This may be a twice-told tale in that in 2005 I may have dictated an essay on the same subject matter. But I have always held that the fun in story-telling belongs to the story teller. It is a lot like prayer. The person who prays feels good about himself when his prayer is finished. Whether that prayer is ever answered or even heard is another matter.
In the case at bar, as the lawyers say, I am attempting to dictate this essay on the Sunday afternoon of August 15, 2010. August 15th may not mean much to other people. In purely personal terms, it is the day that I believe I got my life back. Tony Haywood, the former chief executive officer of British Petroleum, who many years later expressed the same thought about getting his life back, should have been as fortunate as I have been. In the event that you are not a history buff, I will inform you that on this day the Second World War ended in 1945.
At around noon time the battleship Missouri was moored in Tokyo Bay. A Japanese diplomat in full ceremonial dress, top hat and all, climbed the rigging until he reached the deck of the Missouri. My recollection is that the aged diplomat had trouble with one of his legs. But as he climbed over the chain around the deck of the Missouri, he came to a table where he signed the piece of paper that told the world that the Japanese Empire had surrendered to the United States, thus ending World War Two. General Douglas MacArthur was the master of ceremonies at this proceeding.
For all of the great cruelty that had marked our war with the Japanese, this was a very peaceful and civilized event. I contend that it gave me my life back, which is a view that I have held for the past 65 years.
At the moment of the surrender of the Japanese, I was at my home in Missouri on a furlough from the United States Army Air Force. I had completed 28 months of overseas duty including about 16 months in combat. At the moment of the surrender ceremonies, I held orders from the Air Force sending me to a base in Greenwood, Mississippi to prepare for the final assault against the Japanese homeland. It was widely estimated that the American assault on the Japanese homeland would cost us a minimum of one million casualties. I fully expected to be among those casualties.
The base at Greenwood, Mississippi was to introduce us to the airplane that succeeded the A20 on which I saw service in Europe. In Greenwood, we were to be instructed in the use of the A26, its successor low-level assault plane.
I had enlisted in the Army Air Force and I knew that I had to do my duty. But I entered this phase, training to invade the Japanese homeland, with a sense of foreboding. Flying at low altitudes, the determined opposition of the Japanese fighter planes called “Zeros” was far from an easy thing to do. In fact, it might be considered suicidal. And so it was that when the Japanese diplomat put his name on the proclamation offered by General MacArthur, I felt that I had really had my life back.
But that did not prevent the American military establishment from having a great reluctance to relieve those of us who thought that we had signed up to win the war and, now that that had been done, wanted to go home. They wanted to hang on to us as long as possible because the more troops there are to command, the greater the need for Colonels and Generals. If all of us went home, there would be no need for the Colonels and Generals to occupy a place on what the Army calls “the table of organization.” In short, the big brass would be out of a job.
Therefore it was no surprise that the Army, in my case, saw things in a different light. And so it was that I obeyed my orders to report to the base at Greenwood, Mississippi. Getting there was not easy in that it involved a long 300-mile trip from St. Louis to Memphis, Tennessee on a bus. At Memphis, I caught a train called the “Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad.” Each day, or perhaps twice each day, the Y&MV would leave the station at Memphis and make one oval-shaped trip through various towns in Mississippi. I had to be careful because one of those towns was named Greenville, whereas I was headed for Greenwood. But in time I presented myself to the authorities at the Greenwood Air Base. Curiously, the A26 bombers that we were to become acquainted with do not now appear in my recollection. If not for the bombers, we had very little to do. Most of us pestered the front office about getting out of the Army. The Army pestered us about re-enlisting.
In its efforts to get us to re-enlist, I found that the enlisted men’s mess hall now provided two items to which I was thoroughly unaccustomed. In the morning, for example, there were eggs. I had been in the army for more than three years and had never seen an egg, fried, boiled, scrambled or whatever. The ban on eggs seems to have occurred not only in the domestic market but in the overseas markets as well.
The evening meal, which was served starting at 4 PM, offered all kinds of steak. Needless to say, in the past more than three years, I had never seen steak on any Army menu. All of this – the eggs and the steaks – was part of an attempt to seduce us. Those that the Army sought to re-enlist would enjoy steak and eggs forever. But most of us said, “To hell with the steaks and eggs! We want to get out of here!”
We had no bombers to get acquainted with, and we refused to do close-order drill. We thought that we had done our part in winning the war and now it was time for the Army to step up and discharge us. The din from the enlisted men evidently grew so loud that the commanding officer of the Greenwood base felt it was necessary for him to speak to the troops.
This officer was a Colonel. Today I expect that the Greenwood base would probably be commanded by at least a Lieutenant-General or a major-General. From what I have been told, we now have more Generals on our payroll than we had at the height of the war in Vietnam.
But in any case the Colonel, whom we had never seen before, gathered as many as the auditorium could handle. I expect that there may have been five hundred people in the audience in the auditorium to hear the Colonel’s speech. The idea of speaking to the troops was to persuade us to re-enlist as a patriotic duty. Most of us had figured out that we had already done our patriotic duty and we were ready to go home now.
The Colonel got into his little spiel, trying to ignore the caustic comments that were coming from his audience. The enlisted men in this audience were not in a mood to be seduced by the Colonel’s entreaties. Finally, as the Colonel was winding down his pitch, he flubbed a line terribly. I have forgotten what that line was. Nonetheless, a GI in the audience stood up and said to the Colonel in a loud stentorian voice, “Hey, Colonel, why don’t you try that line in a prone position?” Well, that brought the house down and there was no point in the Colonel having anything further to say. He got off the stage as quickly as possible and there were no further meetings in the auditorium. I suspect that he told the Generals above him that we had to be released or there would be a full-fledged revolt.
In short order, we began to get orders to report to bases near our homes for the purpose of discharge. Today marks the 65th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. So this is a twice-told tale. I hope that I have not bored you. It is of great importance to me and to all of those who were in training with me to prepare for the final assault against Japan, to know that we indeed had our lives back. Old Tony Hayward should have been so lucky.
Now we turn to what I consider probably another twice-told tale. The events here took place in 1947 or 1948. Four of us veterans met for lunch each day. Generally speaking we ate in saloons which seemed glad to have the business even though we consumed no alcoholic beverages at all. My recollection is that ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread were the usual offerings. This is not exotic fare but all of us were thoroughly glad to be rid of involvement with the military establishments. Eating in saloons was quick and provided opportunities for doing other errands after the sumptuous meal.
In this case, Lloyd Rockamann and Tom Laflin, who were among the regulars, had errands to do on which we did not wish to accompany them. The other man, Gordon Gintz, said that he would go with me to do whatever I wanted to do after lunch. This incident must have been in the springtime, in the General vicinity of St. Patrick’s Day and/or Lent.
Gordon Gintz was a fine person who was unschooled in the ways of the world. Certainly classical music was not his bag. So it was after lunch I said that I would like to go to the Aeolian Company to buy a record by James Melton, a popular Metropolitan Opera tenor at the time.
The Aeolian Company was a high-class establishment which had three Steinway grand pianos in its showroom, with the record department being in the back. It seemed to me that the management of the Aeolian Company really wanted to sell grand pianos but offered records to accommodate those who were not interested in grand pianos. Now remember, this was the season of Lent and of the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.
Gordon Gintz knew vaguely of my interest in Irish music. He had never commented one way or another on that interest and was merely accompanying me while I did this errand to buy the James Melton record. My recollection is that this was in the era prior to vinyl records or the so-called long-playing records. Records in that era were breakable and certainly provided no long-playing aspects. But now remember that Gordon Gintz had no musical training and seemed to have no devotion to classical music or music of other kinds. When I told the clerk at the Aeolian Company that I wanted a record of James Melton singing The Holy City, Gordon Gintz must have been impressed.
Now you remember that this was the season of Lent, and James Melton was a leading tenor at the Metropolitan Opera. To acquire a record of Melton singing The Holy City was some sort of accomplishment on my part. But while we were waiting for the clerk to locate the Melton record, Gordon Gintz said, “Jeezus Carr, why are you always buying Irish records?”
It did no good for me to explain to Gordon that The Holy City was about Jerusalem, not Dublin. Here I am, 65 years later, recalling a remark made by Gordon Gintz in all innocence. But I had to recite this tale because the title of this essay is “Rampant Nostalgia.” If it is a twice-told tale, so be it.
There you have my recollection of the GI telling the Colonel to try it in a prone position and Gordon Gintz’s evaluation of my musical taste. I suspect that these are twice-told tales but to an old codger such as myself, they are meaningful. And more than anything else, we don’t have world wars ending very often. It would be helpful if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were also in our rear-view mirror.
A final comment about serious musicians. Apparently they do not like to be called by their nicknames, if they have any. There was James Melton, not Jimmy Melton; Samuel Ramey, not Sam or Sammy; Luciano Pavarotti; and Placido Domingo, all insisting on music lovers using their full name. I can’t say that I have any objection to this practice, and as long as it does not interfere with the nostalgic moment, I will salute it as it passes.
Notes: Jerusalem is a holy city to the Christians, the Jews, and the Muslims. The events described herein happened in 1948. Little did I know that 30 years later I would begin traveling to Jerusalem for business reasons. That happened on at least twelve or more occasions. During those visits I became very friendly with Jake Haberfeld, Aryeh Ron, and Gideon Lev. By the time I retired, I considered them among my closest friends.
E. E. CARR
August 15, 2010
Essay 484
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Kevin’s commentary: I hope that I am not burning through the “favorite” tag too quickly. I don’t want to cheapen it, but there have been so many great essays in 2010 that I can’t help but apply it liberally. For my part, I’m looking forward to reading these tales again in a different light when I get to 2005.
It also occurs to me that I would very much like an essay entirely committed to the food that Pop was served while he was enlisted. I realize that he does not talk about the war on general principle but there’s a chance that railing against the grub he was served may sneak under that radar. Here’s hoping.