big around.
They had them on the side of them little bulldozers.
It puts off steam.
And they move up to a wall.
They move up to that wall,
and they pushed it,
and pushed it and back up and push.
And our CBs, our Navy CBs,
Construction Battalion. We had our own.
They had brought in our own to help them,
bulldozers, and our guys would
standing there just laughing watching them little.
And we was watching
where the guy had motioned, he says,
"Get in there,
and show them guys how to tear them walls down."
Of course, ours just BOOM, and it's down.
And the Frenchmen were watching.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Where were these walls?
What were they part of?
>> Rubble. From our guys
bombing the whole coast of France.
>> So cleaning the coast off?
>> I'm sorry?
>> Cleaning the coast off, of all this rubble.
>> Yeah. And we stayed in some of them old bombed
out places when we were in
the field getting up to Le Havre.
>> So, I want to go back just briefly to the point
about looking for any U-Boats that were still there.
Did you encounter any U-Boats?
Did you come across any?
>> No.
>> So they really were done for by then?
>> We had to take that for granted.
We didn't see any.
Now, we did see one.
We got to general quarters,
which means everybody man your battle station.
Well, that's one thing.
This big around, one of our crew members,
and them hatches are just so big.
He could just barely get through there.
With a Mae West jacket on.
Took him, then we called him Lard,
we got to get to our guns.
Come up there and here is
one Messerschmitt or a Stuka. Came down.
Here's the ship moving.
He knew exactly how to do this.
Never fired a shot, as if to say,
I want you to know that we're
still around German Airforce.
We had to laugh, but it wasn't funny when we were there.
Feeling that 20mm.
That was a gun station.
You are strapped into this and you have got
these twin 20mm guns.
So you can only go so far with this thing,
but they're on both sides.
And this one could conceivably knock him out.
But he knew, if he do it a certain way.
The weird thing is
we all thought the same thing that he's saying,
"I'm still around."
[LAUGHTER]
>> So at the place where you were posted for so long,
in Le Havre, you
said there were liberty ships coming in,
and what sort of supplies were they
bringing and how did you unload them?
Who was in charge of that?
>> They brought in our ammunition and our chow.
I said beside Liberty Ships,
LSDs they brought the equipment in for the Army.
Jeeps and Tanks and all that kind of stuff.
What they did, they got through this break water,
then you got a beach over here or a pier,
where they could come in and unload.
I saw General Patton he came to
Long Herb third Army
and they were the ones in charge, the Army was.
And he was standing up in
that Jeep looking down at these LST and watching
the tanks come off and whatever equipment he
had had them two six shooters on
and his captain was sitting there
his aide at the helmet that little jeep
[LAUGHTER]
looking straight up and you
had to laugh because
you're just trying to think what's in his mind.
He's saying, I just want to see one of you
lieutenants take one of my Jeeps,
they were real popular, Jeeps were.
>> Why is that?
>> Well, because guys would take them and go all over,
after they'd take a place and you had a Jeep,
well, and the mail carriers had Jeeps.
When they come into the field,
they'd have mail call throw it out into the villages,
they get in front of a café would never get a drink.
And they weren't careful somebody
carry thing you could
take out where you couldn't start the Jeep,
the guys that had it would take and put it in
their jacket so that it couldn't be
stolen while they're in the café.
So if they had a Jeep,
they'd take off and they go,
take girls out in different things, crazy stuff.
So Jeeps are very popular.
Do you know that only someone told
me after we left France to come back to States,
there was tons of
new equipment that was still over in France.
Jeeps that they brought over, things like that,
that they said you
could buy one of the Jeeps for 50 bucks.
Just enough money that
they'd have to they didn't want to bring them,
it was easier not to bring them back as it was to burn
them and they burned a hell of a lot
of new uniforms and all that stuff.
>> So it's was an oversupply by the end of the war?
>> Yeah.
>> So you were on the PC boat
looking for U-boats when you
heard that Germany had
surrendered on May 8 that's victory in Europe Day?
>> Yeah.
>> And then you came back to
Cherbourg and can we move forward from there?
>> Okay.
>> What we did we were in
Cherbourg maybe let's see,
May 8, because we came back
exactly one year from D Day, June 6.
Well, first of all, before
that night or day before we left on the fifth or fourth,
the FBI came over the PA system on the pier and said,
it's illegal to bring any souvenirs
or things back to to the United States,
so if you have any,
get rid of them right now,
[NOISE]
take them off the ship.
And you heard splash,
guys, I had a German P38,
and I wasn't about to throw
that sucker from getting anyway.
>> Where did you hide it?
>> I just kept it under my sack under my mattress.
>> And how had you gotten it?
>> The P38? Well,
we used to play cards a lot like I told
you and I won it in a card game,
and I also lost the German officers boot knife.
They put a little pearl it wasn't real,
but a ruby top on it on the hilt
and I lost that in the game so
[LAUGHTER]
and when we got to customs in Miami, first of all, we
stopped first let me go all the way back to Cherbourg.
There was six PC boats in our convoy
and I still remember
the coach who is on a bridge
up there where I had to be in a signal,
it was operation I think market basket.
Anyway, the head Honcho
the squad dog squadron commander.
He got on the horn and told all every one of us.
He said, we're going to run into a hell of a storm
beyond the channel and if you guys,
you can take a vote and if you want to go back
to Cherbourg now before we hit that storm,
tell us that if you want to keep on
going through the storm to the States, of course,
we want to go home and everybody,
I think everybody probably because we
went and provided we hit a storm.
>> How bad was it?
> A PC boat, the smallest
like I told you craft across the ocean.
The bow go down,
water come up here and you're looking up
at that next wave it's about 20 feet high,
and they'd come up and it'd come crashing down
and they'd turn this way and that way and oh, my God.
We had one guy,
a black guy that was one of our stewards mates.
These were in World War two, they were only.
Well, there was a few that were in combat,
but they were the only ones
that served the officers their meals and all that stuff.
And John John was
this one black guy's name young fellow
and he was in a gun tour 20 millimeters,
like I told you, the turrets
had shields around them so hot.
He was laying down in there and the water
was just drenching him all the time.
And I hollered down, I came from the head he had to hold
on to that cable to make sure he didn't go over the side.
I said, John, John,
[inaudible] out of there.
He said, I don't care if I die,
I just said okay good bye.
And we made it to the Azores Islands
where we fueled up and from the Azores,
we went to Bermuda
and we weren't allowed to go ashore, the enlisted men.
Only the officers were allowed to
go ashore and we dropped
tanker out there and you couldn't go into Bermuda.
We couldn't but the rum boats came out.
>> What are the rum boats?
>> Cubans that have a little boat and they got booze.
They sell you watches and all that stuff.
Watches you have to be careful and some
of them didn't have insights.
[LAUGHTER]
By way, so they
bought the rum and they had one guy who was
a barber and said he was a barber.
And on the back of that PC,
you had a hoist thing it's a big your cable,
you could pull another smaller boat
with that big cable don't want an automatic.
And then forward that was
a lazarett that's a rope locker line locker, we call it.
You could go down in there, which guys did.
They got drunk they went down in there.
But anyway, this thing
is only about this high off the deck.
It's solid where you could sit on like
we're sitting in the chairs and he was
cutting hair and we had one guy that was actually,
we just call him crazy.
We call him made because he had a black beard.
Seaman second class.
That's as low as you can get
other than Is apprentice Seaman.
Anyway he was drunk and he says he wanted he sat
down and this guy started cutting
his hair and you're only like this.
You're only that far from the [inaudible]
from the side of the ship
he just grabbed by arm and threw him over the side,
I didn't hurt him just threw him over there.
We told you that for Abe,
we called him Abe because he looked like
Abraham Lincoln and he was drunk.
He went down a line locker.
When the skipper came back,
we had to set special seal team to get
underway to pull the anchor and get going.
And he looked around the ship just a
small and he had
65 guys on the total counting the officers.
And he says, anybody
who doesn't come to special seal team,
can't make their station.
He says, you are going to get
court martialed when we get to the states,
he told that it was loudspeaker.
So there was about four guys down there, they were drunk.
So anyway, we cast off, we came to into
Miami at night Harbor Florida.
The boy and Debit didn't look good.
See them lights slinking on the shore,
they wouldn't let us in at night
so we had to drop anchor again.
There was a song that came we had
the radio on again down the galley,
and a song came on with Frank Sinatra and he sang dream.
And he said he'd like to introduce a new song,
boy, that was home.
So then the next day, of course,
we come in made to port.
Then what happened?
>> You said you had to go through customs?
>> Yeah.
>> And tell me about that?
>> Well, before that,
as the captain promised,
the captain was just a young guy himself,
Lieutenant J I bet he was 25, 26 years old.
He called these four guys
up for at a witness at Court Martial.
Actually, you've got several ones,
you've got a deck court martial summary Court Martial,
General Court Martial.
Deck Court Martial and he gave
this guy 30 days no liberty,
this guy and he said to Abe he says,
you or what are you give?
He says, you get
I think he gave him 15 days he gave him brig time.
And he says, on top of that,
he says, you're not going to be on my ship anymore.
You're out of here as soon as you
get out of that brig, you're gone.
So that was Abe Wheeler.
So then we got
our gear together and well,
what we had to do our hat.
You always had to take it out.
And we had all whites,
and we had to go through customs and take that gear
and dump it on these tables and I had my gun in there.
And this chief, he says,
that don't go, I says, yes,
it does go and I picked it back up.
I says, I'm taking it back to ship he said,
I don't give a dam he said
you didn't take it back to ship
but take a dare sail I said,
okay so I took it back to the ship.
And then the next time we didn't have to go,
you wanted to go on Liberty you didn't have
to go because you had a little thing they gave you,
that said you'd already been through
custom and your ship was dock,
we had to go in dry dock too to raise our turrets.
I think that's what they were going to do raise
the turrets on the 20 millimeter,
that side of the,
so that you wouldn't get much any flack
from here. What then?
>> So you went back onboard the ship?
>> Yeah. That was your home until we went in dry dock,
which was a couple of days later.
Dry dock meaning you're out of the water
and they're cleaning the barn all that stuff.
And so said Skipper said,
you guys, you can have
liberty because there's nothing you can do.
We're going to have all of the people in
the dry dock yard.
They're going to do all the work and there's
nothing you can do while they're aboard.
So we're going to be here he said for
about a week and so you got all the liberty you want.
Meaning, you can go where you want to go
except you all have to be
here at 7:00 in the morning for roll call.
You know why he did that to so we wouldn't go.
So that worked out well
except three of us guys got a room in one of
those boarding rooming houses and we worked
the Cuban banana boats coming into
Miami here for $1 an hour,
taking from the boat to
the box cars and you pass them then stalk.
>> Why were you doing that?
>> For money. Only $1,
and what they do if you got
tired and you didn't want to do that anymore.
You just waved to the straw boss,
we called it and get out of line
and go up to him and he'd take the money out say,
you got so you got three hours and three bucks.
At least it was beer money.
>> So how long before you did make it back home?
>> Well, I got out and we made cruises
down to Key West and did
some technical work for
electronic stuff that I couldn't understand.
It was secret anyway.
But it looked to me like they'd fire
this dummy torpedo and then this thing would fire.
Instead of it coming here,
they said fire over
and so it wouldn't hit this target there anyway.
Let's see, I got out in
April 46 that was in Jacksonville, Florida.
We spent three days,
no showers, no mattresses.
They had the springs you slept on
the springs and your whites they were filthy.
And finally, you had to go,
this little Quanson hut like and this captain was there,
Navy captain and Dlectron and he had
our discharges and they had him in manila envelopes.
And he said, [inaudible] we're going
to have some pictures
here of some film of the new reserve.
And he says, if you don't want to stay and watch the film,
I'll leave through here and get
your discharge and you can go.
So my buddy, Larry,
I said, "You know what, Larry,
I'm tired, I need a shower."
He said, "I'm with you."
So we raised our hand.
What's your name, bla bla bla, he got ours out.
So then they gave away to sign a little blue card.
Again, it looked like a recipe card.
We were gone, we thought.
[LAUGHTER]
So we got a hotel and a room over on the beach.
We got our shower and came down
and out of the hotel in our dungarees,
we didn't have our hats on,
or cover, you called it.
And what happens but two MPs in a shore patrol?
Third shore patrol came up in
a Jeep in front of the hotel.
There's a walkway light and
they saw us coming down there,
so they just kept in the Jeep
until we got there and they got out of the Jeep,
and they said, "Where's your cover?"
We said, "We don't have any cover.
We don't have to have it anymore,
we just got out of the Navy."
They looked at each other and they laughed.
Said, "Really? Don't you know
you got 30 days you're still in the Navy?"
We said, "We're going to go get our hats on."
He said, "You better."
So we went back and got out Navy hats.
Then we went in the shore, I mean,
into the Jack's Beach,
and met a lot of other guys that got discharged.
That was fun.
These weeks we've got to be careful, man.
We're still in the Navy.
>> So can you describe
your return home and seeing your family again?
>> Well, that was great.
My mother, she got remarried again,
and I met her new husband.
And my sister was there and well,
of course, my wife.
And it was like a home reunion.
>> When had you gotten married?
>> Huh?
>> When did you marry?
>> I married in February of '51.
>> So can you tell me about finishing
high school after the war?
>> Yeah. Well, I was still in
the Navy and I forget where we had to go,
but they offered this GED.
If you took a GED test and
passed it to get your diploma when you got home,
wherever it was. And that's what I did.
And when I got home,
they told me I'd have to go to
high school to get it, my diploma.
So I went to [inaudible], in fact,
Mr. Peebles, he was still there, the principal.
And he said, "Allan, welcome home".
And this was in April,
and he said, "It won't be long,
we have graduation,
and I'd like for you to be in our graduation class."
What they did at graduation,
like I said, we had our own stadium.
They'd march all the seniors around the track,
and then after that,
giving them a couple of turns,
that where everybody saw them and sitting in the stadium.
It was always full too, the stadium.
They had the table where they'd
give them the diplomas, and all.
I said, "Mr. Peebles, sir," I said,
"I would rather not." He said, "Why not?
You're a veteran," he says,
"We want to tell them that
you're a veteran and you're not
here because you flunked the last two."
[LAUGHTER]
I said, "No, I really wouldn't want to do that."
And he says, "No, well that's a shame."
I said, "If you'll just
give me the diploma, I'll be happy."
He said okay. I don't know what he says.
[LAUGHTER]
He was a good fellow.
>> Why didn't you want to do it?
>> Just like I told you,
in front of people,
and that I didn't feel right.
I didn't want really people saying,
"Allan Hall, he's just come from Europe in the War."
Bla bla bla, and all. To me,
I'm no hero or nothing.
My heroes, they're a lot of them,
still under them white crosses over there.
So I did what I had to do and that was it.
>> So can you tell me,
you were recalled for military service in the Korean War?
And how long did you spend overseas?
What did you do during the Korean War?
>> Settlement Hill.
I was recalled in September of '51.
I'm trying to get some things together.
I had to go down in Reserve Center
because I was active reserve,
not only just reserve,
but I found out that card I signed was active reserve.
That me again.
So anyway, I had to go down a reserve,
and there was a bunch of guys
there sailors and the commander three Striker,
he said, I got a list here.
And he said, when I call your name out,
I want you to fall out and come up here.
Stand on this fall here.
So he called guys and
the guys were trying to hide behind and he took up.
He says, no sense in hiding guys,
I know who you are then
he called our names out we had to come up and stand
in line and then he told us to
report back at the, maybe he gave us
I think there again,
about a week, I guess to come back to the reserve.
Anyway, we took the bus to the Cincinnati Air terminal.
But a buddy of mine Smitty
he had four kids and when they called his name,
the commander at the reserve center there, he said,
Smitty you can go
home you've got four kids, you get family.
He said Commander, it's the same for you same for me,
I need a vacation.
He said, what? You want to go?
He said, yes, sir.
So he said, okay.
Is your wife going to be okay with this?
He said, I don't know.
Anyway, he went.
And then of course, the air terminal,
it flew back to Great Lakes and to that's outgoing unit.
And from there, we got assigned to
a bus and then took in our gear,
though, they put the gear on box cars.
He said, now, these cars are
going to the east Coast
and these cars are going to West Coast.
He was standing up, we were
in the gymnasium there at OTU,
and he was up on the balcony and where the track is.
And he was looking down and he says,
now, when I call your name,
remember this and there was guys playing cards
down there on the gym for
and others were not paying attention.
He says, you better hear call your name out.
He says, west Coast.
That means your gear is on
the train going to the west, east Coast.
So then we took those buses back down to
the airport and flew
to Long Beach, California.
And in Long Beach is where we took a destroyer out of
Mthfalls and took all the Gucf and all that stuff,
made shakedown cruises and
took off after Christmas,
it was February for
Japan to get ammunition
and chow and all that to put the board.
And then from Japan,
we joined task force 77,
which was we had,
I remember two carriers.
We had a boxer
and the six, I guess.
Anyway our job with the destroyer
was to escort those carriers out
there and so they'd make
dawn strikes and they'd make evening strikes.
And they go off and they get
into formation of formation of four of
them to take over to North Korea drop
their bombs and pick up pilots that were shot down.
We had to do that we had one, which was strange.
Well, he was, our skipper was the one that followed him,
by the way, our skipper on that destroyer was a
how do you call him?
Executive officer next to
the captain on a submarine World War two.
So he knew how submarines operated,
and that's part of my story, too.
So anyway he spotted
this yellow life raft himself out there and he
said we got one it was a marine pilot shot down,
he was in his raft and what he was doing he was
paddling towards the beach
in the North Koreans course we got to fire on him,
and he wanted him alive.
So we lowered our small boat
and I went in because of being a [inaudible] man
and we went out and we got him
and we pulled him in the boat and
when they saw that we were going to get him,
we had a good cox and that's what you call the guy
had steering a small boat.
They were firing on it,
but he didn't get hit, we didn't get hit.
We got him to the ship and
we got him up and put him on the deck.
And he was laying there on
the deck and opened his eyes and he
says, We the hell am I?
We said, you're on the deck of a Navy destroyer.
Navy? He said, I never had much use for the Navy,
but you guys are angels today.
>> Wow.
Well, let me bring you back to the states after Korea.
So you said you joined the police force?
>> Well, first of all,
I joined the Pinkerton National Organization.
And did secret work for three years.
Really? How did you get into that?
Just got into it.
Where did that work take you?
>> Different states, different places.
Well, and you did petty stuff and pretty big stuff.
You did for example,
you might go to a department store and act
as they hire you on as a salesman,
and you're looking for which happens,
you have so much of it.
Girls put on gloves
and new gloves over top of their oil gloves.
And the guy at the door going out at night,
he wouldn't notice that. Dresses on.
>> Watching over stuff like that.
>> Yeah. And you had to make you
don't collar them yourself.
You have no authority of policing,
but you put it all in a report,
who they are and eventually,
after you leave there,
they call it pulling you know,
you had to get out of there
because they're going to fire them people,
maybe put charges on depending on how much stuff they do.
That was one of them.
Another one was riding a bus from Cincinnati,
Chicago, and that was on I'll tell you that.
But that was see
these buses greyhound and they pick up people in
the country alongside the road and they're
supposed to give them the fares and that,
and sometimes these drivers are a
little crooked and they keep
them instead of putting it in
the slot because you're sitting there you know,
you can get an eye right.
You get a seat where you can see them.
And that was another thing.
I had my 38 in my suitcase and I put it right on
top and I boarded this one
time this one bus and how on a bus,
you got that rack up
there and I put my suitcase up there.
And this lady got
on I don't know what little town it was,
but she had one almost just like mine.
>> Thirty eight?
>> No, no. The suitcase.
I had mine and she put it next to mine, and I'm thinking,
I can't give up the seat
because I want to watch this guy,
when I watched that, you know, my suitcase.
And she got off in some other city and I forgot,
my mind's concentrating on the driver,
and she got off the bus.
And when I got off,
I says, "No, that's not mine."
It's very similar, but she got your suitcase.
Now, there's my gun in that suit
and I'm thinking when she opens that,
there's my gun right on top of it.
So I called us when we got into the station in Chicago,
I called and told them at the greyhound,
what happened that she's got mine
and I said, well they said,
well, she got on it so and so and so and
so because she called in
she said that's not her suitcase.
I said, fine. How they said, well,
we got it on a bus in
Indianapolis and they'll bring it here to Chicago.
But she never got it open, I had it locked.
I guess she wasn't trying to open because when
she probably saw it at night when
she got at the she said,
well, this isn't mine.
It's the Sampson it,
one of those kind that used to have a one anyway.
So I never forget that.
>> Well, now, did you return to
Cincinnati to become a policeman?
>> Oh, yeah.
>> And then you started going to
college at night. And where was that?
>> At actually, it's Chase College.
It was a law school.
And I should say pre law really.
And I thought, well,
I wanted to be a lawyer said I get away from
this secret and with Pinkerton,
because he get boring after a while.
And so anyway, yes,
it's a pre law and I went there
for a year and then I said,
I don't want to be a lawyer.
And I quit and I came back again.
Director for SC Bachelor Science of Commerce Degree,
which I got six years at Night School.
>> And what did you do with that degree?
>> Well, when I got it, I quit
the police department went with
a company called Queen City Paper Company.
>> In the financial department?
>> No, no, no. As a salesman.
We sold fancy papers to the covered boxes,
which no longer,
they use to make women's hosiery boxes,
a little flat box with a quarter dozen hosiery
and it had real fancy foil paper and that's what we
sold to these box manufacturers that
had a contract with the Haynes and
Kaiser Roth or wherever the win made
women's hosiery and also other boxes
like I had Saxflar Avenue, was an account.
I had plain white embossed.
And they had we call them rigid boxes.
Those are called rigid covered with paper.
But what happened is like windmills.
After a while, they made no more.
Those rigid everybody's going to folding boxes,
so there went that.
>> Now, tell me about your family.
You said you married first in 1951.
What was your first wife's name?
>> Mary.
>> Mary, and did you have children?
>> I had four.
>> And then Mary passed
away and you married your current wife?
>> Yes.
>> And what's her name?
>> Buena, B-U-E-N-A, Buena.
>> And how did you end up in Georgia?
>> Well, I was still with Queen City Paper,
my aunt fit there and
the CEO called me one day and he says,
all want to meet me for lunch,
but it's a country code.
And he says,
"How many states do you cover?"
And I said, 26. What?
He said, how do you see all your customers?
I said, well, sometimes I fly over and wave down.
[LAUGHTER]
And he laughed, and he says, well,
I tell you what, he said,
I'm going to open two satellite offices.
One of them is going to be in Chicago,
and one of them is going to be in Atlanta.
Now, I'm going to give you your choice.
And he said, I think I know which one you'll take.
I said, that's right, it's Atlanta.
I will give that snow shovel on my son.
[LAUGHTER]
>> So you chose Atlanta?
>> Yeah.
>> Do you recall the year that you came down?
>> '69.
>> '69. And you've been here ever since?
So how long did you continue
working for that paper company?
>> Till '78.
>> And did you retire at that point?
>> No.
>> You went to work somewhere else?
>> I quit that job
because they were going to open a paper warehouse.
I wanted a warehouse near Hickory.
Anyway, open a warehouse.
And I though sure because
the president of Queen City, my boss,
that's what he wanted to do,
but in the meantime, right after that,
the company Queen City was sold to Labodo,
to another big corporation.
And that guy at the corporation had their own people,
you know how that goes,
so they got this guy of their own to have the warehouse.
And so I thought, well, I don't know.
My old boss, the president,
was a more or less a friend of mine.
And so I said, it's time to quit this job.
I didn't know what I was going to do,
[LAUGHTER]
so I quit, and I thought, it was about a week,
and I said, well,
I know design and artwork and all, so printing.
And I said to myself,
well, how about a small printing company?
So I went to the bank,
and the guy I was
banking with when I was
still with Queen City down there,
and told him that I wanted to get a $50,000 loan.
I found a place that I wanted to buy,
and it was a print shop in Marietta there.
So I told the vice president at the bank there,
I said, I want to borrow $50,000.
He said, well, I don't think that'll be any problem.
And I said, I got my own money too,
I sold my motor home.
And I said I got my own money,
but I need $50,000.
He said, well, I don't think that'll be a problem.
He's writing and he said, what kind of company is it?
I said a printing company.
What? He said, Earl,
I've got a warehouse full of
printing presses that we repossessed.
He said, that's a bad business.
He said, did you see this guy's books? I said, yeah.
And I didn't tell him he was losing,
he wasn't doing too well.
[LAUGHTER]
He says, well, I bet he isn't doing too well.
I said, well, you know how they are.
And he said, I was just going to give it,
but I have to take this to the board now.
So he said, otherwise, he would get in trouble.
So he called me and he said, you got it.
So I bought it, and I did what I knew I had to do.
This guy that had it, he was a young fella,
and he was in partners with an older woman,
and it was a franchise deal called Copycat.
And first thing I did is rearrange how the equipment was,
where the cutter was and where the presses were and all.
He didn't have it lined up
right because you print and then you go around
you cut and then you use
whatever you need over here, and anyway.
So I bought it, and in three years I had it paid for.
>> What was the name of your [OVERLAPPING]
>> So hall, going around selling my printing,
and showing people what I could do.
>> What was the name of the printing?
>> I changed it to Old Iron Sides.
>> Why is that?
>> I was in the Navy, the old iron sides.
And so I rented
an old abandoned Dairy Queen in Marietta there.
Moved it to Marietta.
Moved it around only about seven blocks from where I was.
And it had an upstairs too,
where I had my office.
So then I got an idea, says, you know what?
I'm only doing printing,
I can do advertising, and I did.
Made up of eight by 14 sheet,
put business cards on it,
and went around and sold it to customers,
restaurants, and that for it says,
I guarantee you 10,000 mailers,
and I went by ZIP code, and that worked.
>> How long did you have that business?
>> That was from, when I quit, was in '78 until '84.
>> Well, you're a member of the VFW.
And is that in Marietta?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. And so can I just ask you to finish up?
What is your military service
in both World War II and the Korean War?
What does that mean to you today?
>> Well, I think of it in which I am very proud of it.
And that I could serve and a lot of
memories, a lot I forget.
You don't really remember combat things.
You remember the good things like going from [inaudible]
on the field and finding a cache of cognac
or the Germans thought they hit it but it was
sticking up and we were
just messing around and the guys,
nothing to do one guy we got up and it
was I think there was 12 bottles in there of cognac.
So our commander was a Swede.
He was really American, but I mean,
Swede had that accent and told our chief,
he says, had the boys break
out their mess kits and give them a drink.
And we took our mess kits,
and that's one got the little handle on it.
We held and the chief picked that bottle and he.
And this commanders,
we're all looking at our commander and
he standing there he said goddamnit Chief,
give me that bottle.
I said a drink.
And we kept two bottles in that little village,
next village we were and we just gave it to the people.
>> So those are the types of things you remember?
>> Oh, yeah. And the time that we carried a can of
black shoe polish in our pocket all the time,
in case we needed it for night.
And one morning we
were standing it was a schoolhouse was bombed out.
We were standing in this old bombed-out schoolhouse.
And that morning, we
were waiting for our K-rations
a guy come around in a truck.
You throw you your breakfast K-ration.
And we're all laughing,
sitting around laughing and this
one guy's laughing and he dawns on it.
He says, "They're looking at me", and laughing.
His buddy had taken a shoe polish
and while he was sleeping, a mustache.
He grabbed his splat kit and held it up.
He looked at his buddy and took his knife.
He carried these chalk knives, go into his pack.
Said what the hell did you do that for?
He said, look at this.
Look at this. Do it again.
They were always on each other's throat.
One guy was really an alcoholic.
He would like to have kept all that cognac
>> Well, is there anything else you'd
like to add before we finish up?
>> Well, first of all,
I want to thank you for asking me about this interview.
And so that I can air some things
that I haven't thought about for a long time.
And just to say that
again and I'm very proud of the amphibious Commando.
So because I tell
you there's nothing like the camaraderie.
And see today, as I understand it,
the Kennedy tell us in '62,
I guess it was had to be early '63 before he was killed.
He wanted an elite organization.
So he took the underwater demolition teams,
our amphibious assault forces or commandos,
and put them together and called them.
>> Navy SEALs.
>> Right.
>> So your guys became the Navy SEALs?
>> Uh huh. Today, the SEALs are so,
well our training anyway it's very secretive.
And we were just glad to be a part of the beginning of
that organization and have the camaraderie.
Both my sons, by the way, are former Navy.
They're both former Corman and I'm glad that we served.
>> Well, thank you very much,
Mr. Hall, and we'll end there.
>> Well, thank you.
>> Of course. Are you awake [inaudible]
>> Yes. So I have this sheet here,
and this is so that I'll have
some basic information like your address,
but also it allows us to use your interview with
school groups and at the museum and
also to archive it here at the University.
>> Okay.
>> So if you just print your name there
or I can do that if you want and then put your signature.
That's the most important thing your signature here.
>> I actually want to get a photo too.
>> Thank you.
>> We can get one photo of you.
How are you feeling?
>> Okay.
>> All right. One, two, three.