Ancestor Archives: Garland Eugene Macy (1924-2009) Part 2: Becoming an Adult in World War II

 

by Rocky Macy

Part 2:  Becoming an Adult in World War II

My father’s fruit-picking sojourn to California ended in the fall of 1942 and he returned to Missouri on a bus with plans to enlist in the Army.  At the time of his return to the Midwest, Camp Crowder, which was located in Newton County just outside of Neosho (where he had graduated from high school) was going strong.  That December marked one year since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the newly established Army post was already home to over 100,000 soldiers.  During the war Camp Crowder became the largest inland military base in America.  Dad recounted that Neosho was “sure different” when he returned, with “soldiers everywhere.”  Upon arrival back home, Garland, who had just turned eighteen in October, went to the recruiting office and signed up.

The new enlistee was sent to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, where he spent six days and nights in a tent in the snow before being officially sworn into the Army Air Corps (the precursor of the United States Air Force) on December 12th, 1942.

According to material in my father’s journal, he was then sent to St. Petersburg, Florida, for basic training.   I remember him telling me that he was transported from St. Louis to St. Petersburg by train, and for some reason, perhaps as a punishment for some minor military infraction, he had to peel potatoes the entire trip!

The military had taken over the hotels in the St. Petersburg area, and my father’s group was assigned to an older hotel called the “Edgewater.”  He said that it was three or four stories tall.  Most of the troops were fed at the “Vinoy,” a larger hotel that was relatively new.   Dad said that he had KP (kitchen duty) there several times.   The Vinoy fed continuously, all day long, so KP duty there was a lot of hard work that never seemed to slow down.

Dad wrote about military pay at several points in his journal.  He said that he earned $50.00 a month as a private when he first joined.  Of that $50, the government held out $6.40 for a $10,000 life insurance policy and $4.80 for laundry - leaving the new recruits with $38.80 to spend for the remainder of the month.  (He had probably cleared that much trapping and selling rabbits as a six-year-old!)

Here is my father’s description of his Drill Instructor, the person with the primary responsibility for turning civilian kids into a cohesive military fighting force of young adults

:

“Our drill instructor, a P.F.C. acting drill sergeant, was loud, strict, and abusive.  I thought he was probably Jesus Christ, and I think he thought he was, too.  He caught me and another private making a left flank instead of a right, and he said, ‘All right you damned farmers, I’ll teach you right from left!”  He had us hold a big rock in our right, outstretched hand for about an hour.  Every time they marched by us, he would yell ‘Get that arm back up!’  It almost fell off.”

Dad said that he was given an aptitude test in basic training that said he was suited for mechanics or armor.  He didn’t know what armor was, but he had been a mechanic and did not want to go that route.  Dad was sent to Lowry Field #2 in Denver, Colorado, for ten weeks of “turret” school.  He remarked that Denver was as cold as Florida had been hot.  Dad said in his journal that while at turret school he learned about “50-caliber machine guns, 20-caliber cannons, and 30 calibers.”    He also said that his training focused on the big bombers - B24’s, B25’s, B26’s, and B17’s - but that he never saw any big bombers after leaving turret school.

My dad was promoted to Private First Class (PFC) after turret school, and received a four-dollar-a-month raise in pay.

Dad’s next assignment was more training, this time on the “A24 Douglas Dauntless Dive Bombers” at Meridian, Mississippi.  He was assigned to armament and his duties included taking care of the plane’s guns, bomb racks, and bomb sight.  The pilots and gunners training at Meridian could get extra flight pay if they flew a certain number of hours a month, so there were always training flights taking place.  If the plane’s gunners had in their time, the mechanics and armorers could go up for a ride on the practice runs.  My dad, who had never been on an airplane, gave this accounting of the day he was asked if he wanted to go up:

“One day they asked me - and I was ready.  They would go up and make 10 dives each trip and the only stipulations before take-off were these:  if the pilot had trouble and told you to jump, you got the hell out fast.  You had a chute.  And, if you puked in the plane you cleaned it up . . .  Well, each time they flew up high then tilted that sucker straight down at a white circle on the ground - and when you thought it was going to crash, the pilot yanked it straight up and it felt like all of your insides were going out your butt - and then you went blind, couldn’t see a thing.  When the pilot leveled off you could see again.  Then here we would go straight down again!  When the pilot hit the bottom he would release a small smoke bomb and try to hit the white circle on the ground.  A puff of smoke would show you where it hit.   

“Ten dives and I made it okay, but I was scared as hell.  When the plane was high on the level if it got below a certain speed a buzzer would go off - and I didn’t know what it was.  I was afraid the pilot would say ‘jump,’ and I never had a chute on before.  I wondered if I would know how to get it open. 

“When we got down I was making a run for it, proud as hell.  But the pilot hollered, ‘Hey, I’ve got to make another run, get back in.’  I didn’t really want to, but I wanted to look brave, so I said ‘Yeah, let’s go.’  About halfway through that next time I got so sick I thought I would die, kind of like first cigar sickness, and I puked in my hat and held onto it.  Was I ever glad for that tenth dive!”

According to my dad’s journal, it was also in Meridian where a local girl gave him some non-military training in the back seat of a parked car late one night.  Neither of them had any idea who the car belonged to.  Dad, a simple farm boy from the sticks, fell in love, but his new friend was soon snapped up by a young officer with a much better pay grade.  

From Meridian, Mississippi, my dad next went to Congaree Army Airfield in Columbia, South Carolina, a base which was just being set up.  At Congaree he trained on P39 Bell Aircobras, small fighter planes that he described as looking like “little hummingbirds, each with a 37 mm cannon right through the nose cap and two 30 caliber machine guns firing through the blade.”  He said it was a “neat trick” to synchronize them so as not to shoot the prop off.  Dad made corporal while at Congaree and his pay jumped twelve dollars to sixty-six dollars a month!

It was at Congaree Air Base when Dad met his best friend while in the military service.   Joe SPAKE was dad’s age and also relatively new to the military.  They served together at Congaree, in England, and in France, and the young friends stayed in contact after the war.  Joe and his family lived in another state, but I can remember our family stopping by to see them one time when we were on vacation, and I can also remember them coming to our home in Missouri for a visit.  

(Joe passed away from natural causes many years ago when he was still relatively young, and our families lost contact.    Joe’s children and I have managed to reconnect over the past several years, and his daughter has been very helpful in sorting out our dads’ assignments while they were stationed in the States and in Europe.  Many thanks, CP.)

When the training at Congaree Army Airfield was completed in early 1944, the young aviators and their support teams were ready to head to Europe and join in the war.  Dad was just nineteen in March of 1944 when his unit departed Ellis Island, New York, enroute to England.  The ship sailed past the Statue of Liberty on the way out to sea.  They disembarked at Liverpool, England, after twelve days at sea, unloaded their ship, and boarded trains for the RAF airfield at Ashford, Kent, which would be their home until they relocated to France shortly after D-Day.  At Ashford they lived in “two-man sheep shelters.”

Upon arrival in England Dad was promoted to the rank of sergeant, the only one of the MACY cousins who served in the military in World War II to achieve that rank.  (After the war a couple of cousins always referred to him as “Sarge.”)

Dad’s unit had the responsibility of working on P47 Thunderbolts, planes which carried eight 50-caliber machine guns in the wings, and three bomb racks (one in the belly of the aircraft and one under each wing).   The bombs could be replaced with eight 5” rockets that were five-feet-long.  My dad described the P47 as “a real airplane, a fighter bomber.”  

The P47’s from Ashford were flying daily missions over France, weakening the German positions in preparation for what everyone knew was coming - the big Allied invasion of Europe.

(Fully loaded with pilot and armaments the P47 Thunderbolt weighed in excess of 17,500 pounds, but could still fly at speeds in excess of 400 miles an hour.  Military history sources on the internet describe it as the best ground attack aircraft in the US arsenal at that time.  The US manufactured 15,600 P47 Thunderbolts between 1941 and 1945.  It truly was as my dad had described it, “a real airplane, a fighter bomber.”)

Dad was promoted to staff sergeant and became a flight chief while at Ashford.  His job included responsibility over eight aircraft and twelve men.  The duties for his squad included keeping the guns “harmonized” and “synchronized,” loaded and working properly, and also to see that the bombs or rockets were loaded and their release mechanisms were working properly.  He was issued a bicycle to ride up and down the flight line checking on the work.

As a staff sergeant Dad’s pay increased to $96.00 (USA) or $115.20 (overseas pay).  He was doing so well that he began sending money home for his mother to bank for him.  He said that by the time he got home he had about a thousand dollars in savings.

It was while Dad was stationed at Ashford, Kent, that he was able to reconnect with his older brother, Wayne.  He knew that Wayne was in the Army and serving somewhere overseas, but had no idea where he was at until . . .

“One day I got a letter from him (Wayne) through the regular English mail, not through the Army.  I don’t know how that was possible.  Wayne stated that he was at Porthcawl, Wales, which joins England at one end. 

“I got a pass to London and rode an army truck there.  (Then) took a train to Porthcawl without a pass to there.  Dodged MP’s at every stop.  Found his outfit outside of town.  He thought I was nuts, but he got a pass into town and said “I want to show you something.’  We went into a store that had ice cream.  Boy, was it ever good!  I hadn’t seen any since leaving home.”

(Several military regulations were ignored or flagrantly violated during that misadventure.  Soldiers were not permitted to reveal where they were - which Dad had obviously done at some point since Uncle Wayne knew how to reach him by regular English mail.  Wayne put his location in the letter to Dad.  Aunt Mary told me a couple of years ago that Uncle Wayne could not even tell her where he was, but he sent her a piece of jewelry with the jeweler’s name on it and she was able to figure out from that clue that he was in Wales.  And then there is the matter of a young sergeant crossing the border into Wales without any paperwork and hiding from MP’s along the way - and managing to locate his brother.  Not too shabby for a “damned farmer” who barely knew his right from his left a year before!)

An entry in Dad's journal said that his unit, the 513th Fighter BomberSquadron of the 406 Fighter Bomber Group of the 9th Air Force) crossed the English Channel by boat - along with all of their equipment, shortly after D-Day in late June.  They landed at the now-famous Omaha Beach.  He said they initially stayed in the first town, close to the beach, in French barracks and then moved on to Mourmelon le Grand where he received a serious non-combat wound that ended his direct involvement in the war - but more on that later.

Joe SPAKE’s daughter provided - through letters that her father wrote to her mother during the war - more information on the move to France.  She said they arrived in France in August (not June as Dad had said) of 1944 and initially stayed in the town of Tour-en-Bessin and then Cretteville.  The following month they were at St. Leonard Airfield in France and then later that same month (September) arrived in Mourmelon le Grand.

(My father also told me on several occasions that he was in a military group that marched beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, though that was not referenced in the journal, so I don’t know the chronology of that event - and it is conceivable that I misunderstood him.)

It was in Mourmelon le Grand where my dad was accidentally shot by a pilot.  In his journal Dad talked about the pilots.  He said many were being shot down and consequently many young and inexperienced pilots were being called up to take their places,  The new pilots, though certainly brave, also tended to be nervous.  Many did not survive their first missions.  

One day Dad and his team were working at getting the plane for one of these inexperienced pilots ready for the mission.  The pilot was in the cockpit and Dad and his crew were loading ammunition and making last-minute preparations and adjustments. Dad said they had loaded the plane with 250 rounds of ammunition for each of the 50-caliber machine guns, 3 bombs in the racks, and 8 of the 5-foot rockets.  The rockets had explosive heads that could either be armor-piercing or explode on impact, something the pilot could determine by flipping a switch.  The action for that switch had to be checked before take-off.

In checking the wire to the switch that determined the ultimate use of the rockets, Dad was leaning across four rockets on one wing of the plane in order to reach the wire.  As he was leaning the nervous pilot flipped the wrong switch and fired one of the rockets.  Dad said his arm was above the rocket, but a 5-inch fin on the rear of the rocket hit his arm as it roared past.  He described what happened next this way:

“It knocked me about 50 feet across the metal parking strip, around and around.  I thought it tore my arm off.  (But) It just ripped out all of the meat, muscles, tendons, and nerves in my left forearm.   A guy in our bomb loading truck saw it and picked me up.  He said  ‘Hold your arm tight with your right hand to slow down the bleeding.  He got me to a field hospital in Rheims.  They had lots of serious wounded there from the front, so  it was sometime before I got my turn with a doctor.  Finally one tied it together the best he could and put a cast on it and said someone else would redo it later.”

In his journal Dad said that he stayed at the field hospital in Rheims a couple of days and then was sent back across the English Channel to Southhampton, England, where another doctor cut the cast off, operated on the arm, and put it in a new cast.  He stayed in Southhampton two weeks and was then sent to Cherbourg, France, in order to ship back to the United States.  He gave this description of the boat ride back to the States:

“We came home on a small, older ship.  It was filled with wounded and German prisoners.  It took 22 days and we were broken down and drifting half of the time.  I figured we would either sink or be torpedoed just sitting out there by ourselves,   But we finally made it to New York.  I was sure glad to see the Statue of Liberty.”

The Americans on the ship who were mobile were given an opportunity to leave the ship and experience New York City.  Dad described that adventure this way:

“They issued us $5.00 apiece to go into NYC and look around.  The first place I stopped was a barber shop.  I think the haircut was $1.50, but the barber said my hair needed a treatment and maybe a singe.  I thought that was okay for $1.50, but the barber was a typical New Yorker, too slick for a country boy.  He got $3.50  I had $1.50 left.  I got a beer and left.”

Dad’s next stop was O’Reilly General Hospital in Springfield, Missouri (which later became the private and religious “Evangel College” and is now known as “Evangel University”).  He was operated on again while there and spent almost a year permanently assigned at the hospital.

My dad’s service wound left him with a “numb forearm and two crooked fingers for life," but he never wasted time feeling sorry for himself. "There were lots of accidents, many fatal, so I was lucky.”  

When Dad got to the hospital in Springfield he was (of course) anxious to see his family.  As soon as he could he arranged a brief pass to go to the Neosho area (about seventy-five miles).   Dad’s parents didn’t have a phone, so he called his aunt, Ina Pearl (MACY) LOWE, the relative whom he had stayed with during his junior year at Neosho High School.   He told Aunt Pearl that he would be in town that evening, and would she please tell his parents - and Pearl, armed with a story, headed straight to the newspaper!   Later that day, March 17th, 1945, the following short article ran at the top of the front page of the “Neosho Daily News,” above several war stories of national importance:

“Sgt. Garland Macy Wounded in Action" 

“Mrs. Jack Lowe, 323 West Adams street, this morning received a telephone call from her nephew, Sgt. Garland Macy, who returned to the States last night.  Sgt. Macy, a tail gunner, was wounded in the arm in Luxemburg on January 26th and received the Purple Heart Award.  He is now stationed at the Springfield O’Reilly hospital, Springfield, Mo.  Sgt. Macy will arrive here tonight to spend two days with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. C.E. Macy, and other relatives and then will report back to O’Reilly hospital.  Sgt. Macy graduated from the Neosho high school in 1942 and enlisted in the Army in the fall of that year.  He was sent overseas last spring.”

Pearl was no doubt excited to hear from the nephew who had once lived under her roof, and she no doubt garbled a few facts unintentionally.   Dad was never a tailgunner and he never saw Luxembourg - and he was not wounded in action.   But he was wounded while serving overseas during World War II, and he did receive the Purple Heart as thanks from a grateful nation.

Dad was eventually discharged from active duty on December 18, 1945, three years and six days after being sworn in.

Staff Sergeant Garland MACY had answered the call and done his duty. He had gone into the military service as little more than a wide-eyed farm boy, and he emerged as a confident young man who had seen more of the nation and the world than he ever imagined he would see - and had done his part in helping to win a world war.  

Now Garland was ready to get on with the rest of his life - and start chasing the American dream.